The Criminal Mind
I'm the one and only person to admit, what happened to me, through the hands of my adoptive parents, was in all aspects in my mind, criminal. For the protective sake of others, personal details need to be removed, so the facts I present can be approved by any major institution willing to help me with my own special breed of child protection service and studies.
- Not all adoptees are purchased for profit.
- Not all adoptees are physically abused and neglected by their original families.
- Not all adoptees are abandoned by their natural mothers.
- Not all children victimized by sexual predators or abused by an adult were adopted.
- All children razed by animals, and/or put in the "safe-keeping" of the hands of a vengeful person are at risk in developing (what I call), Emotional Attachment Anxiety.
- Survival of the fittest is based on a simple principle: Do or Die. Hunt or Be Hunted.
If this is true, I believe functional MRI studies can prove whether a person is indeed psychologically pathological due to chemical imbalances caused by anatomic mal-formation, OR simply taught Mixed Messages through the language a child learns at home. "Motherese" is a term used by parenting books that goes into detail about the nature of nurturing conversations with a woman's newborn. A newborn is a fully-functioning human being at birth. What that human sees, hears, touches, and feels are all senses that affect (help or hurt) that individual Life Language and Personal Meaning. [read Senses in the womb; How many Moms knew this already?].
All acts have consequences. Words and actions, cause reactions. Therapists call them "trigger-words". I believe a child's behavior is rooted in the brain, and nurtured or negated by the emotional powers of a parent.
I know of two hospitals world-famous for their clinical studies in fMRI testing.
Wake Forest University, in North Carolina and Colombia University, in NYC. (But I'm sure there are more...)
Is there anyone other than me interested in the effects abuse, adoption, and neglect has on the mind and behavior of each child born to become an adult?
If so, please contact PPL, so we can gain public interest in a program I'd like to initiate called, Message in a Bottle.
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Comments
what's the difference
I am not an expert on fMRI scans, but what I do know of it is that it can make brain activity patterns visible. I am not aware of the possibility of fMRI to indicate chemical imbalances, though. What I would like to know, Kerry: What do you propose as activities you would like to see researched through fMRI? Adoptees could indeed have brainstructures different from non adoptees, but that is probably not true for all of the brainstructure. There are probably many stimuli adoptees will not respond significanlty different from non-adoptees. In order to propose research you need to focus on stimuli that that would show a difference. To what stimili do you expect adoptees will respond typically different from non-adoptees?
emotional language, and word associations
I believe form affects function, and I believe what a parent says and does in relation to a child's behavior affects his understanding of word meanings and the feelings behind certain meaningful events. From an anatomical perspective, words and meanings have origins:
Association areas of the cerebral cortex
Association areas comprise three major groups:
In humans, the association areas of the left hemisphere, especially the parietal-temporal-occipital complex, are responsible for our understanding and use of language.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_cortex
"Actions speak louder than words", therefore I believe how a child is treated by adults determines his final placement in society.
Who benefits, most?
EMOTIONAL ABUSE
In previous issue papers, we discussed the danger of physical and sexual abuse inherent in amending "reasonable efforts" and severely restricting or abolishing family preservation. But there is another danger that is even more widespread: the emotional abuse that often is an inevitable part of the investigation and placement process.
Even when foster parents do not physically or sexually abuse the children in their care, and the children do not abuse each other, the child has been taken not only from his or her parents, but often from friends, neighbors, teachers -- and even brothers and sisters.
And because the parents rarely are the monsters that critics of family preservation say they are, this can have devastating consequences for children.
Worse, the first move often is not the last. Children are bounced from foster home to foster home, emerging years later unable to love or trust anyone. As one such child put it: "I felt I was in a zoo and I was being transferred to another cage."[1]
Unfortunately, the emotional devastation of foster care sometimes is written off as mere collateral damage. The assumption is “well, at least they’re not being brutally beaten and tortured by their parents.” But, of course, few parents who lose children to foster care brutally beat and torture their children. And it is often the emotional harm of foster care that leaves the deepest scars; the ones that never heal.
A study released in 2005, based on a random sample of 659 case records and interviews with 479 foster-care survivors, documented the rotten outcomes. When compared to adults of the same age and ethnic background who did not endure foster care:
A 2006 study compared children placed in foster care to children left in their own homes. The children left in their own homes suffered just as much maltreatment. The overall psychological health of the two groups was the same before foster care.
But even though the children left in their own homes were identified by the researchers, not child protective services, so in most cases the children got no help at all, they still did better than the children placed in foster care.[3]
Boyd A. lived in five different foster homes over five years between the ages of seven and twelve. His mother had been forced to place him in foster care. But it was not because she had beaten him, or neglected him or sexually abused him.
It happened when she was hospitalized after being beaten by Boyd's father. But when she was well, the agencies that had control over the children wouldn't give Boyd, his two brothers, or his sister back -- because they weren't satisfied with the housing his mother was able to find.
Critics of family preservation say agencies bend over backwards to keep families together. They say agencies do this because the law requires "reasonable efforts" to keep families whole. But there were no "reasonable efforts" in Boyd's case. There were no efforts at all.
Critics also say family preservation causes children to languish in foster care. In fact, as Boyd's case and many others make clear, it is the lack of family preservation that causes children to languish in foster care.
It took five years -- and a class action lawsuit -- before the family was reunited.
"The worst fear was never seeing my mother again," Boyd told a Congressional hearing. "I have nightmares. I had a nightmare that a cop came and took me back to foster care and I never got to see her again.
"It's hard for me to tell you how bad foster care is. My mother used to come visit me a lot when I was in care, and when she left, it felt like the whole world was leaving me."[4]
Here are some other voices from the system:
Anne. Nine homes in nine years: "When you spend your life going from place to place and knowing you're not going to be in any place for very long, you learn not to reach out, not to care, not to feel ... My bitterness is not that I went through what I did ... my bitterness is that I don't think it should have had to happen. There was no reason why my family's life should have been destroyed ... The people that I've seen, the kids that have emerged, [from foster care] are ... dead. Their hearts are functioning. The ol' heart's pumping the blood around. But they're basically dead inside. It's been killed. Either they had to kill it to survive physically, or somebody else killed it in them. Whatever it is that makes people human."[5]
Linda P. Age 20. Six placements in two years: "When you are a kid and you go through something like that, you don't know what's happening, but you have feelings. And the feeling you have is no one wants you."[6]
Joseph. Age 18. Fifty placements between ages nine and 17. Attempted suicide many times. Became a prostitute: "No one listened. They don't care. As long as you're out of their hair and they don't have to write any more paperwork on you they're satisfied. I had no love, no caring, no anything. When people paid me to be with them, I thought that was the affection I needed."[7]
Kathy. Age 18. Grew up in foster care: "When you're in foster care, you can't find no love."[8]
Many people know about the emotional trauma of foster care, at least intellectually. But even when people know, they tend to think "Yes, but..." As in, "Yes, but, didn't we have to do this to these children because their parents are so dangerous and brutal?"
In the overwhelming majority of cases, the answer is no. Because most of the parents don't fit the stereotypes. (See Issue Paper 5).
And even when the parents have problems, helping those parents often is the best way to help the child.
In a University of Florida study of so-called “crack babies,” one group was placed in foster care, the other group with birth mothers able to care for them. After one year, the babies were tested using all the usual measures of infant development: rolling over, sitting up, reaching out. Consistently, the children placed with their birth mothers did better. For the foster children, being taken from their mothers was more toxic than the cocaine.[9] Those infants are trying to tell us something. We owe it to them to listen.
We seem to understand the emotional trauma of being taken away from parents only when the parents are white, middle class -- and foster.
In the case of "baby Jessica" for example, a birth mother surrendered her child for adoption after having "consent" forms thrown at her right after birth, in violation of state law. She changed her mind five days later, but the foster parents stalled and stalled and stalled, dragging the case through courts in two states. They lost every time. When they finally ran out of ways to stall, two-and-a-half years had passed. But the foster parents won enormous sympathy when they condemned the birth parents for trying to take the child from "the only parents she has ever known."[10]
In contrast, because we have so stereotyped birth parents, we react with indifference or even relief when thousands of poor, often black, children are needlessly taken from the only parents they have ever known.
These problems can’t be solved by “fixing” foster care. The authors of the study cited earlier estimate that even if every problem that besets foster care were miraculously fixed tomorrow, it would reduce rotten outcomes by only 22.2 percent.[11]
And they can’t be solved by warehousing children in orphanages. As is discussed in detail in Issue Paper 15, more than a century of research shows the outcomes for orphanages are even worse than for family foster care.
The only way to fix foster care is to have less of it.
Intensive Family Preservation Services and other safe, proven programs to keep families together, are among the most promising innovations in child welfare in decades. Abandon these approaches and thousands more children will have "the whole world" taken from them.
Revised November 6, 2006
National Coalition for Child Protection Reform / 53 Skyhill Road (Suite 202) / Alexandria, Va., 22314 / info@nccpr.org
Adoptee Criminality Studies - Part I
Legal Eagle
Excerpted from "Chosen Children, pages 294 - 298
....It's a subject no one ever wants to talk about, particularly adoptive families." There is considerable denial about adoptee violence, as well as the extent of the spectrum emotionally disturbed adoptees, by special interests that promote secret adoptions as well as by some adoptees who are activist for adult access to their records. They don't want it examined. They defend such denial on the premise that "fewer people would adopt." That defense is like saying "Let's not understand what makes a serial killer the way he is lest we have fewer serial killers."
Well documented is the over-representation of adoptees in psychiatric therapy, in psychiatric hospitals, and in prisons.
... Especially significant is that the feelings they express about their adoptions are echoed by so-called "well adjusted" adoptees about their adoption experiences, on adoptees' web sites, in Internet news groups, on online petitions to open records and to "abolish adoption," in their autobiographical books, and in their letters, emails and conversations exchanged with this author....
WHY MOST SERIAL KILLERS ARE ADOPTEES ... ...psychologist Dr. David Kirschner counters that most of the adopted kids he sees are referred by the Probation Department, whereas [Dr. Patrick] Callahan's cases of adoptees are referred by the courts. At Rutgers University, Dr. David Brodzinky observed, in one of the largest studies of adopted children in the nation, uncommunicative behavior and hyperactivity in boys. Among the girls,he observed depression, hyperactivity, delinquency, and surprisingly, aggression. Except for an occasional reference regarding his or her family background, no one work has linked every serial killer by the abnormality of their adoptive status or perceived abandonment.
In "Hollow Men: Why Serial Murderers Must Kill to Feel," (at http://CrimeLibrary.com ), the brief article's author, Stephen G. Michaud, links some serial murders such as Ted Bundy (the coed killer) and Angel Maturino Resendez (the "Railway Killer") by the similarity of adoptee Bundy's expressed desire to "possess" his victims. Bundy biographers, Michaud and Aynesworth say Ted's emotional growth was stopped after he learned he was illegitimate at age 13. "It was like I hit a brick wall," Bundy said. There have been many studies and books attempting to "profile" serial killers. Due to the rarity of female serial killers, they usually profile.
Typically they are abandoned as children by their fathers and raised by domineering mothers... they hate their fathers, they hate their mothers . . . and they are commonly abused as children- psychologically, physically, sexually... often by a family... three major danger signals: enuresis (bed-wetting) in adolescence;firesetting; sadistic tendencies" (Harold Schecter and David Everett, A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers,under "Characteristics"). Firesetting was also one of eight "Adopted Child Syndrome" behaviors first identified by psychotherapist David Kirschner and detailed by Betty Jean Lifton in "How The Adoption System Ignites A Fire," New York Times (3-1- 86,p. 27). The other seven behaviors are considered non- violent and include conflict with authority and truancy, pathological lying, stealing, running away,preoccupation with fantasizing, learning difficulties, under achievement, sexual acting out, and promiscuity. The syndrome is present in serial killers.
...Firesetting Children by George A. Sakheim and Elizabeth Osborn, published in 1994 by CWLA Press, an imprint of Child Welfare League of America, is intended for use by psychologists,clinical social workers, and other mental health professionals. The book describes the personality, behavioral characteristics,and family background variables "that have been consistently and positively associated with firesetting behavior." The children in the studies are said to "cry for help and anger" toward parents, foster parents, and stepparents from parental abandonment and sexual abuse. Adoptive anger from abuse by adopters is not addressed, perhaps in an attempt to place the blame on "bad genes."
The only known contributing genetic disorder linked to criminal behavior is the "47-XYY genetic syndrome chromosome disorder," which is heavily verrepresented in prison populations and a contributory cause of violent criminals, particularly serial killers, unlike the normal male population of 46-XY chro- mosome pairs. Firesetting is a behavior associated not only with the 47-XYY Disorder but also linked to pedophilia, and is also one of the eight Adopted Child Syndrome behaviors.
Then there's the contributing chemical imbalance found in serial killer Arthur Shawcross, who had Pyroluria, from ten times the normal amount of urine krypotopyrole, a brain chemical whose Greek translation means "hidden firey oil." (Misbegotten Son,Schecter and Everett, 490-491.) Pyroluria's symptoms include severe mood swings, sensitivity to light and loud noises, inability to control anger, and prematurely gray hair, depression, dizzi- ness, and abnormal electro-encephalograms.
PET scans of the prefrontal cortex of brains of murderers show lower glucose metabolism which can occur in abused children who have been brain-damaged (CBS-News, 7-22-94).
Parents are again the alleged culprits in the debate over "nature versus nurture," in biologist Richard Dawkin's book, The Nurture Assumption. Dawkins contends that genes-not parenting (as Dr. David Lykken insists)-are primarily responsible for how children turn out. That's why the little-known academic school of thought called "memetics" has become popular. Memetics is the science of memes, a word that Richard Dawkins derived in 1976 from the word memory to refer to ideas, habits and beliefs that are passed from person to person by imitation. Just as genes assure their survival by leaping from body to body, via sperm or eggs, memes apparently propagate by leaping from brain to brain. Ideas, styles, and beliefs are passed from person to person, from generation to generation. Most cited is the research article "Genetic Environmental Interaction in the Genesis of Aggressivity and Conduct Disorders" (Cadoret, Yates, Troughton, Woodworth, Stewart; Depart- ment of Psychiatry, University of Iowa, Archives of General Psychiatry, November 1995, 52 (II): 916-24). The subjects were 95 male adoptees and 102 female adoptees separated at birth from biological parents and with antisocial behaviors documents by prison and hospital records. RESULTS:
(1) a biological background of antisocial personality disorder predicted an increased adolescent aggressivity, conduct disorder, and adult antisocial behaviors, and (2) adverse adoptive home environment-defined as adopters who had marital problems,were divorced or separated, or had anxiety conditions, depression, substance abuse and/or dependence or legal problems-independently predicted increased adult antisocial behavior.
How then, of the known serial killers who are adoptees have biological parents who are serial killers? The behavior does not appear to be genetic or memetic. We need to look at adoption itself as putting adoptees at risk for antisocial and violent behaviors.
At least one chemical imbalance is known to be triggered solely from mother-child separation. Romanian orphans, and animals separated from their mothers at birth, "developed abnormally high levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which can have serious long-range effects on memory . . . the infant's brain cells may simply commit suicide ..." ("Neglect Harms Infant Brains,Researchers Say," Los Angeles Times, 10-28-97, A-19.) Infants are left in a state of hyper-arousal due to elevated hormone levels if they are snatched from their mothers from delivery" (Joseph Chiton Pearce, Evolutions End, 1992). Dr. Patrick J. Callahan points to paleopsychology's chemical changes in the brain.
Throughout recorded history, mass-murdering, genocidal villains have been depicted as having been abandoned and/or abused, usually by one or both parents in childhood. The Biblical Moses was the first adoptee, a "victim's role model"-a child of two races, with physical handicaps and character flaws. He was born a Levite, one of the 12 tribes of Israel. He was nearly put to death in a purge, sent floating down the Nile in a basket by his mother, rescued by an Egyptian princess, and raised in the royal court "as her own." The adult Moses is described as having speech problems, perhaps stuttering, his face was deformed after seeing God, and he ordered his legion to butcher the boys, massacre the mothers, and rape the daughters... For Moses said unto them, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man by lying with him, but all the women who have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. ("Book of Numbers," Chapter 31, The Bible)
The "first adoptee" is profiled by an adoption agency director:
For adoption-sensitive readers, the story of Moses' early years is tortured territory. A crude transplant in a land of plenty. Moses just didn't fit in ... Tormented by feelings of grand-scale failure and loneliness, Moses grew into an angry, violent young man... His first question of God was identity related. 'Who am I... ?' The most important thing Moses accomplished was that he changed God by appealing to His compassion and forgiveness. (Jim Gritter, MSW,Child Welfare Supervisor and "open adoption" practitioner. Catholic Human Service, Traverse City, Michigan, in "Moses Between the Lines," Jewel Among Jewels newsletter, 8-98).
Even non-adopted, mass murdering children such as 15-year-old Andy Williams, "The Santee School Shooter," suffered family dismemberment that sent him into a downward spiral of rejection, isolation, and anger. Seth Privacky, 18, said in his confession he was angry because his father threatened to kick him out of their Michigan home when Seth murdered his whole family in 1998.
Parental Guidance
Given the fact that most of these "studied" killers are from the Closed Era /error of adoption, perhaps the better question to ask is what causes rage in a child? Could these serious cases be related to adoptive family abuse and neglect? After all, how well-prepared is ANY parent when faced with a screaming defiant toddler?
How well prepared were our adoptive parents back in the 60's and 70's?
I think all three-sides of broken families learn to adapt to the legal change Adoption creates. Some fare better than others. Is there any way to predict the child's final adult-outcome? It seems only natural to look at the parents who raised a criminal, first.
Adoptee Criminality Studies - Part II
From Las Vegas Review-Journal, "Natural Born Killers," 8/30/98:
GENETICS AND CRIME
The idea that there is a single "violence" or "crime" gene is "both ludicrous and dangerous," said Thomas Thompson, a New Mexico forensic psychologist. On the other hand, it is well-established that personality traits such as poor judgment and impulsivity that are linked to crime may be hereditary, he said.
Thompson was an expert witness in a case in which a convicted murderer's death sentence was overturned and the man was resentenced to life in prison after a judge heard evidence he suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome and may have been predisposed to crime and violence.
Like Strohmeyer, the killer was adopted into what by all appearances was a stable, loving family at between 16 and 18 months old.
His biological father had a history of drug use and criminal behavior and eventually was killed by police while committing a robbery. His biological mother had a history of alcohol abuse, drank during pregnancy and had "explosive disorder," an unpredictable and violent temper.
Through extensive research, Thompson was able to document that the killer's grandmother had a personality similar to his mother's. And the problem went back even further.
"We were able to show there had been a history of disordered behavior in this family going back five or six generations. This family had people dying in state institutions at the turn of the century," he explained.
A study of the biological father's family history showed a similar pattern of anti-social behavior.
This family is clearly not a fluke, in Thompson's experience. He is now working on a case in which both a father and his biological son are on death row in separate states. The two met once when the boy was an infant before he was adopted by a caring and responsible family. They learned of each other years later in prison from a fellow inmate who knew them both and saw how much they resembled each other.
"The similarities between these two men, their personalities, the way they speak, is amazing," Thompson said.
Wider studies of criminal behavior back up Thompson's findings that criminal or anti-social behavior has a genetic component. The studies weed out environmental or nurture factors in forming personalities by looking at twins and adoptees.
A study published in 1984 of 14,427 adoptions in Denmark found that when biological and adoptive parents were noncriminal, 13.5 percent of adoptees had a criminal record. That increased to 14.7 percent when an adoptive parent was criminal and leapt to 20 percent when a biological parent was criminal. The evidence was strongest, however, in linking genetics and property crimes, not violent crimes or crimes against people.
Studies comparing fraternal twins, those who have only the genetic similarities of any normal siblings, and identical twins, who have the same genetic makeup, also suggest that criminality is at least partially hereditary.
In his book "The Psychopathology of Crime: Criminal Behavior as a Clinical Disorder," University of Southern California psychology professor Adrian Raine looks at 13 twin studies from around the world and concludes that overall in fraternal twins, if one has a criminal record, there is a 20.6 percent chance the other will as well. With identical twins that number or "concordance rate" goes up to 51.5 percent, he wrote.
Raine also has done research that shows certain potentially hereditary physical characteristics may link people who commit crimes. For example, a study published in 1989 showed that violent and impulsive people tended to have lower-than-normal levels of the chemical serotonin, a neurotransmitter that facilitates the movement of nerve impulses from nerve cells to other cells.
Important to note in all of this, Thompson stressed, is that genetics likely predispose a person toward criminal, anti-social or aggressive behavior but definitely don't, on their own, destine a person to be a criminal. Height is a genetically determined trait, but children with the genes to be tall will not grow to their fullest possible height without proper nutrition, Thompson pointed out.
Other factors that go into creating personality are both environmental and physical, research shows.
BRAIN PICTURES
Abramson and co-counsel Wright have been allocated money by District Judge Myron Leavitt for a CT scan and an MRI of Strohmeyer's brain. The judge refused funds for a PET scan.
CT scans use X-rays and a computer to make a three-dimensional but generally grainy image of the structure of the brain. MRIs use a powerful magnet to create far more detailed images.
PET, or positron emission topography, scans give information about what the brain does, allowing scientists to look at blood flow to the brain or the brain metabolism.
These pictures can be used to determine whether Strohmeyer has brain damage that could in part account for his actions.
The limbic system in the frontal part of the brain is thought to control human emotions. The frontal lobe mediates for the limbic system, explained Dr. David Schmidt, a Las Vegas neuropsychologist.
"The limbic system is what says, `I feel angry; I should hit something.' The frontal lobe says `yeah, but if you do that, it's going to give you orthopedic problems for the rest of your life.' We all have limbic overload at times, but most of us have pretty good frontal mediation," Schmidt explained.
Research shows damage to the brain, particularly in the frontal lobe, is common in people arrested for violent crimes.
A 1986-87 study of 14 males who had been sentenced to death for crimes committed before they turned 18 showed all had at some time in their life suffered a serious head injury.
The study by psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow Lewis, a professor at Yale and New York University and director of a clinic at New York's Bellevue Hospital, Jonathan Pincus, a neurologist at Georgetown University, and others also found serious neurological problems in nine of the 14 juveniles. Such problems included abnormal head circumference, a history of seizures and medical tests that indicated undiagnosed seizures. In her book, "Guilty By Reason of Insanity," Lewis describes seizures as moments in which a person either blacks out completely or temporarily loses touch with reality.
The cause of the injuries in the death row juveniles ranged from car accidents to falls to repeated blows to the head by a parent or caregiver. In some cases, brain imaging was not necessary to gauge the probable extent of the damage because the defendant had visible scars or actual dents in the head.
Can you teach your brain how to love and trust again?
Below is an article about fMRI's and how they operate in the world of brain imaging. For myself, the term "concentrate" works better than "meditate", but I believe the end-result is the same. In terms of helping the RAD Adult getting in-touch with his/her own feelings, first he must define different feelings, using the personal-relationship language taught during his/her childhood.
Why is this so important?
In everday working relationships, a person may be told, " we all share similar feelings", but how true does this really seem? For the female raped by her father, does the word "sex" or "dad" conjure certain emotions? Yes. How a word, phrase of emotion is defined in our own minds, matters when it comes to effective communication.
Perhaps we are entering an age where science and technology can finally reach the social sciences, like psychology and sociology. Who knows... maybe medical scientists can help those with attachment and anxiety disorders. Dare we dream such a possibility as a medical cure for RAD?
Hopes, Dreams, Wishes