Posted on 02/07/2007 5:59:20 PM PST by HAL9000
Excerpt -
HOUSTON - Lisa Nowak chose a juggling act of dauntingly high difficulty: to be an astronaut and a mother of three. Her background — high school valedictorian, Naval Academy graduate, test pilot — seemed to equip her for the challenge. Yet as she and some of her acquaintances acknowledged, the stresses on her and her family were extraordinarily intense.On Wednesday, transformed from space hero to criminal suspect, Nowak returned to Houston for a medical assessment, a day after she was charged in Florida with attempted murder and attempted kidnapping in what police depicted as a love triangle involving a fellow astronaut.
The woman viewed as a role model by the schoolchildren she often addressed was met on the tarmac by police and escorted into a waiting squad car after her release on bail. Her head was covered by a jacket. She faced a medical exam at Johnson Space Center.
NASA, at a loss to explain what went wrong, said it would revamp its psychological screening process in light of Nowak's arrest. The review will look at how astronauts are screened for psychological problems and whether Nowak's dealings with co-workers signaled complications.
~ snip ~
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
See my post 35.
I don't think this is childhood-onset, more likely adult onset.
Very intelligent schizophrenics have more resources to keep the disorder in abeyance, they deliberately hide odd thought processes from others (knowing that they are perceived as weird), and, when life is good, they often can behave completely normal. But when stressors become too much to bear , or when an obsession (based usually upon a delusion) becomes unusually strong, they will act out both their grandiose and persecutory delusions.
Often they have a single, fixed ideation (which is what this woman seems to have), which can be very powerful in compelling bizarre behavior.
LOL! How long have you been waiting to use that line?
About nine years.
Everybody needs to be loved and to give love....Astronauts and Garbage men
There is already a national "psychoanalysis" of this woman going on.
You can use the jargon of Brain Disorder at a catch all for anything. Moreover, you and I both know there is no vile act on the planet anymore that you cannot get an "expert witness" to testify for. Perhaps the only exception to this is child molestation as the last taboo - but I expect even that barrier will be crossed soon (if it already hasn't). All the jargon is really an attempt to excuse evil. Our courts have done this, and our society has tolerated. Women drown their children and the excuse if Postpartum Depression.
Every sin has an excuse these days.
Adultery? No, it was "sex addiction."
Assault? No, someone has an "anger management issue."
Enough.
The bible says:
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil.
Isaiah 5:20
I wish that phrase was posted in every courtroom (military and civilian) in America.
There is such a thing as Good and such a thing as Evil.
What she did was evil.
Were there underlying factors? Sure. There are underlying factors in a drug deal gone bad on the streets of LA that results in a murder.
At the end if it, there is still someone dead.
I understand mental illness. My mother had it and eventually committed suicide.
But, she never attacked anyone is a cold, calculated, and well planned out assault at 3 am in a parking garage.
You can say I am "ignorant" all you want. That is double speak for "You won't back down and accept my position."
There is also a double standard applied to her because she is a woman. Even Anderson Cooper on his show a few minutes ago asked an "Anxiety Specialist" if he agreed that if she had been a man who had attacked a young woman in a parking garage with pepper spray, wearing a disguise, and carrying weapons in her car, would be out on bail within 36 hours.
The Anxiety Specialist concurred that men are dealt with much more harshly.
She also better pray her case is tried in a civilian rather than a military court. My opinion is that military juries are much more educated and informed than the civilian population as a whole. She has a much better chance of walking away with a light sentence (or even no conviction at all) if this is tried in a civilian court outside of the UCMJ.
An astronaut is one of the most examined and carefully monitored people on planet Earth, bar none. When I hear NASA say that they detected a brain disorder, then I'll believe it, not just your opinions.
It's FAR, FAR easier to believe that she was just plain ol' jealous and went hunting the other woman to remove her from the picture. This doesn't take any psychobabble and it happens every day all around the planet.
If it's too stessful for women to handle, then every woman needs to be pulled from the astronaut program and no new ones initiated.
But you are right, the highly intelligent and passably "normal" schizophrenics all seem to be of the paranoid variety. I have a friend of some four decade's acquaintance who suffered adult onset paranoid schizophrenia. He'll call me every month or so. The entire conservation will be completely normal. And then he'll start complaining about the person who lives in the apartment below him, or above him, who is always following him from room to room and thumping the floor or ceiling to disturb him and keep him awake.
Sounds mildly plausible unless you know that he's lived in perhaps two dozen different places in six years and had the same complaint in every apartment.
It is terribly sad to see one of our chosen few lose her dignity like this. But her behavior cannot be excused, and she'll probably end up in prison. She has caused embarrassment to herself and our space program. I do hope she gets the medical treatment she needs for her problem and regains her sanity.
Nowhere in my reply did I imply otherwise. Thanks for enlightening me, sir.
Are you sure that's not Oprah?
This is a non-sequitur.
The doctrine of Original Sin states that we come into this life with heritable defects which involve us in many miseries, including a somwhat haywire inner life (with passions and drives often prevailing over intellect and love), plus suffering, disease, and death.
If anything, the concept that everybody, without exception, is handicapped with some inherited flaws, should incline us not to ridicule, but to show compassion. This is apparently what caught God's compasion, when he walked on earth.
The good news is, we know a lot more about brain disorders now than ever before and with the proper diagnosis, medication and therapy, people can live faily productive normal lives. The real struggle (as I'm finding out the hard way) is the utter ignorance about such things in society as a whole. Ignorance I fear I shared until it hit my own loved one. I do not advocate excusing crminal behavior, but true brain disorders can make otherwise normal people do extrodinary things - sometimes criminal unfortunately.
Is she the first astronaut to have a family? I doubt it. Is she the first mother of three to work at a stressful job? Why is it "dauntingly high difficulty" for an astronaut to raise some kids as opposed to say doctors or businesswomen who do it every day? Is she going to explain away her conduct by playing the female card?
Sorry to hear about your son's trouble with his disorder. Good luck finding any understanding and compassion on this site.
Bump that. The pyschobabble excuses are already starting and will no doubt continue ad nauseum. This story is made-to-order for Oprah's simpleton audience of 30-year-old chattering schoolgirls. Look for the same people who sympathized with that woman who drowned her five kids in the bathtub to anguish over this poor stressed out astronaut.
Rush made an interesting point today. He mused about what the feminist left must be thinking about this "superstar" female astronaut throwing away EVERYTHING.... over a man!! The irony is rich.
"After traveling to space can she claim she wanted to murder because of Post dePartum Depression?"
Kids are too old to claim post-partum depression!
I am not excusing this woman's behavior---she knew full well that she was committing a crime.
Thank you for your expertise!
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