Violent attack on CDC goes largely unnoticed

“It’s been a struggle to process what happened at the CDC just a few days ago. The facts are coming in: one officer died, 500 rounds fired, 200 bullets made contact with 6 CDC buildings, hundreds of staff sheltered in place for hours. The intention is undeniable: this was an attempted massacre.”

This was the opening of an August 13 Substack column and video discussing the deafening silence after the deadly attack last week on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, a joint effort by resident physician Kristein Panthagan, emergency physician Megan Ranny (also Dean of Yale School of Public Health) and epidemiologist Kateyn Jetelina of Your Local Epidemiologist.

“The state of the world feels unrecognizable,” they wrote. “We are living headline to headline, tragedy to tragedy…Our world is swallowed whole by the endless churn of violence and crisis we’ve come to accept as ordinary. We are drowning in the abnormal…”

In a LinkedIn post, Jeletina wrote: “As horrific as it was to have 500 bullets fired toward the CDC, what’s been equally painful is what followed (or rather, what didn’t). The silence. The indifference. It's been deafening. Especially after all that public health has given over the past six years.”

For more click here.

The CDC has done great work in making the public health of Americans better than it would otherwise be without their good work. However the attacks by MAGA, DOGE, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. have cultivated animosity, and vilification by the scientifically illiterate who resent limits being put on their life threatening behaviors.

Our society will enjoy a higher quality of life for all if we support our public health programs.

Female veterinarians have a suicide rate 3.5 times the national average.

Parenting - Predictability nurtures secure children.

 

One of the key components of mentally healthy functioning is security. Security comes from predictability from the perspective of the child. Can the child trust their caretakers to meet their needs and treat them fairly?

Does the parent mean what they say and say what they mean? Is the parent reliable and dependable? If so, the child grows up feeling secure and competent in meeting life's expectations and requirements.

In structural family therapy the therapist focuses on the family hierarchy, good boundaries, regulated management of emotional expression, and the provision of predicted routines. This means that the therapist often parents the parents so they can better enact their parenting roles with their children to achieve more satisfying and fulfilling family relationships.

Parents should not say things to children they don't mean and aren't likely to follow through with. Honesty is a significant virtue to cultivate in ourselves and in our relationships.

Do chat bots cripple social skill development in children and teens?

 

For more from this Scientific American article click here.

There are similar concerns about the crimpling of human social skills when people resort to on-line social media to meet their needs for social connection.

Parenting - telling the children about the plan to divorce

 

Linda McCullough Moore's book of short stories, An Episode Of Grace, begins with the story entitled, "You choose," which begins with this paragraph:

"I’m driving on Route 91, going ten miles over the limit, on the way to my divorce, or, at least, to its announcement. My husband Jake and I decided we would tell the kids tonight. We’ve waited way too long. Our marriage died of natural causes years ago. We are planning that our children will be shocked beyond surprise, but we both know better. Any hesitation that we have about telling them isn’t fear of their surprise; it’s knowing that once we say the words, out loud, to them, it will be official, carved in stone, irreversible. But, of course, that’s what we want."

The children's' names are Jonah who is 11 and Adam who is 6.

Of all the questions I get asked as a couple counselor and a family therapist by people going through a divorce are when and how to tell the kids?

My stock answer is "Don't tell them anything until you know specifically what the plan is unless they ask."

Kids being narcissistic in a healthy way first ask when told their parents are separating is "What's going to happen to me?" Parents need to have the answer to provide the child with whatever sense of security and predictability they are able.

The narrator in this story has her plan in place and has coordinated the telling the children with her husband and as she travels to the meeting with the children she gets stuck in a snow storm and as the various events unfold her ambivalence about divorcing her husband grows in poignant ways.

The ambivalence partners usually feel about a break-up with the concomitant anger, sadness, fear, hope, sense of failure and regret, are things the therapist witnesses and, hopefully, clarifies with the client(s) into some sort of coherent story that makes sense to themselves primarily and then to others affected.

The key question, often overlooked, in the emotional turmoil is, "What is the purpose of this relationship?" The genuine answers to this question usually lie at an unconscious level that the individual is not aware of and doesn't understand. 

The understandings of one's motivations, choices, and responsibilities are key to growth towards greater maturity so that the individual does not jump from the proverbial frying pan into the fire and engage in what Dr. Freud called the "repetition compulsion" to merely re-enact the same scenario over again.

The narrator of the story recognizes that telling the children about the impending divorce is a milestone in the process which she determines as a point of no return. It is an action which will make the rupture permanent and complete. The finality and the closure seems to heighten her apprehension about the decision to divorce rather than mollify it and liberate her.

What will she do when she gets her car unstuck from the snow and reschedules the meeting with her their husband and maybe soon to be ex- husband?

Pop quiz - Parenting styles

What is the most effective parenting style?

A. Authoritarian

B. Permissive

C. Uninvolved

D. Authoritative

For more click here.

New York State has third lowest suicide rate in the US after New Jersey and Massachussetts.

 Based on recent data, the suicide rate in the United States is significantly higher than the homicide rate.

• Suicide Rate: In 2022, the age-adjusted suicide rate was 14.2 per 100,000 people.

• Homicide Rate: In 2023, the homicide rate was 5.9 per 100,000 people. Other data for 2023 shows a rate of 6.8 per 100,000 people.

In terms of total deaths, there are nearly two times as many suicides as homicides in the U.S. For example, in 2022, there were over 49,400 suicides compared to around 24,800 homicides.

In my career as a Psychiatric Social Worker I have done over 15,000 suicide evaluations most of them as a Psychiatric Assignment Officer in urban hospital emergency rooms.

Suicide rates vary greatly by region and other demographic characteristics. Men kill themselves three times more often than women but women attempt suicide three times more often than men. The reason for the discrepancy between suicide death rates is due to the means of the attempt. Men most often use guns while women use ODs and cutting.

New York State consistently has one of the lowest suicide rates in the United States. While the specific ranking can vary slightly depending on the year and the source of the data, New York is typically in the bottom three alongside states like New Jersey and Massachusetts.

For example, according to data from 2021, New York's suicide rate was 7.9 per 100,000 people, placing it among the lowest rates in the country. This is in stark contrast to states with the highest rates, such as Wyoming, Montana, and Alaska, which often have rates three to four times higher.

Suicide rates seem more influenced by the availability of social infrastructure than any other factor. When people are desperate do they have a place to turn? Is there help for what is distressing them so much that they would rather end their lives than go on living. New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts have much better health and human services than other states.