Sleep deprivation insanity
I recently settled a case in which a young contestant was required to go without sleep and keep his hand flat on a Nissan truck until the last contestant was standing. The contest was called "Hands on a Hardbody" He eventually left the contest, broke into a K-Mart, forced the trigger lock out of a shotgun and committed suicide. There was no effective exit strategy to assure safety for contestants although many instances had taken place over the years concerning insane behavior. One woman jumped the fence and ran out in traffic. She had to be tackled by her boyfriend. One contestant argued with his father because he thought he was in Oklahoma although the contest was in Longview Texas. One contestant thought he was pushing daisies down on the hood of the pickup. The examples are endless. Simply put, I argued that minimal protection should have been provided to the contestants to assure they were not a danger to themselves or others. This result of sleep deprivation has been known for decades and studied at length by scientists. The North Koreans used sleep deprivation and stress to break down soldiers in the Korean conflict. It wasn't that the soldiers just got tired, they went into a mental breakdown.
Sleep deprivation combined with stress and stimulants have been used casually in contests as well as work environments. It is simply dangerous and negligent to do so.
Studies have shown:
Patients suffering from insomnia reported a four-fold higher rate of attempted suicide.
The risks of only 24 hours of sleep deprivation are substantial and render an individual in a state of impairment comparable to being intoxicated
More than 80% of people are suffering from hallucinations by 48 hours of sleep deprivation
An important recent study done by the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard Medical School was published in Current Biology showing objective radiological findings correlating with symptomatic changes in subjects who are sleep deprived. The emotional part of the brain (amygdala) is dramatically different in the images. The amygdala , which alerts the body to protect itself in times of danger, goes into overdrive on no sleep, according to the study. This consequently shuts down the prefrontal cortex, which commands logical reasoning, and thus prevents the release of chemicals needed to calm down the fight-or-flight reflex.
The study showed that sleep deprivation excessively boosts the part of the brain most closely connected to depression, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders.
I remember reading about this case in the Chronicle. I didn't realize you were the attorney. Your blog looks good.
thanks Paul. The law suit was about the duty to provide exit services for contestants based upon the foreseeablity of harm and gravity of harm to contestants or others vs the cost and effort of avoiding the risk. Thanks for the comment on the site. Blake
I could use your help if you could offer it. I'm a 32 year old single mom who has two children (9) & (6)from two different fathers. I've had nothing but issues since 2004, following my agreeing to joint/joint custody of my youngest son. His father, since our split, has instigated issues between myself and my other son's dad, has tried to get me fired from my job, has had me followed, has contacted my friends, boyfriends and family as well as caused issues regarding my youngest. I've been fighting non-stop since 2004 to keep my children together because of this man. We've faught about his schedule, daycare, school etc. Regardless of the issue at hand he won't bend for the kid's sake. And the other child's dad had been dealing with issues similarly. Therefore, I thought it might be best to seek joint/joint with primary custodianship with the 2nd childs father (similar to the 1st child's father) to enable me to decide for both children and therefore alleviate the possibility of separation of the children. The stress of years of court issues (since 2004) with these two, continuous attorney/court fees, a three month job loss, etc. was finally started to get to me. I was staying up all night job hunting and trying to get court documents completed and if I wasn't up doing that, I'd just lay in bed worrying about my financial situation, my house, my kids and what could potentially happen down the road. I went several nights without sleep. No matter how hard I tried......I couldn't get to sleep. I complained to my family and friends, but no one really thought it was all that serious. I'm normally very self-sufficient and have not needed help with much. their resolution was to tell me that I needed sleep. So I drove on. And it eventually got to the point where I was fearful that I may never sleep. I turned to God, which I've never done, because weird things started happening. I lost touch with reality to a point where I wasn't doing what I should. And after only two weeks at a new job, I took a day off because I was having severe stomach pain. I was really scared. I keep thinking that I might die if I kept on this way.
At their request, I kept my children home from school. I saught help from my family and friends and no one knew what to do. I was seeing things, hearing things, was paranoid, delusional and I honestly didn't know I had missed as much sleep as I had; the days before had all run together. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before and I was very scared. Because I didn't call the school to let them know the kids weren't going to be there, my youngest child's dad called the police to check on the whereabouts Cade. It was actually his night to have him too and I hadn't contacted him. They came and in my completely paranoid state, I freaked. I thought they were coming to hurt us, and although nothing really crazy happened, I still ended up in the hospital. They all thought I was having a mental episode. The doctors thought anti-psychotics was the resolution. This seemed to make things worse and the entire situation only added to me being unable to sleep. I ended up in a couple hospitals over the next two weeks. It wasn't until the final hospital that I was able to get back on track. They took me off most of the medication and I was finally able to get sleep. I was out of the hospital in 5 days. I was completely off medication two weeks later. And have been completely normal since. But, of course, because of this incident - my kid's dads have teamed up and are now fighting for full custody of my children. They would not allow me to see or talk to them for two months. I had 4 hours of supervised visitation for five months. After seven months I finally have normal visitation one night a week and every other weekend. Because of their allegations, I decided I should complete a psych eval to prove that I wasn't crazy. In addition and to alleviate other allegations, I've supplied hair testing that goes back prior to the incident and will continue to supply until there is no question on this topic. I have taken 2 chemical dependency evaluations (they claim they don't believe the results of the first one). It's been a complete nightmare and my children has suffered tremendously since February 11th of this year. The have been completely split up. Different daycares, schools and houses. Then want to come home and still don't understand why they can't. My oldest asked me just last weekend why I ever told his dad that he was going to be born. He told me he wishes I wouldn't have.
I'm afraid my kids may be seperated forever. I need help.
I think presenting research on sleep deprivation and psychosis may help and would like to get the most current information available. Can you point me in the right direction?
I would appreciate any advice and information you can offer regarding this. My children are counting on me and I need to do my best to help them.
Thank you,
Beth
I'm sorry for your problems Beth. You have too many problems to solve at one time. Take one at a time and concentrate on it. Figure out where you ultimately want to end up and it will make the short term decisions easier to make. If you want technical information on sleep deprivation go to a medical library and look up CURRENT BIOLOGY Vol. 17 Number 20. If you want to get treated for sleep deprivation find out which hospital in your area conducts sleep deprivation studies and make an appointment. They will want you to stay over night. Blake Bailey