Chris and mental healthcare

“	My CURRENT church can help me a LOT better than any "professional" because God and Jesus supports them as well.	”
Chris

Chris has a troubled relationship with psychology. He claims that he was held down by the school psychologist in grade school while his screams were recorded (almost certainly a lie), and was forced to see a psychologist for anger management classes after being kicked out of Piedmont Virginia Community College. Chris has refused to see a psychologist in the past, opting to see a pastoral counselor instead. However, during his trial in July 2012, he was ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment and evaluation. Only time will tell if this will finally force Chris to accept the help he needs, or ultimately accomplish nothing more than draining the remaining Chandlers' already minuscule funds.

The problem(s) with Chris

An insight into Chris's tortured psyche.

In his own mind

Chris claims to be autistic, homophobic as a genuine phobia, and a victim of noviophobia, a made-up phobia of girls having boyfriends. He also diagnosed himself with dissociative identity disorder in the August 30th Captain's Log, although he later revealed in Mailbag #4 that it was "a lie to momentarily derail the trolls." (Once again, Chris proved that he had no understanding of how serious mental disorders can be. Pretending to be crazy is an odd sort of Catch-22.)

Chris also seems to be at a level of incompetence that prevents him from realizing how incompetent he is. A Cornell University psychology journal details this phenomenon:

“	...when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to to realize it.	”
A disturbingly accurate account of Chris’s reaction to reality

The 2004 survey

The psychiatrist who compiled a survey of Chris's issues following his troubles at PVCC in 2004 echoed the diagnosis of autism that Chris received sometime in his youth, and took note of "an obsessional quality to his preoccupation with finding a girlfriend." He also administered a Folstein test, a brief questionnaire designed to detect cognitive impairment. Chris racked up a perfect score, indicating no problems with his memory or basic information processing abilities. On the Global Assessment of Functioning, the doctor rated Chris a 70, roughly halfway between an average adult and someone with socially debilitating mental illness.

Professional help?

One of the most frustrating elements of Chris is his adamant refusal to take help from any source. In the aftermath of his suspension from PVCC, his evaluators repeatedly recommended further counseling and psychiatric treatment, but Chris and his parents refused. It seems that Borb think that the world of mental health hasn't evolved past the turn-of-the-century treatment of straitjackets and lobotomies. The only thing close to therapy that Chris has ever had was a compulsory anger management class, and we all know how much good that did. About the only authority figure he listens to is Rocky Shoemaker, his pastoral counselor; he claims that he has no need for psychotherapy because his pastor is better at helping him than anyone with, you know, years of training and experience in helping people with psychiatric problems. He's shown repeated disregard for the authority of health professionals. It is suspected that, even if Chris received professional help, he would disregard most of it and undermine the therapy.

It is likely that he would be able to seek the help of a professional for little or no cost, as his monthly tugboat in the form of SSI does offer basic psychological services that would allow him the ability to talk to a board-certified counselor and get the help he does need. It's likely, though, he doesn't even know this service is available, as he only regards his SSI check as income or a cheap means of getting PS3 games, LittleBigPlanet or Guitar Hero DLC, and sex toys rather than a reassurance that he is covered under federal Medicaid or the equivalent state Medicaid program offered by the Commonwealth of Virginia.

It seems Chris only acknowledges his personal flaws if they get him pity or to demonstrate that he's beaten them already. Notice how often Chris claims to have won the battle over autism, only to fall back on "I have autism!" as an excuse. Similarly, he wrote Nintendo Power Magazine to tell them he conquered his noviophobia, only to say later that his fear "came back like a boomerang."

Chris refuses to get help because he doesn't think he needs any, and because he has, better things to spend his money on. Regardless of how blatantly stupid his actions are; regardless of how often trolls (including a thirteen-year-old) trick him into doing horrible, horrible things; regardless of how any mental health worker worth his salt would pin Chris down like a butterfly to get a chance to crack open his impenetrable shell of fail, Chris will carry on as usual, justifying away everything that would inconvenience him even slightly.

Chris has no problem telling other people to seek professional help, however. In the Mailbag, he has occasionally responded to his detractors with retorts like "Go See a Psychiatrist." Funnily enough, were Chris to ever see a psychologist, he or she would probably see this as classic Freudian projection.

However, during the fallout of the events which took place on 28 October, Chris was sentenced to mandatory psychiatric treatment and evaluation. The results have yet to come, but given that he pepper sprayed a man over the color of a video game character's arms two whole years after starting this therapy, it's safe to say the treatment does not appear to be working.

History of medication

According to the 2004 psychiatric survey, at some point in his life, Chris was prescribed the antidepressant medication Imipramine. It's not clear when he was prescribed the drug, or for what exact reason, but it was likely sometime in his younger days. Since the advent of more sophisticated antidepressant drugs like Prozac in the late 1980s, the use of Imipramine to treat depression and other psychological disorders has grown less and less common.

The same document notes that, as of 2004, Chris had been taking the antidepressant Paxil for four years in order to deal with his stress and anger issues. One of the survey's recommendations was an increase in his daily dose of the drug, but it's not clear how long Chris continued taking it afterward. In Mailbag #13, he explained that he had switched to a different medication in order to avoid some of Paxil's side effects, the ones that "only hit adults." However, in his 11th call with Kacey Chris said that the drug he switched to from Paxil is Paroxetine. Since Paxil is just one of Paroxetine's several trade names and not a different drug, it seems that Chris is still taking the same medication, only under a different appellation.

Chris didn't specify what side effects Paxil caused him, but his language suggests some sort of a sexual dysfunction. Paxil may have been making it difficult for Chris to achieve orgasm; if his current antidepressant is still Paroxetine (or at least another SSRI) then it might explain why it took him around 20 minutes in order to climax when he cybered with Julie.

Another of Paxil's more notable side effects is the potential for substantial weight gain, which couldn't have mixed well with Chris's diet and sedentary lifestyle.

Past instances of professional help (or lack thereof)

Nathanael Greene Elementary School

When Chris attended NGES, there was an incident where he was supposedly restrained or molested, depending on whom you talk to. It has been claimed by Bob that they wanted to send Chris to an "institution." What they meant was likely a place where Chris could see professionals who could work with Chris's problems as opposed to teachers who deal with normal students. What Bob probably thought is he would be sent to a nuthouse. Either way, something that could have done some good in his early development didn't happen.

Mary Lee Walsh

Although not a mental health professional, Walsh has experience at dealing with a large body of students and their individual problems. She has also written a book on coping with college life. Despite her advanced knowledge and experience, Chris chose the better path of cursing her and putting her low on his Scale of Respect.

Psychiatric Papers

Following his outburst towards Mary Lee Walsh, Chris was sent to a psychiatrist for evaluation. The resulting papers easily show a number of things, most of which can easily be told by trolls themselves. Another interesting thing is that, despite the encouragement to follow up on this, Chris's parents refuse to on the account of insurance problems.

The documents note that at some point, Chris received psychiatric evaluation at the Center for Learning Potential in Mt. Sidney, Virginia (a small town northwest of his home in Charlottesville). They don't say when this took place, but given the location of the Center, it was likely either during his elementary school years or sometime after the Chandlers moved back to Charlottesville in the summer of 2000.

Anger management and the shrink

Following his encounter with Mary Lee Walsh, he was ordered to take anger management classes. The only thing that seemed to arise from it were complaints that he had to pay to see a professional, and...well...he still can't control his anger. There's very little information about his anger management classes, as it occurred in the pre-ED days, and is only mentioned in a few old documents of Chris's that have surfaced. He's never really talked about it since, and it's never come up in comics or videos.

Rocky Shoemaker

Religious institutions are fond of providing counseling services to all members of their congregations, sometimes unwisely as a method of hammering them with doctrine to solve their problems, sometimes beneficially by giving them a person to talk to for free and referring them to a real professional if necessary. Whether Rocky is generally beneficial or harmful to the people who come to see her is uncertain, but she is certainly admired for her past work. What remains certain is that she is probably not the best solution for Chris because...

1. He considers her to be a perfect, all-encompassing alternative to a qualified professional.
2. He barely listens to anything she says.
3. He misconstrues everything she says, accepting advice he likes and ignoring advice he doesn't like.

She has told him about his past habits being unacceptable, but Chris remains as determined as ever to be a total idiot. Although she has put a stop to trolling plans, his behavior remains the same. She also told him it would be a good idea to stop posting videos on YouTube, since they only feed the trolls. That hasn't really worked out now, has it?

About the only thing that he has taken away from their sessions is that he can fuck someone before they are married.

Relationship Management Classes

Chris mentioned in a video from October 2009 and told Kacey in a phone call in September 2009 that he had been taking some relationship management classes. Undoubtedly, Chris felt that he had found some form of real life date ed. In reality, Chris came upon a class meant for couples who wanted to manage their already established relationships as opposed to finding out how to get into one.

White knights and trolls

It doesn't take a lot of effort for anyone to see that Chris has virtually no common sense. Likewise, common sense being rather common, white knights and trolls alike are often quick to point out that most of what Chris does is stupid/insane/socially abnormal. To put it bluntly, he doesn't get it. As a result, many trolls have become armchair psychologists pondering why exactly he doesn't get it. It doesn't matter what they come up with, the result is always that Chris doesn't listen to anyone if he doesn't want to. Some white knights like Vivian Gee have gotten so fed up with Chris's adamant refusal to improve himself or heed advice that they've moved on to becoming professional trolls.

See also

• Autism
• Autism papers
• Asperger's syndrome
• Dreams

CWCki user essays

These essays speculate about Chris's undiagnosed problems.

• User:Hayate666/narcissism
• User:Ronichu/Babble#Conspiracy Theories
• User:SandwichSonichu/Defense mechanisms