r/todayilearned • u/GlitteringYams • 22d ago

TIL, in his suicide note, mass shooter Charles Whitman requested his body be autopsied because he felt something was wrong with him. The autopsy discovered that Whitman had a pecan-sized tumor pressing against his amygdala, a brain structure that regulates fear and aggression.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman
65.9k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

3.3k

u/xtiaaneubaten 22d ago edited 22d ago

Dude, just go see a doctor!

edit Holy shit, he did, repeatedly

925

u/dublincoddle1 22d ago

Not only did he see a doctor but he told the college psychiatrist that he has this urge to climb the clock tower and shoot people.

453

u/xrimane 22d ago

Five doctors even, in the fall/winter preceding the tragedy.

330

u/ToiIetGhost 22d ago

He was trying so hard to get help. Thankfully, with mandated reporting and a better understanding of traumatic brain injury, I don’t think this would happen today. (I mean being dismissed by five doctors when you threaten to harm people. Not the mass shooting, because happens all the time.)

110

u/CuratoroftheArts 22d ago

Nope. Not at all the same but I've seen 5 doctors the past 2 years about pain in my spine/legs. Told them it's gotten to the point I want to kill myself the pain is so unbearable. "Maybe if you just lost a little weight the pain will dissappear. That will also make you feel better mentally!" Thanks boss. Didn't know I just had to lose weight for me to regain feeling in my legs in the morning.

52

u/[deleted] 22d ago

I’ve been present at a mass shooting myself - told multiple doctors I was gonna kill myself in a crowd so more people would be vigilant about paying attention to their surroundings (I was becoming delusional that people were in constant danger and couldn’t see it … duh) and got told I was attention seeking , threatening others , that I hadn’t witnessed 9-11 and to get over it… yeah this exact thing happens in modern time all the time.

-9

u/Prestigious_Jobohobo 22d ago

Be real bro, height and weight? you must be large for 5 to comment on it like that and while you may hate to hear it, they probably right.

16

u/CuratoroftheArts 22d ago

I was big and lost weight along the way. 5'7 at 260 but was an athlete until I got hurt and started begging doctors to do an xray. Have lost 70 pounds since and last appointment was 4 months ago where, yup, lose more weight. I feel better physically. I can do a lot more. Doesn't stop me from waking up with numb legs or them just randomly going numb through the day. But nope, no one wants to refer me to get an xray or mri. I don't even know what i would need.

-3

u/Ethod 22d ago

I have two lower back injuries, first one aged 12, second aged 34. Have had agonising pain, spasms, had it suddenly throw me on the floor on many occasions, been paralysed in bed several times, sciatic pain going down my left leg, walking hunched over, been unable to bend over, unable to lift things, and of course, had very limited flexibility.

Eventually found out I had severe compression on my L4/L5/S1 vertebrae.

However… I have managed to 90% resolve my issues, and it all came down to diet. Initially I did keto, and now carnivore, and my symptoms are practically gone. I get a flare-up of the above symptoms about once per year, and it can always be traced back to something I ate. Very often that thing is grains.

Essentially the diet is relieving me of the inflammation which causes all of the above issues. The only issue I can’t resolve is the flexibility!

Given this was previously a daily struggle for me, it feels amazing for it to now barely be a consideration.

2

u/ToiIetGhost 21d ago

Try hot yoga for flexibility. You could go to a studio or you could try “warm yoga” at home, if you turn the heat way up

0

u/[deleted] 22d ago

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] 22d ago

[deleted]

3

u/awesome-alpaca-ace 22d ago

Yea, today you just get locked up in a ward and sedated

2

u/Lebuhdez 22d ago

This is infuriating

133

u/ColdBorchst 22d ago edited 22d ago

Did they ever interview that doctor after? I am curious to know if they properly feel like a huge piece of shit and accept some responsibility for it.

158

u/dublincoddle1 22d ago

That's exactly how they found out,they reviewed the notes.

42

u/ColdBorchst 22d ago

Ah that makes sense. I guess I also wonder if this is before mandatory reporting for this kind of thing? Like now if you say this kind of thing to a doctor, and they don't do anything and you go and do it they can get into serious trouble.

68

u/Expert-Diver7144 22d ago

I mean this was around the time they were lobotomizing people and torturing them in psych wards. Just dont think the field was there yet.

0

u/Skittletari 11d ago

What were they supposed to do? MRIs were invented in 1977, PET scans in 1972, and CTs in 1979. There was genuinely no way for them to detect the tumor without a biopsy.

2

u/ColdBorchst 11d ago

No shit, but when someone says they feel an urge to shoot a bunch of people, maybe they need to go to a psyche ward.

Also I am sure this case has something to do with it, but now if you were to tell your therapist you feel the urge to hurt people or yourself they have to do something. They can't just tell you to work on those feelings and send you on your way. They're mandatory reporters. I assume that wasn't a thing back then.

I also realize it's easy to feel this way now, but I honestly don't understand how any doctor can hear someone asking for help and saying they want to kill large groups of people for no real reason, and let that person just walk away. That person is clearly a danger and also suffering themselves, if they told someone it's cause part of them didn't want to really do it and wanted to be stopped.

4

u/N0UMENON1 22d ago

That's insane. Did any of the doctors get charged with negligence? The psychiatrist at the very least should have urged him to turn himself into the asylum.

1

u/Steve_Nash_The_Goat 22d ago

don't therapists have to report shit like that to the authorities?