Danielle Johnson was worried about the eclipse.
The astrology influencer and “divine healer” who went by the name Danielle Ayoka online called the upcoming astronomical event “the epitome of spiritual warfare” and told people they needed to “pick a side,” in posts on X on April 4.
Less than three days later, in the early morning before the partial solar eclipse, Johnson left a trail of tragedy in her wake: her partner stabbed to death in the kitchen of the family apartment in Woodland Hills, her 8-month-old baby dead after being pushed from Johnson’s moving Porsche Cayenne on the 405, and Johnson herself dead after crashing her car on Pacific Coast Highway in Redondo Beach.
I’ve seen enough people experiencing severe mania yell racist obscenities who later stabilized and were mortified at their previous behavior to know that no, this is not “just hate.” This is either severe mania with psychotic features or straight up severe psychosis.
You can also hear the same stuff if you spend some time at any US subway station when the local hoteps are out and about with their loudspeakers. It’s not just her.
and I’ve seen more than enough people yell racist obscenities who never had any sort of manic episode or psychotic break or any other kind of mental illness to know that it’s not the cause of hatred.
In fact, it’s far more likely the opposite is true.
We’re talking on completely different wavelengths here. I’m not in any way saying hate as a human behavior is caused or excused by mental illness. I’m saying this specific person, with a pronounced decline in functioning and worsening paranoia, delusional thinking, and hyperreligiosity, is experiencing severe mania, and that what people say when they’re experiencing mania with psychosis is not based in reality or a reflection of who they actually are or what they believe. There are lots of people who are full of hate and who aren’t mentally ill, this person is clearly not in that category.
I’m so glad that an armchair psychologist is on hand to offer an internet diagnosis after reading a sensationalized headline.
She may well be mentally ill. She may also not be. I doubt very much that you’re in a position to speak with such authority in the matter.
She was by definition mentally ill. Nothing about this makes sense and she committed suicide and murdered her husband… You don’t have to be a professional to understand this.
Perfectly sane people commit murder and suicide, and yes, murder-suicide all the time.
Your “let’s blame mental illness” train is full of shit. You are right that it doesn’t make sense. It never does. That doesn’t mean she suffered from any mental illness that drove her to do this- and your blaming mental illness is perpetuating a stigma that is not helping anyone.
You “don’t have to be a professional” to understand that.
I read her direct quotes in the article, the headline is nonsense.
You could say this to yourself, too.
that I’m mentally ill? I have anxiety and depression issues.
that I’m not in a position of authority to say “I don’t know and you don’t either?”… Actually, if you had evaluated her… even tangentially… you wouldn’t be here pronouncing your diagnosis to global public. medical privacy laws are like that.
it takes multiple sessions to come to a full, accurate diagnosis of issues. usually multiple sessions across multiple weeks. any one telling you they can accurately diagnosis mental illness from a handful of statements… is full of shit.
Did it even occur to you that she might be faking it?
Diagnosis and identifying mental illness are 2 different things. Mental illness is a very low threshold and this person was clearly delusional and it lead to their death. That’s a mental illness… de facto. And you can’t fake suicide… she’s dead.
By saying “she’s mentally ill”… that is a diagnosis.
So in saying she’s delusional.
Saying suicide is proof of illness is also troublesome. Same goes for murder-suicide.
The fact is you don’t know, I don’t know. No one here knows.
What I do know is plenty of rational people with no diagnosable mental issues commit suicide, murder and even murder-suicide.
You can’t be diagnosed “mentally ill”. That is an adjective, not a condition. It would be completely different if they said “this person clearly has bipolar disorder and I am stating this solely from the contents of this article”. That is an unfounded diagnosis. Specificity is important here.
Delusional is a technical term used to describe a symptom present in a vast swath of mental illnesses. It’s also a common term used to describe a set of behaviors in an informal way. Suicide is an act that is (more often than not) proceeded by bouts of mental illness in some form or fashion, be it chronic or acute.
Take any one of the behaviors displayed by this person (delusions, antisocial behavior, suicide) in a vacuum, and sure, it’s not enough to make an educated guess on whether an individual is mentally ill or not. But when you have someone who quickly escalates their atypical behavior from going on anti semitic and conspiratorial rants(delusion), to thinking the eclipse is the beginning of a period of spiritual warfare(delusion), into killing their partner and infant child (antisocial behavior) in gruesome, erratic fashion, into committing suicide, it’s pretty easy to deduce that this person had some mental issues. Whether this illness was chronic, acute, substance induced, etc. her behavior shows a clear progression into a state of some significant mental illness. There’s enough here to make an educated, informed statement that this person was mentally ill.
You don’t have to be a psychologist to recognize this person wasn’t in a state of mind that could reasonably be called stable or “sane”.
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
I’m a psychotherapist with over a decade of experience in acute inpatient psych
Ok sure great but the other guy has a lemmy account which has to count for something
Oh and here’s some further reading from actual professionals:-
Overdiagnosis in Psychiatry: How Modern Psychiatry Lost Its Way While Creating a Diagnosis for Almost All of Life’s Misfortunes, by Paris Joel
A Psychiatric Diagnosis is Not a Disease
Etc etc
If you were licensed and practicing you wouldn’t be throwing out diagnoses like they are candy at Halloween you complete turd.
That article talks about the pathologization of “life’s misfortunes,” which is absolutely a problem. It goes on to describe how this relates to the diagnoses of depression, bipolar II, PTSD, and personality disorders.
I’m not talking about a diagnosis with “fuzzy boundaries” here, I’m talking about a woman displaying clear paranoid delusions:
And then murdering her husband, pushing her children out of a moving car, and crashing into a tree at 100 mph.
Of course neither I nor anyone else could make an accurate diagnosis without directly evaluating her. My entire point was responding originally to someone who was trying to dismiss this is “just hate,” because it clearly isn’t. Among the differential diagnoses for this woman would be a severe manic episode, indicating bipolar I, or a psychotic episode, indicating a number of possible psychotic disorders, among other possibilities we could not know without evaluating her. We’re not talking about “where should psychiatry draw the line between depression and sadness?”
So now after all the sophistry and unwarranted attitude now you admit you cannot make a diagnosis from third hand sources. She could have shown the same behaviours from a minor stroke, a tumour or some other brain injury, she might have been traumatised or goaded into killing her family. We and especially you do not have any real evidence and here you are AGAIN making further diagnosis from her writing. Tell me, professional psych, do you also practice phrenology and analyse hand-writing?
Why the fuck aren’t you bitching about the original user who just went, “that’s just hate. That’s what hate looks like” without any evidence either? Are you insecure around someone who professes to know more about the subject? imagine how out of touch you are if they actually are what they say they are; because from a bystander reading this, you’re really giving off major Dunning-Kruger vibes combined with obvious double-standards since you don’t call the other user out making blind claims without any merit whatsoever.
Thus far it kind of sounds like you’re the one who really has no idea what they’re talking about.
bullshit.
Sure thing, please clarify how you can possibly diagnose someone from a news article and some responding posts on social media. Then clarify how you are being professional throwing out these diagnoses as factual opinion in an open forum.
You see I actually had a mother who was a both a therapist and psychologist and she often remarked on the nature of diagnosis and in particular how non-professional armchair psych was indicated by people throwing out terms like fools name-dropping.
I could say you’re full of shit but that would be redundant. Suffice to say a professional would not diagnose an individual by third hand reporting.
… you’re claiming your mom’s expertise?
No I’m making a statement about the nature of diagnosis and professionalism and my other response has linked articles by professionals who agree with my statement.
You are claiming these professionals agree with your statement?
I haven’t seen their endorsement of your comments so maybe that’s the context we are missing. Can you point us to where they read and responded to your comments?