This is Paralysis.

ramirezdahmerbundy:

Kristen Gilbert was born on 13 November 1967 in Fall River, Massachusetts as Kristen Strickland. At school she was a typical teenage girl but as she got older she began to develop dishonest habits in her relationships, which were also tinged with violence. After school she went to Greenfield Community College, in Massachusetts. She began stealing and then denying it. She even told one victim that she had not stole her blouse even though Gilbert was wearing it at the time. In 1988 she married Glen Gilbert and shortly after began to work on Ward C of the Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center in Northampton. Her colleagues found her friendly and sociable and her bosses gave her performance top marks. In 1990 she gave birth to her first son - life seemed great. When she returned to work on the 4 p.m. to midnight shift, things began to go wrong. Patients began to die when Gilbert was on duty. She often gave her unqualified medical opinion, leading her colleagues to name her the Angel of Death. Many of the patients died of heart attacks, even when there was no history of cardiac problems. In 1993 Gilbert gave birth to her second son. Her home life changed and Glen told friends that he thought his wife was trying to poison him. She began an affair with James Perrault, a security guard at the hospital. In December 1994 she left her husbands and son to move in with Perrault. The death count on the hospital began to rise. Her colleagues checked the stock room and found that there was a shortage of epinephrine (synthetic adrenaline), a drug that stimulates the heart. One day Gilbert asked her boss if she could leave work early if one of her patients died and she was told that she could. Shortly afterwards, the patient died.

In February 1995 an Aids sufferer had a relapse under Gilbert’s care and her fellow nurses went to the hospital authorities. In Gilbert’s seven years on the ward, 350 men had died. It was believed that Gilbert would dose the men with epinephrine so they would go into cardiac arrest, when her lover would be called. She would then impress him with her nursing skill. When she was suspended from the ward the death rate returned back to normal. In mid 1996 James Perrault tired of the affair. Kristen Gilbert took an overdose and was admitted to a psychiatric ward. When some of the victims’ bodies were exhumed, epinephrine was found in the body tissues. In 1998 Gilbert was charged with murder and Perrault testified against her. He claimed that she had told him, “You know I did it. You wanted to know I killed those guys.” On 14 March 2001 Gilbert was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder, one count of second-degree murder, and two counts of attempted murder. She was sentenced to life in prison.

Kristen! You share your name with a serial killer!

ramirezdahmerbundy:

Facts and Figures of Suicide

While men are quick to reach for a gun, women gravitate toward overdosing or cutting themselves. Half of all people who commit suicide see a physician within a month of their fatal act. Parents, obese men, and pregnant women are less likely to commit suicide than anyone else. Divorced men commit suicide 400 percent more than women. And if you’re a sixty-five-year-old male, or older, in poor health, divorced, or have lost a loved one, and are living in a metropolitan area, you’re part of the highest suicide group.

For some, self-killing is impulsive. Studies have shown that many attempters, 25 to 40 percent, are suicidal for only a short time. For some, it is as little as an hour. They awake one day without giving a though to ending their life, and by the evening they are ready to bid it adieu.

One person attempts suicide every thirty-four seconds. And one death by suicide occurs every twenty-five attempted. Those seriously suicidal have been for a long time, with the thought of how and when being a consuming rather than a momentary one. For the impulsive - who will often choose jumping or a gun as a mean to their end - studies reveal that adding obstacles to their method slow down their irrational impulse, at which point the life-ending thoughts may pass. That’s why many people lobby for barricades to be built on bridges, for guns to be locked and unloaded, and for medication normally stored in cabinets and dresser drawers to be removed.

Lastly, there’s location and method, which are as specific and personal as the act itself. For the impulsive, this could mean a bridge. For the control freak, perhaps it’s his home, surrounded by the comfort of prized possessions. Others select the quiet solitude of a hotel, where their act can take place uninterrupted and unnoticed, no mess for a family or friends to clean up. For some, such as actress Peg Entwistle, who jumped off the Hollywoodland sign, the method of suicide is symbolic, adding defiant significance to their act: the use of a father’s gun, the swallowing of a mother’s pills, the killing of a lover while on vacation and the subsequent shooting of one’s self. Some leave notes and some just disappear, leaving their death more of a mystery while removing the negative stigma suicide can bring; without proof, anything is possible. Without hard evidence, nothing is written in stone.

Though suicide ends a life, it ironically keeps that person’s life story alive. Regardless of method or location, planned or impulsive, the suicide’s inner tormet and utter anguish haunts our culture for decades.

(Source: ramirezdahmerbundy)

metaconscious:

“When I kissed her goodbye she was happy and as normal as any girl about to be married.”

EMPIRE STATE LEAP ENDS LIFE OF GIRL

Returning yesterday morning from a visit to her fiance, an ex-GI attending Lafayette College at Easton, Pa., an attractive 20-year old bookkeeper plunged to her death from the eighty-sixth floor observation deck of the Empire State Building.

— New York Times obituary; May 1, 1947

The calm repose of Evelyn McHale would beguile anyone to disbelieve she had just fallen 1050 feet to her death, were it not for the cradled metal grave beneath her. Now considered an iconic image of the 20th century, she was immortalized just minutes after the crash by a passing photography student. Lamented by many as “The Most Beautiful Suicide”, one hand still entwined with her pearl necklace, she is a sleeping beauty of the modern era.

(via mysyncope)