PAXIL child killer David Carmichael - deep doubts about Carmichael and his motives - just another FIDDAMAN

Yesterday, the Free Press ran reporter Chip Martin’s story about David Carmichael, a Toronto man running as an independent candidate for the federal seat in the Parry Sound-Muskoka riding.


http://www.lfpress.com/blogs/inthemargin/2011/04/26/18067601.html

Carmichael, as many local residents may recall, killed his 11-year-old son, Ian, in a London hotel during the summer of 2004. In 2005, Carmichael was judged “not criminally responsible on account of a mental disorder” and was sent to the Brockville Mental Health Centre. He was later released.



I spoke to Carmichael back in 2007, when he launched a website filled with information about depression.



Carmichael has always maintained that he strangled his son because he believed the boy was brain-damaged and was going to harm Carmichael’s wife; at the time, Carmichael was self-medicating with an anti-depressant. (Ostensibly, Carmichael and his son had come to London to attend a BMX bicycle competition in St. Thomas.)



Now, Carmichael is running for public office because he says he wants to raise public awareness about the dangers of anti-depressant drugs and the powers of the big pharmaceutical companies.



When I spoke to Carmichael about four years ago, he blamed his son’s death on a lot of things. He blamed depression, he blamed the drug Paxil, his blamed his “predisposition to mental illness” and he blamed the family, friends and co-workers who he felt “abandoned” him. In a way, he even blamed you and me. “The public doesn’t understand this illness,” he said.



He also said this: “I’ve forgiven myself.”



That conversation left me with deep doubts about Carmichael and his motives.



I’m sympathetic to anyone who suffers from mental illness. Last week, for instance, I wrote a column about Margaret Trudeau during her visit to London, when she spoke about her struggles with bipolar disorder.



But I still feel queasy about Carmichael. A lot of people suffer from depression, a lot of people have problems with pills, and a lot of people feel isolated and alone. “But most of them,” as I wrote in 2007, “don’t kill their son, then post details on the Internet of how they did it and then set themselves up as some kind of heroic crusader for mental health.”



I hope Carmichael can help people understand mental illness. But he wouldn’t get my vote. Not in a million years.