Thank you,
@Grammar, for such a clear and compassionate explanation of psychosis. My cousin was schizophrenic from his mid-20s to his mid-70s when he died recently. He had a few psychotic episodes over the years, but meds kept him relatively functional. If NG was schizophrenic, as seems likely from his symptoms, it doesn’t appear that he had been diagnosed or treated yet.
As most everyone knows, not everyone who commits suicide is in the throes of a psychotic episode. Most people “quietly commit suicide” without harming others, because they are severely depressed but not psychotic. For them, their pain is just too great to continue living. And plenty who are psychotic and commit suicide may also do it privately. NG, if psychotic, may not even have been suicidal. We don’t know. But as you put it so well in layman’s terms, “his thought process would have been totally whacked out.” If NG was psychotic, which his symptoms point to, he was not a terrorist. Following Farrakhan appeared to be part of his religiosity that developed as part of or in tandem with his illness, according to reports. If he was psychotic, he was a very sick man who did a terrible thing in the midst of his torment, but was not terrorism. That is a far cry from those who attacked the Capitol on January 6 for a particular and united reason IMO, but no less tragic for the victims.
JMO
