Just brainstorming.
I was looking at Timothy's "about" section on the CDC website. A few of his research papers caught my eye.....
"Serious Psychological Distress and Sleep Duration in Five States"
"The Association between Psychological Distress and Self-Reported Sleep Duration in a Population-Based Sample of Women and Men"
I work at a college and have found that a lot of our professors "study what they know," meaning, a lot of them gravitate towards subjects that are personal to them (not in all cases, but a higher percentage seem to do this). Psychology professors are interested in mental health because they themselves struggle or have been exposed to it (family member) and want to make a difference, so that is their life's work. Those that have degrees in Addiction Studies are the same.
I also did a little research on psychiatric hospitals. The one that I looked at (in Atlanta, GA) specifically stated (in the "about us" section) that they were confidential. "We cannot confirm or deny your presence in our facility without your written permission." If this is truly the case, (and this privacy isn't trumped by police/missing persons inquiries) perhaps, Timothy has checked himself in...........
This would explain why he left everything behind (you can't bring much into those places) and why he left his dog behind (he felt confident that his dog would be taken care of -but just in case, he left windows open so someone would hear his dog bark)
Update: I just found this on the ACLU website concerning privacy and hospitals (
https://www.aclu.org/other/faq-access-patient-information-friends-and-family)
"Q: I do not want to share my information with anyone - not even my closest family members. Can I request to have my information excluded from my hospital's directory?
A: Yes. As some people prefer to keep their medical conditions private - even from their closest family members - the Privacy Rule requires that hospitals and medical facilities provide patients with an opportunity to object to, or ""opt out"" of, including their information in their respective directories.[ix] Therefore, if you want to exclude your information from your hospital's directory, you should ""opt out.""
While not mandated by the HIPAA Privacy Rule, some hospitals do maintain a policy of presuming that patients want to be kept out of their respective directories unless patients ""opt in."" If your medical facility has such a policy but you want to be included in its directory, you should ""opt in"" by instructing the medical facility to list your information in its directory."
