Plunge in markets brings another kind of depression

A Porter Ranch man who murdered his family and killed himself last weekend as he faced financial ruin is the latest and most extreme case of a wave of distress washing over the American psyche.

Karthik Rajaram, an unemployed financial advisor, left a suicide note saying that his financial state left him few options but to kill his wife, three children and mother-in-law. Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Michel Moore described Rajaram, 45, as a man stuck in a rabbit hole of despair.

The tragic case of the Rajaram family is at the bleakest edge of the economic turmoil that is rattling Americans' emotional well-being. Worries about home foreclosures, job losses and plunging stock prices have sparked a surge in mental health problems.

"The closest I have seen to this in the last 10 to 20 years is the spike after 9/11," said Richard Chaifetz, chief executive of ComPsych Corp., a Chicago-based company that coordinates mental health referrals for employers. "But this is more geographically dispersed and is not going to get better in a month."

Rich Paul, a vice president at Virginia-based ValueOptions Inc., which also handles mental health referrals, said that calls about stress related to foreclosure and financial hardship have gone up 200% in California in the last year.

At Kaiser Permanente's San Francisco Medical Center, Dr. Mason Turner, chief of psychiatry, said there was a fourfold increase in psychiatric admissions at his hospital during August, with roughly 60% of patients saying financial stress contributed to their problems.

In Stockton, the epicenter of California's home foreclosure crisis, mental health counselor Victoria Tabios said that more than a third of her cases revolve around foreclosures. Inevitably, problems spill into other parts of family life.

"They are falling behind on their house payments because of bad loans, so they begin fighting and blaming each other. Some resort to drinking," she said. "It's a domino effect."

By comparison, some people experience relatively minor symptoms -- fatigue, headaches and lack of motivation. The problems can gradually wear down a person as the economic turmoil continues.

"I'm so drained, I feel like a need a B-12 shot every 15 minutes," said glass artist Darin Jackson, 44, whose Moreno Valley neighborhood is pocked with foreclosed homes.

For others, like, Rajaram, the financial pressures can seem like an inescapable pit.