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Mom of mentally ill son: "I am Adam Lanza's mother"
Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2012-12-19 02:46
Article here. Excerpt:
'I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me.
A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7 and 9 year old siblings knew the safety plan--they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me.
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At the start of seventh grade, Michael was accepted to an accelerated program for highly gifted math and science students. His IQ is off the charts. When he's in a good mood, he will gladly bend your ear on subjects ranging from Greek mythology to the differences between Einsteinian and Newtonian physics to Doctor Who. He's in a good mood most of the time. But when he's not, watch out. And it's impossible to predict what will set him off.
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I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza's mother. I am Dylan Klebold's and Eric Harris's mother. I am James Holmes's mother. I am Jared Loughner's mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho's mother. And these boys -- and their mothers -- need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it's easy to talk about guns. But it's time to talk about mental illness.
According to Mother Jones, since 1982, 61 mass murders involving firearms have occurred throughout the country. Of these, 43 of the killers were white males, and only one was a woman. Mother Jones focused on whether the killers obtained their guns legally (most did). But this highly visible sign of mental illness should lead us to consider how many people in the U.S. live in fear, like I do.
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With state-run treatment centers and hospitals shuttered, prison is now the last resort for the mentally ill -- Rikers Island, the LA County Jail and Cook County Jail in Illinois housed the nation's largest treatment centers in 2011.
No one wants to send a 13-year old genius who loves Harry Potter and his snuggle animal collection to jail. But our society, with its stigma on mental illness and its broken health care system, does not provide us with other options. Then another tortured soul shoots up a fast food restaurant. A mall. A kindergarten classroom. And we wring our hands and say, "Something must be done."'
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Comments
Like I said, it's mostly about crazy
But I don't deny that a lot of other stressors may be what is tipping those already mentally unstable with violent impulses (even with no past history of violence) toward actually executing a mass-shooting. I think abt. the recent such shootings and here's what I see:
1. Younger men are the shooters. Whiteness is more of a happenstance factor in the sense that access to high-powered weapons is more available to white suburbanites and ppl living in less urbanized areas. Which leads to item 2...
2. Access to high-powered weapons. As the article says, legally-obtained. Can inner-city kids get ahold of AK-47s easily? Well, first, they're really expensive. Second, you're not likely to be able to ride around in the city for too long with an assault rifle in the back of your car before eventually someone would notice. Out in exurbia or "God's country"? It'd take awhile. But most importantly, with gun violence already high in the cities, how fast will the state approve your application for the AK-47? Not too fast. If you want to carry a gun legally in a city, applying for a handgun license makes a lot more sense. And oh yes, there's cultural preference factors. Rifles are essentially offensive in intended design, but also designed to be much more accurate at longer distances (such as in the country when used for hunting), so you're more likely to see them used outside the city vs. inside one. Handguns are easier to conceal and essentially meant for close-quarter defensive encounters. That's why police carry handguns as a rule rather than rifles.
3. Related to #1, the shooter is younger: Before he's had a chance to get a handle on life or his mental problems, a young mentally-disturbed person of either sex is a lot more likely to act out in socially unacceptable or criminal ways when young vs. being older.
4. The shooter's mental health problems are either being ignored or inadequately addressed. Not surprisingly, when it comes to ignoring or under-addressing mental health problems, who gets shafted the most? Men. Just look at the male suicide rate... really is it so "unpreventable"?
5. The shooter's father is... where? Parents divorced, probably, or something else, but the net result is: boy grows up with little or no paternal influence, positive or otherwise.
6. And finally, the shooter belongs to a category of ppl who are told there is something wrong with them directly or indirectly (i.e., chronic shaming), being socially marginalized, made the subject of constant criticism and accusation, and at the same time have the use of violence exemplified to them left and right in movies, on TV, in video games, etc., as the primary way to exert influence against those who pi$$ them off. That'd be males.
Add the foregoing together and you get a recipe for disaster. Again, again, and again... until at least one or more of these major factors is mitigated.