Friday’s horrific national tragedy – the murder of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut – has ignited a new discussion on violence in America. In kitchens and coffee shops across the country, we tearfully debate the many faces of violence in America: gun culture, media violence, lack of mental health services, overt and covert wars abroad, religion, politics and the way we raise our children. Liza Long, a writer based in Boise, says it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness. While every family’s story of mental illness is different, and we may never know the whole of the Lanza’s story, tales like this one need to be heard – and families who live them deserve our help. Three days before 20 year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother, then opened fire on a classroom full of Connecticut kindergartners, my 13-year old son Michael (name changed) missed his bus because he was wearing the wrong color pants. “I can wear these pants,” he said, his tone increasingly belligerent, the black-hole pupils of his eyes swallowing the blue irises. “They are navy blue,” I told him. “Your school’s dress code says black or khaki pants only.” “They told me I could wear these,” he insisted. “You’re a stupid bitch. I can wear whatever pants I want to. This is America. I have rights!” “You can’t wear whatever pants you want to,” I said, my tone affable, reasonable. “And you definitely cannot call me a stupid bitch. You’re grounded from electronics for the rest of the day. Now get in the car, and I will take you to school.” 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. That conflict ended with three burly police officers and a paramedic wrestling my son onto a gurney for an expensive ambulance ride to the local emergency room. The mental hospital didn’t have any beds that day, and Michael calmed down nicely in the ER, so they sent us home with a prescription for Zyprexa and a follow-up visit with a local pediatric psychiatrist. We still don’t know what’s wrong with Michael. Autism spectrum, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant or Intermittent Explosive Disorder have all been tossed around at various meetings with probation officers and social workers and counselors and teachers and school administrators. He’s been on a slew of antipsychotic and mood altering pharmaceuticals, a Russian novel of behavioral plans. Nothing seems to work. 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. Several weeks into his new junior high school, Michael began exhibiting increasingly odd and threatening behaviors at school. We decided to transfer him to the district’s most restrictive behavioral program, a contained school environment where children who can’t function in normal classrooms can access their right to free public babysitting from 7:30-1:50 Monday through Friday until they turn 18. The morning of the pants incident, Michael continued to argue with me on the drive. He would occasionally apologize and seem remorseful. Right before we turned into his school parking lot, he said, “Look, Mom, I’m really sorry. Can I have video games back today?” “No way,” I told him. “You cannot act the way you acted this morning and think you can get your electronic privileges back that quickly.” His face turned cold, and his eyes were full of calculated rage. “Then I’m going to kill myself,” he said. “I’m going to jump out of this car right now and kill myself.” That was it. After the knife incident, I told him that if he ever said those words again, I would take him straight to the mental hospital, no ifs, ands, or buts. I did not respond, except to pull the car into the opposite lane, turning left instead of right. “Where are you taking me?” he said, suddenly worried. “Where are we going?” “You know where we are going,” I replied. “No! You can’t do that to me! You’re sending me to hell! You’re sending me straight to hell!” I pulled up in front of the hospital, frantically waiving for one of the clinicians who happened to be standing outside. “Call the police,” I said. “Hurry.” Michael was in a full-blown fit by then, screaming and hitting. I hugged him close so he couldn’t escape from the car. He bit me several times and repeatedly jabbed his elbows into my rib cage. I’m still stronger than he is, but I won’t be for much longer. The police came quickly and carried my son screaming and kicking into the bowels of the hospital. I started to shake, and tears filled my eyes as I filled out the paperwork – “Were there any difficulties with… at what age did your child… were there any problems with… has your child ever experienced… does your child have…” At least we have health insurance now. I recently accepted a position with a local college, giving up my freelance career because when you have a kid like this, you need benefits. You’ll do anything for benefits. No individual insurance plan will cover this kind of thing. For days, my son insisted that I was lying – that I made the whole thing up so that I could get rid of him. The first day, when I called to check up on him, he said, “I hate you. And I’m going to get my revenge as soon as I get out of here.” By day three, he was my calm, sweet boy again, all apologies and promises to get better. I’ve heard those promises for years. I don’t believe them anymore. On the intake form, under the question, “What are your expectations for treatment?” I wrote, “I need help.” And I do. This problem is too big for me to handle on my own. Sometimes there are no good options. So you just pray for grace and trust that in hindsight, it will all make sense. 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. When I asked my son’s social worker about my options, he said that the only thing I could do was to get Michael charged with a crime. “If he’s back in the system, they’ll create a paper trail,” he said. “That’s the only way you’re ever going to get anything done. No one will pay attention to you unless you’ve got charges.” I don’t believe my son belongs in jail. The chaotic environment exacerbates Michael’s sensitivity to sensory stimuli and doesn’t deal with the underlying pathology. But it seems like the United States is using prison as the solution of choice for mentally ill people. According to Human Rights Watch, the number of mentally ill inmates in U.S. prisons quadrupled from 2000 to 2006, and it continues to rise – in fact, the rate of inmate mental illness is five times greater (56 percent) than in the non-incarcerated population. 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 healthcare 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.” I agree that something must be done. It’s time for a meaningful, nation-wide conversation about mental health. That’s the only way our nation can ever truly heal. God help me. God help Michael. God help us all.
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I do think the most productive way to deal with this may be to find better ways to identify, diagnose, and treat mental illness, as well as remove the stigma associated with treating mental illnesses. I know that’s a long road and not the only solution that’s needed, and that even the options for how to treat these illnesses are controversial, but perhaps this incident is enough to shake us into taking this stuff seriously.
I don’t know what is the “best” solution. However, mentally ill Adam Lanza almost definitely would not have shot up the elementary school if he didn’t have access to a closet full of guns registered to his mother.
Ah yes, the “let’s spend a sh*t ton of money to go aroudn the problem” instead of the cheaper let’s simply ban guns.
Who said anything about a “sh•t ton” of money?
Who said anything about “instead”?
Learn to read, dude.
And “let’s simply ban guns” is clearly overkill here. Regulating them is appropriate, but an all-out ban probably isn’t necessary. You don’t see this happening (or at least not to this extent) in places like Canada and Switzerland.
So “find better ways to identify, diagnose, and treat mental illness,” is going to work? How exactly? Are you a psychotherapist? Have you personally studied these types of people? and somehow it won’t cost society much more burden financially?
We have 10x Canada’s population and 30x Sweden’s. Law of numbers again. When population density increases, more chances of problems, argument is moot.
how about reasoning dude?
Back to iteracom’s personalized reading comprehension lesson:
“I know that’s a long road and not the only solution that’s needed…” means that the mental health aspect does not mean that other approaches can’t be done too. Including - perhaps, as you suggest - banning guns. That’s an extreme step that I don’t feel comfortable taking until other avenues have been explored.
Awareness campaigns are not necessarily expensive. Early signs and accessible mental health is not necessarily expensive, because a lot of people who are already involved with these peoples’ lives might be able to benefit from a little bit of additional training.
The suicide rate is 2x the homicide rate, and that includes homicides that are not gun related. A large number of suicides are related to depression and mental health (try reasoning, dude). And remember, most suicides are of people who have families, many have children that are deeply affected. Better mental health treatment is potentially very very valuable and can save many more lives than just 26 kids plus those who went to watch Batman.
That’s what I meant when I said “think the most productive way to deal with this may be to find better ways to identify, diagnose, and treat mental illness.” Gun control probably does play an important part in the solution, but dealing with these other drivers may well be the most productive thing to do.
And banning guns? Is that necessarily cheap? These rules have to be enforced, you know.
Wow
For those of oyu who weren’t watching. They just interupted MOnday Night football for 20 min to cut to teh pres speech in Conn.
20 min of him talking about needing to do soemthing about theses massacres and the meaning of life
…fcking awesome
^‘Sunday’ Night Football.
Pats aren’t looking so hot either.
What did you say bitch?
^Damn. Still a loss, but that was impressive. Goes to show that there’s no such thing as ‘running up the score’… you never know… damn yo… dizzzammm, that was nutz…
^hahaha
Here in Seoul, the planet’s second largest metropolis, with 25 million people jammed together…
We don’t have guns, we don’t have drugs and we don’t have fear so thick you can reach out and touch it in the atmosphere. Therefore I’d say you can study what exists in mankind’s various societies and learn what works, and what doesn’t work, and adopt what works. [idea]
But I think the US is way past adopting any real change at the fundamental level (family, a culture of respect, good diet, no guns, decriminalize prostitution). So you’re going to keep having a bunch of stressed out guys, malnourished, with attention deficit disorder, who are being disrespected every day, and getting pissed about it more and more every day, and not getting laid, AND you have all these guns laying around. The result is inevitable.
See Michael Douglas “Falling Down”, the guy totally loses it for no real reason, just the constant build up.
Which means it’s only going to be about treating the symptoms: go more police state on everyone, more therapy, more drugs to keep people sedated. Grim…
But isn’t it just the dog chasing it’s tail? I’ve seen so many people on FB posting about how more mental illness treatment and therapy is needed. But why isn’t anyone asking WHY are there so many mentally ill people in the US? I mean in any country there are a few unbalanced people, but jezus in the states whoh. Combine that with guns, you get what you get obviously.
Lack of attention and lack of feeling of “being loved” could be the major reasons for this… Each of us have to ask ourselves, (and this is for everyone around the globe, not just the US) Do we spend enough time with our kids? Do we give them enough “time”? The time has to be given without a mobile in hand or a tv being switched on. And then listen to what our kid has to tell us…
Unless we do that, each family does that, we will not stop seeing these kind of atrocities around the world…
And just like treating a disease, where we stop the result from spreading before we kill the cause - we need to the same here as well. Stop licensing guns and how easy is it to get the guns back which are already licensed? Difficult YES, but definitely needed!
For a moment when I read the news about connecticut, I felt that I could be better of if the Mayan calendar stuff was true and the world ends on 21-12-2012… How could a man even think of killing a kid, leave alone 20 of them!!!
^ I’m with this dude. And why did some school teacher lady have an M-16 assault rife LOL.
Not to be picky, but it couldn’t have been an M16, likely an AR15. Non-gun people confuse them all the time.
haha sooo condescending
Are you makign the argument the US has the most stressed, malnourished, ADD people, who aren’t getting laid in the world?
Also I’m not aware of anybody who has changed their lifestyle or lived in fear after ?200? people out of 300 million have been randomly massacres over the last decade.
I really doubt that the US is less stressful than South Korea. There are probably fewer mass shootings in South Korea because 1) Asians tend to internalize their problems, and 2) South Koreans have no guns.