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....
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.
December 16, 2012
"I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother.
"I am Jason 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."
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166 comments:
I'm every woman, it's all in me!
With all those people as her children, it's a pity she wasn't Medea.
@Palladian Read the details of her story. I think she doesn't deserve ridicule.
Would the father write that?
I was in law school in the late '70s, and my wife was a psychiatric social worker at the Austin State Hospital. That was when the conservatives, who wanted to save money, allied with the liberals, who wanted the mentally ill to be free. The result is much of the homeless problem we have today plus the mass killings we sometimes see. We need to find a better way to deal with the mentally ill.
Women write and read too damn much. Which brings about the dilemma Palladian notes.
The verbosity of women is as much a negative as it is a positive. Women read and write way too many tear jerkers. This leads them to believe that their tear jerker stories are true. Women assume that if they write or read some tear jerker, their empathetic response is proof that something actually happened.
This leads to the publication of atrocities like this one.
Sorry, but the list of mass murderers line deserves ridicule.
I am Spartacus!
According to Mother Jones...
Well, nice to see she's done her "research".
Is prison the solution of choice, or is criminal due process the only legitimate means of state-imposed involuntary incarceration?
And if you try to separate the criminal from the insane for treatment in the penal system, the dilemma is you're going to find a lot more criminals claiming "mental illness" , aren't you?
I'm with Palladian & ST here. Ridicule away!
I think this article is terrific and underscores the need for a discussion about how we treat the mentally ill in this country. So many of these so-called "gun tragedies" are truly mental illness tragedies. How can we continue to ignore that?
She's right, but the libertarians here will go apeshit.
She wrote what was needed. Few who lived or worked with these people grasp the enormity of the situation unless they read such details.
I work with a woman whose son has repeatedly threatened to kill her, and he's o unlike the son written about in this piece.
It's possible to read a monster into what the author writes about her son but I can also see "opportunist" in the mom. A freelance writer looking for a big hit.
And why is it that the paternal circumstances in these stories are never material--never factually reported?
Wow! That's powerful. I appreciate her writing it. These kinds of issues are complex. Simple-minded solutions probably just add to the problem.
Not functioning on a very high level this morning, are we?
Kind of reminds me of the old cartoons of an ostrich with his head buried in the sand and his other end exposed to public view.
This is a powerful piece of writing. Thank you for sharing it.
She's right, but the libertarians here will go apeshit.
Yeah, sorry, we apeshit libertarians tend to get a little touchy when everyone starts talking about how peachy it would be to bring back government-run institutions where people can be locked away, medicated and have their brains fried based on someone's denunciation and the consent of any quack with a "psychology" degree.
I know, we're "funny" that way.
Eric Harris's parents were cold, indifferent people who paid little attention to their son.
IMHO the saddest part is that the other children have to have a safety procedure when the one kid goes off. Their childhoods are being ruined because of their sibling. Don't they deserve to have decent if not happy childhoods as much as if not more than their mentally-ill-but-also-very-manipulative brother?
"But it seems like the United States is using prison as the solution of choice for mentally ill people."
Missed at least one.
Yet in a prior thread you endorsed the use of medications for these same disorders, calling it "science".
Who do you think prescribes those drugs?
I think there is something needed for mothers like this. One time, along time ago, a father would be that thing, and it would usually be effective, but the approach needed would get the children taken away by Children's Services today. The standard approach when I was a kid, was to be sent off to some military school or camp where discipline ruled, and it usually worked.
Regardless, we now have what we have, and I think parents do need some way of controlling an out of control child. Because of our collective desire to take children away when they are disciplined, we now have to provide some alternative. Only the government will be allowed such power, and it will always be the normal government cluster fuck of a result, so we're screwed.
Some kids are just bad. I had a friend as a child (single mom) that would treat his mother like a battered spouse. I remember seeing him chase her around a field with a motorcycle, terrorizing her, because she did something he didn't like. She was scared to death of him. As a teenager, he did some of the vilest things to people just for laughs. I avoided him at all costs. I don't know what ever happened to him, but I can't imagine that a number of people have not paid dearly for his failure as a human being. I wish his mother had had an alternative to living with him.
She has an obligation to protect the public as much as she has an obligation to protect her son.
Mocking this woman is petty, and proves her point that no one cares about this until he commits a violent crime.
This is where libertarians are wrong. And unnecessarily insulting.
The Lefties always can use another constituent group and people with mental problems can be used to spend more tax money and vote (ya hear how the Demos went into group homes, herded up all the mentally challenged people, drove them to polling places, and talked them into voting for Der Fuhrer because only he could "save" them?).
Put tham away and you lose that.
Hysteria.
@Palladian
Perhaps there is something between today's total lack of care resulting in incidents such as Friday's and ignoring the topic.
I never thought libertarians were so devoted that they felt ignoring a problem was the best solution.
The article was originally published by the blogger(s) at "The Anarchist Soccer Mom". She claims four children, but only documents three children in the story about Michael. There doesn't seem to be a husband in the picture.
Her son is 13, and has a social worker. Most of my friends snapped at 18 to 20 years of age.
Another article praises her father who flew med-evac choppers instead of combat. He could never fly combat. He was too good of a man.
I'm getting more than a whiff of life-of-julia scent.
The woman suffers a living hell.
I can't help but wonder, though. Where is the father?
mainandbroad.com said...
I can't help but wonder, though. Where is the father?
It must be some unspeakable horror which can't be broached. The woman is a living "every-Julia" and men have been factored out.
Violence is not the only problem.
I had a personal experience once with a compulsive con artist from a very respectable family.
The last I heard of him he was going to jail for having conned the Wedgewood China factory into making a very expensive set of gold-trimmed dinner service for the Danish royal court.
No money in it for him in that one; just the joy of conning other people.
But, of course, people did get hurt in some of his other, more malicious, scams.
Perhaps there is something between today's total lack of care resulting in incidents such as Friday's and ignoring the topic.
I never thought libertarians were so devoted that they felt ignoring a problem was the best solution.
What problem? It's a statistically rare occurrence.
If there's any problem, it's herding children into State-run facilities that offer no armed protection.
The other problem is turning crimes into gigantic teet-gnashing, garment-rending grief orgies and media spectaculars.
While the mother depicted in the piece was to be lauded for coming forward, it appears that she is in the process that Nancy Lanza was engaged in - that being trying to get help for the boy that was short of institutionalizing him.
Monsters need co-enablers. Lanza had one in his mother. The mother in this piece is in process of creating one as well.
Just this one thing about all the current practices, the drugs. the "counseling" etc. They don't work. Other than that it's all good.
We need to UNdo the current legal standard (imminent danger) for committal of the mentally ill. I have a ton of sympathy for parents in this situation. However, it stops at the point where they insist on protecting the poor dears after their other children are threatened, assaulted and even killed.
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.
From the article. Is our penal system any better than that of a 3rd world country?
I knew a kid a lot like that in elementary school. It seemed like he had to be forcibly removed from our class almost daily. And yet, he's turned into a completely normal adult.
In order to have the conversation, we have to first invest in the research to distinguish between people who are weird (or going through a weird phase) and people who are actually dangerous. These killings are great evils, but it would be a widespread horror if people could be locked up across the country just for being weird.
From the article. Is our penal system any better than that of a 3rd world country?
Yes, I've seen prisons in the Philippines.
Basically, prisoners are just thrown away into horrific dungeons. Eating the prison food could kill. Relatives either bring food every day or bribe officials to provide a decent diet.
Individual prison cells rarely exist. Prisoners are thrown into a common pit, and they live in their own shit and piss.
Maybe there'd be more time and resources for treating psychotics if we cut back a bit on treating totally normal children who we get out of our hair with over-stimulating electronics and then want to make sit peaceably in chairs at government institutions all day.
American prisons are like country clubs compared to 3rd world prisons.
Care to go to jail in China or Mexico?
"According to Human Rights Watch, the number of mentally ill inmates in U.S. prisons quadrupled from 2000 to 2006"
I doubt very much that any such thing actually happened. The prison population has not changed that much. More likely the standard used to define mental illness increased the number without the actual population changing at all. Or Human Rights Watch just made it up. A group like that always inflates the problem they are fighting, and a dramatic increase gets attention.
The problem is real and important, but when they lie like that, it diminishes some people's desire to help them. I guess that is probably a small number compared to how effective the lie is at furthering their efforts. So, is it wrong to lie about such a thing?
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....
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.
Maybe "Michael" would benefit from a stay in juvenile hall, the ultimate "chaotic environment."
@AprilApple Eric Harris was a sociopath. Even with the most loving, warm parents, you can't cure that. Read "Columbine" published I think in 2009. The real story is quite different than the media narrative.
"In order to have the conversation, we have to first invest in the research to distinguish between people who are weird (or going through a weird phase) and people who are actually dangerous. These killings are great evils, but it would be a widespread horror if people could be locked up across the country just for being weird."
Beautifully said. I think it is very important for everyone to remember just how very far off the charts this murderer was, by any standard of "normal" in our society. I know he isn't the only one, but it would be heartbreaking if we started reading "potential mass murderer" into behaviors of difficult children. We'd better have some damned conclusive evidence before we start making moves like that.
mainandbroad.com said...
The woman suffers a living hell.
I can't help but wonder, though. Where is the father?
Not sure, but I think you just broke the code.
I've been reading some of her other blog entries. Her husband dumped her several years ago and remarried within a month.
At least, that's what she claims.
Someone yesterday talked about the cycle, two weeks in, get medicated, then several weeks out in which meds aren't taken, recurrence of symptoms and back in. In-patient care at least ensures the meds are being taken. As a civilized intelligent society we should be able to come up with a system that isn't as draconian as in years past and yet provides longer in patient care.
Perhaps provide counseling to parents on how to keep their house free easily accessed guns and not to teach the sick son or daughter how to use them?
To advocate for the status quo is to continue to see these types of mass murders, single murders and the ill being murdered by others on the street.
The problem is real and important, but when they lie like that...
At least for me you haven't established that they've lied. All you've done is said that they lie.
:That was when the conservatives, who wanted to save money, allied with the liberals, who wanted the mentally ill to be free. The result is much of the homeless problem we have today plus the mass killings we sometimes see. We need to find a better way to deal with the mentally ill.:
The conservatives had nothing to do with the theory that mental illness a]was a :social construct: and that the mentally ill were just different. This whole movement came out of the "Resist Authority:" strand of leftist activity. Those were the people who occupied Columbia and who started the "Free Speech Movement" at Cal.
Conservatives were happy to save the money spent on mental hospitals, sort of the equivalent of the "Peace Dividend" in the 90s.
This was a movement from the left back in the days when the left was fixated on freedom. The left has switched to control as it got power.That is all.
Jana - There is no doubt Eric Harris was a sociopath. He had weapons and bomb making paraphernalia in his bedroom and his parents has no idea.
Palladian said...
Sorry, but the list of mass murderers line deserves ridicule.
============
Sometimes your gay snark hits the mark...like with the massive Theater of Grief we all know is coming, with the Healer in Chef basking in the camera lights in front of acres of soggy Teddy Bears and puddled candles...
But this time you miss the mark.
The deinstitutionalization of dangerous crazies has meant that we have basically dumped the whole job on mothers. With, if the Mom is lucky, with "trained medical professionals" who might see the psycho once a month and are forbidden to tell society if they are a public safety risk or not, thanks to HIPAA. Even witholding some stuff from parents, under law, if the psycho is over 18.
This woman's essay is a big wake up call.
had no idea..
I read some reports on Nancy Lanza. Some are saying she she was some sort of homeschooling survivalist who had 5 or 6 guns and was stockpiling food, and she took her mentally ill son to firing ranges.
Did she get sucked into all that from blogs like Instapundit, and then gravitated to the survivalist web sites he sends so much traffic to - those sites that tell you how to prep for the coming economic collapse - as well as other right-wing media nuthouses that Drudge promotes, such as Infowars and Glenn Beck?
Those sites now seem to be saying the solution is to arm our kindergarten teachers. Hell of a country you envision there, right-wingers.
Oaf - You forgot to blame Sarah Palin.
Palladian said...
Sorry, but the list of mass murderers line deserves ridicule.
============
Sometimes your gay snark hits the mark...like with the massive Theater of Grief we all know is coming, with the Healer in Chef basking in the camera lights in front of acres of soggy Teddy Bears and puddled candles...
But this time you miss the mark.
The deinstitutionalization of dangerous crazies has meant that we have basically dumped the whole job on mothers. With, if the Mom is lucky, with "trained medical professionals" who might see the psycho once a month and are forbidden to tell society if they are a public safety risk or not, thanks to HIPAA. Even witholding some stuff from parents, under law, if the psycho is over 18.
This woman's essay is a big wake up call.
Another sad aspect of this is that she has now outed her son, who is just entering the difficult teenage years. She apparently uses her real name on the blog and her son's real first name can be found in at least one earlier entry.
If the son is anywhere as smart as she says he is (or even not nearly that smart, since she claims he's a genius), he is going to find out about this. And of course, so will people in his community who might not be all that nice to him.
I feel for that mother. Her cry for help is where our collective listening should be. Fucking liberals will make it about guns. But these kids are sick and mothers who are their caregivers need help.
BTW, does Obamacare have any help for these mothers who appear to be single? (yeah, where are the fathers? I keep asking that question.)
But these mothers and single women will get their much needed free contraceptives, right? under Obamacare. You know, war on women and all that jazz.
Pogo said...
Mocking this woman is petty, and proves her point that no one cares about this until he commits a violent crime.
Just to be clear, her story does make many valid points. I mocked her "research" source because it is so highly ideological, which I interpreted as imbuing her with a degree of sanctimony about "the system" that allowed her to ignore the very real societal trade-offs with respect to individual liberty and prison management interests.
I would not mock her individual predicament or feeling of helplessness.
How do you get rid of a monster kid who reaches adulthood but can't function well enough to support himself?
A young woman can get herself knocked up and enter into the generous prize package of government support programs.
The government doesn't mind doing that, but won't for a single young man who doesn't have children and isn't pregnant.
A diagnosis? Try and win a disability rating with Social Security and get him on SS and SSI? Without a work history, would he have enough credits to get any disability payments?
I have a nightmare nephew and military school was too expensive. College helped because he was out of the house. He graduated and is back home, using drugs and alcohol, refusing to look for a job.
How do you shove the little bird out of the nest?
The Nature show a few nights ago featured a scene with a mama leopard and two four month old cubs. They were in the ravine at the stream, drinking and playing. Then the herd of baboons started moving in. Mama and one cub got up the steep cliff and got away, but one cub didn't. I had to change the channel, I couldn't watch...I was really upset and not ready to watch the widdle baby die.
Mama and sibling leopards knew the other cub was having a hard time making it up the cliff...but to go back, they would endanger themselves.
Nature's a bitch.
Leave behind the weak, to experience natural consequences of their weakness?
LoafingOaf said...
I read some reports on Nancy Lanza. Some are saying she she was some sort of homeschooling survivalist who had 5 or 6 guns and was stockpiling food, and she took her mentally ill son to firing ranges.
Of course, that's what set him off.
Being exposed to guns.
Did she get sucked into all that from blogs like Instapundit
My god, if Oaf thinks Insta is a survivalist blog, he needs to stop living such a sheltered life.
Or stop letting Kos and Puffington tell him him what to think.
Parents shouldn't be splitting up, and they especially shouldn't be if they have children with major behavioral issues.
(I assume I don't have to lard this up with all the usual qualifiers about abuse. Have we yet reached a point where that can be assumed?)
If you're the mother of a killer, or pre-killer, your kid deserves to be locked up already. One locked up kid means 20 alive innocents.
Well, there you go, that's an easy solution, let's just lock up all the "pre-killers". Great.
When I was in seventh grade I moved to a new school where I had the misfortune of resembling the previous victim of middle school cruelty. I immediately took his place. I was daily tormented by a a band of "cool" kids, and after two years of it, I was nearly suicidal. I finally told my dad, an elementary school principal, about my pain. My dad told me to fight back physically. I had eschewed this for years, sincerely believing that fighting wasn't the answer. After that, if somebody pushed me, they got punched. One kid threw a basketball in my face and I chased him down and beat him up. Things improved steadily after that. By the time I was a senior, I was "cool", and my tormentors were fading into obscurity.
I go into autobiography to make a point. If a kid fights today he is suspended, and there is no "self defense" plea. A repeat merits expulsion. The world of school children has been feminized to the point that kids like I was are submerged in victimhood, never to surface again. My father, God bless him, understood human nature, something today's educators have no place for.
"At least for me you haven't established that they've lied. All you've done is said that they lie."
I don't have any proof, but I suspect that's only because I'm lazy. You need to be more skeptical if you believe there are suddenly (in 6 years) 4 times as many mentally ill people in prison than before. How would that happen, and why? The prison population is pretty stable: some can't leave, most who do, return shortly. There is no reason why the newcomers would be overwhelmingly more mentally ill than the ones already there. The new inmates would have to be near 100% mentally ill cases to make that kind of change to the population numerically.
They simply used a new standard. I'd bet on it. But hey, that's just me talking logic, not some official group putting out a study.
Tyrone, The solution your dad offered is what has saved thousands of kids for centuries decades from a life of weakness and passivity. It's now mostly history, and the country will depend more and more on the few who buck the system and resist the "pacifists" who use force and threat to bully those who stand up for themselves. Even the bullies are better off when their victims stand up to them, and the general population is much better as a community. We are being ruled by weak fools, who resort to bullying in the name of reducing bullying. I'm glad you had a real dad.
Pogo,
Few who lived or worked with these people grasp the enormity of the situation unless they read such details.
You mean like when a wife repeatedly goes through "spiritual" hysterics, until she finds some quack charlatan who endorses her "beliefs," and - after they kill someone - is allowed to leave her husband, no matter what he says, rather than get treated (thank you, no-fault divorce laws) only to kill two more times?
Gee, my experience indicates, when people read about something like that, it only invites ridicule,...
I agree, blaming guns, the last thing in the chain of events that lead up to the shooting, is not going to stop this from happening again, just change the weapon.
---------Another article praises her father who flew med-evac choppers instead of combat. He could never fly combat. He was too good of a man. -------
This is an extremely ignorant statement. Medevac pilots fly in combat. That's their mission. They fly WITHOUT WEAPONS per a the very abstract geneva convention. Some would say takes even larger cajones. They are certainly good men, they put their lives in jeopardy for the wounded but combat pilots put their lives at risk for their comrades too.
If this one woman was the mother of all those mass murderers, perhaps she should have got herself sterilized.
No seriously. What if in response to proposals for gun control, the proposal is made for mandatory sterilization of the mentally ill, so they can't reproduce, and then cull the herd for the ones that slip through?
Another Action T4 program could have great benefits for our society, and reverse the Idiocracy track we're on.
It would prevent most rampage killers from existing, or existing long enough to harm the rest of us.
(Of course I am not serious. Feel free to throw a Godwin penalty flag.)
Carrie, knives, rocks, etc. aren't as deadly to as MANY in the same amount of time. With a knife he wouldn't have been able to shoot his way into a locked school.
Parents shouldn't be splitting up, and they especially shouldn't be if they have children with major behavioral issues.
Freeman Hunt, this is the point I have tried to make with all my comments associated with this event and others like it. They need each and other and the children need them together.
Look out Ol' Crackie's back!
Hugs, dude. Missed you.
Oh, and the metric works like this:
The greater the enormity of the situation, the greater the passion, equals the greater ridicule received.
As it currently stands, when it comes to madness, everybody plays a part.
Everybody.
I'm learning to enjoy it, myself,...
Sad commentary of the effectiveness of school 'gun free' zones. Do note there were LOTS of guns there, after the tragedy. No one screens about them being there, right? And not a one of the did any killing, right?
Now it turns out the mother of the nutjob BOUGHT THE GUNS he used to kill her and the others. And she also took him to the gun range! He had known mental illnesses and she did that.
He was rejected when he tried to buy his own guns. So how is 'gun control' gonna stop that?
We need nut control, not gun control.
Crack. "as it currently stands, when it comes to madness, everybody plays a part."
No, they dont. This is new age bullshit thinking in a can.
Great article. Parents with children like the one in the linked story do need a better alternative and understanding. If we must have another "national conversation" let's have an honest one. Some people are born psychos and they create constant emotional upheaval and chaos in the life of their families and in the rest of society. Nobody wants to acknowledge the problem, especially the family which has probably been bullied and manipulated from the inside for years. Just in general, this is a very private matter. Mental health professionals are reluctant to communicate the exact nature of the problem to the family, and actually cannot do so after the age of majority. Also, this is not a no-husband problem or a matter of bad parenting. I know a man whose youngest kid who was completely out of control growing up. The man is now in his 80s, his wife has passed, and the kid is in his 40s, still making this good old man's life a living hell. This man and his wife had two other children; both are professionals, mentally balanced, successful and leading productive lives.
Inga, with a bomb he could have blown up the whole school. And then there are IEDs,molotov cocktails, and any number of other lethal ways to kill people other than knives.
In the age of media bias, I do want to raise this question. So this woman and her blog favors the left which is why if you look at all the other blogs that carried her post are lefty (and she makes a point of how her insurance covers this thing). She does say don't talk about gun control but talk about mental health (first). I wonder if she was a righty blog, would the lefty blogs echo her plea for help?
The guns aren't going anywhere, they are made all over the world, and you can make you own in the garage. They will always be available even without a second amendment, and even if banned. These things happen most where gun control limits guns almost exclusively to criminals. Gun control is a discussion for those un-serious or dishonest about finding an actual solution, if one is even possible.
Guns are not the cause of these rampages, but they sure as heck facilitate a greater kill count--achieved more swiftly and with lesser effective defense--than would blunt instruments or edged weapons.
Freeman,
"we have to ... distinguish between people who are weird (or going through a weird phase) and people who are actually dangerous."
Not so sure these are mutually-exclusive sets. I've known more than one person who's making it as an adult who was dangerous when they were going through their "weird phase".
Robert Cook: You could say the same thing about war, comrade. Human nature ain't changing that much.
Have you ever thought about the deaths that came from the belief in ideas that have clearly proven so destructive to human life these past few centuries.
You know, the ones you still believe in?
There's no way of knowning how much of the blog entry is "truth" and how much is exaggeraton or selective story-telling, but the comments are telling. A number of "that's my situation, too." A few "I was that kid; happily I grew out of it." Some "here's a group/treatment/doctor who could help" (don't know if they're legit or quacks). And a few "your kid is perfectly fine, you're just a bad mom."
"Every year, an average of 9,200 Americans are murdered by handguns, according to Department of Justice statistics. This does not include suicides or the tens of thousands of robberies, rapes and assaults committed with handguns.
This level of violence must be stopped."
Reagan....1991
Yes Carrie true. I did consider that also. But guns are much easier to get when your mom has a fascination with them and it's much easier to learn how to kill when your mom takes you to the shooting range. It's the ease of access I'm talking about.
I don't however think anything we can do will, in the way of limiting gun access on the street, make a difference in daily gun violence. As I said yesterday and the day before, I'm at the point where, since we are a society rife with guns, fight back and teach teachers how to use guns and require hem to carry them holstered at all times while in school. Increase armed security in all venues in which large groups of people gather.
We are an armed nation we may as well look like one and it may safe some lives. I'm not however saying that it's right and just that we have created such a society.
In Israel they have armed guards everywhere because they need to have protection from their enemy, here in the States, WE are each others armed enemy. That's not right is it?
Safe=save
Pogo said...
She's right, but the libertarians here will go apeshit.
Lazy and incorrect. This is a difficult issue and libertarians struggle with the correct answer for the same reasons everyone else does. Anyone suggesting there's some solution libertarians are uniquely opposing is welcome to share it. Without that your argument is essentially that libertarians oppose pretending an elixir of unicorn horn shavings is the solution. Libertarians are certainly guilty of that, although I suspect most others are as well.
I have a cousin who is somewhere on the autism spectrum. Jobs are almost out of the question, he's very dependent and it's very, very difficult for him to form relationships based on his missing social cues and the minds of others. Life is hard for him, despite very high intelligence. Life is harder for his family.
Some of these kids become violent and I truly sympathize with the parents of those kids. Life is very hard for them, too.
Let's not forget the real victims, who are the children who lost their lives. I would gladly risk my life and accept the life of a cop or citizen willing to do the same to take Lanza out before he did the deed.
We all have a stake in this, clearly, but I refuse to allow the current political winds which favor serious abridgement of personal liberty to be the guide.
More promises that we can control such behavior with laws, big daddy gov't, tax payer money and a kind of secular moralism and the right political class.
No thanks.
My own experience growing up was that I was faking normalcy. I've later discovered that that was most people's experience. Civilization, such as it is, is a shared fantasy.....It's good to hear from Crack. He doesn't plug into the Matrix. Perhaps he's got his own Matrix going, but, for all that, he can sometimes see the true shapes and not the shadows on the wall.
I'm sorry this woman's life is so hard. There but for the grace of God go I, maybe. I'm thankful for my family genes, or maybe child-raising acumen, or both.
Someone upthread noted how the siblings are being completely robbed of a childhood. But because they seem normal -- I wonder if they get the help they need. Or are they also ticking time bombs.
machine said...
"Every year, an average of 9,200 Americans are murdered by handguns [...]
This level of violence must be stopped."
Reagan....1991
That level of violence HAS been stopped. Steadily declining since 1991 when Reagan spoke those words. 6,009 murders by handguns in 2010.
One theory: would-have-been criminals after 1990's had been aborted in the 1970's.
I am breaking my long silence to comment on this. I have a son with Fragile X Syndrome, a genetic disorder that features mental retardation and autistic tendencies.
At one time, after he accidentally injured his younger stepsister, I wondered if I would have to institutionalize him. It was really heartbreaking, I knew he did not mean to hurt her, but he just didn't know how to control himself & I felt I needed to protect her and others.
Fortunately, with counseling, appropriate medication, and the "mellowing" that comes with maturity he is now pleasant and safe to be around. If he had normal intelligence and the same emotional tendencies I don't know what he might have done. I just thank God every day for his doctors and how much they helped us.
I grieve for the families of the dead and those who care for children with mental illness who must make such difficult decisions. It is so hard to separate the human being from the disorder and make the right decisions for everyone involved.
I am breaking my long silence to comment on this. I have a son with Fragile X Syndrome, a genetic disorder that features mental retardation and autistic tendencies.
At one time, after he accidentally injured his younger stepsister, I wondered if I would have to institutionalize him. It was really heartbreaking, I knew he did not mean to hurt her, but he just didn't know how to control himself & I felt I needed to protect her and others.
Fortunately, with counseling, appropriate medication, and the "mellowing" that comes with maturity he is now pleasant and safe to be around. If he had normal intelligence and the same emotional tendencies I don't know what he might have done. I just thank God every day for his doctors and how much they helped us.
I grieve for the families of the dead and those who care for children with mental illness who must make such difficult decisions. It is so hard to separate the human being from the disorder and make the right decisions for everyone involved.
I heard that headline in Helen Reddy's voice too.
There is an unwelcoming prison type institution a few miles from my parents home that takes up a whole section and possibly even more. There are broad areas around it where the razor wire isn't tripled. Fencing all around with signs that say
KEEP OUT
NO TRESPASSING
and a
lot'a
lot'a
lot'a
lot'a
lot'a other words
Which is like an invitation for us to go fishing in the lake over there. Had to be fish with all those ducks and we never saw anyone around. But nothing.
We knew all along the place is for boys. Bad boys. Mind warpingly bad boys. The kind of boys you cannot do anything with. Like us.
It was a very thin line.
So I Googled the name of the childhood friend I described up-thread who terrorized his mother and a lot of other people as a kid. As an example, he would come to your house for a party or something, and piss in your shampoo bottles in the bathroom. Once he crapped in a friend's frying pan, and let it heating on the stove. He actually felt bad about that one, and later returned to clean it up.
Google found him on mugshots.com, with a long rap sheet, and a full head of gray hair. A lot of criminals have a full head of great hair. Apparently, part of his adult M.O. continues to be to crap in houses he robs. Frankly, I'm very surprised he only committed robberies. He was a scary kid.
My hometown has produced a lot of lowlifes, and an incredible number of my friends as a kid ended up criminals, or drug addicts, or both. I feel like one of those people who missed their airline flight only to have the plane go down. Lucky, Lucky, Lucky.
Like with the statement from the killer's father yesterday, this mother's article focusing on the plight of folks with twisted kids isn't such a good idea at this time.
Right now, we should be sitting shiva for the little dead ones.
I just realized, I can show you!
Wanna see it? The bad boy prison, we broke into to fish the lake without even having a license?
google earth
[kipling and quincy]
It's the institution thing amidst broad open area including lake Henry so I learn from google earth.
That's just asking for trouble innit?
No Lydia, we, or at least some of us, should be discussing this, while it's fresh in our minds. It's too easy to put something like this on the back burner inbetween incidents.
But I respect that some grieve differently, for those of us able to discuss what just happened, it's a healthy way of processing it.
"In Israel they have armed guards everywhere because they need to have protection from their enemy, here in the States, WE are each others armed enemy. That's not right is it?"
No it isn't, because WE are not the enemy. They (criminals) are. WE are, for the most part, not allowed to carry guns, so WE don't. They (the enemy) can do whatever they want. Our response has been to disarm ourselves. That works about as well here as it would in Israel, and for the same reason - the enemy will kill them, and the less armed the citizens are, the more readily they are killed. Is this really a hard concept to grasp?
Chip, you broke into a federal prison to go fishing? That is hardcore.
Usually, Anarchist Soccer Mom gets a half dozen or so comments on her blog. But with this "I'm raising a serial killer" entry, she's getting over 800. Whatever works.
Scrolling down the ASM blog, you see the previous column she wrote about this son. "My son is driving me crazy," she writes, and I expect to learn more about the sort of unhinged, possibly monstrous behavior of this future mass murderer. No such luck. Instead, it turns out that she has written an Erma Bombeck style piece about how her son doesn't clean up his room.
So it turns out this son who doesn't clean up his room gets real upset when he can't wear the clothes he chooses. The school forbids a benign behavior (wearing navy blue pants) and thus sets off a chain reaction. The kid gets upset, the mother overreacts to the kid and tells him he can't get his video game fix, the kid goes ballistic, the mother sends him to a psycho ward, and the kid gets a really bad attitude. It's easy to tell who is crazy in this scenario, and it isn't the kid.
Bagoh, until and unless you can lock away all the criminals before they act, they ARE a part of our society. Hence the WE.
Federal Correctional Institution Englewood. There's a red sign in front. Must have converted it to one after.
And Bagoh, I'm not advocating anyone disarming themselves, unless perhaps they have a crazy son who lives with them.
Inga, let me amend that to "Right now, they -- the father of the killer and the mother of the troubled son -- should be sitting shiva for the little dead ones."
Not the time to call attention to their woes.
Lydia..
Right now, we should be sitting shiva for the little dead ones.
Maybe, but if we fail to understand what produces the monsters then we will be sitting shiva a lot more often. Personally I'm for action instead of hand-holding and weeping.
chickelit said... @ 10:15
Would the father write that?
Hey chick -- see a father's perspective -- he was told the same thing this mom was -- his kid (a college aged kid) would have to commit a crime (which he eventually did) -- and then in jail there was no treatment.
But the kid refused treatment. So -- when can -- and/or should the state ever -- mandate treatment?
Talk about a civil rights mess. Guns are easier to deal with.
It's easy to tell who is crazy in this scenario, and it isn't the kid.
We take what she says at face value but in this (Internet) age of fakes and frauds, it is difficult to see where the truth lies.
Chip - I could be mistaken, but isn't that the prison where Blago is biding his time?
@The Minnow Wrangler It is so hard to separate the human being from the disorder and make the right decisions for everyone involved.
So true which is why people give up on mental health issues. My best wishes to you and your kid. Hope there is all the support you need out there.
"As governor of California, Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act, which prohibited the carrying of firearms on your person, in your vehicle, and in any public place or on the street, and he also signed off on a 15-day waiting period for firearm purchases. After leaving the presidency, he supported the passage of the Brady bill that established by federal law a nationwide, uniform standard of a 7-day waiting period for the purchase of handguns to enable background checks on prospective buyers. He urged then President Bush to drop his opposition to the bill."
Right...Reagan was pro-gun control...acknowledged.
The Palesistinins living in Israel are also part of that society, but that doesn't make being armed less sensible, but rather more. What matters is what you are prepared to do, if they decide you should not be part of their world any longer. If you know there is a threat, and the cost of not being ready is severe, then not being prepared, is inexcusable.
No school full of children should be gun free, ever. You wouldn't leave a flock of animals totally unprotected with wolves running loose. These are our children we are FAILING to protect. We won't even try if it means doing something that scares the most squeamish among us.
I have no doubt that armed staff would be the solution we moved to if enough children died. How many is that?
Machine,
Being a lefty, you are having a little trouble understanding the right and the libertarian. We don't worship our leaders. When they are wrong, they are wrong. Reagan was wrong.
Hiya Crack.
How ya doin?
Bagoh, even as a lefty, I would have no qualms about shooting and killing someone who has come into my grandchildren's school to massacre them and their classmates.
So Inga, you are in favor of having school staff armed?
Sheesh Bagoh, didn't you read my comment?
See 1:53 PM, I also said the same thing yesterday and the day before.
Yes, we must all carry AK-47s...all day, every day.
It is the only way to preserve the safety of our citizens...more guns...everywhere.
Settled....
Yes, we must all carry AK-47s...all day, every day.
It is the only way to preserve the safety of our citizens...more guns...everywhere.
Settled....
Was anyone besides you advocating that straw man? This is why liberals are not helpful to the discussion.
Nope Machine, just in places that are the favorite venues for mass murderers, especially when large numbers of children are present. I hate guns, but it appears we live in the OK Corrall. I'm a fighter, it's time to fight back. I won't allow my grandchildren to be vulnerable where they should be safe.
I'm serious...if we all carried guns the world would be a safer place.
Sorry Inga, no I didn't read that. That's why I asked.
I'm sure you understand my surprise, usually you're nuts.
Thanks Bagoh, I'm nuts because I'm a liberal who thinks for themselves? Whatever.
Inga - unlike conservatives who need Rush Limbaugh to think for them right?
"I'm serious...if we all carried guns the world would be a safer place."
It's got to be better than just letting the bad guys have them, which is all restrictive gun control accomplishes.
Ask yourself: if everyone can get a gun now, which they can, what stops some people?
Why is nobody asking what is so toxic about American public schools that is churns out these mass shooters?
Alex, the murderer was homeschooled at least for several years.
Inga - are you telling me the mother was a Republican gun-nut?
Nope.
Including the Elementary School Children's Militia....arm the Children for safer schools!
Inga - the point is crazy was all around this guy. There's almost no point trying to analyze it.
Machine, sorry but my grandchildren's safety comes before my politics. The gun ownership genie is out of the bottle, no way to get him back in. There are so many guns in this country, we've reached critical mass and it's time to fight fire with fire, so to speak.
Good times in the OK Corrall! Yahoo.
There is one family who reside in my neighborhood who remind me of this mess. The parents are angry sociopaths and they are raising 2 angry sociopath teenaged boys. These people feel entitled to their anger and they are revenge seekers. Their entire lives revolve around seeking revenge. The revenge seeking is a family affair. Anyone who understands this about them, and many neighbors do, stays the heck away from this family.
(background: I live in a very liberal area with nice liberal neighbors. However, this family is hardcore Mother Jones left. They own guns. Did I mention they are sociopaths? Yeah. They are.)
I happen to know another mom in the neighborhood who befriended this particular family because she wanted her son, who is the same age as the 2 boys, to have friends. It didn’t take long for her to realize she made a huge mistake. (and much, but not all, of my knowledge of the situation comes from her inside information ) She witnessed some pretty odd and awful stuff. I too have witnessed some oddly abnormal things and have heard too many stories from numerous neighbors to not hold this opinion.
The police have been called on numerous occasions for various reasons.
I safely (and sadly) predict one or both of the sons will end up in prison someday. Perhaps even the father and/or the mother – who are both scary in their own right – will end up in trouble, too. I am certain of it.
I also wonder what "Michael's" dad thinks about this, now that the boy's real name is easily discoverable and his mental illness is all over the internet.
According to one of the mom's previous posts, they have 50/50 custody. Wonder what "Michael" is like with his dad? One of her posts describes how the boy falsely accused the dad and step-mom of physical abuse and then was very upset when his father reacted coldly to him in court.
And now their dirty laundry is all over the internet rather than just on an obscure blog that hardly anyone read. What posseses to people to put the sordid details of their lives online for anyone to see? Yikes.
Adam Lanza didn't have a good time at the school in Newton. Of all the people described in the article I bet he would have, on a typical day, had the least serious mental illness diagnosis. The Atlantic had an article the other day about upper class girls having a less stressful time in middle class schools than in upper class schools. The idyllic Newton wasn't idyllic for him. I wonder if he wasn't initially put down by peers in kindergarten. At some point too a teacher may have slyly cooperated with this; so his thought was 'even the teacher!' You know it was a day or two before that we had the shooting in Oregon. Do you recall a reporter breathlessly asking someone who left the mall, 'Did you see anyone being carried out?' In terms of banning things, I'm up for banning CNN. This case does suggest an association between suicide and the desire to murder. 'Knowing yourself' may be better than expressing yourself.
Thing is I was bullied right away in middle school, but I was pulled out after a month to be private/home schooled. If I had to endure 7 years of that I have no idea what would become of my mind.
Every day I thank my lucky stars that my child was not a problem child. I would see parents having to deal with some terrible behaviours and children who verged on the edge of sociopaths.
I think part of the issue is parenting. Parenting is HARD. You hope you are doing it right. Sometimes it is inept and in some it is done terribly terribly wrong.
The other part is likely genetic or inborn. I know people don't want to think that there are people who are just bent, evil or bad. But it is so.
My child was a pleasure and joy [most of the time.....man...those hormonal teenage years....whoooeeey]. I'm sure I made some mistakes, but all in all it has turned out well. I see her being a great mother to my grandchild. I would like to say it was all ME....but part is genetics and family traditions and family culture.
What would I do in the author's position? I don't know. I'm not going to dump on her for being a single mother [I suppose since there is no mention of a father] since I was a single mother for some time too. I do know that it sounds like things have gone out of control and she needs help. She isn't getting any.
In past years, she would be able to or would have learned to discipline her child before things got out of control. Today. Discipline is a bad word and even the mildest of punishments might send you to jail. So instead....she raises a animal.
There must be some middle ground between ...nothing, no help, ignoring the problem ...or...let the kid/young adult hurt someone so they can go to jail.
Mental help does not mean a recreation of The Snake Pit, nor it is incarceration and lobotomies. However, there does need to be some protective measures in place so that innocent people are not locked up for "help" when their only problem is being non conforming, inconvenient or easy political targets.
It's possible to read a monster into what the author writes about her son but I can also see "opportunist" in the mom. A freelance writer looking for a big hit.
And why is it that the paternal circumstances in these stories are never material--never factually reported?
Why would you think this isn't factual. Her story is like a dozen similar stories I hear from parents each year. This kid sounds like he has multiple issues, the worst being one of the personality type disorders, coupled with a sensory disorder. In Canada and the US there just is not anywhere for these kids and no-one, that I'm aware of, is planning residential and therapeutic options for them.
I've worked in this field for 30 years and I'm stunned at the rise in these types of disorders. No one is prepared to deal with either the kids or their families. It's a huge problem and parents like the Mom wrote this story will do anything to help their kid, but except for the local mental health unit there isn't anything. I have no idea what the answer is as their disorders are so complex and no one way of dealing with them works.
Last weekend I received a call from the local mental health ER asking if my agency would provide support to an 18 year old who was going to be discharged within 24 hours. No planning, no nothing, just the hospital desperate to clear the bed. FAS, abandonment disorder, personality disorder, sensory disorder, indiscriminate sex when out in the community, lock up sharps, no heavy hand-held objects, the list went on and on. This poor kid whose life has been one of continual abandonment, and incarceration in one form or another, stated that her current goal is to have a baby!
Thankfully she did not fit in the vacancy we had....but then again, where would she fit.
What posseses to people to put the sordid details of their lives online for anyone to see? Yikes.
Utter desperation is why. Writing about it is the only thing she can do.
This was very powerful reading. It did not provide an answer, but certainly identified a problem.
It also was a pretty gross violation of her son's privacy [unless maybe the names were changed -- I did not check).
Beau, do you have any theories on WHY these disorders are on the rise? I suppose some of it is an increase in diagnosis, but that can't explain all of the rise, can it?
http://www.salon.com/2009/03/26/bauer_autism/
Another one of those first person "dangerous son" stories. From what I've read, Connecticut does not allow involuntary commitment even for observation.
I've spent much of my life dealing with the crazy people in my family. Mostly they age out of being a big problem (though they still suffer) or they die or they kill themselves.
Reading these topics I get the impression quite a lot of Americans are unaware of how intractable serious mental problems are and how much hell other people are living with even in a country as civilized as ours.
@Freeman Hunt
Federal Correctional Institution Englewood, current home of one Rod Blagojevich.
Between 1994 and 2004, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994: The Federal Assault Weapons Ban prohibited assault weapons.
Number of Murders by Firearms, US, 2009: 9,146
Weapons Firearms
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
10,158 10,225 10,129 9,528 9,146
Petunia said...
Beau, do you have any theories on WHY these disorders are on the rise? I suppose some of it is an increase in diagnosis, but that can't explain all of the rise, can it?
============
Don't think they are, except for autism and Downs, which are respectively associated with men and woman breeding later in life than was the case in the past.
The Right-to-Life anti-tax goobers will HATE this...but resolving this will either mean higher taxes to beef up mental health options..or working the technology and research hard to get to where we can detect and abort the autistic and schizophrenics before they are born.
Which is what is being done now to largely eliminate the huge burden on families and society of Down's baby costs.
The RTL conservative goobers can rant all they want about Nazi eugenics and Blessed Babies of Jeebus all they want of they oppose that method of fixing the problem....so long as they reject Grover Norquist and demand higher gummint taxes for supporting the "troubled" babies of Sweet Jeebus and for gummint watching them so they don't do more massacres.
Beau,
"I've worked in this field for 30 years and I'm stunned at the rise in these types of disorders."
Any speculation (or, better yet, actual analysis) as to whether that's just enlarged diagnosis, or an actual increase in incidence of symptoms?
Cedarford, your 7:42 is vile and evil. No matter your smartness, which I cede, you are a fucking idiot.
"The Right-to-Life anti-tax goobers will HATE this...but resolving this will either mean higher taxes to beef up mental health options..or working the technology and research hard to get to where we can detect and abort the autistic and schizophrenics before they are born. "
Well being such a goober myself, I think you don't know what your talking about as usual. I would support both things, but don't accept your premise that taxes need to be raised. Mental health care should be one of the things that other government spending gets sacrificed for. Know-it-all ratchet pawl goobers might disagree.
I would support ending pregnancies in the first trimester if such defects could be detected with high certainty. I would also support research to accomplish that detection ability. Since I support abortion for any reason in the first trimester only, this is not a problem for me. I am pro-life in the third trimester including after a rape. Saving the mother's life would be an acceptable reason for aborting anytime, assuming it was really necessary.
I'm surprised at your response, Bagoh. I mean...
"and abort the autistic and schizophrenics before they are born."
Did you really think this through?
There is no test for schizophrenia. But there is treatment. Just no way to verify a diagnosis.
"I would support ending pregnancies in the first trimester if such defects could be detected with high certainty"
We'll be well traveled to the Stars before this happens.
But besides, autism isn't a deal breaker. Why the hell would it it ever be.
As for schizophrenics, hell, I'm one myself. Though I've led a good, useful, and responsible life overall.
It's the fucking academics that have screwed things up. Making beds for themselves.
"Did you really think this through?"
Yes, for a long time. Like I said, I support a right to terminate a pregnancy for any reason in the first trimester, but would make it a serious crime in the third for any reason other than saving the mother's life. In the middle, I say a really good set of reasons could be OK, like serious birth defects, not schizophrenia, but more serious and untreatable physical defects that make for a miserable life of suffering.
I don't believe conception = a person. I see a long seamless process starting with nothing and becoming everything. We have to pick an arbitrary time to say no, and I think three months is it most of the time, and that's stretching it.
Okay. That's a clearer thought, and one I mostly agree with. But also, mostly disconnected with the one which surprised me.
Don't take it personal, I get drunk, work up the nerve to comment. Not always well.
I guess I should have been put away, or better, aborted.
Except, from my experience, that would not have been optimum, for other folks.
It's cool Xray. I'm glad you asked me to clarify. I wasn't clear enough when I responded to Cedarford. I was really just verbally throwing a bottle at him.
The trouble is, like all well meant laws, it can be abused. When is a teenager troubled, and when is he just being a teenager?
I can't but think of a popular song from the early 1980s called "Institutionalized" about this, played on MTV all the time. Describes the abuse of the mental health system before Reagan made those cuts.
Yes, a crazy shooting up a school is terrible. But what's worse is the government locking up thousands of people who have never harmed anyone, ruining their lives.
Any speculation (or, better yet, actual analysis) as to whether that's just enlarged diagnosis, or an actual increase in incidence of symptoms?
My impression there is an actual increase in complex disorders. I think the 'autistic spectrum' and sensory disorders include everyone. It's just where you fall on the spectrum and how well you cope with what you have. Most of us know our quirks and the things that cause us to bite our tongues or turn away before we become overly irritated and snap at the person scraping their plate or chewing too loudly.
What I do find scary though, is parents with little or no capacity to parent, raising kids who clearly have personality disorders, lack the ability to have compassion and empathy for others. These kids are frequently on the borderline of an intellectual disability with an IQ around 70. Smart enough to be street smart but unable to care for themselves living on social assistance for the remainder of their lives.
Which is what is being done now to largely eliminate the huge burden on families and society of Down's baby costs.
You are right and you are wrong. Since amniocentesis many parents who discover they are having a child with Down syndrome choose termination of the pregnancy. Down syndrome births have decreased dramatically because of this. However, there is minimal cost to society of a Down Syndrome child or adult in this millennium.
edutcher said...
My god, if Oaf thinks Insta is a survivalist blog, he needs to stop living such a sheltered life.
No, I said InstaPundit directs traffic to survivalist blogs that tell you how to prep for the coming economic collapse. And he does. Click on some of his links sometime that are related to survivalist shit and you'll see. And Drudge links to Infowars on a regular basis. What I said was true. These sites, very acclaimed on the right-wing blogosphere, direct a lot of traffic to fringe places where people think like this shooter's mom did. Sorry if you don't want to examine what the right-wing internet media is up to.
Inga,
the only reason you care about this is because of how "spectactular" it is compared to the day to day deaths one encounter everyday. We have gotten hardened to this.
If you even think MORE gun control will stop crime you are so regretfully wrong. Most gun violence is done with illegal guns bought on the black market. I'm lib, but this "activism" is nothing but delusion.
Meanwhile we will still bury the innocent.
Permanently imprison ALL mentally ill people.
And not just the violent schizophrenic either. Everyone with AUTISM, anxiety, depression, OCD, ADD, Tourette’s, Drug and alcohol addiction, Anorexia/Bulemia, any serious Phobia, and anyone who has panic attacks.
And, after that, we’ll get started on the retards.
Then, the physically deformed.
Then, the gypsies.
Then, … oh, you get the idea.
Whoever wrote the following is correct:
So it turns out this son who doesn't clean up his room gets real upset when he can't wear the clothes he chooses. The school forbids a benign behavior (wearing navy blue pants) and thus sets off a chain reaction. The kid gets upset, the mother overreacts to the kid and tells him he can't get his video game fix, the kid goes ballistic, the mother sends him to a psycho ward, and the kid gets a really bad attitude. It's easy to tell who is crazy in this scenario, and it isn't the kid.
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