An open letter,
My wife read a book which contained an interview of one of the parents of the two children who shot people at Columbine High School. In it, the mom grieved, was essentially still transfixed with guilt and anguish because, during the day of the shooting and knowing her son, she told the reporter she secretly hoped her son would simply take his own life and stop taking those of others. I don't know if everyone can comprehend the magnitude of that thought, but it is shocking to say the least, heartbeaking at its core.
The reporter also asked both parents if they had a chance to talk with their son one more time, what would they say?
The father said (emotionally), "I'd ask him what the HELL he was thinking?" An emotion I'm sure all of us can understand.
The mother said, "I'd say I was sorry." Sorry for not listening, sorry for not realizing how badly things were going for him, sorry for not being there more, recognizing more, the help he needed.
That is an emotion most of us would not recognize. Oh, we might recognize it for our son, but we also want to lash out, blame them, their illness, their parents, for the tragedies that come from dispondent depression, paranoia, bi-polar disorders, and the like. We also want to write-off the consequence as "he's just another nut...nothing you can do about that." No gun control law would have helped, bad guys will get guns. We call those who act this way "evil", we shun them because they are "a little odd", we ignore them, we pretend they do not exist and hope they'll go away.
WE ARE WRONG. There is a great deal more we can do. Not necessarily by changing our gun laws, though we need to do so (more on that momentarily), but rather by recognizing how broken we are as a society in how we handle mental health problems. Parents are, by and large, nearly powerless to control their adult, mentally disturbed children. By and large, the person must exhibit (act) in a way that clearly demonstrates a threat to society before actions can be taken. This means, they must act out violently or threaten themselves, and by then quite often, it is too late, children lay dead in a school, people lay broken in a theatre.
Equally, we provide inadequate care. Our health care system is "goal oriented," directing ALL patients toward "managed behavioral care" with specific outcome based goals. The reason is that health care insurers do not care to pay for unending care where they can avoid it AND because managing behavior, by and large, is effective for most forms of mental health. Note, I said most, I did not say all. Certain types of mental illness are chronic (such as schizophrenia, manic (bi-polar) disorders, chronic depression and narcisssm among a few). These illnesses are not corrected by "behavioral counseling" except in that perhaps, maybe, you can get them to take medicines which help for some. They are essentially permanent conditions, and our health care system does not handle those situations well at all. You cannot MAKE someone take anti-psychotics unless they can be shown to be a threat - read above - so you wait until they truly hurt something or someone. Who is to blame there, the patient - hardly, the parent - again hardly, they wanted to have their son or daughter take meds, no, it is us. It is US who ignored them, it is US who refuse to pay for better results from their care, us who allow for a dysfunctional system. It is US who do not permit the testing of people's mental state at the time of pruchasing a gun and us who prevent the filing of petitions to prevent gun ownership (the laws here are equally inadequate). No, in the case of Newtown, such laws wouldn't have matterd but for Aurora and Arizona, it would have.
We are responsible for inadequate controls on guns, we are responsible for letting horribly ill people freeze on our streets, starve in our alleys, be raped in our gutters because they have no one who will wrap them in the same blankets we wind up wrapping their victims or families of their victims in when things go horribly wrong. Most chronically mentally ill people are not violent, yet most are shunned. I have a cousin who is a paranoid schizophrenic. I have been that person who shunned someone. I was wrong, he deserves love and kindness, not isolation. Perhaps by caring, he won't feel quite so alone, perhaps I'll notice if he seems like he's reached his limit, perhaps I'll even prevent him from coming to some harm. Either way, it's the right thing to do, just as providing an environment where he can be challenged BEFORE he hurts himself, where he CAN'T buy firearms legally, are right things to do.
Lastly, and on only a partly related note, those of you who think an armed guard would have fixed things, I have two questions. Most of you are anti-government - just how much of a police state do you want, how many cops with machine guns on how many street corners? Second question, do banks with guards ever get robbed? How many of those guards wind up killing the assailants versus getting shot or disarmed? More guns has been tried, we have more than one gun per person in this country yet the violence does not stop, perhaps it's time to think of another solution. Perhaps it's time to think about limiting access to those who are bright enough to defeat defenses but ill enough they should not be given access to fireamrs. Yes, there was a chance that an armed guard might have helped, there was a much higher chance that Adam Lanza, knowing there was an armed guard, would have simply shot him too, so there would have been one more dead person, and much more likely one more dead person than any other outcome. There was an armed guard at Columbine.
But back to the point, to Adam Lanza, I am sorry. I mean it. I am sorry our society could not reach you, did not hear you or at least, could not help your mom to put limits around you.
To Newtown, I am sorry. I am sorry we do not do more to stop those who are terribly ill from hurting themselves and others. I am sorry we allow for weapons which have no purpose other than to kill LOTS of people to be purshased so easily, including by the very ill.
To Jason, I am sorry. I am sorry I did not care, didn't have time. I have attached a link to a powerful, eloquent statement from the USAToday...so that you can understand how I feel.
To Nathan, I am without words...
Sincerely,
Pat
My wife read a book which contained an interview of one of the parents of the two children who shot people at Columbine High School. In it, the mom grieved, was essentially still transfixed with guilt and anguish because, during the day of the shooting and knowing her son, she told the reporter she secretly hoped her son would simply take his own life and stop taking those of others. I don't know if everyone can comprehend the magnitude of that thought, but it is shocking to say the least, heartbeaking at its core.
The reporter also asked both parents if they had a chance to talk with their son one more time, what would they say?
The father said (emotionally), "I'd ask him what the HELL he was thinking?" An emotion I'm sure all of us can understand.
The mother said, "I'd say I was sorry." Sorry for not listening, sorry for not realizing how badly things were going for him, sorry for not being there more, recognizing more, the help he needed.
That is an emotion most of us would not recognize. Oh, we might recognize it for our son, but we also want to lash out, blame them, their illness, their parents, for the tragedies that come from dispondent depression, paranoia, bi-polar disorders, and the like. We also want to write-off the consequence as "he's just another nut...nothing you can do about that." No gun control law would have helped, bad guys will get guns. We call those who act this way "evil", we shun them because they are "a little odd", we ignore them, we pretend they do not exist and hope they'll go away.
WE ARE WRONG. There is a great deal more we can do. Not necessarily by changing our gun laws, though we need to do so (more on that momentarily), but rather by recognizing how broken we are as a society in how we handle mental health problems. Parents are, by and large, nearly powerless to control their adult, mentally disturbed children. By and large, the person must exhibit (act) in a way that clearly demonstrates a threat to society before actions can be taken. This means, they must act out violently or threaten themselves, and by then quite often, it is too late, children lay dead in a school, people lay broken in a theatre.
Equally, we provide inadequate care. Our health care system is "goal oriented," directing ALL patients toward "managed behavioral care" with specific outcome based goals. The reason is that health care insurers do not care to pay for unending care where they can avoid it AND because managing behavior, by and large, is effective for most forms of mental health. Note, I said most, I did not say all. Certain types of mental illness are chronic (such as schizophrenia, manic (bi-polar) disorders, chronic depression and narcisssm among a few). These illnesses are not corrected by "behavioral counseling" except in that perhaps, maybe, you can get them to take medicines which help for some. They are essentially permanent conditions, and our health care system does not handle those situations well at all. You cannot MAKE someone take anti-psychotics unless they can be shown to be a threat - read above - so you wait until they truly hurt something or someone. Who is to blame there, the patient - hardly, the parent - again hardly, they wanted to have their son or daughter take meds, no, it is us. It is US who ignored them, it is US who refuse to pay for better results from their care, us who allow for a dysfunctional system. It is US who do not permit the testing of people's mental state at the time of pruchasing a gun and us who prevent the filing of petitions to prevent gun ownership (the laws here are equally inadequate). No, in the case of Newtown, such laws wouldn't have matterd but for Aurora and Arizona, it would have.
We are responsible for inadequate controls on guns, we are responsible for letting horribly ill people freeze on our streets, starve in our alleys, be raped in our gutters because they have no one who will wrap them in the same blankets we wind up wrapping their victims or families of their victims in when things go horribly wrong. Most chronically mentally ill people are not violent, yet most are shunned. I have a cousin who is a paranoid schizophrenic. I have been that person who shunned someone. I was wrong, he deserves love and kindness, not isolation. Perhaps by caring, he won't feel quite so alone, perhaps I'll notice if he seems like he's reached his limit, perhaps I'll even prevent him from coming to some harm. Either way, it's the right thing to do, just as providing an environment where he can be challenged BEFORE he hurts himself, where he CAN'T buy firearms legally, are right things to do.
Lastly, and on only a partly related note, those of you who think an armed guard would have fixed things, I have two questions. Most of you are anti-government - just how much of a police state do you want, how many cops with machine guns on how many street corners? Second question, do banks with guards ever get robbed? How many of those guards wind up killing the assailants versus getting shot or disarmed? More guns has been tried, we have more than one gun per person in this country yet the violence does not stop, perhaps it's time to think of another solution. Perhaps it's time to think about limiting access to those who are bright enough to defeat defenses but ill enough they should not be given access to fireamrs. Yes, there was a chance that an armed guard might have helped, there was a much higher chance that Adam Lanza, knowing there was an armed guard, would have simply shot him too, so there would have been one more dead person, and much more likely one more dead person than any other outcome. There was an armed guard at Columbine.
But back to the point, to Adam Lanza, I am sorry. I mean it. I am sorry our society could not reach you, did not hear you or at least, could not help your mom to put limits around you.
To Newtown, I am sorry. I am sorry we do not do more to stop those who are terribly ill from hurting themselves and others. I am sorry we allow for weapons which have no purpose other than to kill LOTS of people to be purshased so easily, including by the very ill.
To Jason, I am sorry. I am sorry I did not care, didn't have time. I have attached a link to a powerful, eloquent statement from the USAToday...so that you can understand how I feel.
To Nathan, I am without words...
Sincerely,
Pat
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