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School Shooting - Adam Lanza's Mother
Newtown school shooting - the problem is not guns, it is mental illness.
Date: 12/17/2012 6:50:54 AM ( 12 y ) ... viewed 12403 times Edit Jan 31st 2013 - see bottom for new link [thx mu-shen]
For perhaps the first time in the blog, I am copying a an posting an entire article. It is very helpfull to read about what we are facing as a nation, as the human race.
It is what Adam Lanza's mother might have been living through... he was the most recent grade school shooter and multiple murderer, in case you have not heard.
The article below is about the experience of a mother of a son who appears to Autistic, and becoming more and more dangerously violent as he gets older. There are five times more of these cases in 2011 than there were in 2005. It is an epidemic, an explosion of dangerously mentally ill kids.
The article brought tears to my eyes. I remember some struggles with my kids, but compared to this mother, it was very minor. What would I have done if her son were my son? I doubt I could have handled it as well as she did, especially if I had been living in the USA where there is so few options for treatment of mental illness.
What the article below, nor the national conversation going on in the USA now mentions, as in "the question they are not asking" is WHY is there such a huge increase in these types of mental illness? It seems that it must be something in the daily lives affecting kids, or in utero feotuses, that is damaging their brains... the brain part that allows restraint, or the part that enables "consideration of others"... something...
In my amateur opinion, albeit with a lot of reading about these things, I suspect that if it is brain damage, it comes from toxins.... some of the 100,000 new chemicals created in the last 100 years, most of which have NEVER BEEN TESTED for toxic or behavioural effects on people. Pesticides, fire retardents, food additives, construction materials... or just more of the old standards such as mercury, lead, benzene, PCBs, PVCs, POPs... etc etc.
We are awash in toxins anymore. Some accumulate in our bodies, some are passed on to our feotuses, most are simply building up in our environment after 20, 40, 100 years of being produced by the ton every year. Its in the food, the water, the air, our brains.
Another suggestion some people lean towards is the video gaming, and for sure there is a unique relationship with the brain with those video games - they are addictive like VLTs, which are addictive like cocaine - research shows that the same reward system is being triggered in VLTs and cocaine.
Perhaps it is the combination of toxins and video games, violent movies, and bad diets.
All we know for sure about all those is that the corporate empire will do everything they can to keep any negative effects from them from becoming known.... ah, there it is - the enemy is the corporation, the weapon is the toxins/etc.
Here then is the article, I found it at Alternet. More creds at the bottom.
----------------ARTICLE - "I AM ADAM LANZA'S MOTHER":
Liza Long [author]
I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother
In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.
December 16, 2012
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.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother?paging=off
Liza Long is an author, musician, and erstwhile classicist. She is also a single mother of four bright, loved children, one of whom has special needs.
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(Originally published at The Anarchist Soccer Mom.)
http://anarchistsoccermom.blogspot.com/
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* UPDATE Jan 31 2013 - mu-shen noted that another post here at Cure Zone has a video of a Doctor talking about "The Assassin of Our Youth" being the SSRI drugs.
Link> http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=2016605#i
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