"I Am Adam Lanza's Mother" a Writer/Mother with a Mentally Ill Son (paranoid, personality disorder)
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Mental health treatment in this country is deplorable. Private insurance does not want to cover it, or sets unreasonable lifetime limits, because it is a sure fire money loser. I apologoze for the metaphor. Care for mental and other chronic illness will send a private individual into bankruptcy quickly.
It's important to remember, when we want to rail against "government", that the government is us. *We* decided that we did not want to fund mental health care. We justified it in a number of ways, but it boils down to money. We saw terrible conditions in some state run institutions, and without asking ourselves why that was, we decided that these individuals would be better off in mainstream society. What the real problem was, and is, was that we never wanted to pay adequately for it. We wanted to keep plodding away with our blinders on and hope the problem would go away. Some state governors got to look like heroes because they cut that from the budget. The population of homeless skyrocketed.
And as always, the weakest among us could not stand up for themselves, and we dismissed the people who stood up for them as bleeding hearts and government employees looking out for themselves. We need to take a good long look in the mirror here. We did this.
I'm glad to see this story. While the availability of guns is a major issue, IMHO, the paucity of real options that we have most times for dealing with severe mental illness is a national disgrace. Think about it: We knew that the killers in Arizon, Aurora, Virginia Tech had severe mental problems. But society's hands are so tied there was little to be done to stop them. And let's not talk about insurance and benefits. They are usually minimal at best, and almost always short-term in nature for illnesses that may be life-long in duration. And if you're dealing with someone mentally ill and DON'T have insurance you are, to use the technical term, f**ked.
We do not yet know the extent, if any, of Lanza's mental illnesses, though it is a fair assumption that something was terribly wrong with him-- something that may have been treatable. After all, killing 6 year olds is obviously way off the charts. But I hope that this incident sparks a real national discussion about mental illness.
--How we can we ensure good mental health care for everyone over the long-term? With all the political infighting about a national health care plan, I'm not sure. Insurance companies are going to fight it tooth and nail.
--If we figure that out, will we be willing to pay for it? NO, see part about insurance companies. Besides, the govt is about bankrupt. We played, we'll pay later.
--Did we lose more than we gained when most states shut down their large mental institutions? Depends on whether you consider a class full of young children a loss. I surely do, but the bottom line takes precedence for many.
--Can we overcome local community resistance to the smaller group homes now recommended -- but often stopped by NIMBY residents?
--How and with whom do we share information about potentially dangerous cases of mentally ill people?
--When does the medical right to privacy start and stop in cases like these?
--What is the alternative to holding distrubed people for a few hours (or days) and then turning them back on the streets with little or no support? None that I now know of.
--Have we come to the point where involuntary committment should be easier and more widely used? Sure looks that way.
--And if so, how we do we proceed knowing that one of the hallmarks of most mental illness is the denial that tells patients nothing is wrong with them?
I think about all this after the Connecticut shooting because like the OP I also have family members dealing with mental illnesses, though thankfully no violent cases. But hard ones nonetheless. To an extent gun advocates are right when they say people are the killers, not the guns. But right now we seem to be in the sad situation in that we are unable -- or unwilling -- to do something menaingful about either one.
Great questions. My aunt, a retired mental health nurse, has been saying this for years and turns out she was right--really really right. How many more babies have to die before we wake up to the reality that psych drugs are not going to solve this problem? Prisons are not good substitutes for mental hospitals and there is a large percentage of mental health patients who are not compliant with taking the drugs anyway.
The thing that really blows me away about this whole thing though is that the woman had a house full of unsecured guns, and knowing that her son had severe problems. I guess she was willing to suffer the consequences for herself but didn't foresee the rest of the story and would be heartbroken if she knew.
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Originally Posted by findly185
This is a great article. Read it after someone posted this on fb. I have several family members with masters in special education and they have classes of elementary school children with special needs. My hat goes off to everyone who works with these kids. This is a problem as serious as gun control and which needs a national platform in order to be properly addressed.
I work at a large high school and could point to at least 3 students that I believe would be capable of doing this thing. All are special needs and in the interest of inclusion I think we go way too far with that form of political correctness.
I honestly feel like a ***** for blaming Lanza's mom. I feel she has been blamed and punished by 20.20 perfect hindsight. I don't believe for a second that she could have possibly predicted what has just happened in her wildest dreams. This is a tragedy at all level.
Well, personal responsibility is a foreign concept to a lot of people, after blaming the guns, mental illnesses, mental health care facilities, we still do not have a solution in term of how to solve the problem. Lot of debates, not a darn solution.
Well, in 17th century, what Lanza did is called a sin, or evil posession, now, it is called a mental illness. whatever words people use, does it really make a difference?
Can we at least all agree that an obviously disturbed individual + gun = deadly combination. No fundamental changes = children die. If this is not a wake up call, I don't know what it is.
Can we please blame lanza for what he did. Society didn't fail him, he failed society. Last time I checked, his mother got over $20,000/month from his dad as part of the divorce settlement, last time I checked, her boys were her whole life, Lanza was not a neglected or abused child, last time I checked, she paid much attention to her son and did all she could to help him. We can't blame the mental health facility of turning him down, this is a upper middle class family who will do everything and anything for this evil man. And can you please stop calling Lanza a kid, he is 20 or 21, he is an adult. He knew exactly what he was doing.
I thought the reason Lanza unleashed evil at Sandy Hook is because his mom wanted to send him to mental hospital. He did not want to be helped. Why can't we call this dude an entitled, evil ass little bastard? Oh no, he couldn't be evil, he is so young, 10 years ago, he was an innocent little child, he must be sick. We as society failed him. Blame is on us. That is what some people say. I did not fail him, society did not fail him, I did not even know him!!!! give him a pill, problem solved. I call that bull ****.
If he's truely mentally ill, he obvioiusly still knew right from wrong. Last time I checked, he only committed suicide As 1st Responders Closed In. He planned on killing everybody in that school, if he was capable. FBI profiler made it very clear that many of these mass shooters are not mentally ill, although they couldn't be thinking right.
America sent 20 children and 7 adults to grave for Christmas. Can we all agree that this has gone too far. Are you not all just sick of it? Are you not all just tired of it. Well, be honest, Do you feel safe sending your children to the malls, movie threaters, kindergarden, schools, churches? How many times do this thing have to happen, somebody will finally say, "enough is enough."
I honestly feel like a ***** for blaming Lanza's mom. I feel she has been blamed and punished by 20.20 perfect hindsight. I don't believe for a second that she could have possibly predicted what has just happened in her wildest dreams. This is a tragedy at all level."
I do blame the mom. Why would anyone in their right mind leave access to guns to an obviously troubled young man who does nothing all day but play violent video games in a cave room in the basement? And apparently this was a relatively new hobby and then she was gone for a couple of days before the shooting. It's almost as if she were willing this to happen.
I do blame the mom. Why would anyone in their right mind leave access to guns to an obviously troubled young man who does nothing all day but play violent video games in a cave room in the basement? And apparently this was a relatively new hobby and then she was gone for a couple of days before the shooting. It's almost as if she were willing this to happen.
well, it is always tempting to judge and blame somebody by using 20/20 perfect hindsight. The fact is that we don't know at this point how did this poor woman secure her guns. Do you honestly believe that she could have predicted this to happen in her wildest dreams. She's not a psychic.
She might have made poor choices, she might have been negligent, but by saying "it is almost as if she were willing this to happen" is a bit harsh and hurtful. I am pretty sure that this family taught their sons basic morals, no parents in the world would want this to happen to their kid and other people's kids. This has to be the worst nightmare for all parents. This is a woman who has her face blown off by her own son, should you at least show some compassion? Is she not a victim of this violent crime? Gun did not drive itself to sandy hook, Nancy Lanza did not drive her son to Sandy hook, Adam Lanza is to blame.
The mom is not without major blame. She has a sick child, knows she has a sick child, a child who loves and is addicted to violent movies, kill-you movies, who worships guns-violence, and what does she do---keeps guns (many many many) around the house.........takes the sick child to the rifle range to practice shooting, buys assault weapons/military style weapons and has them available for use by her sick child----the child she KNOWS is sick.... and is about to have him committed, the child who she leaves alone for a week just prior to the Sandy Hook killing with all these weapons. Who is the sicker one? Nothing like a responsible parent.
With the aftermath of this, whether she was a saintly mother or a mother that could have possibly prevented this, she will have no choice but to sell her house, pack up and relocate to another part of the country and assume a new identity. The potential, and expected, harrassment will become unendurable.
I knew the mother of a son with PTSD (having returned from Iraq) that killed 4 people in a grocery store in Las Vegas, 10 years ago, she was innocent, from all I could gather. Front that and that alone, she had to flee the state to avoid the harrassment.
tijlover, are you not aware that he killed his mother first, then went to the school and......well, you know the tragedy that occured. She does not have to worry about moving.
I was not aware that his mother had left him alone for a week, as a poster above mentioned. Where did she go?
I don't believe for a second that she could have possibly predicted what has just happened in her wildest dreams.
In a single mundane dream (not even a wild one, let alone the wildest), she could have predicted that her mentally unstable son, with access and instruction on using an assault weapon, might possibly do something mentally unstable WITH an assault weapon. That's not 20/20 hindsight. That's a perfectly reasonable expectation of a mentally unstable person with access to multiple assault weapons, AND training on how to use them.
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