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My heart goes out to the folks in Newtown, Connecticut
13 years ago
"MORELS taste good in omelettes..."
In my morning perusal of some of the activist sites I watch, I came across a breaking news story of the sadness that happened in Newtown Connecticut this morning, literally within a mere few hours of it happening. Reports are still coming in, but there is an estimated 27 dead or injured, many of them children. Supposedly, the shooter has been shot, but there are rumours of a second killer. If anything changes, I'll post an update.
Whatever the final toll is, however many shooters there were, or if there was only one, doesn't matter. What does is how sad this whole thing is, and so close to the holidays, too.
My condolences to the families of all involved, including the one who did this- this person obviously needed help, and no one knew enough or seemed to care enough to notice they needed it and so this person ended up doing something so tragic.
Will our society grab a clue, already, and learn the signs of severe mental illness, and see that the person gets the medical attention they need? The stigma needs to go the frak away, so does the fear of it. Avoiding the person only makes things worse, whether our avoidance came about because we'd been rebuffed by the ill person, or because we're afraid of them, or are just made so uncomfortable by their pain- however much we might sympathize- that we are left foundering as to what to say or do. Mental-illness is scary. No bones about it. It's confusing, it's disturbing, it makes us uncomfortable to think that our minds can be so fragile. But it can be treated. If we learn to pay attention to something other than our own narrow concerns, learn to care about our health- all of us, even the "outcasts", then maybe things like this would happen less often.
Mental and emotional pain is a community problem; it affects all of us when someone needs help, whether we like it or not. Perhaps the effect diminishes with distance, but the effect is still there. Butterfly creating a hurricane...
Anyway, enough of my soapbox ramblings; my heart goes out to the families and the first-responders who had to suffer this (none of them were hurt, I believe, but seeing this kind of thing is still traumatic), and perhaps as something to do for the holidays, hug the nearest and dearest close to you, and hug those of us who are mentally-ill, too; sometimes, just reminding us we matter to someone will keep us more solidly in reality and maybe keep us away from the guns.
[UPDATE] I found this brilliant blog article this morning (Sunday, December 16), and it says exactly what I was trying to get at, only so much better than I could: http://gawker.com/5968818/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother
Seriously, fuck gun-control, let's do something about our collective mental health!
In other news; I learned not to trust the CNN news-feed. It was so full of misinformation and contradictory bullshit, it was difficult to find out what actually happened. It was fucking laughable how many times those idiots had to retract and update their errors. Oy.
Go to the Huffington post, if you have a fast net-connection (their site has great articles but is so full of cookies and bad script, it crawls like a freakin' slug for me) for good stuff.
Anyway, final death-toll so far is sitting at 28: that's 20 children (poor mites), six teachers (including the principle of the school), the shooter, and his mother. There was no second gunman. Adam was alone. His brother, Ryan, was brought in for questioning, and the silly-season the news feeds was having with erroneous info had him variously as the original shooter, not Adam, had him dead, had their father dead, had the mother at the school (dead), that she was a teacher there (I don't think she was) and all kinds of lunacy.
Here's the data: Adam Lanza, age 20, long history of mental-troubles, a highly-intelligent kid who was possibly on the Autism Spectrum (Asperger's), forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary carrying two weapons, which he then used to destroy the lives of twenty seven people. There was a third weapon, a rifle, but he'd apparently left it in his mother's car (her car being his transport was probably what had people thinking his mother was at the school).
Other info; so, yeah, it seems that I was right and Adam Lanza had a long history of mental illness and a troubled mind. I don't know what his mother went through, having to handle his issues, or what she did to try and help him, but read the "I am Adam Lanza's Mother" article- the person who wrote isn't actually his mom, but she has an extremely bright, mentally-ill son who is violent, and very disturbed to the point of claiming he'll commit suicide if he doesn't get what he wants, and has even attacked her, variously with fists and at least once with a knife. She makes a strong case for bringing our health-care system into a more enlightened era, especially in the matter of mental-illnesses like her son's. She knows that he is a definite candidate for going for a nice stroll through a school with an automatic rifle, and it terrifies her. Further, to make the whole thing even more tragic for the poor woman, the doctors have yet to figure out what the fuck is wrong with her kid. READ IT.[/UPDATE]
Whatever the final toll is, however many shooters there were, or if there was only one, doesn't matter. What does is how sad this whole thing is, and so close to the holidays, too.
My condolences to the families of all involved, including the one who did this- this person obviously needed help, and no one knew enough or seemed to care enough to notice they needed it and so this person ended up doing something so tragic.
Will our society grab a clue, already, and learn the signs of severe mental illness, and see that the person gets the medical attention they need? The stigma needs to go the frak away, so does the fear of it. Avoiding the person only makes things worse, whether our avoidance came about because we'd been rebuffed by the ill person, or because we're afraid of them, or are just made so uncomfortable by their pain- however much we might sympathize- that we are left foundering as to what to say or do. Mental-illness is scary. No bones about it. It's confusing, it's disturbing, it makes us uncomfortable to think that our minds can be so fragile. But it can be treated. If we learn to pay attention to something other than our own narrow concerns, learn to care about our health- all of us, even the "outcasts", then maybe things like this would happen less often.
Mental and emotional pain is a community problem; it affects all of us when someone needs help, whether we like it or not. Perhaps the effect diminishes with distance, but the effect is still there. Butterfly creating a hurricane...
Anyway, enough of my soapbox ramblings; my heart goes out to the families and the first-responders who had to suffer this (none of them were hurt, I believe, but seeing this kind of thing is still traumatic), and perhaps as something to do for the holidays, hug the nearest and dearest close to you, and hug those of us who are mentally-ill, too; sometimes, just reminding us we matter to someone will keep us more solidly in reality and maybe keep us away from the guns.
[UPDATE] I found this brilliant blog article this morning (Sunday, December 16), and it says exactly what I was trying to get at, only so much better than I could: http://gawker.com/5968818/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother
Seriously, fuck gun-control, let's do something about our collective mental health!
In other news; I learned not to trust the CNN news-feed. It was so full of misinformation and contradictory bullshit, it was difficult to find out what actually happened. It was fucking laughable how many times those idiots had to retract and update their errors. Oy.
Go to the Huffington post, if you have a fast net-connection (their site has great articles but is so full of cookies and bad script, it crawls like a freakin' slug for me) for good stuff.
Anyway, final death-toll so far is sitting at 28: that's 20 children (poor mites), six teachers (including the principle of the school), the shooter, and his mother. There was no second gunman. Adam was alone. His brother, Ryan, was brought in for questioning, and the silly-season the news feeds was having with erroneous info had him variously as the original shooter, not Adam, had him dead, had their father dead, had the mother at the school (dead), that she was a teacher there (I don't think she was) and all kinds of lunacy.
Here's the data: Adam Lanza, age 20, long history of mental-troubles, a highly-intelligent kid who was possibly on the Autism Spectrum (Asperger's), forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary carrying two weapons, which he then used to destroy the lives of twenty seven people. There was a third weapon, a rifle, but he'd apparently left it in his mother's car (her car being his transport was probably what had people thinking his mother was at the school).
Other info; so, yeah, it seems that I was right and Adam Lanza had a long history of mental illness and a troubled mind. I don't know what his mother went through, having to handle his issues, or what she did to try and help him, but read the "I am Adam Lanza's Mother" article- the person who wrote isn't actually his mom, but she has an extremely bright, mentally-ill son who is violent, and very disturbed to the point of claiming he'll commit suicide if he doesn't get what he wants, and has even attacked her, variously with fists and at least once with a knife. She makes a strong case for bringing our health-care system into a more enlightened era, especially in the matter of mental-illnesses like her son's. She knows that he is a definite candidate for going for a nice stroll through a school with an automatic rifle, and it terrifies her. Further, to make the whole thing even more tragic for the poor woman, the doctors have yet to figure out what the fuck is wrong with her kid. READ IT.[/UPDATE]
*huggles*
It makes me think... How terrible is the world going to be in the future?... It sickens me...
When I found the report on the civil rights site I was nosing about on, my jaw hit the floor. What scares me even more? There have no less than three attempted copycats in other states. And some loser called in a bomb-threat to a church in Newtown... *cries*
I'll tell you how terrible the world will be: if we don't get ourselves off the petroleum teat, the addictive gladiator games we call our entertainment industry and get back to loving what is real in our lives, we will kill ourselves... and everything else on this rock. I'm only being slightly sarcastic, sadly.
It was just on when I got home, after overhearing it from someone.
No, the real source for this kind of thing is untreated mental-illness that gets ignored or goes stealth in the person's behaviour to the point where we don't notice in time that the person has a serious problem. So many of us are in dire need for competent healers and therapy. So many of us in dire need of simple validation: something to tell us we matter and have us actually believe it. Too many of our young folk are growing up thinking their thoughts, their actions, their wants are not worth noting, and they hate it. Too many people with mental problems are being shunted out into the street to become the next generation of homeless weirdos who stumble through their miserable lives talking to themselves. Or into the prisons, where they merely rot in the system that doesn't give a flying fuck about them as people.
The only reason that stupid 2012 bullpucky is even on your radar is because there are people who believe in it and who hype it. Or, unscrupulous "infotainment" purveyors who know it plays well and makes them money to air that shit. Hell, NASA had to create a fucking web-page debunking the damned thing because they were getting worried emails from young kids who were scared of it, likely because some moron in their family either is yanking their chain (or worse, believes it themselves), they found it on the Net (and we all know what lunatics live on those conspiracy sites), or they've been watching too much of the so-called History Channel and it's ridiculous coverage of that idiocy.
It is things like this that make me rage that schools no longer seem to teach people simple critical-thinking skills anymore. These are impressionable young folks being fed a bushel of lies and, because they have been taught not to question what they read (it's in a book, so it's gotta be true, right?) or to question what adults tell them (how many home-schooled kids do you think there are who are being fed Apocalyptic bullshit from Fundie parents right now?), they don't have any way of knowing what is true and what isn't. No discrimination-skill set at all.
So, yeah, chuck that theory in the round-file, hon. It doesn't fly. Occam's Razor: the simplest explanation is the most likely to be true. 2012 apocalyptic fears versus simple untreated mental-illness? I know which one I'd vote for as the reason for why these tragedies are happening more and more often. We are a very ill society, sadly, and we stigmatize the mentally-ill, legitimize other types of mental-illness (religious belief), and encourage violent acting out in virtually all of our so-called entertainment. Doesn't read like a recipe for good mental-health.
I have a theory of my own as to why we're going in this direction, but it would take me forever to type it out, since the damned concept is thesis-length, and has to do with the collective traumas of two world wars (and how they affected our grandparents, and how they in turn, treated their children), the "dehumanizing" of the "enemy" so we can commit horrendous acts with a semi-clear conscience, Korea, then things like Vietnam (more traumatic experiences that coloured a fuckton of people in my generation's lives), then things like the Gulf Wars, 9/11, the War on Terror, and so on. Add in the military contractors who are making so much money from ALL sides, that it behooves them to encourage a climate of constant war so they can KEEP making that money, add in the really BIG corporations who give us our petroleum, pollute our planet (through us and how we use their products- it's not all their fault, after all), advertising that tells us our lives won't be complete without the latest model of shiny new gas-guzzler.... and on and on and on... Multi-layered, and going back generations...
Yeah,there are a lot of reasons why there have been more of these tragic shootings, but the hype or belief in the Mayan Long-Count calendar ending the world foolishness isn't one of them.
When it comes to trying to help someone who's so far gone they are contemplating using a machine gun on a crowd, I'm not even sure how wise it is for those of us untrained to try to help them, and I doubt we would know how or be able to give them what they need. For those not so far gone, showing compassion and directing them towards help is definitely a great thing and I've seen lives turned around by it.
Another safety net that needs dramatic improvement is the system that allows guns to be sold to people with no mental health screenings and often no screenings at all. That goes double for automatic weapons.
People tend to react to this kind of thing with great sadness and see it as some sort of tragic accident, but there are reasons that it happened and things we can do to stop it in the future. The world doesn't have to keep deteriorating unless we sit back and let it.
As for the "untrained" trying to help their ill family-members or friends, maybe it's time we all learn some of the basics, so we can at least know when something is falling apart for the individual. I think of it as a kind of mental First Aid certification. I'll be the last person to advocate anything like a thought-police, but, knowing what to look for when a loved one's behaviour turns so sour as to worry you, might help to prevent more tragedies like this from happening. Part of the problem of dealing with mental-illness like this, beyond the fucked up system we have where we give all our money to the very people who need it least, is the awful stigma mental-illness carries. We ostracize the troubled and sick, we mock them, avoid them, fear them and marginalize them into living under bridges and in cardboard boxes. It's fucking criminal.
People's reactions, while full of sadness, have also been fucking VILE in their demands for violent reprisals on a man already dead. They ignore the fact that he was sick, Yammer on about how he was "evil", and yell all the more for either more gun-control laws, or for more guns. They'll make comments like "he should be put in a room with the parents and a selection of torture instruments and let them at him". It makes my stomach turn.
The only other family that has been mentioned is a brother, but I haven't heard what, if any, involvement he had.
There's been a suggestion (on the news station I listen to, anyway) that the mother was a strict, perhaps overbearing person, and he may have been on bad terms with her (or even snapped because of it.)
This whole thing is just so sad, and it only points up how much of a failure our medical-system is that shunts the mentally-ill onto the streets, where they too-often end up as homeless wanderers talking to their fairies, or into prisons, for fuck's sake, instead of treatment...
My news source is KNX, which is usually reporting CBS news items
I don't know how accurate CBS has been on this one, but I could check on it (for my own info). >^___^<
A country that parades itself as world police and kills innocent children all the damn time, eschews health and mental health as luxuries or commodities to be traded back, and all the while actively promoting a culture of heroism/freedom through brute force via guns produces this as it's ONLY outcome, ever.
I have no sympathy for that, even for the dead.
Like you, I rage at any child being harmed. I will never breed, but I'm extremely protective of kids, so I understand your feeling on this, I think. Just not the blind-spot regarding the killer: he was barely out of childhood himself. People like him and the acts they commit are a symptom of many of the things you describe, but also of the awful way we treat our mentally-ill, and that needs to change... *hugs*
I have a good memory for interaction... I remember from an early age(kindergarten) and even still now, all around us, constantly being "reminded" that america is always right.
THAT has to stop first. Then we can really change as a country.
What happened was horrible on both ends, but until we change the way our country works as a whole i'll continue to lack sympathy for these events. Ignorance, Ignore-ance and brute force breed these problems. When America wakes up, pays attention, and stops fighting... then this will give me hope for them.