An occasional reader had an insight into yesterday’s massacre – and my reaction – that bears thoughtful consideration:
I find your blog informative, humorous, and entertaining. But your message to pathetic losers in your Afflictions post seems out of place.
True, those people that come onto a school for the sake of taking out their anger through killing people are truly screwed up and maligned. But I would suggest that having them kill themselves as an avoidance is extreme. What they really need, what we as a society should really cry out for, is not new laws on guns, Airport-like security at schools or a call to suicide, but a more effective mental health program on college campuses.
I don’t want to sound liberally wishy washy in that everything is society’s fault, but – well this is something that we have the tools to deal with. The people that carry out this kinda thing need assistance, and college campuses have the initial tools and abilities to diagnose and begin treatment of the mental issues that lead to these incidents (provided this was a student, which isn’t always the case, but I digress). Mental health care on college campuses is often ignored and over booked.
I have experience with this very personally. Since high school (I’m now in my final term as a senior in college) I’ve been in and out of counseling for depression and anxiety. Its bad enough that I wont get to join the military, like I have wanted to for most of my life. I know that at my school the counseling center is stretched thin, and that according to my research this is common across the country.
Depression is as much an illness as AIDS or the common cold, but its one that is taboo to talk about. Mental health is almost like a third rail of college life – touch it and die. The immediate reaction is both ostracization from peers, disbelief from family and friends, and a scoffing disregard by other. I have heard people say that depression or other mental illness could be solved by “thinking positively”. Yea. Right.
I’ve never thought about shooting up a school because of my issues – but I know that someone that is capable of it needs treatment. I’ve known people who have committed suicide, and while none have been during an event like the VT shootings, I imagine the pain and suffering of the families of those individuals is just as great, if not greater, than those who just take their own lives in private.
I’ve been in bad enough shape a few times that I’ve considered suicide. It is not something that I would wish on anyone. Thank God for friends whom I
somehow forgot about in my despair that stepped in to get me the help I needed.Yes, I can see where one would wish that the misguided individuals that shoot up their schools would just skip the theatrics and jump to the end – but that is no more an answer to anything than shooting up a classroom.
As for myself, I’m stable on medication and counseling. While I won’t become a military pilot in the foreseeable future, I’m doing what I consider the next best thing. I’ll be graduating in a few weeks with an undergrad degree in intelligence studies, and I’m looking for work as a civilian in the military (or the government in general) as an intelligence analyst. I’m an air plane nut (wings, rotors, and rocket motors!) so I’m aiming at a related intel job. I figure that if I can’t be on the cutting edge, well then I’m going to do my damnedest to point that edge where it will be the most effective.
Please don’t take this as a harsh recrimination against you or your comments, just a friendly questioning. I love your blog and look forward to reading more in the future – and hopefully commenting a bit more.
Mental health resources are probably underfunded throughout the country, not just on college campuses. And I’d be happy to see mental illness recognized as what it is – an illness – without the baggage that seems to go along with it: Baggage that frankly often reveals much about the ostensibly healthy who either ridicule or shy away from the mentally ill than it does about the victims of depression and others. And no one who has not had to walk through that dark corridor can possibly imagine the pain of internal desolation. It is too easy to judge.
But I do believe there is a difference between those who are diagnosable with mental illness and those who are merely dysfunctional. The 1966 UT Austin shooter – a man himself under treatment for depression – was found to have a tumor in his brain on postmortem. But the Columbine combo of Klebold and Harris were just plain snake-mean. But for people like that, who are not ill but bad, and those who either refuse treatment or who unswervingly intend to go out in murder/suicide orgy despite that treatment my recommendation sticks: Skip to the end.
There are all kinds of tragedies. It helps no one to make a personal horror general.
Frequently people with mental illnesses like depression go out of their way to hide it, mask it – whether it’s because of the ostrascism they fear or their own attempt to “be positive and it will go away”. Or they start feeling better so they stop taking their meds. Either way – if someone is bent on hiding something from people, they’ll find a way. It’s easy to say that we should help those who show they need the help – and I don’t disagree with that one bit. But what if they don’t show any signs of needing help? What if they don’t wish to acknowledge they need help?
I know about all this from personal experiences. And you can’t help someone who refuses to be helped; and you can’t help someone who is hiding it behind a facade of smiles and happiness. You can’t always know what goes on inside someone, deep inside where no light shines.
The investigators are now saying they are having trouble finding any information on the gunman, other than his name, immigration status and major at the school. So he was a loner. Does being a loner automatically make someone suspect of a mental illness? Is that the red flag to look for?
In the end, I’m with Lex. If they are hiding it, or won’t seek help, don’t tell their friends or family and just one day snap – they should do it alone.
As one whose post-aviating profession is to investigate the aftermath of violent death, I can echo the statements of Lex and Kris. The writer of the submission Lex reprinted not withstanding, most of those who commit these acts, did nothing to seek assistance, and the “cries for help” are usually subtle at best, and often unheard or misunderstood by family and friends, if indeed they are part of the equation. By the way, suicide notes are left in only about 8% of the instances in which someone takes their own life.
On another note, if anyone watched “Good Morning America”, with Diane Sawyer this morning, you saw a perfect example of an ignorant or uncaring “journalist” searching for sensationalism amidst tragedy. She chose to confront the President of VT, less than 24 hours after the tragedy, with the demands of one student’s parents that he and the Chief of VT’s Police Department step down.
Her statements sought to sway the blame from the actions of the killer, to the first responders and the University Administration. Before becoming a homicide detective, I commanded a SWAT Team in Los Angeles. From an objective, professional viewpoint, it appears as if the VT Police Department responded appropriately.
ABC News certainly has access to any number of former law enforcement officials (talking heads) who could have provided commentary on this issue. They chose not to avail themselves of that resource, instead choosing to inflame emotions and capitalize on shock and grief.
ABC should be ashamed.
Sorry… we all have our own weaknesses that we each have to bear on our own. If we can’t summon the courage to seek help, then, I personally feel that Lex’s first reaction/solution to the trajedy is rightly justified. More so if the urge to harm children is present, then, pulling the plug on ones own life is the only honorable thing to do. While I feel empathy for what the writer to Lex has said, we all have weaknesses. And we all have reasoning to seek comfort. I’m a callous person when the outcome is 32 inocent lives. The deranged individual should have taken himself out with the first round chambered. Make no bones about it, on this I am resolute.
Bomber Guy has called it correctly on the media. Sometime in the last 25 years they have decided that mourning has to be a televised participation sport. They are professional ghouls, feeding off the dead, carrion eaters of the lowest sort. The next obligation for them seems to be alleging blame on someone, anyone, just find us a scapegoat. It also wouldn’t surprise me if these oh so caring and sincere bastards don’t find a way to blame the national government in some way for the entire mess. Sorry for the rant but I despise journalists, IMO they are the lowest life form in our society, followed close by politicians. Now I will get off the soapbox…
I understand the feelings about seeking help when one recognizes they are ill, but what if the “computer” that perceives everything is broken? The problem with mental illnes is that everyone around the ill person looks for a logical solution to an absolutely illogical problem. It is hard to recognize you are ill when you hear voices [not saying he did], because you actually DO hear them. They are visible in CAT scans and is why they are called problems of perception. If you have never been truly clinically depressed, then you cannot understand. It is human inertia and can lead to people dying of dehydration 2 feet from a working sink.
Now getting someone help in Virginia who does not want it is very difficult. 1. You must first be able to prove a history of mental illness or substance abuse. 2.You have to be able to prove imminent risk to self or others, but mind you you are limited in your ability to search based on probable cause, or they must be so debilitated by the mental illness that it could cause irremediable damage or death. My magistrates want to hear the person could expire within 24-48 hours to issue with the latter. The difficulty getting someone help with mental illness is why our jails have become the state hospitals over the past 25 years. There is a good book called “Crazy” about that issue.
…but what if the ?
…but what if the “computer” that perceives everything is broken?
Exactly. Even in something as “simple” as depression, the sufferer’s ability to distinguish between “just sad” or “my life sucks” and “severely clinically depressed” may not exist.
Different Shifty than I first thought it was………….
Somehow, the Shifty that I know would have a more harsh assesment……………………….
You have mortally offended snakes by slandering them with the names of Klebold and Harris. Better be real careful before you stick your foot in any boots from here on out.
FBL, none of those are a major depression. They are just sad, and my life sucks. We can now see the changes in the organ itself as people go through mania or depression, so there is no question it exists. Your brain is an organ and it gets sick just like the heart, lungs, pancreas etc. The problem is that the brain controls everything else. I am over simplifying, but you get the point.
The shooter does not sound depressed though. He sounds as if he had a serious thought disorder. Paranoid, delusional [false beliefs] and possibly psychotic [problems with perception of reality].