Time to reflect ...

I'm taking a day off from my usual food-related posts — took yesterday off, too — because the unspeakable happened yet, again, and I'm feeling bereft for the victims, their families and our country. I find myself at a loss for words, and I'm taking a moment to share how others have reacted to the sad, sad violence that permeates our society. Yes, we need to address gun control, but we also need to address mental health and access to mental health care.

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I am Adam Lanza's Mother — Written by Liza Long, republished from The Blue Review Friday’s horrific national tragedy -- the murder of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut -- has ignited a new discussion on violence in America. In kitchens and coffee shops across the country, we tearfully debate the many faces of violence in America: gun culture, media violence, lack of mental health services, overt and covert wars abroad, religion, politics and the way we raise our children. Liza Long, a writer based in Boise, says it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness. While every family's story of mental illness is different, and we may never know the whole of the Lanza's story, tales like this one need to be heard -- and families who live them deserve our help. 

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. (Originally published at The Anarchist Soccer Mom.)
 

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After my father and brother were murdered, owning a gun made me feel secure. Now it’s time to give it up

Goldie Taylor, @goldietaylor 6:19 pm on 12/14/2012 There were four shots, one after the other. The woman next door heard men yelling. When police arrived, they found a man face down in his own blood, four bullets in his head. It was an assassination. He’d been lured to that empty house on the promise of a small-stakes card game. The sight of the overgrown weeds and boarded up windows must have set off an alarm in his head. He immediately turned back. Before he could cross the street, he was struck in the legs with a baseball ball. Pop. There was a pause, according to the witness, and then three more pops. It was November 5, 1973, and the dead man, Wyart Taylor, was my father.

Nearly 20 years later, my brother Christopher was murdered, shot in the back of the head as he lay on the floor playing a video game. Growing up in East Saint Louis, I am all too familiar with gun violence. The doors and windows off our house were covered, like a fortress, with black metal burglar bars.

I have owned a gun nearly every day of my adult life. After escaping an abusive relationship, I joined the U.S. Marine Corps where I received basic military weapons training. But my real training came at the side of my stepfather, a former detective sergeant with our local police department. Given what happened to my father and brother, I relied on the sense of physical if not emotional security that comes with owning a gun. When I was a single mother, I used to sleep on the living room sofa near the front door—my Smith & Wesson 9mm under the cushion. Until now, I had always believed that if we could deal effectively with our most pressing social dilemmas, including poverty and education, we would stand a better chance of eradicating gun violence. I believed that if we could just advance access to mental health services, people who needed help could actually get it. Poison isn’t poison until you drink it, I told myself. I still believe that. But that’s the long game and we are out of time.

By the time authorities arrived at Sandy Hook Elementary School, scores of rounds had been fired–more than 100, said one witness. In all, 26 people were slaughtered, among them 20 schoolchildren age 10 or younger. Police recovered a semi-automatic Glock and Sig Sauer 9mm. A .223 Bushmaster rifle was reportedly found in the suspect’s vehicle. The 9mm is the same kind used by “U.S. Navy SEALs, Federal agents, and numerous law enforcement agencies,” according to the Sig Sauer website. All of them are legally available. Last July, it was a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado; then a Sikh Temple in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Three days ago, it was a mall in Portland, Oregon. On any given night, it’s in the streets of American cities from Los Angeles to Chicago to Atlanta. Sadly, there is a child sitting in a Chicago classroom today who is more concerned about being shot this evening than about the lesson on the chalkboard. Last weekend alone, eight people were killed and at least 30 wounded in Chicago. In 2011, 30,000 people died by gunshot in 2011.

This is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind. The gun lobby would have you believe that if more people owned guns, the violence would diminish. Bryan Fischer, the Director of Issue Analysis for the American Family Foundation, tweeted, “… another ‘gun-free zone’ makes children sitting ducks.” “Honor the victims,” someone else tweeted. “Don’t politicize this tragedy,” another complained. Even White House press secretary Jay Carney said this was not the day to discuss gun control.

As a gun owner, I could not disagree more. It is time, right now, to confront the culture of violence in America. It is time to tighten restrictions on legal purchases and crack down on the illegal gun trade. For starters, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which expired in 2004, must be renewed. Online sale of firearms should be banned altogether and the gun show loophole must be closed. Possession of an illegal firearm carries a mandatory, one-year prison sentence. It should be ten. The lion’s share of gun violence in this country is committed with cheap, illegal handguns–the kinds of guns that killed my father and brother. The news that 20 school children were executed this morning left me speechless. And it made me think: change should start with me. I have decided to turn in my own gun.