December 16, 2012
Thinking the Unthinkable
Anarchist soccer mom on having a violent, mentally ill son (via Corey Robin):
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.
Posted by Robin Varghese at 02:28 AM | Permalink
Comments
As a consultant to the St Louis County Juvenile Court when Judge Noah Weinstein presided, we saw scores of children like this.
Funny the mom does not mention a dad.
Read Lee Robinns. classic Deviant Children Grown UP.
Posted by: Félix E. F. Larocca, MD | Dec 16, 2012 6:25:54 AM
I believe that to publish this story is so absurd it is discomforting. To explain my point I will try to make an analogy: when a boy who suffer from paraplegia behaves like a boy who suffer from paraplegia, there is nothing perplexing, so, logically, nobody publishes that kind of story. But, most surprisingly for me, this story has been published. Even more surprisingly, it's subject seems to be how horrible is to be the mother of an autist, rather than of how horrible is to be an austist.
Please: keep in your mind the fact that mentally sick persons *are* persons. They think, they feel. And, most sadly, they suffer what in my opinion is the worst of all the disabilities as, being their mind damaged, they will never experience life at it's full glory, as any other disabled can do.
I think it's a good thing to show respect for the mentally disabled. One can do it easily just by realizing how severely restrictive is a life lived when the mind isn't healthy, and how extremely privileged one is for not having won that lottery. The did.
Posted by: Juan | Dec 16, 2012 10:03:01 AM
I read this article very carefully last night. It is just agonizing. A few ideas occur to me.
"Michael" needs a diagnosis. He doesn't need social workers and probation officers and school officials tossing ideas around as to what's wrong. Michael needs a thorough medication review -- no one can be sure whatever he's on isn't making him worse.
If Michael is somewhere on the autism spectrum, his mom may be able to get him into a residential school for troubled children, quite a few of whom are as intelligent as he is. She needs an appointment with a lawyer who is thoroughly familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act. I hope her article, which has certainly gone viral, will inspire people with expertise to reach out to her. If she is a single mother with four children and a job, she needs more help than she's getting.
The home life she describes is too full of risk to her other three children, not to mention to herself. I understand that she wants to protect her brilliant, endangered and dangerous boy, who may never find the exactly right place on earth, from a punitive and degrading environment, but it's just as important to protect her healthy children from the environment of fear and stress they now inhabit, and as things are she cannot do that. For all her bravery and all her talent, and all her mother love, she cannot hold down this situation, and the title she chose for her post shows that she knows this.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 16, 2012 10:36:29 AM
Where is the dad, you ask? In my case, daddy is with the sweet young thing that he left us for...
I don't know the stats, but I believe that a lot of dads walk and leave mom holding the responsibility for the kid.
Money is tight, but we manage. My 28 year old is heavily medicated, and hasn't been truly violent in 2 years. Her mental illness and mental limitations make life so difficult for her. Yet, I always worry that one day she will, again, snap. I just hope she takes me out first.
Posted by: Energy not saved | Dec 16, 2012 11:40:41 AM
Please understand that, if you haven't experienced what this mother is going through, you really need to watch how you judge her/her child. In my field, I have seen very good parents taking care of mentally ill children. They do what they can, & reach out for help, only to have their hands tied due to the limitations of medications, treatment options & how we rate someone as a threat, finances, room for these kids in hospitals, and the law.
I praise this mother for starting the dialogue that needs to happen... we do need to talk openly about the realities of these things, so we can come together and support the people dealing with it, and give them the resources they so desperately need.
Posted by: Licensed Counselor | Dec 16, 2012 12:52:01 PM
Licensed counselor, thanks for making a good point. For several years, I worked in the crisis facility in a residential school for children at risk, not least from themselves. Their way was paid by the Mass Foundation for Children. In a better funded day, the kids I met would have been long term patients in a hospital, or in juvenile hall -- and that is not my opinion, but the raison d'etre of the school where I worked. I certainly saw some success stories among those 11 to 18-year olds. They were surrounded with helpers who had high skills and big hearts. The adult life of these kids is an unknown to me. But I am quite sure they were better off in the school than at home. There is some peace to be enjoyed, by the violent child who knows his violence will be met with consistency, physical restraint and isolation. The horrible dilemma these kids were in weighed heavily on them too.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 16, 2012 1:37:45 PM
There seem to be misconceptions about autism in some of the comments here. Autism is a developmental disorder, not a mental illness. Autists are not necessarily violent, nor are are they necessarily unhappy or troubled. Some aspects of life are difficult for them, but many on the high end of the spectrum --which includes Asperger's -- are exceptionally gifted and capable of living productive and satisfying lives. Some are not only successful but well-known in their fields.
Posted by: Susan | Dec 16, 2012 6:52:30 PM
Is it because Americans have this nightmarish image of mental institutions that they've been completely wiped out, to be replaced by...nothing? The sort of residential facility that Elatia describes should be commonplace. I grew up with an undiagnosed, mentally disturbed brother. There were guns in the house. We were lucky that nothing violent actually occurred, but Elatia is right about the plight of the siblings. I still have fear as my core emotion. I am afraid to face the world and most people. He, on the other hand, seems to be doing all right. But then, he always came first.
Posted by: AlexiaTT | Dec 16, 2012 7:09:10 PM
AlexiaTT, I am so sorry. The thinking in almost every family I met was that healthy siblings were less needy, and I saw that very quickly translate to "less deserving." Parents rationalized that well children had more resources, would deal better with whatever came at them than a disturbed and low-functioning sibling. In fact everyone in the family is horribly affected by the consuming illness of the one. This is why I strongly support institutionalization when it can be found in humane and helpful form. It can save the family, and spare children acute fear and stress. I hope you will write your own story, just as "Michael's" mother has.
Susan, thanks for what you wrote about autism. IF "Michael" has autism, he is likelier to get help than if he is psychiatrically disordered. As you say, autism is defined as a disability whereas being violent is not. It is my conviction that this mother needs legal advice about how the Americans with Disabilities Act may have an impact on publicly funded treatments for her son. It's a longer shot if he's neurotypical.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 16, 2012 9:59:51 PM
I would be interested in looking at his natal chart (astrology).. Feel free to contact me ..
Posted by: Nayle Rae | Dec 16, 2012 10:10:34 PM
It seems there is more here than meets the eye.
http://sarahkendzior.com/2012/12/16/want-the-truth-behind-i-am-adam-lanzas-mother-read-her-blog/
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/12/wow_waiting_for_the_apocalypse.php?ref=fpblg
Posted by: Zara | Dec 17, 2012 12:57:24 AM
Wow, Zara. Thanks! Sounds like Adam Lanza had some real maternal help going crazy, much more than most killers, even. Liza Long sounds like crisis mode is very familiar to her, and she sounds histrionic, too, from these out-of-context blog excerpts. One up note here is that the father is a high earning lawyer -- perhaps he could pay for the help his whole family needs.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 17, 2012 1:46:10 AM
This mother keeps a blog that reveals her to be unstable and violently disposed toward her kids. Until this widely-distributed article she had always described them as normal. Hoax alert.
Posted by: Buford T. Justice | Dec 17, 2012 5:33:23 AM
Some Dads walk but a hell of a lot are nagged, abused, belittled and demonised out of the house. Many were only required as cheap sperm donors in the first place. As a grandfatherly personage I am continually struck by the desperate neediness of many boys to talk man talk and be validated accordingly. That's the reason why fatherless teens act out a constructed parody of manhood involving guns, cars, drugs and swagger. Anger at women is often involved and so the cycle is perpetuated.
Posted by: Stuart Mathieson | Dec 17, 2012 3:19:58 PM
Absentee dads, readily available guns and assault rifles, undiagnosed or untreated mental health issues...do any of these causal elements seem fixable at this point, in this country? Very sad.
Posted by: MoiraMike | Dec 17, 2012 7:55:40 PM
Post a comment