I’m outraged at Facebook outrage.
People are posting a bunch of pictures in honor and rememberance of the people in CT who were killed. I’ve seen lots of calls for gun control. Sorry, I’m not a fan of guns but that’s not going to happen here. The one that has been making me insane is stupid knee jerk reactionary posts about “This is what happens when we take God out of schools.”
1. If your God is so powerful, he can’t be taken out of school by mere mortals.
2. The people posting this would be the first people up in arms if the schools were teaching Buddhism or Hinduism or Paganism.
3. I haven’t checked for sure on all of them but most of these same people posted rants on saying Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays so I know they aren’t into making everyone feel welcome.
4. All the Supreme Court said is that you can’t lead public prayer in school. This makes me happy. Stop using it as an excuse for everything bad that happens. Rote prayer is as useless as the Pledge of Allegiance that every kid says at full speed and it means nothing at all to them.
I started blocking people who put that God thing on Facebook because it pissed me off so much but I realized that I was about to be out of friends soon.
The real issue in violence isn’t the weapon. It is the mind of the person doing the violence. On the same day as the Connecticut school shooting a man in China killed 22 kids with a knife. People were killing each other with stones long before weapons were made.
That’s why I love this post – “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother.” It is written by the mother of a mentally ill teenager who is violent. This is a mother who is afraid that someday the person on the news will be her child. I understand her completely. Someday this might be our reality.
I haven’t written about it but Z’s mental state is deteriorating. She gets irrationally angry and then violent. She’s been out of school since November because of violence. It isn’t clear if she’ll be allowed back.
“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…… ….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.”
Her mother attempted to hospitalize Z last year. Because Z was rational and talked to the social workers, she was released with no treatment and Child Protective Services was called to investigate her mother, father, and grandparents. When the violence escalated this year she attempted to hospitalize her again. This time she was violent in the ER so they kept her.
“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.â€
And I do. This problem is too big for me to handle on my own. Sometimes there are no good options. “
She was rational when talking to the psychiatrists at the hospital. They said there was nothing wrong with her. At the same time, she was attacking the nurses. That didn’t matter. Neither did the stories of her teachers or parents or the psychiatrist who has been treating her since she was 5. They released her with additional medication. She now takes handfuls of pills three times a day. She’s still scary and she’s no closer to getting help.
“I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me”
At this point I’m not afraid for myself. We are very afraid for her mother. Her mother is afraid for her own safety. We are living the same life as the lady who wrote this article and there doesn’t seem to be a solution. We aren’t alone and that is scary.
How many kids are there like Z out there who may go off at any moment? How are we going to deal with this as a society? That’s the issue.
My daughter was like this from about 8 years old on. She tortured animals (eventually killed a kitten when she was 18), hurt people, threatened us. I lived in terror & no one had any answers for us. Now, she’s mostly focused, at 22, on destroying her own life, so, while we’re safe, we get to watch her circling the drain :/
The man in China INJURED 22 children. He did not kill them.
BEIJING — A knife-wielding man injured 22 children and one adult outside a primary school in central China as students were arriving for classes Friday,
My sister was like this growing up. My parents tried multiple schools, hospitals, a boarding school for troubled youths. She threatened to report us all for so many things that weren’t true and tried a couple times. She pulled a knife on me at least once, when I was 19 and in charge at home while my parents were out of the country. As an adult, she pulled some even bigger scams on unsuspecting people before being cut totally off and hitting rock bottom.
Somehow miraculously, she’s pulled herself out of that state, gotten the help she needed, put herself through college and a masters degree, and lives a normal adult life. But I think that’s far from normal…
I’m so sorry you are dealing with the same thing. I’ve been there and it’s scary. This is a huge issue for us in society and I really hope we can work to find – and FUND – some solutions.