I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

Mary, I'm glad to hear your good news!

Kam, thanks for the link.

I have some good news too:

"Michigan Governor Rick Snyder vetoed a bill that would have allowed concealed guns in public schools, just four days after a man broke into a Connecticut elementary school and shot 20 pupils to death.

The 54-year-old Republican killed the measure, approved by the legislature less than 24 hours before the Newtown killings, primarily because it didn’t allow day-care centers, hospitals and other public entities to opt out, according to a letter sent to the state Senate."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-18/michigan-governor-snyder-vetoes-concealed-guns-in-school-measure.html

Good news on Michigan.

Good news, Mary.

Glad to hear your great news Mary

This is the link connected to my rant:

http://thebluereview.org/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother/

....and I know some people won't agree with me, hence seeking of permission SIR (military salute).

Rant:

How DARE this woman be so self-centered as to call attention to herself and her pain after the tragedy this country has witnessed. The perpetrater apparently had Asperger's  -a MILD form of autism that is a) not considered to be a mental illness - it is a developmental disorder and b) should not rob an adult of the ability to distinguish right from wrong.

We have no idea whether the perpetrator had a comorbid mental illness, or whether he was just a bad person with a bad idea. So stop thinking you know him.

And PLEASE stop disrespecting his mother's legacy by presuming that you knew what she endured. Of all the arrogance....

If there's one thing I cannot stand is people looking for publicity any way they can - or people looking for sympathy -  chronic whiners, complainers, attention seekers who have no scruples about what innocent people go through. 

Memo to world: many of those little cubs who died may themselves have had mental illness. Has this narcissist thought of that? Has she though that maybe one of these little victims had parents who loved him, saw him succeed despite his difficulties, then saw that effort cut down by a gun? What about the teachers? They, too may have had serious mental illness and have been able to succeed in spite of that? Has this woman given a second of thought to the dead and THEIR struggles? And THEIR parents?

If I hear more mothers tell me to feel sorry for THEM, I will scream. Message to these mothers: the rest of us never asked you to have a child. You got the orgasm, not us. If you had let us partake in the pleasure, then it might be fair to ask us to partake of the pain.  As it is, this was all your doing. Sorry that you have a hard child, but don'T DARE use a nation's grief for your selfish ends. Don't try to make society feel guilty for your personal birth-giving decisions either. Or pretend that you are starting a valuable mental health discussion when it's really all about you.

Mental illness is no excuse to do harm. There ARE mentally ill people who are truly not responsible for their actions (eg: Andrea Yates - a schizophrenic mother who drowned her six children because she believed they were being taken hostage by the Devil. She drowned them to save them) but they are very few and far between. This woman has no idea who the perpetrator was and is already bleating for attention.

TYFLTMR

(Thank You For Listening To My Rant)

Sorry Athena - I don't agree with your rant - I read the article a few days ago and didn't know what all the fuss was about afterwards - it is truly heartbreaking that parents of children with mental illness or developmental disabilities are left out there looking for help and finding none - it is a lifetime of worry and stress and I think she portrayed it very well and perhaps gave many of us an understanding of how difficult life is without any support systems (except for the prison system) - the mental health component needs to be out there and I think she did just that - she started the conversation!

Wabbit - that is something that is alarming some people. There may be several reasons:

--overdiagnosis

--conversely, better awareness that leads to early detection of an underreported problem

--Autism and Asperger's are believed to be inherited/run in families, but there are higher reports of incidence in some areas of the country than in others.

Often these diagnoses are made by people not fully trained in mental health. This is partly due to the acute nationwide shortage of child psychiatrists, long waiting times from mental help and the sheer absence of trained experts in the field in many rural areas of the country.

--Finally, children with Asperger's may have attention or behavior problems that will cause either misdiagnosis or underdiagnosis.

Lindasa - I think the title and it's intended significance was what blew me. It was arrogant, to me. We know next to nothing about the Lanzas - the perpetrator may have had little or no behavioral problems that would resemble this woman's son's. He may even had a substance abuse problem.....who knows.

It also doesn't help when people lump a series of disperse conditions as "mental illness" and assume that they know what the other is experiencing. That diminishes the individual experience. It trivializes people and enables stereotypes. And stereotypes are what most hurt the mentally ill. This women contributed to those perceptions.

I have had contact with many, many parents of mentally ill and developmentally affected children. I would say that their first concern in the massacre would be to identify with the victims first.

I would have found very compelling her blog if she had said "my son is impossible, sometimes I want to be away from him. He can be violent and I am afraid. But if I had lost him I would have been devastated." If she trule believes that her som could be as dangerous as Lanza - he has already threatened her physically with a knife, SHE NEEDS TO CALL THE POLICE. The situation is out of her control. Waxing philosophical on a blog about her feelings doesn't help. Safety of human lives always, ALWAYS comes first.

I welcome the day when people raise issues without being so self-referential and stop assuming that because they have one characteristic in common with someone else they must practically "be" that person. This woman's son has an uncertain diagnosis or diagnoses, has been on mood stabilizers and anti-psuychotics. All we know about Lanza was that he had a developmental disorder. I am not aware of a pervious history of violence.

I am happy it backfired. Let's make this about all of us, and how we can work collectively towards a safer society. Without paying more attention to the basic right to life, we cannot go on to properly tackle the right to healthcare and the availability of proper mental health care.

We know that those who died in CT were male and female, child and adult. The victims also included children with special needs. We know this because one victim was a special ed teacher who cradled one of her students as both were pelted with bullets. Mental illness often comes along with certain developmental problems. Maybe that little boy, who loved his teacher, was a lot like Adam Lanza? I wonder if that ever occurred to this blogger. 

I don't what it's like to get breast cancer. I only know what it's like for ME to have had it. Notice how different we all are here with our cancer experience - often having a hard time understanding each other, yet stricken with the same disease. Notice how stage IV sisters rightly get annoyed when an early stagers says "I know how you feel."

I don't know what it's like to be mentally ill. I only know what it is like for ME. I am no more likely to have anything in common with people with my diagnosis than I am with someone not mentally ill. I may have common experiences, but how I take those and how they touch me is very individual.

Oh yes, blues Christmas.

Athena, I understand your irritation at the title.  I think, though, reading past the title, it is a moving portrait of a mother struggling with a child whose behavior is so difficult to control or understand.  You are right, though, that none of us know what really motivates killers, and extirpating from one characteristic in common with Adam Lanza or his mother does no one any good.

OK folks - My personal Christmas present to everyone - the rest of chapter one of my novel. 

Judge Ben Johnson, on the bench for nine years, with a reputation for fairness, turned to look at the witness. It was up to him to decide if there were sufficient grounds to hold Clayton, pending the filing of new charges by the prosecution, or to immediately grant his freedom.

No matter how good the case, how good the judge, you never knew what could happen in a hearing. Alex had tried not to raise Clayton’s hopes too high.     

            Patton read the e-mail fast, mumbling his words.

            “Could you try it again, slower and louder?” Alex asked. “So the Court can hear what you’re reading?”

            “Objection.” Tom Michels, attorney for the state of New Jersey was on his feet. “That e-mail’s already in evidence. There’s no reason for the witness to read it.”

             “Sure there is,” Alex said. “He wrote it, and he needs to own it.” She no longer made any effort to conceal her contempt for the witness.

            “Overruled.” Judge Johnson motioned Tom to sit down.

             Mike Patton read the e-mail, again, distinctively forming each word. “Three members of the Red Hawks are willing to swear that Star was the shooter. I think they are lying to cover one of their own, but if we go after the gang, we have no witnesses and no weapon. The public wants a conviction. If we go after Star, we have a slam dunk. His alibi is weak, just his mother to vouch that he was home studying.”  Patton started to wad up the piece of paper, but Alex rescued it from him. .

            “So you knew the Red Hawks were lying?”

            Patton mumbled something indistinct.

            “That was a yes, wasn’t it? But you went after my client anyway, didn’t you?”

            “We had other evidence,” he said.

            “The only evidence against Mr. Star that was presented to the original trial court was the testimony of three members of the Red Hawks gang. Nothing, nothing else points to Mr. Star as having committed this murder, isn’t that true?”

            “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” she mocked. “You were the original prosecutor, and you don’t know. You needed a conviction and you didn’t care that you could be putting an innocent kid away for life. Because he was black. Because he was poor. Because it would help you politically.” She turned from him in disgust as Tom Michels rose again.

“You honor, objection. Counsel is badgering the witness.”

             “From what I’ve heard, the witness deserves some badgering.” Judge Johnson gestured to Tom. “Counsel, please approach the bench. You, too, Miss Silver. Turn off that thing,” he turned to the court reporter.  The solid blue light that indicated that the court was being taped blinked off as Alex took her place next to Tom. “How you think you’re doing here, Tom?”

            Tom hesitated, but he knew the answer. He wasn’t a fool.

“Because this is an embarrassment. To this court. To the State of New Jersey. So you got two choices, you can go back on the record and dismiss all charges against Mr. Star, or you can try to argue that this young man, whose lost ten years of his life, deserves to spend another year or two fighting the system. But you’re going to lose. I’m ruling against you. And I’m telling you now, so you can save some face and keep the State from looking like it’s trying to railroad some poor kid to save face. Which, frankly, is what it looks to be doing. So what’re you going to do?”

            “I guess I’m going to make an oral motion to dismiss all charges,” Tom said.

            “And I guess I’ll grant it. Let’s go back on the record.”

              Clayton enveloped Alex in a bear hug, lifting her off the ground, as Judge Johnson banged the gavel, ending the trial. It hurt, but Alex endured it. Clayton was entitled to a moment of exuberance.

            “You the best, Miss Silver. Oh, sorry.” He released his grip on her. “Forgot about” he gestured towards her chest.

            She laughed off his concern. “It’s fine. I’m happy too.”

            He couldn’t pay her anything, but she had made her rent money and more for the month from an accident settlement and a federal drug trial. That was the benefit of being on her own. She could take cases she believed in. From time to time.

What a wonderful Christmas present, Sandy! I'm loving it.

What is happening on these threads, I say yes ... And Mirror is reflective of a wider social phenomenon. It is incredible to be a witness.

Oh, Jackie, I so hope we are coming together in this. This has to be the straw that broke the camel's back. I slightly dare to hope.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein is apparently planning to reintroduce leglslation banning assault weapons. And the White House has said it will act within its own powers.

Sigh of relief on the Michigan veto.

I wish we could have a movement to repeal the second amendment, but I may be hoping for too much.

Oh Blue - that is too funny - especially today as it is Munchkin bath day and trust me it won't look like that picture!

Sandy - my apologies - I didn't reference your comments. I'm actually not sure about the reason for the backlash against the woman's blog. I think it had to do with things she had written elsewhere on her blog, and someone questioned her mothering skills....or something. It caught my attention for a different reason. Apparently she and her initial critic "made up" and jointly posted something on their blogs.

Oh, yes, the burden of parenting a mentally ill child is enormous. I sometimes wonder if it's almost worse of the mother - the loneliness, the incomprehension, the misdiagnosis, mis-medications, bad psychiatric care, no availability of care, etc...

I have had the opportunity to cross paths with and seek help for many such mothers and their children. It can be devastating for parent and child. It can take everything out of them. I wonder how many damaged lives this CT shooter has now exacerbated through his actions. 

Blue - wishing I could change places with that dog!

Athena-this is the part of your post that set my teeth on edge-"Message to these mothers: the rest of us never asked you to have a child. You got the orgasm, not us. If you had let us partake in the pleasure, then it might be fair to ask us to partake of the pain.  As it is, this was all your doing."  That mother did not choose to have a mentally ill child, and as I was reading her blog, several children that I have known during my career came to mind. I have always felt compassion for the parents of those children. I can't imagine being in their shoes.

Blue-I, too thought that was a hypodermic needle and gauze pads. Then I realized it wasn't. 

We have snow here.

Mary

Mary ... you have snow!  What are you doing on the computer.  Should you not be at the grocery store stocking up on bread, eggs, milk and toilet paper   How much snow?

I have some issues with the mother that wrote the blog under discussion.  My issues are the danger that her other children are in - and it is the mother's responsibility to protect those children.  So if her son is as she described he needs to be isolated from her other kids.  Also, when I went back and read her other blog posts there was no previous mention of this entire situation.  Her previous blog posts seem to be typical comedic mommy blogging.  So I'm not sure what to think.  YMMV

Edited to add:  Alexandria I'm loving your book so far and will join the line to purchase when published.