The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    You're Not Adam Lanza

    By Orion on Fri, 12/28/2012 - 10:35pm |

    Almost as disturbing as the massacre in Connecticut has been some of the response to it. One article called "I Am Adam Lanza's Mother" is by a woman who has an intelligent son prone to violent and scary moods. As far as it seems, those bad moods haven't gone to the point of murdering grade schoolers but she nevertheless acts as if it has.

    David Frum recently posted another one of these by a reader - it was called "I Was Adam Lanza:"

    Like the author of that piece, Liza Long, my mother had no idea what to do about my sudden transformation (in my case, around 16) into a borderline homicidal maniac. Like her son, I used knives to try and make my threats of violence seem more real. Like her son, I would leap out of our car in the middle of the road just to get away from my mother, over the most trivial of offenses. Like her son, I screamed obscenities at my mother shortly after moments of relative peace. And worse than this poor woman's son, whose mindset toward his peers we can only guess, I will admit that I fantasized multiple times about taking ordnance to my classmates.

    By the logic which leads Liza Long to say, "I am Adam Lanza's mother,” I have to say: “I was Adam Lanza.”

    I don't say this to get attention. It's in the past, and I honestly would prefer to pretend those years of my life never happened. I’ve struggled hard for psychological healing, and I sincerely believe I’ve made progress.

    Look - the world is messed up. The world is weird. Good people do bad things. Bad people do good things. A guy like Adam Lanza reminds us how bad people can get - but there is a far cry between being a person with flaws or children with flaws and connecting that with someone who massacred 28 children and staff at an elementary school.

    Maybe articles like that show how bad mental health is in this country - we're not actually able to read ourselves anymore and really think we're things we're not.

    If we share any common denominators with Adam Lanza, it's because we're putting pills in our bodies that make us act that way. (The above author talking about a "sudden transformation" that he has since had to learn to fight certainly sounds like what I've heard from various people in my SSRI group.) Even then, you have to go pretty far in to evil already to go even close to what he did.

    Comments

    If we share any common denominators with Adam Lanza, it's because we're putting pills in our bodies that make us act that way

    Hmn.

    Two questions.

    1. Are you saying that meds are never beneficial ? If so you may be responsible for  steering  some one away from a med which might be life saving. I think it's important  you clarify.

    2. Are you saying that if  med free one could not possibly harbor murderous impulses? I can't  quote studies to the contrary but ,sadly, I fear there are dangerous people who are completely med free.

     

     


    by Flavius on Sat, 12/29/2012 - 11:35am

    Obviously some meds are beneficial.. I think what needs to be looked at is the severe lack of mental health care in our nation-- and the overuse of meds as a panacea-- the answer is always to put people on meds.

    The notion that all meds work the same for all people with mental issues is obviously false-- but it appears this is accepted thinking for some.

    IMHO, the issue is not that med-free people don't melt down and kill people-- the more crucial issue is a large percentage of the recent rampage killers, Jared Loughner being a "good" example, were abusing legal and/or illegal drugs, and this abuse definitely had an impact on their behavior/actions.

     

     

     

     


    by demunchained on Sat, 12/29/2012 - 1:51pm

    Adam Lanza was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. There is no real treatment for Asperger's syndrome because the disorder isn't really provable - there's serious question about whether it's even real. Most Aspies I've met - and having been diagnosed with it at 14 years old, I've met a few - are placed on Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors or SSRIs.

    I've spent much of the last year reading about these meds - I was put on them way before I could do research. They come with side effects like "hostility" and "homicidal ideation." I don't think they create monsters - myself and people in my support group certainly never killed a bunch of people - but it does make people cold, hostile and emotionless by shutting off the parts of the brain that create anxiety and depression. Adam Lanza, Cho Seung Hui and these other shooters probably had a dark side in them and these poisonous meds just catapulted them.

    Obviously, not all meds are bad. I take Tegretol for my only real health problems - epilepsy - but the mass intake of psych meds is really dangerous. Psych meds should only be given out to serious mental cases in mental hospitals (which we don't have any more but that's a whole other thing). There is a pharmaceutical problem in this country and it's time we recognized it.

    Given all of that, no matter how warped in the head somebody gets - there is only so much damage they can actually inflict on others unless they get a gun in their hands. If Adam Lanza had been homicidal and insane with a knife or baseball bat, the staff at the school could have just beat him up and taken the weapons from him. You got alot at play here.


    by Orion on Sat, 12/29/2012 - 4:02pm

    Are you sure Adam Lanza was diagnosed with Aspergers?

    The only things we know about Adam Lanza: We’ve been told, by a former classmate, that he was “weird.”  We’ve been told, by a family friend, that he played a lot of violent video games. And we’ve also been told by such sources that he had a “developmental disorder,” that some say was Asperger’s Syndrome.

    Those are not official diagnoses from physicians who may have treated Lanza for whatever problems he was having. I think it is complete quackery make the claim he was diagnosed with Aspergers, because no-one except for his family and his physician knows his medical history. And none of those people have disclosed anything  about his medical history. All the Aspergers speculation is just that, speculation.

    by tmccarthy0 on Sat, 12/29/2012 - 4:33pm

    Thank you for that link, McCarthy. I appreciate it. You may be right. Wherever the Asperger's claim came from, it took off enough that this article in Slate happened. I also got sent a statement that Autism Speaks made about all this - apparently it concerned them enough to feel they needed to make a statement. I'm having trouble editing that previous comment but just accept my apology, I guess? laugh

    If it were true, though, Asperger's only applies to him. People feared discrimination against Asians after Virginia Tech, etc. The common denominators in these are usually the same - antidepressant medication and firearms that can kill large groups of people really fast. Both are available like candy and have alot of people in denial about how dangerous they are. I've been around both and think that life would be happier without either of them.


    by Orion on Sat, 12/29/2012 - 4:57pm

    If Adam Lanza ............. with a knife or baseball bat, the staff at the school could have ........ taken the weapons from him

    In my opinion, that is unfounded speculation

    Rwanda Genocide   A Short History of the Rwanda Genocide

    http://history1900s.about.com/od/rwandangenocide/a/Rwanda-Genocide.htm

    ……… . Since bullets were expensive, most Tutsis were killed by hand weapons, often machetes or clubs. Many were often tortured before being killed. Some of the victims were given the option of paying for a bullet so that they'd have a quicker death.

    Lasting 100 days, the Rwanda genocide left approximately 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu sympathizers dead.

    800,000 murdered mostly by hand weapons

    Over the next several days and weeks, the violence spread. Since the government had the names and addresses of nearly all Tutsis living in Rwanda (remember, each Rwandan had an identity card that labeled them Tutsi, Hutu, or Twa) the killers could go door to door, slaughtering the Tutsis.

    The gun control advocates, want the names and addresses of all gun owners too.


    by Resistance on Sat, 12/29/2012 - 4:47pm

    Eh, that is an extreme counterpoint. You're talking huge groups of people with machetes. One guy with a knife would obviously be easier to stop than one guy with an assault weapon.


    by Orion on Sat, 12/29/2012 - 4:53pm

    Respectfully, there is no guarantee, that all future assaults are going to be perpetrated, by a lone individual.

    Heres one example you should recall

    Eric David Harris and Dylan Bennet Klebold  were the two American high school seniors who committed the Columbine High School massacre.  

    According to early accounts of the shooting, Harris and Klebold were very unpopular students and frequent targets of bullying at their high school.

    Harris ……….created a set of levels for the game Doom.

    The sites openly espoused hatred for the people of their neighborhood and the world in general

    By that time, Dylan Klebold had already arrived at the school in a separate car and the two boys left two gym bags, each containing a 20-pound propane bomb, inside the school cafeteria

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Harris_and_Dylan_Klebold

    Are we going to ban propane tanks?


    by Resistance on Sat, 12/29/2012 - 5:18pm

    Not likely, but are you gonna buy some extra propane tanks just 'in case' Obama wants to take them away, you loon?


    by NCD on Sat, 12/29/2012 - 6:44pm

    LOL

    FYI Eric Harris complained himself to his father that Luvox made him "feel violent." Several of the shooting victims have filed suits against pharmaceutical companies.


    by Orion on Sat, 12/29/2012 - 7:23pm

    Loon? Isn't name calling, a form of bullying, an uncivil act?

    I'm not worried about Obama or the government, it's people like you, that frighten citizens who find peace, knowing the Bill of Rights protects us.

    Us; The "WE" in the Declaration ......  In order to form a more perfect Union.


    by Resistance on Sat, 12/29/2012 - 8:30pm

    I'm not quite sure how it is that you've become, apparently, the go-to blogger on mental health at DagBlog; I mean for crying out loud:

    You say: "...[SSRI] make people cold, hostile and emotionless by shutting off the parts of the brain that create anxiety and depression."

    At best it's an inapt phrasing. More likely, it's a fundamental lack of understanding. Whatever it is, it's so bad that the response: no, it does not 'shut off a part of the brain' is equally ignorant.

    Never mind that acute anxiety is never warm, friendly, and empathic (which behaviors are arguably the opposite of cold, hostile, and emotionless); and some depression untreated is, metaphorically, cold: people have trouble getting out of bed, and they feel such a heavy grief or sadness it swamps any other emotion; and that is about as close, IMO, as one can get to emotionless: the experience of drowning in sadness as the defining state of a person's life.

    Then you say:

    "...the mass intake of psych meds is really dangerous. Psych meds should only be given out to serious mental cases in mental hospitals (which we don't have any more..."

    This is a mind-boggler. There are no mental hospitals? No state psychiatric institutions, anywhere? That's obviously wrong; so why are you typing it? Because you are deeply confused? Because your anti-psychiatry agenda is deeply ingrained, or you have chosen to ignore the obvious, or both?

    To hear you tell it, it's as if the entire psycho-pharmacological industry is feeding millions a substance that amounts to poison; as if everyone, from the lowest lab assistant to M.D., are a bunch of little Mengeles just doing their job: creating a zombified populace bent toward psychopathology.

    Because your description of cold, hostile, and emotionless is exactly that: the description of a psychopath. So, AFAICT, your entire set of posts are nothing more than the casting of blame on the other. Which behavior, I should point out, pretty clearly indicates that you are the one with a problem with which you are simply not dealing. If I were listening to you in a competently run group of people actually dealing with, or even attempting to deal with, their issues I'd do there what I'm doing now: calling out your bullshit.

    Frankly, I think this is nothing more than a gambit to draw attention to yourself as you refuse, and find further reasons to refuse, actually dealing with your issues.


    by nothere on Sun, 12/30/2012 - 6:51pm

    Agree.


    by Flavius on Sat, 12/29/2012 - 5:05pm

    Look - the world is messed up. The world is weird. Good people do bad things.

    Wish I had a dollar for every time I heard this lame rationale.. it appears you're saying we're powerless to deal with the gun rampage problem-- I disagree.

    While sort of getting at part of the problem-- indicating pharmaceuticals-- your post misses at least two crucial points:

    1.) The severe lack of real mental health care in our nation. The people out there stating "I am Lanza's mother" are stating they need help-- and aren't getting it. that means we're all at risk of being harmed, by untreated mentally ill people.

    2.) The notion law enforcement "can't preempt or stop rampage killings" is nonsense. "The Joker" in Aurora spent four months planning his pathetic theater attack, with numerous purchases of guns/ammo/gear made on line using his credit card. deliveries were made to his home, place of work.

    Just this week in Portage, IN, a guy was arrested for making several threats on Facebook. Let's stop the BOGUS excuse making; obviously many of these perpetrators are broadcasting what they intend to do.

    http://posttrib.suntimes.com/17252192-418/portage-teen-arrested-for-maki...

     

     


    by demunchained on Sat, 12/29/2012 - 1:45pm

    Wish I had a dollar for every time I heard this lame rationale.. it appears you're saying we're powerless to deal with the gun rampage problem-- I disagree.

    No - and I apologize if that's how it sounded. This article was aimed more at people who were connecting this act with their own lives. There have been multiple articles published that do this. Everyone has had problems and even violent episodes are common as part of humanity. It is a jump to go from having personal demons to connecting it with someone who massacred elementary school kids.


    by Orion on Sat, 12/29/2012 - 7:26pm

    It is a jump to go from having personal demons to connecting it with someone who massacred elementary school kids.

    No, it's not. I'm not sure how you can think this is the case when we've had several rampage killings this year alone.

    You're implying Lanza is an outlier-- an aberration which happens rarely. Really?

    The stats don't back you up.


    by demunchained on Sat, 12/29/2012 - 8:50pm

    He makes some good arguments:

    Guns and Mental Illness by Joe Nocera, Dec 28 NYT


    by artappraiser on Sun, 12/30/2012 - 3:59am

    That's a cool article. Thanks for posting it.


    by Orion on Sun, 12/30/2012 - 10:10pm

    File under "be careful what you wish for, as you might get it":

    New York City to Restrict Prescription Painkillers in Public Hospitals’ Emergency Rooms

    By Anemona Hartocolis, New York Times, Jan. 10/11, 2013

    Some of the most common and most powerful prescription painkillers on the market will be restricted sharply in the emergency rooms at New York City’s 11 public hospitals, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday in an effort to crack down on what he called a citywide and national epidemic of prescription drug abuse.

    Under the new city policy, most public hospital patients will no longer be able to get more than three days’ worth of narcotic painkillers like Vicodin and Percocet. Long-acting painkillers, including OxyContin, a familiar remedy for chronic backache and arthritis, as well as Fentanyl patches and methadone, will not be dispensed at all. And lost, stolen or destroyed prescriptions will not be refilled.

    City officials said the policy was aimed at reducing the growing dependency on painkillers and preventing excess amounts of drugs from being taken out of medicine chests and sold on the street or abused by teenagers and others who want to get high.

    “Abuse of prescription painkillers in our city has increased alarmingly,” Mr. Bloomberg said in announcing the new policy at Elmhurst Hospital Center, a public hospital in Queens. Over 250,000 New Yorkers over age 12 are abusing prescription painkillers, he said, leading to rising hospital admissions for overdoses and deaths, Medicare fraud by doctors who write false prescriptions and violent crime like “holdups at neighborhood pharmacies.”

    But some critics said that poor and uninsured patients sometimes used the emergency room as their primary source of medical care. The restrictions, they said, could deprive doctors in the public hospital system — whose mission it is to treat poor people — of the flexibility that they need to respond to patients.

    “Here is my problem with legislative medicine,” said Dr. Alex Rosenau, president-elect of the American College of Emergency Physicians and senior vice chairman of emergency medicine at Lehigh Valley Health Network in Eastern Pennsylvania. “It prevents me from being a professional and using my judgment.” [....]

    (I looked to post this on your more recent thread which referenced James Holmes and Vicodin, but you seemed to have deleted it.)


    by artappraiser on Fri, 01/11/2013 - 1:51pm