This
is too important not to be read almost universally. If you haven’t read it, you
must. You simply must!
by Charlie
Leck
It’s very likely
that you have already seen and read Liza Long’s remarkable, moving and
beautiful essay, I am Adam Lanza’s Mother.
It’s making the rounds on Facebook
and other on-line sources. It is incredible! If you haven’t read it yet, you
must. I have reprinted it below (it can be found in so many, many places that I
can’t imagine it hasn’t been released for public domain purposes).
Quite simply, we
must make sure that it is read by millions and millions of Americans and
especially national and state lawmakers.
I’ll have some
comments about the essay in my next blog.
__________
I am Adam Lanza’s Mother
It’s time to talk about
mental illness
by Liza Long (a blog on
15 December 2012 on The Blue Review)
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
on The Blue
Review.)
Liza
long is an author, musician, and erstwhile classicist. She is also a single
mother of four bright, loved children, one of whom has special needs.
_________________________
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