<p>Read the article-
Interesting that nancy considered moving 50 miles away to school with " better special needs program"- this implies their school district was lacking.</p>
<p>Also, the statement that adam would be picked up from school often, because he was victimized? What was going on? This was not clear.</p>
<p>And, wouldn’t a parent with a teen, crying for hours on the bathroom floor, deeply depressed, want to lock up all weapons for the protection of a son who was clearly high risk of suicide? </p>
<p>One attempt at medication? Something doesn’t make sense.</p>
<p>He wrote violent stories. He lived holed up in a basement playing violent video games all day and all night. He liked guns. He had no friends. He stayed by himself all the time. Last time he saw any mental health person was years before. I didn’t believe the Columbine parents that they had no idea that could happen. Or the Virginia Tech shooters parents or Lanza’s parents. I guess I am saving my compassion for the parents of those poor little 5 year olds. </p>
<p>That’s too bad you’re limiting your compassion, TatinG. Many of us who have seen mental illness up close – and helpless parents anguished by their inability to help – prefer to keep more of an open mind. And based on interviews, we know that at least a couple parents of those poor little 5 year olds belong in the latter camp as well. </p>
<p>Well, I’ve seen mental illness up close, too and the unfortunate reality is that until there’s a tragedy there is simply no help available which is that’s why those parents were helpless, anguished parents. It’s a problem and it is an obvious link in the cases Tatin cited. To ignore that or find it offensive and blame the guns is not helpful. Although, I do agree that keeping guns away from the mentally ill is probably a very good idea…</p>
<p>My opinion is that these things happen and it’s rarely anyone’s specific fault that a person becomes and does so much evil. Not that much evil. No act of parenting could produce Anders Breivik.</p>
<p>Here’s a perspective. There’s a book out in Germany now by Jennifer Teege. Her mother is German, father Nigerian, and she was put in an orphanage when an infant and was eventually adopted when she was 7. A few years ago, she picked up a book by Monica Hertwig called “I Have To Love My Father, Right?” and realized it was by her biological mother. </p>
<p>Her German grandfather was Amon Goeth. If you saw Schindler’s List, you remember him: a true psychopathic murderer. He was hanged in 1946. She found out her grandmother, whom she remembers as a kind woman who rented a room to a gay man and to a black friend of Jennifer’s father, committed suicide in 1983, the day after giving her first interview about Goeth.</p>
<p>On the cover of Jennifer’s book are words Peter Lanza would identify with: “my grandfather would have shot me”.</p>
<p>It’s a step away for Jennifer and filtered through a racial identity wholly opposed to everything Goeth stood for. Imagine her mother. There are some books of interviews with the children of Nazi war criminals. A few are in denial. A few can’t speak about it. I met the grandson of one at a party some years ago. He was tortured by it. </p>
<p>What an incredibly powerful story. My heart breaks for Adam’s father. I can’t imagine the slow pit his ex-wife was pulled into. It didn’t happen overnight. It took years, and it is easy to look in now & say she should have known … but she was sinking slowly into an abyss. How sad for EVERYONE involved.</p>
<p>I don’t see that Tatin is piling on the father, but I am also with Hunt that the guns should have been disposed of the minute the parents learned that Adam was becoming worse, not better.</p>
<p>The article is just Peter’s side of the story, but I’m inclined to believe that Nancy didn’t offer much resistance to Adams demands that Peter not come to visit.</p>
<p>I would encourage each of us to become familiar with your state and local laws on inoluntary commitment, and involuntary treatment, how they came to pass, and how they are currently I implemented. Then imagine how a personal experience might effect your perspective. </p>
<p>Personal experiences do color perspectives. Two kids in my high school were murdered by a man who was criminally insane who should have been kept behind bars for life. When you’re 15 and you learn your friends were viciously murdered, like I did, you lose all compassion for the violent insane individuals allowed to terrorize innocent people.</p>
<p>I agree that Nancy probably didn’t offer much resistance to Adam’s refusal to see his father, but it sounds like she didn’t offer much resistance to any of his demands. He gradually came to control their home, and her.</p>
<p>Sadly, my understanding in our state is that there are very few resources of people who have mentally ill lived ones. It is worse nun as there are so many in need and so few services, as well as no way to help those who claim they don’t want help. </p>
<p>Agreed, Kelsmom. The mother went through hell - at least Adam spared her having to deal with his murders - and the father is, and will always remain, in agony. That line about “not mourning the little boy that he was” - that sent chills down my spine. </p>
<p>TatinG, it’s very difficult to get mental health treatment for someone who refuses to go. Unless his parents could have proven Adam was dangerous (violent stories or gun obsession wouldn’t have done it) there was scant chance he’d have been committed. Fact is, the American mental health care system is severely lacking – at best. Fact is, there are plenty of guns around in this society. Fact is, we’ll be discussing another Adam Lanza probably in the not-so-distant future. </p>
<p>I would have to agree with the poster above who points out that this is only one side of the story. And it is the only side of the story that we will ever hear. You really can’t blame anyone for this tragedy as I think it does come through that both parents tried very hard to help their son. But I also have to make the observation that little compassion for his son comes through in this interview with Peter Lanza. I am trying to understand this, and think perhaps it is an attempt at self-preservation in a world that does like to place blame and seek vengeance. I realize it is impossible for any of us to even remotely understand where Peter Lanza is mentally right now.</p>
<p>I do recall though that shortly after this tragedy happened, an article was written after a reporter spoke to one or more of Nancy Lanzas’ friends. I believe it was said that Nancy had recently come to the conclusion that she could no longer help Adam and that his care was beyond her. The friend(s) thought that Nancy had begun the process to commit Adam to a mental health facility. There was speculation that Adam found out about this and it triggered the violent event. It was said that Nancy at some point had worked at the elementary school as some sort of volunteer, and the targeting of the children was an expression of Adam’s resentment of being sent away and replaced. I have no idea if any of this is accurate, but it does imply to me that Nancy Lanza had some inkling that she needed much more assistance in caring for her son than was available to her.</p>
<p>Well, I would not expect him to have any compassion for his son who killed his mother and a class of schoolchildren… And, I do agree the mom was trying but there was no help available for her. Very sad.</p>
<p>I have spoken with several anguished parents of young (and older) people with mental health issues. They have tried to get help, but only have some success if and when the young person also WANTS it. Absent that, resources are slim to none. </p>
<p>I saw the author interviewed on the Today show. He had a very good, and restrained, answer I thought for “why all the guns?”…I wish I could recall it but he said something like Nancy was a fiercely independent “live free or die” Vermonter for whom guns were just a regular part of day to day life and really never seemed to consider not having them. I know lots of westerners (in PNW and SW for example) who are likewise. </p>
<p>This is heart breaking. Heart breaking all around.</p>
<p>As a person with a family member with a mental illness it’s hard to know what to do. As a person with an adult neighbor who is SMI and whom I’ve called the authorities on…it isn’t that easy to get them help or committed. When the cops show up they literally have to be an imminent danger of serious/fatal danger to themselves or another…NOW NOW NOW. Not just acting badly, oddly, crying at the top of their lungs or acting incredibly stupidly or wildly manic or lying in a puddle immoveable. So everything you try up until that point of IMMINENT DANGER NOW is for naught. </p>
<p>Also, for TatinG and others: Not only is the law hostile to prior restraints on people like Adam Lanza (or, better put, people like Adam Lanza seemed to be), but also you are vastly underestimating the number of people who would be caught in any net that was effective to catch Adam Lanza. I can’t produce any hard numbers, of course, but I suspect it is maybe tens of thousands of people. We are not likely to commit the considerable resources necessary to treat them if they don’t want to be treated, and anything short of indefinite near-incarceration wouldn’t accomplish what you wish it would. So tragic as it is to contemplate the people who died here, there isn’t any simple prophylactic strategy that would make certain nothing like that every happened again. It would be a heck of a lot more cost-effective, and to my mind involve a lot less restriction on personal liberty, to get rid of automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines, and to beef up school security</p>
<p>It’s awful to contemplate the irony here that maybe what goaded Lanza into action was his mother’s attempt to get more help for him. Nothing is simple, really.</p>
<p>Just the other day, I had a chance to catch up with the mother of one of my kid’s classmates, someone who could well have been described at 18 as friendless, spending all of his time playing violent video games, and a high-functioning (most of the time) person with an autistic spectrum disorder. He has a math BS (obtained with some difficulty), a serious girlfriend, a seven-figure net worth earned as an options trader, and a second career he loves as a game designer.</p>
<p>My son has a form of sensory integration and plays video games. I remember the sobbing over socks seams, bright lights, loud noises when he was little. He too got therapy but he graduated on from it. </p>
<p>I really feel for that poor brother. Can you imagine having to live with this, the name, the rest of his life? Would you even want to date the brother knowing all this? We all believe we love our children unconditionally, I don’t know how you live with this. </p>
<p>I do know that sometimes when you are living in the middle of the situation you don’t quite realize how bad it is until you aren’t in it anymore. I too heard the mom was seeking some kind of treatment for him. I have no doubt the parents loved him and did the best they could and had no help and no resources for serious intervention.</p>