Dylan Klebold’s mother has decided to publish a book she has been writing for 17 years, in hopes of educating parents about mental illness and depression in their seemingly normal children. I think this is possibly the bravest thing she could possibly do. Proceeds all go to mental health charities.
Can you imagine? She talks about the overwhelming shame, grief, and horror. Her son was suicidally depressed and she had no idea until the day he died.
I watched the interview on 20/20 with Diane Sawyer this past Friday.
My heart goes out to Mrs. Klebold, but I am quite wary of equating the Columbine shootings with depression and suicidality in general. Murder and murder-suicide are very, very different from “regular” suicide, and I think our policies, practices, and terminology, both among professionals and in lay discussions. that equate the two (e.g., “harm to self or others”) have done a lot to increase stigma and misunderstanding around suicide and depression. The vast, vast majority of individuals who have suicidal thoughts or attempts have absolutely no homicidal ideation or impulses and pose no risk of harm to others.On the flip side, many people with homicidal impulses or actions don’t experience suicidal ideation and in fact don’t even have mental illnesses. The two can co-occur, of course, but I’m not sure that the Columbine tragedy at all a good place to launch a general discussion of suicide or mental health. In fact, the fact that we as a country only seem to discuss mental health in the context of mass homicide when repeated studies have shown no link between mental illness and violence commission is really troubling, because it just reinforces the misunderstanding that “them crazies are dangerous!!!”
I finished Dave Cullin’s book recently, and paired with the interview I think this mom’s point (which I may not have adequately illuminated) is that in the absence of a psychopath partner, and with adequate diagnosis and treatment, her son’s life could have had a very different ending. But not having understood how depression could work and failing to know indicators, and failing to understand the partner’s role as more than “bad kid”, all his symptoms presented as moody teenager. They didn’t think teenagers could be mentally ill.
Certainly the partner was a full blown homicidal psychopath. And I totally agree that depression severe enough to cause suicidal attempts is rarely dangerous to others. But I think it’s good to have more conversations about mentall health, in general, in order to delineate those differences for everyone, and for reasons you mentioned.
I hope her hard work at writing and releasing this book helps some find some answers and could help prevent similar future events.
She has been speaking out some time and was largely the focus of a chapter in Andrew Solomon’s amazing book, Far From the Tree.
I watched. The show left me wondering about her older son when it was mentioned he had drug issues.
She’s an amazing woman, and my heart goes out to her.
Maybe I’m an outlier, but I was offended to hear her speak “as an expert” on NPR. It made me extremely sick to hear her, like when I saw the interview of John Wayne Gacy’s sister in a TV documentary.
This may be because as a child I was beaten up by my brother almost daily, including a broken shoulder and concussions, and my parents “didn’t know”. Yet my mother told me not to tell the doctor about how “I” broke my shoulder, or “I” would be taken away by the police. To me, hearing this woman speak is an indication of how little parents know, or care to know, about their children, until something happens.
When you read the transcripts of the videos made by the killers, and how the parents of the other killer took away a freaking pipe bomb from the killer and gave him back other bomb making supplies, and how various people bought guns and ammo for them, and how they “don’t blame anyone else especially not their parents” yet say over and over how their parents and others “made mistakes” which allowed this to happen, it makes you wonder why there is any attraction to hear from one of the killer’s mothers.
The FACT is that at least one set of parents knew 100% that their child had a pipe bomb and various guns/ammo, and the FACT is that the other parents let their kid do whatever he wanted in his room with no supervision. I can tell you that if any of my kids was hoarding guns or coming home with Jack Daniels on his breath, they’d be under strict surveillance after that. Let alone being arrested.
“Far From The Tree” is an interesting book. But I also feel that just because someone “means well” or “are a good person” doesn’t mean that they are a great parent or role model. My aunt who babysat me and my siblings gave us beer at age 12. She also has a shotgun with shells in her bedroom, leaning against a bookshelf. This was around the time I was getting beaten up frequently. All those adults who say “I never knew” and “there were no signs,” they are lying. My parents knew what was going on and they lied about what happened to me. Even when I confronted my brother about it later (we get along now, and heck, it’s been 10 years since he hit me, at a family gathering), he said it was “normal sibling rivalry”. Even though I almost knifed him (was going to slit his throat) once.
I guess I hope she sells a lot of books and does funnel the profits to mental health of teens in particular. But it does make some people sick, who have had trauma in their lives.
This is telling, a quote from Klebold’s mother:
““If I had recognized that Dylan was experiencing some real mental distress, he would not have been there,” she says. " He would’ve gotten help. I don’t ever, for a moment, mean to imply that I’m not conscious of the fact that he was a killer, because I am.”"
REAL. The problems of children are not REAL. Her son was freaking arrested and he had no feelings at all about having privileges taken away. Is the general public unaware what sociopathy looks like? Or are they unaware when someone needs help? What would all of y’all do if your child was arrested, just treat it as a “prank” or “occurrence”?
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/12/us/sue-klebold-diane-sawyer-interview/
@rhandco So sorry to hear about you childhood.
Even reading some threads here on CC it can be seen that there are many parents who bury their heads in the sand. One thread was by a parent whose son was arrested for selling drugs from his dorm room. The parent said that her son was “an innocent” and it was all the fault of his roommate.
I think another piece of the puzzle is that sometimes people don’t believe the parents. We have a son who was traumatized at an early age due to circumstances surrounding his adoption at age three. He has displayed signs of attachment disorder and we have always been vigilant in keeping an eye on him and others around him. Do you know how many people have rolled their eyes at us? How many times have people said ‘oh my kids do that too, it doesn’t mean anything.’ In general, people don’t want to believe these bad things and it’s very frustrating. Even teachers thought we were overbearing and too strict and later apologized to us when our warnings turned out to be true. I apologize for hijacking, but I don’t like to pass up the chance to point out that we all need to be aware and yes, mostly parents need to be realistic and vigilant, but trust me, it’s pretty discouraging when you try to protect people and no one listens and worse, they think you’re actually mean and too strict.
Colorado Public Radio had a lengthy interview with her this week – the interviewer is much better than Diana Sawyer. It is worth a listen, or a read of the multiple transcript excerpts. http://www.cpr.org/news/story/i-ll-never-know-if-i-could-have-prevented-it-says-mother-columbine-shooter
I have a thread on here from a year or so back about my nephew. He could be a lunatic in training. He displays behaviors of a sociopath or psychopath, I’m not sure. I have tried bringing it up but I have been labeled the problem. God forbid this kid grow up and hurt someone else, I’ve been sounding the alarm for years. I now keep my distance while his mom and grandma are so charmed by him.
Her son was arrested, and put in a counseling program where he conned trained professionals with no bias towards him that he was fine, not suicidal, and fully rehabilitated. His probation officer gave him glowing reports and was firm in his belief that he had turned his life around to better things. The shootings were a week later.
Parents of a former friend who had a falling out with these boys reported criminal mischief complaints which police investigated and then ignored. The reports were suppressed for almost a year after the shooting because the Denver police knew it made them look negligent (and they were).
Plenty of adults made observational errors about these boys. I am sympathetic to all those who have had adults stand by while abuse and illness reign – but I don’t think it’s fair to blanket blame parents for everything their child does or label it universally as wanton inaction.
It is useful, though, to take Rhandco’s point in another way – nobody ever thinks their kid is the psychopath, the maniac, the truly dangerous kid. Just the same way nobody thinks their neighbor is the pedophile, the rapist, the kidnapper, the molester. We comfort ourselves that we would know. We would see it, unlike those hapless people of [insert name of traumatized town of the week]. That’s how we’ve decided to cope, by pretending we don’t need to be educated. And that blindness and ignorance create the very conditions for disaster that we are pretending we’d know about.
If society would just treat mental illnesses as something worth paying attention to we would be better able to sort the harmless from the dangerous. As it is, the tremendous stigma of ANY mental illness diagnosis keeps everyone off the radar, and out of treatment or observation, until/unless something bad happens.
I agree with psych. And my opinion is still undecided in this situation.
It is comforting to think that other parents are blind or stupid, we wouldn’t be, we’d do much better. Having a child with one or more mental health issues will make you very humble, very fast.
An interesting work of fiction from a few years ago in a similar vein:
http://www.amazon.com/Defending-Jacob-Novel-William-Landay/dp/0345533666/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1455909891&sr=1-3-fkmr0&keywords=willam+landay
The ending is chilling.