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An Understanding I Don’t Want to Have

Yes, I have been absent from the online world recently. My previous post gives but a small hint of what has been going on in my little world. I have turned into somewhat of a hermit ... unwilling and unable to engage in any conversation any more profound than the latest and greatest yarn sale. However, a local incident ... a school shooting, has moved me to put fingers to keyboard.

The following is what I left as a comment at Dr Helen's place. Dr Helen is also known as Mrs Instapundit. However, my interest in Dr. Helen is less political and more professional ... from her I have finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up ... I started down that path when I intended to major in psychology, before I went and got stupid, and got married, which interrupted my college education. Forensic psychology would be perfect for my analytical brain. Oh well ... maybe in my next life.

Anyway ... I said, in response to this post by Dr Helen:

In March of last year, I watched in horror as the events in Loudon County unfolded. A man, a husband, a father to be, deputy sheriff Jason Scott was gunned down by Michael Harvey. The prevailing thought I had was, There but for the grace of God, and lithium ...

Again, when I heard the news from Campbell County, the reports about the boy, the young man, who had taken a life with his own hands, I could not help but see many similarities in the behaviors between the shooter and my own son.

My son has bipolar disorder plus an alphabet soup of co-morbid disorders ... ODD, OCD, PTSD. He came home today after spending 3+ weeks in a court ordered evaluation at a mental hospital (Peninsula, for you Knoxville area locals). He had a total belligerant manic rage in front of deputies, and even insisted that he be arrested. Whether it was a cry for help, or a bid at self-destruction, I do not know. But fortunately, we are back on the path to stability, and hopefully, a productive life for him.

I see the same things in all three boys ... backed into a corner, with no way out, instead of taking a sensible path of surrender or simply stopping the behavior, they lash out instead, seemingly mindless of the consequences that will befall them by escalating the situation. Perhaps the only thing that kept my son off the front page of the Knoxville News-Sentinel is the lack of access to firearms. Maybe he could have stopped himself before it reached that point, perhaps I could have seen the signs well enough in advance. Or maybe not. Maybe we just got lucky, got a judge savvy to mental health issues instead of one that just wants to throw these kids away, and he got this last chance.

Living in this bizarro world of Bipolarville as I do, tuning into the skewed and screwed up thought processes of the bipolar brain my son has, where crazy is "normal" and "normal" is some alien planet many light years away ... I hear the details of Ken Bartley's life and his rampage, and I understand. God help me, I understand.

I see the seeds of what sometimes turns into Michael Harvey and Ken Bartley in other kids too. Some turn it inward, and simply self-destruct. Some seek out relief and solace in drugs and alcohol. The lucky ones, if the word luck can be used in this context, they face a lifetime of medication, therapy, being different and of struggle. But there are those few, like Michael and Ken, in whom the seeds grow into something so dark, so evil, so deadly, most of us cannot even fathom the motivations that bring them to that point.

I cry tonight ... for Jason Scott and Ken Bruce, their loved ones, for Gary Seale and Jim Pierce and everyone else these boys have hurt. I cry also for Michael, for Kenny and for my son and thousands of other youths everywhere who are in pain, who's lives and futures hang in the balance ... and for the system that is systematically failing every one of us. ALL of us suffer for this failing.


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