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Monday, December 17, 2012

I am Adam Lanza's Mother - The Blue Review | The Blue Review

I am Adam Lanza's Mother - The Blue Review | The Blue Review
Excerpt:
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.
~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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My Response:  Thank God!  A woman with guts.  As anyone who reads my blog knows I am all for ending the ignorant stigmatization [which is just LAZINESS and INDIFFERENCE---until something bad happens...then out of every hole comes the big mouth rats who know everything...]
In the meantime, while the rats play mothers and other family members weep and plead for help.  The problem?
'It’s time for a meaningful, nation-wide conversation about mental health.'  [Not gun control!!!!]
It's time to really provide meaningful help for parents and sufferers of mental illness.
  How there is no meaningful place for families to get help.  There is no major push to end the crappy ignorance by the public and the way ill people are portrayed in the media, treated in schools, churches and businesses.
Every text book, every school, every professor....ad nauseum...has a different 'definition' and 'technique'...and most don't even come close to being an answer to the suffering of those who have been stricken by the disease of mental illness.  Because you can't SEE it or TOUCH it then most people who just don't want to be bothered just want you to 'get over it'.   Fortunately there is growing evidence of many of the types of mental illness have biological bases...there is still much unknown about the chemistry of the brain, the endocrine system, and even the chemistry of nerves themselves. Long standing abuse reaps psychological, emotional and physical problems--ALWAYS.
Until realistic means of treatment come around the responsibility for helping our neighbors, shouldering their burdens, rests with every individual.
It is tragic and exasperating that Nancy Lanza was terrified, worried but couldn't even find someone to talk to about her concerns.  This scenario plays over and over but then everyone acts S-O-O-O shocked.  Oh, how could this happen?  Ad nauseum--again. And mothers are getting tired of being blamed for everything by husbands and children.  Get with the program--men.  Take care of your families.  At this moment I can count over a hundred men that I know who have chickened out because they didn't want to help care for their own children who were sick, disabled, etc.Often there was no other reason than just sheer cold selfishness. It might get in the way of 'play time'...games, golf, TV, football, fishing...etc.
If one is lucky in the big cities there might be a bona fide place to go 24-7[sic] when things really go down.  Good luck.  Most mentally ill people are presently put in prison. [Over 1/3 of the entire prison population!]
Shame on any society of which that is true.  There is no city of the well and city of the sick.  We all live in the same city of man.  It's just too damn bad that one doesn't want to be bothered because when things like this go down each person who has refused to take responsibility for family, friends or neighbor helped pull that trigger. 
What is the worst part of this negligence?  The deadly sin of prestige.  What would people think?  Who cares--big deal.  It's time we got over our false selves and became real.  Try it.  Love your family, friends, neighbors...Help take care of each other...now...at this moment.
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 Liza Long, God bless you.
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Update:  Since there is ice on my roads I turned on the TV this morning to check the conditions.  On turning the channel I glossed past HLN...just as...the announcer stated: ...critics say she is just doing it for attention...again the 'usual' ignorant bias and re-focus to what the political stompers want us to focus on and believe...We see how that is working out...
Well, DUH!...the whole point is to FOCUS THE ATTENTION on what is real...what is desperately needed....If Nancy Lanza and Adam had really found support and help...like a million others out there...we wouldn't be having this conversation. 

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