Response to Sandy Hook Shooting

Along the rest of the nation I have spent the past week attempting to grapple with the horrific tragedy that plagued the community of Newtown, Connecticut a week ago.  When events like this happen our own life experiences play into how we comprehend such a senseless act and on which aspects of the tragedy we tend to focus.  For instance, a colleague's Facebook status in the days following stated that she was going to focus on the children and heros rather than the evil that walked into the school in all her conversations for the day about the event.  She is from Connecticut and, I assume, needing to honor her community and focus on its good.

First and foremost, I process these events from the lens of someone who has had first hand experience with a similar event that also made national news some 13 years ago.  Sadly, the numbers of individuals who also have this kind of first hand experience is growing exponentially as events such as this one continue to occur with some regularity.  Even so, though we may have experienced similar events each of our reactions can be quite different based on our previous life experiences and general dispositions.  For instance, I have noticed, beginning with the shooters at my own school, that I tend to find compassion, empathy, and some understanding for the killers.  I have curiosity for what leaves an individual to feel so isolated that they feel the need to take their anger out on innocent children.  Even prior to having gone through my own school shooting, I had always been attracted to the underdog, the children that were isolated from their peers. I suppose that is what led me to wanting to work in mental health and foster care, the interest in the psychology behind people's behaviors and helping out the underdog.

My role as a mental health professional also plays into how I processed the event.  I was at work when I heard the news.  As such, I put my guard up, and refused to take it in so I would not break down emotionally.  I subconsciously desensitize myself to such events and as such refused to focus on the stories of the victims as my Connecticut colleague did.  As the week went on, I was able to slowly let it in as the topic came up with patients.  One patient was visibly distressed and preoccupied and had been talking to me about being abused by his peers when he was an adolescent.  The event being at the forefront of my own mind I specifically asked him about thoughts of hurting others as had been done at the elementary school.   He too displayed confusion and disbelief over the event and could not understand how someone could do something like that either.

Several patients have come in the last few days with anxiety about the holiday coming up.  They verbalize feeling isolated and alone during the holidays.  One guy I talked to yesterday talked about compounded stressors, one of which he identified as making him have homicidal thoughts.  He stated, "That's not me, I'm a good person."  He came to the hospital for help.  These are the individuals that want help, the ones with a moral compass that don't want to have these bad thoughts.  But what about all of those people out there that are sitting at home in isolation that don't desire or don't know how to reach out for help?  How do we identify them and provide services for them in order to protect the rest of us?

As a mental health professional and a foster parent I work with individuals that have been through some pretty tough shit.  Many of the kids in the foster care system have endured unspeakable trauma at the hands of their own parents.  If anybody should have a vendetta against the world, a reason to want to shoot up a school, it should be them.  Yet, the shooters tend to be privileged, white, young men who have lived in the lap of luxury in seemingly stable home environments.  My curious side wants to autopsy all their brains and do brain scans of them playing violent video games.  What's missing for them?  Why do they lack value for human life?

Lastly, I process the event through the eyes of teacher and caregiver.  The first classroom I did practicum work in for undergrad was a first grade classroom.  I can't help but picture the many primary schools I have worked in, subbed in, volunteered in.... and imagined how it would have happened.  Would I have been willing to give my life attempting to protect my students?  What about the principal and school psychologist, they could have hidden away in the office and saved themselves?  Did they die for no reason, should they have just stayed put?  Would they support the NRA's suggestion, if there had been a firearm in a safe in the principal's office, could she have done more to stop him?

I think about how all those kids were sitting ducks in all of the classrooms.  Drawn shades, locked doors, and hiding spots in cubbies was not going to stop a man with a gun.  In addition to lock down drills, shouldn't we have evacuation plans for when the danger is in the building as well?  Those 6 kids that slipped out of the second classroom while their teacher and classmates were shot down, they just ran with nowhere to go.  What if there were some kind of safe house to run to?  

But taking in the magnitude of all those little lives that were lost is hardest for me.  Last night, I babysat the 5 year old boy that I was a primary caregiver for when he had been an infant.  It was so hard watching him play and imagining little children like him taken so tragically.  Such joy and interest in life ripped away from their parents and this world.  I imagine all the parents weeping in their child's bedroom having thought they were just sending them off to school like any other day.  Then I'm taken back full circle to having been through the aftermath myself 13 years ago; the suicides, the bomb threats, the media that follow such a senseless act of hatred.  My heart weeps for Newtown and the long road ahead!

So there you have it, my perspective of the Sandy Hook shooting as student, mental health professional, foster parent, teacher, and caregiver.  Through it all I must find trust in the general goodness of mankind.  Though it is challenging, I must not let fear get the best of me (I have not been to a movie theatre since before the shooting over the summer and have found myself scanning crowded places since last weeks shooting).  I must have hope that what I do through all of my roles makes some kind of difference and helps to prevent things like this from happening again.  How about you, which of these perspectives do you most identify with?  What draws your attention when such a senseless act of violence occurs?

Schizophrenia

My exposure to Schizophrenia prior to moving to Chicago was very limited.  Perhaps, once again, only from movies like A Beautiful Mind.  Then I moved to a big city and started taking public transportation.  I did what every other person on the train did and looked away and ignored the homeless people who were conversing with people not there.  Then there were the advertisements looking for individuals for research studies, "Are you between the ages of 18 and 45 with a diagnosis of Schizophrenia?"

I became intrigued.  Are there really that many people meeting the criteria and receptive enough to respond to an advertisement like that?  I learned more about the illness in my Psychopathology class and began watching for the symptoms I learned about in class while on the train during my commute to and from school.  The people on the train with visible signs and symptoms of psychosis started feeling less foreign to me.  Instead of having feelings of discomfort and fear upon seeing them, I began feeling compassion and understanding.

My heart truly breaks for individuals with schizophrenia.  Can you imagine having experienced a normal childhood, having hopes and dreams for your future, and then having your entire plan shattered after having your first psychotic break during young adulthood?  Granted, it does not have to be debilitating.  There are plenty of people that can function in the world with schizophrenia thanks to a lot of great medications.  But for many of the people I work with everyday at the hospital, those with chronic acute mental illness, it is debilitating.  They often don't stay on their medications or their illness is so severe that the medications can't quite do enough.

Working with my patients has taught me a great deal about Schizophrenia.  I have learned that the illness can manifest in many different forms.  It is as different from one person to the next as we are individuals and all different presenting with our own personalities.  It is an interesting and complicated illness involving our brain, our defense mechanisms, our self-esteem....

My hope is that by writing this now, others can have as much compassion and empathy for those with the illness as I do now.  I want to humanize and educate about the symptoms they experience. The following are some of the possible symptoms an individual with schizophrenia might have.  However, not every person with schizophrenia experiences the same symptoms to the same degree.

• Hallucinations - these can be visual, auditory, tactile, or olfactory in nature.  The individual sees, hears, feels, or smells things that are not really there.  Can you imagine the negative thoughts about ourselves that we all have manifesting into voices constantly reminding us of our short fallings?  Voices telling you that your worthless, good for nothing, that you should commit suicide...
• Delusions - these are false beliefs that an individual has.  For instance a woman might think she is the daughter of a famous person.  A man might think he is pregnant.  An individual might believe he or she came to the earth from another planet.  Many times I have come across individuals with delusions of grandeur and wondered if those false beliefs are their brain's way of protecting them from reality.  As an outsider, this would be the best of the symptoms to have, to really truly believe that you are an important and famous person who has accomplished much in their lifetime.
• Disorganized Thoughts - have you ever woken up from a dream in a stupor, not able to figure out what was reality and what was part of the dream?  Have you ever tried to figure out the answer to a problem in the space between conscious thought and dreamland?  Imagine being in that space in your waking life as well.

What are your thoughts?  Has this been helpful?  What are your experiences with Schizophrenia?

Please check out A Burden to be Well, a NPR piece I heard a few months ago about the siblings of those with Schizophrenia.

House-guests

This summer and fall have been filled with a constant flow of overnight house-guests.  Second week of July, my good friend from Texas, we'll call her "Texas Ninja".  She brought a friend with her the first few days and then her other friend drove in from Iowa for the weekend.  For that visit, Texas Ninja slept on the sofa, and I borrowed a friend's air mattress for the spare bedroom for the Texas Ninja's friends.

Then came "California Drummer" for a weekend in August.  Meanwhile, I was also in the midst of the homestudy process for becoming licensed as a foster parent/home.  So when my father came for a two-week long visit at the beginning of September, I rushed out to get a twin bed the night before he arrived (I hadn't had any bed for my spare room and they stated it would be required prior to my last visit and licensure).

"Roomie" stayed with me for the second week in October, followed by "Redmond Homemaker" with her dog from the 20th to the 25th, and "Omaha Marrieds" for the weekend following.  Needless to say, I am happy to finally have the place to myself with no prospective visitors on the horizon as I settle into hibernation mode for the imminent long Chicago winter.

A year ago I never thought I could live by myself.  Ever since moving away from home after high school to go to college I have always had roommates.  The thought of living by myself scared me.  I thought I would isolate myself, become depressed.  The thing that motivated me the most to get a place of my own was the hope of filling that empty space with that of a foster child.  But it's been nine months now of having my own place and I am still on my own.  And I absolutely love it!

While my father was here for two weeks and I found myself emotionally drained and barely able to function, I wondered, "How will I ever do this when a child is staying with me?"  In these short  nine months I've grown so used to being on my own and having my own space that I'm not sure how I will ever adjust to the change.

It seems that the spring was used as my nesting period, my getting used to living on my own and creating a comforting home environment.  Summer and fall and the revolving door of house-guests were prep for sharing my space with a child.  It really hasn't been all that bad.  In fact, part of the greatness of having my own place has been the flexibility to have people stay over.

In my previous four years of living in Chicago, I have never had such a constant flow of visitors.  Never before has my father been able to have such a long visit due to overstaying his welcome in a roommate's home as well.  It feels good to have the home and stability to provide housing for my guests.  And now I have it to provide a foster child too!