p19. Broken Hearted, not a loss for words.
I just sit with chills when I read stories of senseless crimes. Somehow it can be connected to struggles of those with mental illness; sometimes I know they are not.
An upscale neighborhood, three brothers, a lovely old house, divorced parents; the mother is the custodial parent. Two of the boys attend one of the most expensive catholic private schools in the city, the other – the middle boy who is 15/16 has attended numerous schools, and just returned from boarding school after being asked to leave. The oldest brother who was to his high school graduation in the following week, was just laying on a couch – then his life was gone, beaten out of him with a baseball bat. Later his middle brother would clean the blood off of himself in the public fountain in the public square of the most prominent shopping area in town, before he asked a stranger to call 911. WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
I know the news media seems to be not the best source for … well news. So I have to take it with a weary view, but the details are just odd. Principals are attesting to the goodness of the middle son, having educational problems and being moved repeatedly because of them. Well this is what one principal said, it just so happens to be the principal of the “model” parochial school for LD and SBH students, in fact other Catholic schools are studying their very successful program. Da went to many schools – her boarding school sent her home too.
Given I have few details, and hearing that the defense is looking into psychological testing – someone please tell me he has been tested before; someone please tell me that this family recognized he had issues and kids just don’t shift from schools like this, please tell me that a diagnosis of schizophrenia vs. psychopath was ruled out years ago.
I have heard he was a drug user and was dismissed from schools because of violent behavior, this from people that knew his family. Please tell me this child was given a chance to treat an illness with prescription drugs before he had to self medicate.
I can’t understand this, I am having such pain for this family, this senseless death, this confused teenager, the poor memories the younger brother will now have and the pain this mother and father will never recover from.
Please explain to me how a parent can go on after a tragedy like this.
Please explain to me why mental illness is an embarrassment or is hidden.
Please how do you let someone go with such frustration of knowing something is not right or with the lack of diagnoses. Please tell me that this young graduate lying on the couch didn’t die because of this.
An upscale neighborhood, three brothers, a lovely old house, divorced parents; the mother is the custodial parent. Two of the boys attend one of the most expensive catholic private schools in the city, the other – the middle boy who is 15/16 has attended numerous schools, and just returned from boarding school after being asked to leave. The oldest brother who was to his high school graduation in the following week, was just laying on a couch – then his life was gone, beaten out of him with a baseball bat. Later his middle brother would clean the blood off of himself in the public fountain in the public square of the most prominent shopping area in town, before he asked a stranger to call 911. WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
I know the news media seems to be not the best source for … well news. So I have to take it with a weary view, but the details are just odd. Principals are attesting to the goodness of the middle son, having educational problems and being moved repeatedly because of them. Well this is what one principal said, it just so happens to be the principal of the “model” parochial school for LD and SBH students, in fact other Catholic schools are studying their very successful program. Da went to many schools – her boarding school sent her home too.
Given I have few details, and hearing that the defense is looking into psychological testing – someone please tell me he has been tested before; someone please tell me that this family recognized he had issues and kids just don’t shift from schools like this, please tell me that a diagnosis of schizophrenia vs. psychopath was ruled out years ago.
I have heard he was a drug user and was dismissed from schools because of violent behavior, this from people that knew his family. Please tell me this child was given a chance to treat an illness with prescription drugs before he had to self medicate.
I can’t understand this, I am having such pain for this family, this senseless death, this confused teenager, the poor memories the younger brother will now have and the pain this mother and father will never recover from.
Please explain to me how a parent can go on after a tragedy like this.
Please explain to me why mental illness is an embarrassment or is hidden.
Please how do you let someone go with such frustration of knowing something is not right or with the lack of diagnoses. Please tell me that this young graduate lying on the couch didn’t die because of this.
posted by ewschott at Thursday, May 26, 2005
5 Comments:
Without knowing anything of the middle child beyond what would, in a court of law, be called hearsay, I can't even pretend to speculate on what drove that child to this act of vioence. But is it really so unusual? What is astonishing to me is not that these things happen, but that they do not happen more often.
As awful as this may sound - I think once a family moves into certain social/economical stages this is a more shocking event to take place in a family.
People in this "level" of income have much more opportunities for good medical attention.
I hope this makes sense, so I am astonished this would happen in this family
I live in the city where this happened. The parents are well to individuals who knew their son was having an episode. They left him alone with his brother anyway. All they cared about was going out for the evening. The son has pleded not guilty.
The boy was an undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic with no history of violence. The parents were divorced, and therefore, not going out for the evening. The mother was at work in juvenile court. This happened in the early afternoon.
Don't talk about things you know nothing about.
It was all such a horrible incident and I tried to be sensitive about it in that way, but things like this speak volumes about our persceptions of mental health and how the public sees it and/or us.
I have not heard how the young fella is doing, hopefully they have him on the right meds and he is fairing better. I often pray for his mother and younger brother also his step sister.
I am surpised you say he had no previous history of violence, this isn't true and he had been dismissed from many schools so there was a history, but maybe no one just knew of what.
I am not sure if the family had an evaluation before, but I hope all parents understand for your kid to be "kicked out" of school more than one time and is not just a "growing up" issue it is more than that, so is getting caught drinking/drugs/stealing repeatedly, etc. There is a pattern for an reason, parents cannot look the other way, not is it only unfair for the kid, but it's also unfair for the parents mental health too.
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