Friday, February 15, 2008

Another massacre at a school

*begin Vent*
Anyone but me notice that all these gunmen nutters going off have a common thread? All were 'off their meds' when they decided to go on a killing spree.

I remember having discussions years ago about what was going to be the result of all these kids put on ADD/ADHD/hyper drugs to calm them down and make em more manageable in school. Instead of discipline, self control and learning how to control yourself and focus like all previous generations had too, it was magic pills. One of the topics was how they are not learning how to deal with full blown emotions, walking around hazy. Then come the hormone years and how difficult it is to muddle through that highly emotional period in life....but if you are still medicated through it, how much actual learning to deal with life's disappointments and highs do you really achieve?

Now they get to college where Mommy and Daddy are not there to be sure scripts get refilled, much less taken and life comes at them full force, unmuddled. Those poor kids in universities that were jumping out dorm windows stories up a couple years ago, the suicide rates in young adults skyrocketing, and now as this breakthrough group gets in the real world outside college, killing sprees.

I'm not about to argue that some kids were not genuinely helped with these drugs, but I'm sure we can all agree passing out those little pill prescriptions became abused. My own step son was told he could not return to school until his mother put him on medication. (thankfully through the years I had been giving her reports about the seriousness the long term results were showing and she chose to home school him instead) He is not hyper, he was just bored. He lacked self control and the school lacked the capacity/patience to expect it from him. Imagine our lack of surprise to learn that schools get more federal money per child, if a child is labeled with a disability, and if he/she is on ADD/ADHD meds, it classifies.

*off Vent box*

Anyway

Am I the only one seeing this particular thread of connection in the violence thats on the rise?
I am not a medical doctor, I don't play one on TV. I am in certainly NO place to be giving medical advice. So all of this is from my own very limited experience. Earlier, in my venting ire I only put this in passing "I'm not about to argue that some kids were not genuinely helped with these drugs," to address that some kids are actually helped. Lets explore that. Some people are CERTAINLY helped by medications available today. I'm so very glad for them to have the opportunity at normalicy through the pharmaceutical company. This post is NOT about them.

I'm not interested in finger pointing, what is done is done, but the repercussions that seem to be coming from that generation of kids that were medicated throughout their young life deserve some conversation. How can we help others who may be dealing with this same confused rage before they explode without talking about the possibility of the connection? It's uncanny how these massacres are instigated by people that are 'off their meds' and it bears the question: WHY do so many flip out in violence without them?

My points on the haziness come from experience with and conversations with long time friends that were on the drugs. I've yet to meet personally a person that did not describe their time with the meds as foggy or 'dulled down' once they have been off for a while. Doesn't make it true for everyone, just my own limited experience.

It's very sad, and none of this helps those parents whose children are now gone forever because someone else lost control of their actions.

2 comments:

Jess said...

I think more than anything it all stems from how little we as a generation of adults/parents choose to trust information that we did not spend the time to research and judge for ourselves. At least not enough to form our own well educated opinions about what to do in regards to mental illness and medication/medicating.

We can all point fingers and guess and blame who and why these people do what they do, but doing so doesn't change that it happened. And its probably going to keep happening. And that is the sad truth. We have to start with our own realm- our parents, our kids. Let that be our focus.

the girl with pointy sticks said...

Totally agree Jess.