- Michael with a butterfly.
This has been reposted from The Blue Review.
Three days before 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother, then opened fire on a classroom full of Connecticut kindergartners, my 13-year old son Michael (name changed) missed his bus because he was wearing the wrong color pants.
âI can wear these pants,â he said, his tone increasingly belligerent, the black-hole pupils of his eyes swallowing the blue irises.
âThey are navy blue,â I told him. âYour schoolâs dress code says black or khaki pants only.â
âThey told me I could wear these,â he insisted. âYouâre a stupid bitch. I can wear whatever pants I want to. This is America. I have rights!â
âYou canât wear whatever pants you want to,â I said, my tone affable, reasonable. âAnd you definitely cannot call me a stupid bitch. Youâre grounded from electronics for the rest of the day. Now get in the car, and I will take you to school.â
I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me.
A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7- and 9-year-old siblings knew the safety planâthey ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me.
That conflict ended with three burly police officers and a paramedic wrestling my son onto a gurney for an expensive ambulance ride to the local emergency room. The mental hospital didn't have any beds that day, and Michael calmed down nicely in the ER, so they sent us home with a prescription for Zyprexa and a follow-up visit with a local pediatric psychiatrist.
We still donât know what's wrong with Michael. Autism spectrum, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant or Intermittent Explosive Disorder have all been tossed around at various meetings with probation officers and social workers and counselors and teachers and school administrators. Heâs been on a slew of antipsychotic and mood altering pharmaceuticals, a Russian novel of behavioral plans. Nothing seems to work.
At the start of seventh grade, Michael was accepted to an accelerated program for highly gifted math and science students. His IQ is off the charts. When he's in a good mood, he will gladly bend your ear on subjects ranging from Greek mythology to the differences between Einsteinian and Newtonian physics to Doctor Who. He's in a good mood most of the time. But when he's not, watch out. And itâs impossible to predict what will set him off.
Several weeks into his new junior high school, Michael began exhibiting increasingly odd and threatening behaviors at school. We decided to transfer him to the districtâs most restrictive behavioral program, a contained school environment where children who canât function in normal classrooms can access their right to free public babysitting from 7:30 a.m.-1:50 p.m. Monday through Friday until they turn 18.
The morning of the pants incident, Michael continued to argue with me on the drive. He would occasionally apologize and seem remorseful. Right before we turned into his school parking lot, he said, "Look, Mom, I'm really sorry. Can I have video games back today?"
"No way," I told him. "You cannot act the way you acted this morning and think you can get your electronic privileges back that quickly."
His face turned cold, and his eyes were full of calculated rage. "Then I'm going to kill myself," he said. "I'm going to jump out of this car right now and kill myself."
That was it. After the knife incident, I had told him that if he ever said those words again, I would take him straight to the mental hospital, no ifs, ands, or buts. I did not respond, except to pull the car into the opposite lane, turning left instead of right.
"Where are you taking me?" he said, suddenly worried. "Where are we going?"
"You know where we are going," I replied.
"No! You canât do that to me! Youâre sending me to hell! Youâre sending me straight to hell!"
I pulled up in front of the hospital, frantically waving for one of the clinicians who happened to be standing outside. "Call the police," I said. "Hurry."
Michael was in a full-blown fit by then, screaming and hitting. I hugged him close so he couldnât escape from the car. He bit me several times and repeatedly jabbed his elbows into my rib cage. Iâm still stronger than he is, but I wonât be for much longer.
The police came quickly and carried my son screaming and kicking into the bowels of the hospital. I started to shake, and tears filled my eyes as I filled out the paperworkâ"Were there any difficulties with... at what age did your child... were there any problems with.. has your child ever experienced.. does your child have..."
At least we have health insurance now. I recently accepted a position with a local college, giving up my freelance career because when you have a kid like this, you need benefits. You'll do anything for benefits. No individual insurance plan will cover this kind of thing.
For days, my son insisted that I was lyingâthat I made the whole thing up so that I could get rid of him. The first day, when I called to check up on him, he said, "I hate you. And I'm going to get my revenge as soon as I get out of here."
By day three, he was my calm, sweet boy again, all apologies and promises to get better. I've heard those promises for years. I don't believe them anymore.
On the intake form, under the question, "What are your expectations for treatment?" I wrote, âI need help.â
And I do. This problem is too big for me to handle on my own. Sometimes there are no good options. So you just pray for grace and trust that in hindsight, it will all make sense.
I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza's mother. I am Dylan Klebold's and Eric Harris's mother. I am Jason Holmes's mother. I am Jared Loughner's mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho's mother. And these boysâand their mothersâneed help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, itâs easy to talk about guns. But itâs time to talk about mental illness.
According to Mother Jones, since 1982, 61 mass murders involving firearms have occurred throughout the country. Of these, 43 of the killers were white males, and only one was a woman. Mother Jones focused on whether the killers obtained their guns legally (most did). But this highly visible sign of mental illness should lead us to consider how many people in the U.S. live in fear, like I do.
When I asked my son's social worker about my options, he said that the only thing I could do was to get Michael charged with a crime. âIf heâs back in the system, theyâll create a paper trail," he said. "That's the only way youâre ever going to get anything done. No one will pay attention to you unless youâve got charges."
I don't believe my son belongs in jail. The chaotic environment exacerbates Michael's sensitivity to sensory stimuli and doesnât deal with the underlying pathology. But it seems like the United States is using prison as the solution of choice for mentally ill people. According to Human Rights Watch, the number of mentally ill inmates in U.S. prisons quadrupled from 2000 to 2006, and it continues to riseâin fact, the rate of inmate mental illness is five times greater (56 percent) than in the non-incarcerated population.
With state-run treatment centers and hospitals shuttered, prison is now the last resort for the mentally illâRikers Island, the LA County Jail and Cook County Jail in Illinois housed the nationâs largest treatment centers in 2011.
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, âSomething must be done.â
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. To read more from the Blue Review, click here.