My last post about the Ft. Hood mass shooting two days ago was a "cut-and-paste" of a CBS news story. I thought it summed up what happened fairly well. I wasn't even going to discuss the incident, and actually, was trying to do my very best to avoid listening/reading anything about it, knowing it would upset me.
But I was cooking in the kitchen yesterday and listening to National Public Radio, and they had a long segment on the shooting. If you can believe this, I actually turned the volume down so I wouldn't have to hear it. But then curiosity got the best of me and I had to turn it up. I was not happy about what I was hearing.
Now, I am very biased but it seems to me that the emphasis on why Lopez did what he did is because he was nuts. At least that's what the military seems comfortable saying right now. Sure, he may have been arguing with some people before he went ballistic, but this guy was off his rocker. The story mentions he had depression and anxiety. PTSD perhaps, but that's questionable. No, this was mental illness and it's linked to violence. Surely, this shouldn't surprise anyone.
Understand I'm very, very sensitive to any kind of dialogue that ties someone with a brain disorder to a very violent act. It's not that I dispute this is the case in some rare instances that pretty much always involve mentally ill men. But I know -- and you probably do too -- that this "linkage" prompts many, many people to draw a conclusion that the majority of people with a mental illness are violent, or at least very prone to becoming violent -- and harming a good number of people.
I want to get quite honest and let you know that before my brain blew out in 2002 and I was diagnosed with Bipolar Type 1 with psychotic features, I had some fairly strong beliefs about people with mental illness. I did not look at "them" in a positive light, in some instances I mocked "them," I certainly felt superior to "them," and I wanted to keep "them" at a safe distance because I wasn't entirely sure what "they" might do to me. And I was not alone in this line of thinking. It was not until I experienced for myself what mental illness actually is that I immediately changed my course of reasoning.
I guess what's ultimately frustrating to me is I cannot change/influence what folks think about the mentally ill. Sure, I can lead by example, but stigma is a pretty powerful thing to combat. Particularly when it's ingrained in a collective consciousness. And when a mass shooting occurs -- which sadly is becoming more frequent in America -- stigma against the mentally ill grows bigger and bigger. And I end up feeling deflated and defeated.
I probably would have been better off yesterday keeping the volume down on the radio when NPR was discussing the shooting, and staying off Facebook so I wouldn't have seen the CBS story. But sticking your head in the sand is not always a good thing to do. The event happened. It's tragic. It's now woven into the fabric of American history. Like I said yesterday, I'm afraid -- but probably not in the same way you are. I fear the pall of judgement. And the fact I can ultimately do nothing about it.
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