Status Update
By Laura Phillips
I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother
Liza Long
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.
"I can wear these pants," he said, his tone
increasingly belligerent, the black-hole pupils of his eyes swallowing
the blue irises.
"They are navy blue," I told him. "Your school's dress code says black or khaki pants only."
"They told me I could wear these," he insisted. "You're a stupid bitch.
I can wear whatever pants I want to. This is America. I have rights!"
"You can't wear whatever pants you want to," I said, my tone affable,
reasonable. "And you definitely cannot call me a stupid bitch. You're
grounded from electronics for the rest of the day. Now get in the car,
and I will take you to school."
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 plan—they 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 don't 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. He's 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 it's 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 district's most restrictive behavioral
program, a contained school environment where children who can't
function in normal classrooms can access their right to free public
babysitting from 7:30 to 1:50 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
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 can't do that to me! You're sending me to hell! You're 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 couldn't escape from the
car. He bit me several times and repeatedly jabbed his elbows into my
rib cage. I'm still stronger than he is, but I won't 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 paperwork—"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 lying—that 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, "I need help."
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 boys—and their mothers—need help. In
the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it's easy to talk about
guns. But it's 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. "If he's back in the system, they'll
create a paper trail," he said. "That's the only way you're ever going
to get anything done. No one will pay attention to you unless you've got
charges."
I don't believe my son belongs in jail. The chaotic
environment exacerbates Michael's sensitivity to sensory stimuli and
doesn't 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 rise—in 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 ill—Rikers Island, the LA County Jail and
Cook County Jail in Illinois housed the nation's 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, "Something must be done."
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.
