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First off I wept when I read the news. It’s heart breaking. I have little ones and I just can’t stand the thought of something like that happening. But it did and it breaks my heart for the families who suffered this nightmare.
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Sometimes I see posts and posters that are anti-labeling. People not wanting to get their kids or themselves diagnosed or if they have they don’t want the “label”. I can understand it gets old and can be misused. But, there are good things to labeling.
For one it helped my daughter when she learned she has aspergers. It helped her accept herself and gain self confidence instead of wondering what was wrong with her. It was also way better then being considered demon possessed. (Yes, that happened, our old church leader, the “prophet” Elder Turner, did that one.)
Another good side to “labeling” is preventative man and child slaughter. If you know something is off, odd, or different about your child but you don’t want them “labeled” so you refuse to look into it and work with them appropriately, then maybe your child is that man who killed his parents and shot twenty some elementary school kids in CT or the man that stabbed a bunch of elementary school kids in China…or maybe it will be.
It may not be a sure thing but there is help out there for kids who are psychopaths, there is training and for some there are meds. But having too much pride and fear to admit there could be a problem and you don’t want your kid labeled could end in disaster. There are plenty of unlabeled kids who thankfully didn’t kill others, but so sadly have killed themselves. Even if they are not psychopaths, and they have a strong sense of honesty, right and justice, like people with Autism, they still need to know what they are dealing with and how to deal with it. Kids left undiagnosed and un-labeled often grow into preteens, teens and adults with depression. Sure even with “labeling” it can still happen, but at least they have been given a starting tool to understand themselves and they can research and improve their lives. Even better yet, the parent can get a head start for them and prepare them for reality.
I think in the past there was more of a legitimate excuse for not understanding ones own children. There wasn’t the science behind diagnoses like there is today. There was a lot more superstition about it like I experienced with my daughter and the shame the community put on people who were considered different. So not labeling then made sense in order to protect ones kids from the judgmental fearful community.
We are not in that day any longer. The web has ripped a hole in the excuse of ignorance. Sure I started off ignorant about my kids. But when two different professionals suggested that my kids dad may have aspergers I started googling it and reading and researching. What I found was that the articles on Autism and aspergers not only described my ex but two of my kids as well. Due to moving a few times it took a while to get them officially diagnosed, or as some say, “labeled”. But I kept at it till I got it done. Like I said earlier it helped my daughter a lot to know what she was dealing with.
I do my best to get it in their head that their diagnoses isn’t an excuse to do what they want but a responsibility, that they don’t have a disability but rather an ability, or a type of evolved super power. In other words, due to having ASD they have the ability to focus on their obsession so well that they can make themselves geniuses in that area. I also teach them to be more understanding of others because of what they’ve been through.
I don’t know much about other disabilities, or abilities, but I believe people can be taught to focus and train the good side of what ever it is. There is also a lot more help and experienced folks out there, even if one has to connect with them on the internet, they are there and willing to help. There are plenty of psychopaths in this world that do not harm others. One of the scientist in an episode of Through The Worm Whole who has studied the minds of psychopaths learned that he too has the mind, literally, of a psychopath. He can only guess why he never had the urge to harm anyone and his guess is that he was raised in a good loving family who taught him right from wrong.
Some folks are saying we need to get rid of guns, if that were actually possible in this country it might work. But taking guns from law abiding citizens doesn’t mean the criminals will waltz on up and turn theirs in too. It seems to me the more law abiding citizens that “pack” and do so in plain sight would actually discourage random gun slaughter.
What really needs to happen is for parents to give up the old secretive, don’t air the family laundry, we’re religious so our kids need to appear perfectly normal, if my kid has something it will make me look like I do too, type of attitude and be real and honest about life.
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I want to share something I read on a comment on The New Ultimate Autism Supergroup.
May 18, 1927, Bath, Michigan School treasurer Andrew Kehoe, after killing his wife and destroying his house and farm, blew up the Bath Consolidated School by detonating dynamite in the basement of the school, killing 38 people, mostly children. He then pulled up to the school in his Ford car, then set off a truck bomb, killing himself and four others. Only one shot was fired in order to detonate dynamite in the car. This was deadliest act of mass murder at a school in the United States. This was carried out using a weapon other than a gun. While a gun was used to set off the explosives, there are also many other ways to do so without using a gun.
May 4, 1970, Kent, Ohio is where National guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four UNARMED students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis. THIS WAS DONE BY ARMED AGENTS OF THE GOVERNMENT AGAINST UNARMED STUDENTS.
March 17, 1996, Britain: A gunman burst into a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland, shot and killed 16 children and their teacher, then killed himself. Guns are effectively banned in Britain.
April 26, 2002, Germany: In the town of Erfurt in eastern Germany, 19-year-old Robert Steinhauser opened fire after saying he was not going to take a math test. He killed 12 teachers, a secretary, two pupils and a policeman at the Gutenberg Gymnasium, before killing himself. Gun ownership is highly restricted in Germany.
Sept. 1, 2004, Russia: Three hundred and thirty three hostages, at least 186 of them children, died at School No. 1 in Beslan, Russia. The school was seized by rebels demanding Chechen independence. The deaths occurred during the chaotic storming of the school by Russian forces. Russia has strict gun control laws.
Sept. 23, 2008, Finland: Student Matti Saari opened fire in a vocational school in Kauhajoki in northwestern Finland, killing nine other students and one male staff member before killing himself. Finland has pretty liberal gun laws.
Jan. 23, 2009, Belgium: A man with a white painted face and blackened eyes fatally stabbed two infants and a woman at childcare center in western Belgium. Guns were not used in the attack.
Jan. 23, 2009, Norway: A policeman shot to death a female teacher and then shot himself in what appeared to be a quarrel between former lovers outside a school in the northern town of Tromsoe. The policeman died of his wounds days later. A POLICE OFFICER DID THIS AGAINST AN UNARMED CIVILIAN!
July 22, 2011: 77 people were killed when Anders Behring Breivik went on his rampage. He first used fertilizer and fuel oil to kill 8 people and injure many others. He killed the rest using guns. However, Norway has some of the toughest anti-gun laws in Europe.
History also shows the disastrous effects of banning guns. I could go into great detail here if Facebook didn’t limit the comment.
To the point, Asperger’s is not the sort of thing you want if you’re the kind (like we all are or were) who blocks out God and would rather exalt self than renew others.
The easiest avenue for this self deification for normal people is knowing how to abuse social understanding to your benefit. We aspies don’t have social understanding, so we seek goodhood elsewhere, usually by turning our need for order into a sort of predicable source of auto glorification – especially if it bleeds over to the social arena you failed to manipulate before (X is so smart! He got a hundred on a Calculus test!).
This is also why video games are so popular, and why we get hyper angry when Mario falls down a pit or we can’t solve some second-order diff eq or another. Thats why video game blaming is pulling cart before horse; we up games often times because we are that way already. “How dare it not let me control them. I’m God!” The majority of violent gamers aren’t this way and won’t change on account of games, but the minority who enter it with a bad disposition get a free outlet for projecting the world they hate. Holmes, the Colorado shooter, boasted to his cell mate recently that the projection went the opposite way in that theatre but felt the same. He literally felt like it was just like a shooter game, mind state and all.
Eventually, the social thing will take its toll. You see many of your peers continue success in families while you can barely keep a date or two all year. Things tend to get more sour if you’re around a small group just like you or just around mama. Where are all my worshipful ones? Why are all of these adults who praised my intelligence making me out to be a loser now?
As things keep beating on you you lock yourself up, sometimes literally. With many of us there are drugs, dark obsessions with guns and suicide, not calling out all folks like this but this is where the real bad ones hide.
The following is my guess: In this case it seemed it was just him and mama. He was probably motionless for months, planning sicker and sicker things out on his computer (the destruction of it must have shown some sense of shame unless there was a “they’re not worthy to see my glorious writings” sense to destroying his laptop beforehand) until one day his mom, his last worshiper, kicks him out or commits him to the hospital or something, and so he has totally failed to assert his will on anyone.
The remarkable thing here is that what should have followed was rebuke to the apostate mom and then suicide. After he killed his mom, he literally had nothing left to do but die or beg God mercy.
This is the point where I think we pull away from everything else – all the other shootings and even 9/11 or Kennedy’s assassination – maybe even beyond Stalin and Hitler, who at least wanted a race and a nation to be an excuse.
Lanza had no excuse. His revenge was over, or else he would have spreed at a former job or high school. He had no itch to mass murder, like Holmes or Cho, to gain power and get an afterlife of worldwide notoriety or he would have targeted his own age and peers. He’d stopped caring about those things because he was no longer concerned with making himself out to be his own god. I think he realized the full error of it so I don’t think what he did next was conquest.
He picked children – the youngest children he could find close by and close together – because he knew with fullness that those were of the most valuable and good things on Earth, little men and women who had not possibly yet drenched themselves in the beginning of his own sin. And that’s why I consider this the most evil act possible, nothing could be worse in intention, only in effect. If all innocents were in front of him, he would have killed them if he had the capability, but not us, because his intent was destroying utterly what was good, because it was good, and hopefully drag us brother sinners down to Hell with him for so doing. I’m almost completely sure he was getting what he could against God while he could.
Those who saw him and survived saw hell as it is. In the real thing, save God’s mercy, he will be impotent to even scratch the good fully renewed around him, always fully hearing His call to renew and repent, eventually lying still in shame with the divine light that loves them burning them in anguish.
In those children are Christ and in him Judas, and without something to blame we are forced to see that hell, that act – the most evil act ive seen in my lifetime, not by casualty but by heart- in all of us. Lord have mercy.
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2 people like this.
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Alec Haapala Lori K. Hobbs what do you think of what this man says? -
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James Keith assuming this is truth: he was about to lose his freedom and the only one of whom he loved,felt connected to as a human being(even though he showed it oddly at times,just part of asp.) His mother(not so smart/compassionate) at times through those little kids in his face as ones she could embrace in an effort to connect to normalcy. Which in the end was the doom of her,those in the school and ultimately him. yes he had no where to go and no reason for existence, his hope of things were in fact gone….I would guess remorse had nothing to do with it(suicide), she was gone and so was he!?
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Scott Stinson Profound. -
Lori K. Hobbs Aspergers isn’t a mental illness like it seems the media is trying to put across recently. When people with aspergers/autism are bullied, which is often the case, and when they don’t have a good support system and so on they can fall into depression. But then again neurotypicals (normal) people can too. Depression can affect the brain like an illness and all kinds of things can go wrong if it isn’t dealt with. Some times religion or psychologist are able to make the difference and the people with asperges can become very strong and good influences in society. But, some times religion and psychologist can cause the opposite to happen. Not all psychologist know what they are doing and can cause more harm then good. Religion is sometimes run by ignorant people who do more harm as well. The man who wrote this found relief and hope in Christianity which is wonderful. That he obsesses over it and believes it will work for everyone like it’s worked for him is very aspergers typical. AS (Autism spectrum which includes aspergers) folks are known for obsessing. It may sound negative but it can be very good if they use it to make a living, a better world, and so on. They also usually believe everyone thinks like them which is why they don’t understand when someone gets offended at their blunt honesty and they can get impatient when others don’t know how to read computer programing systems or when folks don’t know all the names of the characters in their fav Manga or video game and so on. The same would go for religion. When someone with AS obsesses over a religion they would just figure everyone should see what they see, feel what they feel and it would work for others the way it world for them. AS people aren’t the only ones like that, it’s just a AS characteristic. I’m not in the AS but I did that most of my life, I felt that the church I was going to and what I was learning was so great for me that it would be great for everyone. Now I am working at and actively enjoying that others find hope and peace in different ways and I can be happy for them with out trying to fix them the way I see best. Some have no hope and no path so I am not against sharing ones testimony. However, it’s important for people to understand that we all have our own path, or life to live and we are different so what works for one may not work for another. There is more to a story them what we know in our own little personal world. I am happy the young man found what he needed. I wonder if he will go to seminary, he would probably memorize all the books and make the teachers look dumb, lol. A good teacher doesn’t mind. I’m sure he could do very well as a biblical scholar.***
Picture found on google search.Newtown Elementary School
A poem by Lori K RevelsCry for the innocent ones
the children
the teachers
the loved ones
the angels close to our hearts
their parents
their children
their brothers
their sisters
their family
their friends
the hope for a better future
gone in a second
suddenly out of our reach
words unspoken
things we shouldn’t have said
regrets we can’t undo
play games in our heads
we can not forget them
we can not let go
we will hold them in our hearts
they won’t melt away with the snow
a piece of our hearts
will always cry
it belongs to them now
they have that right
will they watch us
with loving eyes
will they be dancing
one fair blue sky’s
will they pick a better life
or chose to be
a guardian of ours
they will do that and more
they are part of something bigger
they will go on yet still wait
to welcome us into their loving arms
I love my kids like crazy, and I let them know. Still an event likes this makes me want to do something and all I can do is make sure I continue to enjoy each moment and make the best of every moment I have with them. We are not guarenteed anything, which is why we must remember to live in the moment and do what we can to not create future regrets.
Updated 12-23-2012
I have not read this whole post yet. But children and adults with mental illness do not always get the help they need, even when ppl try to get them help. Annette is just one example. Ppl have been trying to get her help for years. Even since befor we knew her. Back then, she was on a drug called Melarill, an anti psychotic. She never did take it like she was supposed to. She has never been stable. I could tell you some stories, but won’t post them here out of respect to her privacy. But I know she was diagnosed once with borderline personality disorder with homicial and suicidal tendencies. (Something she seemed to be proud of) she never spent more than 24 hours in any psychiatric hosp, even though she was clearly a threat to herself and others. You see where she is now. She could easily have been adam lanza or similar. I have also seen other parents heart broken because they have begged for help for a child that they felt was a danger to others, only to have help refused them for one stupi reson or another, even those children who have had a documented diagnosis.
I agree, the system is seriously messed up in many places.