Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Newtown

I used to think, the people I was put off by--those petty, reckless, and a bit off-the-wall kind of people--just wasted their time and mine, and eventually wasted their own lives. My thinking was incomplete, because these kinds of people can go further than that. They may mess up other people’s lives, too, because they like to stir trouble and attract attention in a theatrical, drama queen or king sort of way.

But then who doesn’t act in a petty and reckless fashion every now and then? Are any of us as we seem?

Although the thoughts derived from answers to both questions apply to all human beings, most of us fare pretty well in life without causing too much commotion around us, and even accept those who do as the quirky ones.

Yet, such behavior, when it starts in early ages, is also the tip off of serious mental illness, and most of us parents, being parents, do not attach any negative forecasts to our children. Parents when faced with their children’s mental health problems need people to point out the gravity of their children’s situations to them, not those people in schools and neighborhoods, be it friends, officials, and even pediatricians, who tell them, “It’s just a stage. Growing pains. He’ll get over it.”

Today’s tragedy of Newtown school shooting brings this problem to the forefront. A town quiet and secure with nice people, yet one sick person ruined not only his life and his family’s but the entire nation’s. What can one say in such a situation, with loss so heavy, so surreal?

I cannot imagine any human being who wouldn’t at least get a heavy heart and misty eyes, no matter how far away he or she may be from the actual scene. I cannot imagine how those first responders, the swat team, the police, the medical people, and the religious personnel who went in there to give aid and comfort and especially those who carried out the dead bodies of so many children will get over this tragedy. I cannot imagine how much and for how long the intense images will haunt them.

But who failed this beautiful small town? Who failed everyone involved? Who failed all of us, the entire nation? I can’t help but point the finger to the mental health system, an entity that failed to impress its own importance on the entire population and the political machine. When cuts are made in the health area, cuts to mental health are the first to be considered. And the officers of mental health and its associations do not utter a peep.

It’s time for those in the know to get a backbone, so another Newtown tragedy does not darken our lives.