Perhaps, in the aftermath of the terrible tragedy in Connecticut, people will finally start talking seriously about how to cope with the mentally disturbed. Liza Long, mother of 13-year-old boy who sometimes rages out of control, tells her story.
‘I am Adam Lanza’s mother’: A mom’s perspective on the mental illness conversation in America, on HuffingtonPost.com.
Dr. Liane Leedom recommended this story for Lovefraud readers.
20years:
Yeah, that was the best ever! So much to learn from your post. Your cousin’s marriage was a “normal” “work at it” type of marriage. That is how marriage is supposed to be. Fortunately for HER, she didn’t have a clue as to what an abusive situation can be. It’s a pity that she judges you for the divorce when she has no idea what you experienced. This is a perfect lesson as to why we should NEVER judge anyone. Some people keep things secret and we may never know what they go through.
This kind of reminds me of Adam’s mom, Nancy. I am reading that she is being forgotten in all the memorials. To me, that is very sad. She was murdered by her own child! And we have NO idea what she was dealing with trying to raise a child like that. Very pitiful.
Louise, I am struck by that, too. This morning on the news I heard something about “26 memorials erected to the 20 children and adults at the school who were killed….” and my first thought was, what about Adam’s mother (the first victim)? I CANNOT judge her. I don’t know enough about her. And I mean that in the deepest possible sense. Who are WE to think that we KNOW enough to be able to dishonor her in death like that, by ignoring her? Is anyone’s life or death worth more or less than anyone else’s?
(I have to say, I even feel that way about Adam. That is just my emotion/feelings, as I’m receiving them — simultaneously with the heartwrenching sorrowI feel over all innocents killed that day. As a mother of a son who is sometimes difficult, I know that I could be judged as being a bad parent — and I HAVE been judged. I just think we are all children of God and I have not seen convincing evidence of what it was that “went wrong” in Adam’s case, in order for me to come to any conclusions about what was in his heart/mind, or his mother’s, etc).
20years:
Agreed!!! I am the only one I know so far who has thought of Adam, too. Even at my church, they lighted 27 candles and spaced them across the stage. I thought…27? I guess I can understand that they did not want to honor the man who killed all those children, but he was a soul, too. I guess I am just an extremely compassionate person. I don’t know many people who think the way I do, but 20years, it sounds like you do, too! I mean, I hate that he killed all those children…it’s absolutely HORRIBLE, but in a spirtual sense, he had a soul, too and obviously was deeply troubled to do something so horrid. I have to wonder what happens to him??
Louise,
Yes. I have found so far that no one I personally have spoken with, sees this quite like I am seeing it. Which makes the processing of it all the more difficult. (so, thank you for being someone I can talk to about it!).
Mostly if this event comes up, people say, “that horrible mother!” “that despicable monster who shot all those children!” and all I can see is the seething blame, which is different from anger, and I think it must be due to my own experiences over the years, but particularly recently with the CPS investigation of me, and also all of the blame I’ve been on the receiving end of, and the lessons I learned from that…. this harsh condemnation I is palpable to me, and I find it sickening and I mean that almost literally. I really can feel it and it feels very ugly and unloving.
I don’t make myself feel these things in any particular way. The feelings just come. And I feel deep sorrow about the entire situation, and I do see (at this time) Adam as someone I’m not in a position to judge.
It is hard to watch the world turning this event into something symbolic, where these individual people/souls are encapsulated into brief sketches of “who they were” (or who we have decided to think that they were), and then left stuck there, like bugs on pins in a display, where we attach the meaning to their lives, whatever we have decided (collectively, it seems) that meaning should be. I think it treads on the sanctity of each life, yes also including Nancy’s and Adam’s.
I think it is possible to hold the entire event in a place in our mind, to admit that we do not really know anything about these people, so who are we to decide who they were. And bless each soul. (but that is my perspective and I know it is not shared by everyone).
But if I turn the focus onto myself, I can see that this is an evolving way for me to be. I used to be very judgmental. I didn’t mean anything bad by it. I thought I was right to look for where to point my finger of blame.
It has taken me a very long time and many experiences to get to this place where it is the blame/judgment itself which I now see as wrong and harmful to all concerned. That is not to say that I wish to judge the judgers. This is a tricky thing! And also not to say that I am perfect (certainly not LOL! still a work in progress… I hope…)
20years,
Thank you for that post on the hard work in marriage. OMG, can I resonate with that!
I think that people should stop referring to marriage as work. It’s extremely misleading and spathy IMO. Did a spath come up with that to get us to “work harder” at the marriage?
Part of the “logic” I used to stay with my spath was that I had to work at it and that this was normal.
Why should being with a loved one feel like work? Being kind is not work, it just is. Being considerate, is that work? Well for a spath I guess it is, but it never felt like that to me, until I met the spath. Then, it was always me trying to understand him, meet his needs, love him and prove that love to him. It began to feel like work when I got nothing in return, but then I read that marriage was work, so I accepted it.
Skylar,
Yes, that “marriage is hard work — in a good/strong marriage you work hard on it every day!” thing really misled me.
Since my marriage, I’ve had the opportunity to be in 3 other relationships. (see how I put that?)
I have learned that in a good relationship, one of the main things to do is be yourself and allow the other person to be himself. I know that my initial spark or impulse (when I met my spath husband) was to sparkle and be myself! And appreciate him, as he was (his own sparkly self!). the thing is, I really WAS being myself — but he was NOT.
After awhile, his mask came off and he started looking at me with disgust whenever I’d have my “sparkle” on. He would criticize it. I became afraid to sparkle. But at the same time, I wanted him to sparkle again. And so I shifted gradually to a focus of avoiding his derision and disgust (because it was so painful to me) at all costs (including my sparkle) and trying to find any way I could BE that would help bring forth his smile and look of delight in me. As time wore on, there was no more delight to be had. I tried on every outfit, every dance, every song, every expression in my repertoire. What a lot of WORK!!!
Trust me, I frequently employed the “direct approach” which was me, being honest, saying “honey I really love you, but you seem so unhappy with me these days. What’s going on, and what can we do about it?” and that approach brought nothing but ANGER from him.
The more I was myself — the more punished I was. And punishment is extremely painful. This is how you start to fold up pieces of yourself, to put that sparkle in a box in the back of your closet, and reveal it maybe mostly only to your children, or to your best friend (who has no idea how much HARD WORK your marriage is — because you never tell her! Because you don’t know….)
The more I am myself, the less he likes me. Huh???
I had had no awareness that people like that could exist. So I kept trying to look for explanations. Trying to change myself. Because marriage is supposed to be hard work. It is so sad to me that I spent 7 years of my life trying so hard and sincerely to do the “hard work of marriage,” when it was absolutely hopeless. I had no idea it was hopeless.
Sigh. SO GLAD to be free of that now. I am sad sometimes to think of myself, weeping in the back of my closet, next to the box of my sparkle (maybe?) locked away, tears NOT for him or my children to see. i didn’t want to scare the children. I didn’t want to be so raw, so MYSELF, in front of him — I knew the reaction to my tears would be “wah wah wah there you go, playing the VICTIM again, OH I am so tired of you and your whining…” (eye roll, quacky-duck motion with the hands to show that I’m just flapping my gums for no purpose whatsoever).
And my question to myself I could never figure out: He wants me to be his wife — WHY???
20Years
Thank you for bringing this perspective to LF. I have evolved my philosophies which include knowing the difference between blaming, judging, discerning, and holding people accountable. I observe that too many times, people judge by stating the behavior and THEN deciding the thought process of the person they judged. Obviously I think that oversteps logic. Until we find a way to live in another person’s brain, we can not know their thought process.
I see nothing wrong with holding Adam’s mom accountable for what she did, BUT NOTHING FURTHER. I use my life experience as the rationale for why NOTHING FURTHER. I have had a difficult time with my dearest love, my daughter. And I tell her, if I knew what your personality was going to be, and what you identified as your core needs, I would have made different choices. But that is only known in hindsight, so perfect mom? No, I wanted to be a perfect mom b/c I LOVED her that much, but I was not able to give her perfection. So I concentrated on what I wanted her to know: that WHO she was would be more important than what she looked like (which she interpreted as me never thinking she was pretty, she thought I saw her as ugly and rejected by me -breaks my heart that my baby felt rejected.).
Extrapolating my experience, I have seen parents take their insecure kids to Karate. I have seen parents try to take THEIR skill, and teach it to their kid so their kid can have pride in accomplishment. SO, if Adams mom taught him to shoot, do you honestly think she did it to train a future mass murderer? THis woman who by all I read about, devoted herself to caring for her dysfunctional son? She groomed him to murder? NO. I do not think so.
I hold her accountable for having guns, not for what happened. I believe if she had known the outcome, she would have made LOTS of different choices. She was murdered, she failed to assess the point of no return for her son. (I did the same, I failed to assess the point of danger for myself and was nearly murdered, I was saved ONLY by a fluke.) How many people are murdered b/c they lived with their killer and failed to assess the point of no return?
Additionally, I know that if she didn’t have guns, he would have gotten them elsewhere. In fact, as I understand it, he tried in the weeks before to buy guns and got turned down. From that, I conclude she kept him from having access and he found a way to circumvent that.
Adams rampage is a terrible tragedy. I don’t trivialize a bit of it. But I do believe his mother was part of that tragedy, I don’t believe her to be complicit. She failed to predict when she would completely lose control of him. And I think it very sad to see all this blamed heaped on her, and I don’t think the blame to be emotionally healthy but a judgement fanned by the flames of the media. I wish society could learn the difference between blame and accountability. And as a mom who also would have made different choices for my difficult child, I feel for her and think she should be including in the list of murdered victims.
Thanks Again 20 years, I agreed with your perspective. I just added my 2 cents, and 3 cents more.
I just ordered “Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity.” Which is the story of Dylan Kybold’s parents and how they were made out casts because of what he did. I don’t think if I remember correctly And I may not, that Dylan was the psychopath that Eric was, but more of a follower.
There are no “support groups” for the parents of criminal monsters, and in a way Nancy Lanza got the “easy” way out…she didn’t have to face what would have been done to her, or will be done to her memory.
In my letter to the parole board, the final draft, I used the focus of “I am Adam Lanza’s mother” and my attorney said that it was the BEST protest letter he had ever read. I DO KNOW WHAT IT IS TO BE Dylan Kybold or Adam Lanza’s mother, though my son didn’t killl as many people as they did, one is more than enough.
Every nurturing parent who does their best to raise their child to respect the laws of this land and to be kind to others suffers the same horror at not having been able to do something more. At not having been able to FIX a child that maybe for years we knew was “not right” in some way. I knew patrick was not right, not moral, not caring, and was selfish and uncontrollable, but I never dreamed in my worst night mares that he would KILL…I failed to realize even after he HAD KILLED that there was no conscience there, no remorse.
But now that I know, I am doing all I can to keep him where he will not be able to hurt me, my other sons or society. I hope it works, and I hope that my letter and the letters of my friends and relatives will move the board to keep him incarcerated.
The REPEATED strain of having to keep on with this “essay contest” every 3 years or so…is unnecessary, because he got “life” that should do it. He should DO LIFE, but according to the laws in effect, every few years we will have to repeat this protest no matter what it costs us to do so. Costs in terms of money and energy and emotional pain.
OxD, that’s what I’ve always been curious about: what do parents of monsterous offspring DO?! I don’t mean “How do they warn society,” and all of that…I mean, WHERE do they find support?
I do not believe that any conscientious parent brings a child into the world with the express purpose of producing a threat to society. And, when that offspring is clearly developing into a danger, there is no remedy and NO support for that (or, those) parent(s). In fact, most attempts to reach out result in a parent being ordered into “parenting courses” because they’re unable to control their child. Right. Let’s set these kids in “Time Out” and so forth.
The level of frustration and helplessness is indescribable. And, any attempts to discuss my eldest son’s behaviors and absolute defiance was met with blank stares – even from my own family members. “Well, you have to teach him better,” was the typical response. Well, okay – I was living in an extremely abusive environment with the son’s father, so I left the father in hopes that I could affect changes once this kid was away from the abuser. Not so. The son acted-out in even more extreme ways as per the trauma-bond with his father and his father’s manipulations.
There is no support for parents of children who are dangerous. There isn’t. Not from Social Services, not from the Courts, not from the community, and not even from the psych communities.
Brightest blessings
Truthspeak, wow.
This (Lovefraud) community is the only place I have ever found support for this type of thing.
I know that all of us here are brought here by the shared experience of a relationship with a sociopath. And that we are each in different stages of growth and recovery from that.
It is SO LONELY to be the one on the receiving end of the “blank stare.” Even more so if it is your friends and family.
It is also hard to have BEEN one of those blank-staring people in the past, to know that you have been there, to understand that viewpoint, to respect the kindness and well-meaning cluelessness, and then your life changes — you have the sociopath relationship, you have the difficult child…..
And you are NOT the person you were, because of it. But the others have not had a sociopath experience (walked in your moccasins) — bless them. And so, not only don’t they understand, they don’t even seem to want to try to understand. Instead, they judge you as being misguided, crazy, or wrong.
I have tried (recently) to share my experiences and what I am learning from them with family/friends who have not had the types of experiences I have had. Why have I done this? Actually, it is mostly because there is now this GULF between us, and I feel such loneliness because of it — I am trying to close that gap, to share myself in hopes that they understand me and, once understanding, they accept. and, once accepting, they realize that we see things differently and that’s OK. They don’t have to judge me.
But that’s not happening. So am I now regretting that I have tried to share?
it’s such a dilemma! To keep parts of myself hidden so that I spare myself the pain of being on the receiving end of the blank stare or pointing finger of blame and judgement. Should I just be pretending to be just like them (just like I was)?
Can I get a new set of friends? I suppose. But I’m not young. I just mean, there is a long history with these people. I don’t write people off. I can be friends with them! if only they could accept me as I am.
What about family? Should I pretend with them? It’s not like we don’t have lots in common. It’s just that I have these different lenses on now, so we perceive things differently.
I just feel sad. Maybe it’s the time of year. But it’s like a door opened, I got shoved through it, I looked back at the chasm I crossed and know that now that I’m here, I can never go back there — not even if I wanted to. I cannot unsee something, once I have seen it. My family and friends are still over there on the other side of that chasm. Can I bring them with me? They don’t want to come. Heck, I didn’t want to go, either. I got SHOVED.
Does this make sense? I get abstract when I am moody. 🙂
But specifically speaking to your experience, Truthspeak, you are not alone and you are absolutely right. There is no understanding and support for parents of dangerous children. Only judgment. No actual help.
And if the problem is not recognized for what it is and taken seriously (judgement and blame is an easy bandaid solution which sounds real good, like you are “taking action!” — but doesn’t solve the problem).
Well, I’m grateful for the people here who get it. This is definitely not a lonely place. 🙂