Gun control, mental health and trauma

Ever since Sandy Hook, there has been a lot of discussion on the web about gun-control and whether or not it could have saved those children.

My personal belief was that regardless of what caused his mental illness, Adam Lanza was a dangerously unstable young man. His mother should not have been allowed to keep multiple fire-arms within his reach. Would lack of easy access to firearms have stopped him? Not necessarily, but it might have slowed him down and forced him to think twice.

I am told that to check mental health records and interview friends and neighbours of people who share the home of the applicant, or even the applicant himself, is to convict someone before a crime has been committed. In America one is innocent until proven guilty, and one should not be treated as a potential criminal until a crime has been committed. One should not be required to give up one's constitutional rights until there has been a conviction.

It is a noble argument, but I'd like to call bullshit.

Essay, written by a 17 year old survivor

In a quest to re-connect with my younger self, I have been looking for clues of who I was age 4-16. I looked for photos, but none seem to exist. Then I remember a piece of writing, an essay I wrote for a school assignment at 17, but never handed it because it was simply too raw.

The class was English creative writing. We were to write an essay entitled "me". This is what I wrote:

Controlling the urge to cut

I am not a trained professional. I cannot write a definitive guide on how to control the urge to self-injure. I suspect that even if I was a trained professional, I would still be hard-pressed to come up with such a guide. What I can do, is share what worked for me. If you are someone who struggles with this, I hope this helps. However, I would still urge you to get professional help.

1. Solving the root cause

I want to start by saying that the holy-grail of conquering the urge to cut, lies in resolving the underlying issues that cause the urge. Cutting is a coping method. It satisfies a need. As long as this need exists, you will have a hard time controlling the urge to cut. Read more about his from my post Self-injury: what's that all about?. Obviously addressing that need takes a lot of time and work. You will need ways to cope in the short term.

Thoughts on suicide

I've been suicidal.

Who am I kidding? I've made multiple attempts.

There was a time when I simply could not see how I would ever be able to live my life. It was too hard. The pain and guilt was too much to cope with. I had also convinced myself that I was a burden to those who cared about me, and that I would be doing them a favour by removing myself from their lives. I did not deserve to stay alive, to continue to wreck havoc in their lives.

I hated myself that much.

But in the end, it was ok. I found a way to deal with life. I even found happiness. There was a way out of the dark hole of depression and self-loathing after all.

Self-injury: What's that all about?

I've been battling with an urge to cut myself the last few days, so I decided that I might as well channel it into something useful, and try to write a post explaining what self-injury is all about. The fact is - although self-injury is something that is generally associated with "emo" teenage girls, both men and women of all ages struggle with this.

Self-injury has many facets. That is part of the reason why it is so hard to understand.

The reasons why people injure themselves are often listed as the "8 Cs":

1. Coping and Crisis intervention
2. Calming and Comforting
3. Control
4. Cleansing
5. Confirmation of existence
6. Creating Comfortable numbness
7. Chastisement
8. Communication

About mental illness, ignorance and labels

This is a little rant about something I heard a while ago. I thought it was possibly the worst excuse ever to not take a child to a therapist.

The little boy is about 11 years old. He is showing clear signs of ADD, and very strong hints of Bipolar Disorder. He is at times extremely aggressive, and at time almost despondent. Yet his mother refuses to take him to a therapist because she doesn't want him to be labelled for the rest of his life. She even went as far as to label another family member who has been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder as a "crackpot", saying her son is nothing like him, even though she is the only person saying that.

My jaw dropped. How ignorant can you possibly be? Does she honestly believe that not having him diagnosed and treated will make it all go away? I cannot believe that in this day and age, there are still people out there who are this ignorant about mental illness.