Earlier today, an Army psychiatrist went on a shooting rampage and killed 12 people at Fort Hood in Texas, wounding at least 30 others in his crossfire. Then, a few minutes ago, I received a message telling me that one of my former students committed suicide earlier today.
All I can ask, in the case of both of these incidents, is why? Why? Why did this soldier find it necessary to kill so many innocent people? Why did this young woman decide to take her own life? Why? I just can't understand any of this. I always struggle with the senselessness of murder and suicide, but in these two cases, I'm struggling more than in times before.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that mental illness was at play in both cases. It's not a big secret that I fight slight depression and that several people close to me also fight mental illness, including depression and bipolar disorder. Knowing what I know about these diseases (and, yes, they are diseases, just like any other illness), I still find it hard to comprehend how things could be so hopeless in your life -- so hopeless that you're driven to kill others, or just as sadly, yourself.
I'm really bothered by these senseless deaths tonight. My heart is sad and I wish that I could help make things better for people, but I just don't know how.
I sometimes wonder if things like this could be prevented if some of the stigma surrounding mental illness were removed. We don't judge people who have pneumonia, so why do we judge those who are mentally ill?
I want to see the day when we, as a society, quit associating mental illness with something horrific, contagious, and denigrating, and instead, much like we do with phsycial illnesses, we recognize mental illness and encourage treatment. Perhaps then things like this will no longer happen and there won't have to be so many sad hearts in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment