Mad World

Profile of this blogger:

Social Life:

• I was a loner throughout school.
• I was picked on and teased horribly throughout grade school, and ignored completely in high school.
• I had few friends. To this day, I still don't have a huge social circle.

Violence:

• I played violent video games as early as the age of 7. I still play violent video games.
• I watched a number of violent movies and TV shows from my youth to present day.
• I beat up my sister on a fairly regular basis as a child.
• I got beat up in grade school, and fought right back.

Subculture:

• I was a goth in high school.
• I listened to Marilyn Manson. Still do.
• I did drugs as a teenager.
• I was/am a computer geek.
• I was a Wiccan. Still follow much of it today.

Weapons Access:

• I knew where my Dad kept his hunting rifles and the bullets for them.
• At 16, I could purchase large knives from various stores. And I had, either as decoration or in the case of one I got Gunther, for hiking.
• I own a number of swords, knives, daggers, etc.
• I know where I can buy firearms, and have the room on my visa for them.

Well damn, by this account, I should be high on the list to kill loads of people!

When will society learn that you can't label people based on what color clothes they wear, what music they listen to, etc? If such is the case, I know more people who would be potential mass murderers than not. Such categorization is just an attempt to turn the world into a bastardisied version of The Minority Report. Put the "problem kids" away before they commit a crime. Quasi-scientific precogs.

But the Virginia Tech shootings can't be marked as the crimes committed by a guy who got picked on in school. Very rarely can one thing in a person's life affect them so greatly. In my opinion, the ball was dropped a million of times by loads of people who honestly, deserve no blame in the make up of this guy and the events which lead to the murders this past Monday. The blame lies squarely on Cho, and even I can't say he's 100% to blame either.

Let me explain.

Life sucks, we all know that. Certain events or circumstances in our past shape us into who we are today. It's like all those sci-fi books and movies that go on about how changing one minute in the past can greatly affect the future. Every nasty part of my youth - getting picked on, abusive boyfriends, mistreatment by friends, etc. - has made me who I am now, both positive and negative. This in turn will affect how I raise my children. This in turn, as well as life experiences, will affect how they raise their own children. And so on down the line.

However, there are events in everyone's past that affect them negatively. I have very limited trust in people, even family, thanks to events that have happened. The deaths of my Father and Menerva Jr. have given me a great mistrust in the medical community. Past employment has proven to me (even if it is a cruel realization) that hard work means nothing and asskissing is everything. I've learned that the only constant in your life is yourself and your kids, everyone else can be left behind if it means survival. And yeah, this isn't nice. For these reasons and more I've been told I'm a horrible person and you know what? That just goes to prove even further to me that people in general can't be trusted. That event reinforces my truth.

We all have our own personal truths. Things that to us cannot be disproven. Things that have been proven to us over the course of our lives. For example, it's a proven truth to me that my Mother loves me. It is a proven truth that my Dad loved me while he was alive. It's a proven truth that the sky is blue. That I hate raisins. That my current neighbors are insane. Etc. But it is also a proven truth to me that the human race is flawed, and many will never admit it. This is where one of my truths lie - that no one understands humanity.

This is where the current state of mental illness and its horrible and inaccurate diagnosis comes into play. Let's take Post Partum Depression as an example, shall we? It appears to be a widely held belief that new Mothers should be the happiest people on earth. They've got a brand new baby, someone they've been waiting 9 months to meet, and that their lives are complete by caring for them. Yet people will instantly downplay any sign of PPD, saying it's just an adjustment thing, or that something must be horribly wrong with the Mother if she's not completely ecstatic. Aside from the joys of meeting that person who's been kicking you and making you crave olives and peanut butter, let's look at what happens to a Mother and her life when a baby is born.

• Hormones change drastically.
• Recovery from delivery be it vaginal or c-section.
• Insufficient sleep.
• Many times, multiple doctors’ visits for any complications after giving birth or any ailment the child may have.
• Many times, the support network the woman had prior to becoming pregnant leaves. And those that remain after giving birth diminish as well.
• Advice coming from every direction, solicited and not, and many times given in a fashion that makes it sound like the Mother doesn't know what she's doing.

Add to that if the Mother or child has any condition that could affect their lives, how helpful her partner is (if present or not), financial situations, etc, and yeah, the live of a new Mother isn't not all peaches and cream. Yet numerous people can't fathom why a woman would become depressed, even if the hormone imbalance is not enough of a biological factor for its onset.

And that's just one of the more common beliefs I've run into. Any time there's a mental illness mentioned, it's almost as if people shudder, like the thought of being delusional, bi-polar, schizophrenic, etc, is just too much to bear. But I'd like to think that there are probably more people today with some form of mental illness, be it inherited or developed, than society would like to believe.

And I believe Cho was one of them. Yes, it has already been stated that they believed he had a mental illness. And given the circumstances, they couldn't fully diagnose or treat it. But there you have it. Was it caused by video games? I doubt it. It has about as much of a likelihood as if he was forced to eat peas on a Sunday in November at the age of 4. Yet had he been treated early on, perhaps (and this is just speculation) things would have been completely different, thus changing the entire future.

My point with all of this is that people don't like to talk about, deal with, or admit to any form of mental distress. Most don't even know they have any. I know in my own form (severe depression); I just thought my down and out mood was normal. Seemed almost par for the course. I mean, I lost my Dad when he was very young, my Daughter to something completely preventable had the medical community listened to my requests early on, my cousin to a drunk driver, my Grandmother to suicide, my Mother In Law to a preventable cancer, a friend's Mother to a annorisim, my marriage nearly dissolved in the middle of it, I was living 3000 kilometers away from the family I loved, and caring for a toddler while working full time proved to be stressful. Yeah, I figured the drop of a hat crying was to be expected. That the thoughts of causing harm to myself normal. The desire to spend my day in bed and not face the world common. But at least I realized they weren't normal. Took a while. Thought I could snap out of it if life would quit killing off loved ones and throwing roadblocks in my way. If I could just have a few good, quiet months, I'd be better. Yet that didn't work. And now, on treatment, I'm feeling loads better. I'm one of the lucky ones if you ask me. Because I know loads of people who are in the same funk I was who don't believe anything's wrong and won't hear such words from anyone else.

I think that was Cho's problem. He didn't believe anything was wrong. And no one wanted to admit that there could be a problem. Does that mean he and everyone in his life is to blame? I don't think so...

Because those are their own truths. And society has yet to disprove to the masses that mental illness is not something to be ashamed of.