Want to prevent another Newtown? Treat the illness at the root.

My cousin posted a link to this powerful story written by a mother whose very bright, gifted child is struggling with a mood disorder. She titled it  Thinking the Unthinkable. The Huffington Post published it with the infinitely more lurid title of “‘I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother’: A Mom’s Perspective On The Mental Illness Conversation In America.”

The author writes that her son did not want to wear the pants his school mandated as uniform to class. Because of her son’s long-standing issues with defiance and anger management, this particular argument escalated into a shouting match, perhaps one-sided, that resulted in hospitalization. Between the lines, you can visualize a stress-filled rollercoaster existence replete with many disagreements, many escalations, and many sleepless nights for the parent and the child alike.

If you click on either link, you will also see scathing comments about the parenting skills of the writer. Some responded with helpful, and not so helpful, advice. I suspect she has endured well-intentioned but misguided guidance throughout her parenting life, as her child’s symptoms have inexorably escalated. People likely think she abuses him. or, alternately, that he is spoiled. Or, that he is simply “off,” so his “offness” simply must somehow her fault – she must be “off” in some hidden but sinister way as well..

A long time ago, I worked with kids who had various severe mood-related issues. Schizophrenia. Bipolar. One was catatonic.

Some of them likely had the capability to do harm on the scale we saw Friday. At that time, we called them “severely emotionally disturbed.”

Some were in long term treatment, a group home with other children who had problems of similar magnitudes.  Most of those poor souls had profoundly abusive parents.  In other psychiatric environments where I worked during that time of my life, though, I met children with similar problems who were very much loved, by truly heroic parents. These parents were fighting to save their children from the overwhelming anger and sadness their illnesses brought, along with the hallucinations and delusions that tormented them.

None of these children had recourse to any sort of meaningful. lasting solution to their problems.  None of these families had any way of ensuring their safety or bringing peace to these tortured young  souls. In the group home, they prescribed strong psychotropic drugs like Thorazine to help make them more manageable. There were no drugs at that time to bring them lasting peace that let them retain their sentience or their personalities. There was and is no psychotherapy of which I am aware, even now, that can fully address the challenges faced by the boy “Michael” in this article, or Adam Lanza and his parents.

These families live in fear. They are often ostracized.  The kids themselves are weaponless against their demons. Because of those demons, they are also often friendless, and the isolation makes their already bad situation worse.

When these children and adults commit violence, they will do so with whatever they have on hand. They will likely start with family.

The whisper campaign now makes this dead mother, Nancy Lanza, out to be a “bad mother” on top of being a victim of matricide. She had guns. She took her troubled son shooting. The implication is that she deserved what she got, and she somehow contributed to the massacre at the school by having firearms in her home.  I think that if he was like the children I remember so vividly, she could have taught him meditation and recited Kumbaya each and every morning, and he still would have killed her and done the most heinous thing he could think of afterward. If he had not had access to guns, he would have figured something out – he was a bright, violent and delusional soul.

We have the opportunity to do something powerful here. For once, let’s punt the political footballs and skip the posturing and finger pointing. Instead, let’s unite to push for better mental health care for these at -risk souls and their families.

Closer to home, let’s take the courageous way as individuals and as parents. That child who acts out in class? The one everyone shies away from? That’s the child who most needs a play date.  That’s the parent who most needs to see a friendly face at school, to know someone recognizes the amazing effort she is making. Offer that dad or mom a break while you watch the children for an hour or two, or – even better, if they’re a couple  – a date night, where they get to be a twosome for the evening, not a worried set of parents.

We all need that opportunity to disconnect as parents and reconnect, relax as adults. Many of those parents don’t ever get that chance.

Let’s unite in a positive way – in support of families whose children are different, who might only need a helping hand and a friendly face today. A community of protective and supportive neighbors and friends helps children flourish no matter what. That support may someday prove preventative in the face of a situation that threatens to escalate.

Or, one day, one singularly angry, confused day, your friendship may serve as the lifeline, the saving grace, the only thing between an angry young soul and your friend, the mother. It may be the barrier standing between that angry, confused, hallucinating young soul and a school full of helpless children.

So, do you step forward now, or do you avoid the issue, the child, the family you’re thinking of as you read this? If you are afraid, for you and your own children, that is completely understandable. You are, after all, simply feeling what that child’s parent feels each time the young one escalates.

This misery and danger has to stop. A sustainable treatment course, or even a cure for some of these illnesses, must be found. Help must be made available. Let’s make this happen.

I don’t know who is leading the field in the study and treatment of youthful mental illness – specifically paranoid schizophrenia and mood disorders – right now. Columbia Psychiatry seems to be doing meaningful work through their outpatient research program, the Center Of Prevention and Evaluation (COPE). At the University of California, San Diego Medical Center., they offer the CARE program, an assessment, research, treatment and education program for 12-30 year-olds who are experiencing worrisome changes in their behavior, thoughts or emotions..Schizophrenia.com offers a list of clinics in the U.S. and worldwide.. I’d be interested in any other links people care to share to research, hospitals, nonprofits and doctors.