Weeks have passed since the Umpqua Community College shooting where 10 students' lives ended tragically. And as the political and social media banter around gun control becomes buried (again) in Internet history, I'm left wondering. What path did that killer trudge along that ended with him in a classroom, hands on a gun, stealing the lives of innocent people? As he stepped into childhood, then on to young adulthood, what holes did his feet find that stripped away his innocence, transforming him into a hate-filled, paranoid person? And internally, what barricaded his heart from receiving compassion, caring for life, and maintaining mental stability?
And what prevented us from helping him?
Maybe the answer lives in the deeply set footprints left by the others school shooters who trudged before him. There have 47 documented school shootings so far in 2015. And we can't simply check a box (pro-gun or anti-gun?) to bury those foot-shaped pools of sorrow left behind in our ground. All of these shooters leapt across our playgrounds, grew up in our neighborhoods, sat in our schools, ate and slept in our communities before buying guns in our shops and becoming shooters of our children. They've become our outcasts-- our failures.
But we've missed them. Rather than noticing kids, we've gawked at images on smartphones and screens (at an average time of 444 minutes per day.) Instead of walking or biking past people, we've zoomed past as blurs in sealed-tight automobiles. Instead of listening to the tone of a voice, we've texted inanimate words over screens. Instead of pausing to consider another's life, we've raced on to the next screen or clicked to the next task. And finally, instead of teaching and understanding a student, we've administered tests and curriculum created by distant policymakers who haven't known the student they're teaching.
And when tragedies have happened like the Umpqua shooting, our heads have jerked up from our screens, and we've screamed at the kid (we never noticed), the family (we never helped) and the gun (we thoughtlessly sold.) We've posted rants about it on Facebook. And we've failed to shift our gaze inward recognizing how the road of isolation has twisted right through our hearts and our communities.
According to Princeton sociologist Katherine Newman, all of the school shooters from 1970-2012 were socially awkward, depressed males who were outcasts seeking attention or affection of peers.
They needed attention and affection from peers.
Fromm-Reichmann, a psychoanalyst who escaped Hitler and came to the United States wrote "...no (mentally ill) patient was too sick to be healed through trust and intimacy." An article in The New Republic explains how Fromm-Reichmann believed that "loneliness lay at the heart of nearly all mental illness and that the lonely person was just about the most terrifying spectacle in the world."
They needed healing through trust and intimacy.
The New Republic article also outlined how "psychobiologists can now show that loneliness sends misleading hormonal signals, rejiggers the molecules on genes that govern behavior, and wrenches a slew of other systems out of whack. They have proved that long-lasting loneliness not only makes you sick; it can kill you."
Loneliness can kill.
And as the parent of a special needs boy with fairly significant social challenges, I know loneliness too well. Since toddlerhood, my boy hasn't been able to relate to his peers. He's been cast out of schools, camps, classes, social circles, and even one church community. He sees others connecting at a pace he cannot follow or replicate, and it's painful. Sometimes it's more isolating being around his peers, without appropriate support, than being alone.
The public school districts haven't helped. They have actually tried their best to avoid spending time and money to appropriately educate him. My exhausted husband and I have felt isolated, constantly seeking new ways for our son to build social skills, make meaningful friends, and to learn joyfully. But ironically we are not really alone at all.
My social media feed is filled with stories about other lonely special needs kids and parents. I've read things like, "I quit my job to help my special needs child, but now I don't have the money for the therapies needed." I've read about lack of funding, marriages failing, providers abandoning, and friends and families ostracizing; about schools traumatizing anxiety-ridden special needs kids with isolation and restraint; about teasing and bullying; about administrators attacking parents and denying services for children in need; about the wringing-out of already fatigued, often depressed parents who are trying to help their suffering children. I've read statements like:
"My child is pulling out his hair, and banging his head. The state won't give me any services. I'm out of ideas."
"I can't take another day of fighting with the schools to help my child."
Meanwhile, faces glued to screens pass by, locked cars whoosh along, school administrators click through budgets, relatives become more distant, and the isolated child and parent(s) are overlooked-- again.
And so I ask you, the school districts, the churches, the healthy families, and the politicians-- if we ban the guns, but still lack compassion, if we continue to attach to screens rather than humans, if we fail to educate and to embrace those who are struggling and underserved-- then will this crisis ever end, or will it grow?
Let's stop this. Now.
Let's notice the lonely children, parents, and young adults. Advocate for them. Prevent bullying. Let's surround kids with invitations to engage; education and mental health services to support; and integrated plans for serving their needs.
Let's make it difficult to want the gun, let alone get the gun. Change the gun laws and ourselves before another tragedy occurs.
Let's build blockades before the path of loneliness with our eyes, our ears, and our hearts. Let's smooth out a new route, winding toward us, transporting the lonely child to a collection of open arms.
Let's lead every child to compassion -- one hand, one step, one school, one community at a time.
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