Statists of stigma

Survivor's Guilt was first identified during the 1960s. Several therapists recognized similar if not identical conditions among Holocaust survivors. Similar signs and symptoms have been recognized in survivors of traumatic situations including combat, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and wide-ranging job layoffs. A variant form has been found among rescue and emergency services personnel who blame themselves for doing too little to help those in danger, and among therapists, who may feel a form of guilt in the face of their patients' suffering. Sufferers sometimes blame themselves for the deaths of others, including those who died while rescuing the survivor or whom the survivor tried unsuccessfully to save.

People are paralyzed by the senseless killings that took place last week; families have been devastated, children's futures stolen.  This is a tragedy with which everyone, seemingly, can identify.  It puzzles me to use the term "senseless killings" as if there are, in contrast, sensible ones.

Government offices have been flying their flags at half staff per President Obama orders: "US flags to half staff until sunset on December 18, 2013 honoring the victims of the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut." Half staff is the term describing flying a flag below the summit of the flagpole (mast). This is done in many countries as a symbol of respect, mourning, or distress. (wikipedia.com)

Respect, mourning, distress.  I get it. I do.  This horrific event affected us deeply but I question if the American flag should ever NOT be at half staff.

US Violent Crime Statistics

According to the FBI's national crime statistics, 1.2 million violent crimes were committed in the United States in 2010 – about the same as were committed in the US in 2009. These violent crimes include such crimes as murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.  

Respect, mourning, distress.  I get it. I do.  Yet our government has instructed us to mourn on a national level for a specific group of people for a specific amount of time.  What about my friend's niece who was brutally raped and murder? What about the 1.2 million victims annually? What about EVERYONE else who's suffered great tragedy and great loss?

"While this request is well-intentioned, this person has no authority to make this request. Most flag lowering occasions mark a significant tragic event in our nations history such as Pearl Harbor Day, 9/11 (Patriot Day), Memorial Day, or the passing of a current or former President of the United States, Vice President or similar dignitary. Also immediate tragic events such as the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger, Oklahoma City Edward P. Murrow building, Columbine HS..." ~RockyMtnFlag on February 7th, 2011

I'm not sure how I came to handle death so calmly but I believe it came from having my grandfather die when I was very young, seeing him in an open casket and knowing the person contained in that box was not my grandpa.  It helped that my grandmother (by choice, not blood) guided me with words with a religious base and discussed our spirits and that our bodies simply house them. It helps that my choice of religion believes that families and marriages last forever, "for time and all eternity" not until death do us part.  I explained to my daughter, as difficult as it was to truly believe what I was saying, is that God's will will be.  That if it's my time to leave them that is the plan.  That, for some reason, those children were called home to their heavenly father.  That when our spirit's time is up on this earth and has served it's purpose, we no longer get to use the body we've been gifted to stay on this earth.   Even writing and reading this I still have questions about our mortality, my religion, what really happens to us, but the comfort and assuredness I feel makes me think that I do believe that this life is only a part of us; only temporary.

This horrific even affected us deeply but I can't help but question if the American flag should ever NOT be at half staff at all times; that our nation shouldn't be in constant mourning for the lives we live on this earth. These families are suffering en mass; this mass killing affects them in ways I can't even fathom.  The rhetoric from both sides over second amendment rights, the questioning of safety in our public schools, and now, the doozy, the media's spin on a link to the murderer having a form of autism - fail.

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people."  A cliche that I'm pretty sure I believed up until this event. In fact, while watching the film Lincoln recently, I leaned over to my boyfriend as a battle scene using knives, shotguns and bayonets ensued and said "there'd be a LOT less murder in our world if people had to face their victims like that now."  Movies, video games, even popular cable television shows show the mass slaughtering of bad guys and zombies and then there are rewards, points, bonuses and good feelings surrounded by the good guy conquering evil.  But does this desensitize us?  (that's rhetorical, i.e. think about it). I don't do politics especially publicly, but IS it really necessary for a private citizen to own an automatic weapon? I do know that I would not choose to hinder on another's freedom as I don't want my freedom taken from me.  We live in America for a reason.

I have many acquaintances who are public school teachers whom I sincerely refer to as saints on this earth. I volunteer once a week in my 4th grader's classroom and that tests my patience enough for the next six days til I return for more.  The topic came up about the possibility of gun training for teachers; an already overworked, underpaid position that requires a college education and a credential, yet parenting doesn't. I have family and friends in law-enforcement whose CHOSE the jobs that require them to serve and protect.  Our teachers signed up to provide a basic, foundational education to our children that has been contorted into the never-ending pressure of preparing them for state testing for the valuable funding required to keep their employers' doors open. Thirty kids to the classroom and they're forced to teach to the median. Our gifted and talented kids are bored; our children with even the most minor learning disabilities are lost and confused.  Is public school not a tragedy in and of itself?

Having, so far successfully, raised three children all affected by autism spectrum disorders I find the media's never-ending quest to report first and check facts later and this most recent news disconcerting.  Let's say the murderer does have Asperger's Syndrome. Let's call that a fact.  Does the media know that its insinuation affects hundreds, thousands of families who are already struggling on a daily basis to help their kids fit in to society?  Do they care about the instant stigma that irresponsible reporting can result in for our already struggling children?  Does the media comprehend co-morbid conditions that can exist in any person?

There are sociopaths in this world. There are people whom have no conscience.  So my big question is are we only accountable and responsible to be publicly mournful when one of them snaps in large groups?  There are 1.2 million victims annually. There are mentally ill individuals shoved through public school with unskilled parents or families who've simply given up on them.  Whose fault IS it?


I have not stated this opinion to anyone yet but I can't help but ponder the condition of a human who hurts so much themselves that their only way out is to take masses of people with them.  Others are hurting right now. Others are being neglected. Others are ready to snap. Others are going undiagnosed and untreated. Others have families who've given up and putting our families at risk.  Others are seeing the flags at half-staff and in their mentally deranged minds might be planning their own national tribute, whether they'll see it themselves or not.

In your own town, right now, someone is crying for help.


I'd like to think society as a whole holds responsibility but that is too vague, too ethereal and too much to burden any of us with personally... but as I told my daughter during a conversation over the world's problems the other day "If everyone just cared more in their own homes, made a difference in their own towns, their own schools. You have to start where you live if you want to change the world."