On our local news here last night, the anchor sat down with an FBI agent and a psychiatrist and discussed mental illness as a factor in these killings. I thought it was offensive how they associated mental illness with these incidents in a way they never would get away with if they said the shooter was black or Hispanic - it made everyone with any mental health issue sound suspect.

people who are just as horrified as the rest of the world. And, I can only speak for myself in this, some of us are not as equipped to deal with the sadness of something like this. I am able to feel empathy for what happened and am horrified by what happened, but I honestly don't have anyone I could point the finger at, except maybe the shooter himself. Others seem satisfied with pointing the finger at those of us who have some form of mental illness. Never mind the fact that most of us are the opposite of violent. If anything, with my condition, at least, it makes me more likely to withdraw and be even more timid around people. That is why it was so hard to post this OP. People with my condition tend to have a hard time "putting ourselves out there" like this. I know I hardly ever post or talk about it, because of that.

I just wish there was a way to undo these horrific mass murders that happen and all the horrors out there. I cannot stop crying. Those poor children.

It was the supposedly "normal" kids who were beating me up and calling me names.

I quit high school for college as soon as I could and the physical violence stopped, mostly I think because the sorts of "normal" people who beat up weird kids in high school fear as adults they might go to jail if they assault someone. I don't want any part of that kind of normal, people who avoid wrongdoing because they fear punishment are scary.

Obviously there are mentally ill people who are violent, but mostly mentally ill people suffer violence.

I enjoyed a few revenge fantasies as a kid but these never involved physical violence. Mostly after somebody beat me up I'd just try to be more invisible than I already was.

Thank you for your post.

Quiet, geeky, into early home computers, at the top of my class academically, isolated at home, not allowed to participate in any activities, terrible at sports in gym class, which I hated (ironic coming the guy who signed up for an entire year of personal training to take me all through 2013), socially awkward, and I related very poorly to other guys because I knew nothing about sports, cars, or women.

So kinda a recipe for being tormented.

One of the causes they theorize for avoidant personality disorder is bullying, which I certainly had my fair share of directed at me growing up. I always just wished I could get people to stop the bullying and leave me alone.

But sometimes I try to figure out where someone like that is coming from by imagining what they must have been thinking and feeling. The self worth of a shooter like that must be nil. They must be full of fear and self loathing to have no regard for life. A person like that must come to a conclusion that they are worthless and so therefore by extension, no other life has any value.

So bleak, stark, and hopeless. How many tragedies might be averted with mental health care for free and unstigmatized services. Even suicide hotlines should be ready to talk with such callers and have some information and referals, ready to intervene. I know this is far over simplified and idealistic but that is how I think. What was going in in their mind and could an early assessment and intervention could have helped. Also were they a Faux news watcher? I believe Faux is contributing to a National Psychosis, amongst the viewers who consume their brand of propaganda.

Sounds like a pretty accurate synopsis of the state of mental health care today. But you know, the priority over decades has been wars and military and dismantling the social safety net.

and lost sense of safety. It's about naming a terrible thing as terrible and constructing it as something that can be made more remote and less threatening.

On DU and publications from across America we read commentary about the Sandy Hook mass murder written by non-experts, ordinary people with a tremendous need to feel safer.

A common way that people will find a sense of safety is by psychologically distancing themselves from the event and from it's perpetrator. One of the ways to do that is by making the perpetrator belong to an out-group the safety seekers mistakenly believe are nothing like themselves.

The mentally ill represent, as we often do, a convenient group of "others" to be used as such an outgroup because most Americans misunderstand and fear mental illness. The category mentally illness is also a convenient place to link with "incomprehensible", "deviant", "abnormal" acts. Not because people who are mentally ill actually are much more capable of horrendous acts of violence than the general population, but because in a conversation no one will use "incomprehensible" when a noun phrase such as 'mental illness' sounds so much more like an actionable diagnosis or when 'insane' and 'crazy' are so close to mind.

So at this time, the frightened are plastering DU forums with fear and misunderstanding using broad brushes that are over generalizations and mis-characterization.

Glad you're back.

Oh well, I need to get thicker skin anyway.

I have several mental illnesses, and I'm a loner as well. I've never even entertained the idea of killing anyone. Most mentally ill people don't. It seems there is this stigma surrounding mentally ill people that we could "snap" at any minute and go on a rampage.. it isn't like that at all. Speaking just for myself, I just want to be left alone most of the time. Also, I have lots of compassion for children, and could never even imagine hurting one.

I have to say, the shooting in CT really depresses me. It makes me lose hope in the human race. Even more so when people try to blame it on mental illness... sickening.

feel like salt in the wound. It is heartbreaking what happened to those children and I can't help but feel horrible for the terror the other children must have felt. The adults didn't look like they made it through without being terrorized either. It was a horrific thing that happened and all those innocent children are gone now, forever.

Suffering from mental illness, in my case at least, is hard enough. Add to that this kind of sad, horrific event that is hard to cope with, then having the salt in the wounds of being compared to such horrific acts, it takes its toll. I have decided to ignore a lot of unreasonable people on DU and concentrate on wishing for healing for the families of the victims who were murdered and wishing for relief and healing for those who survived but had to witness it and live through the horror of it all. They will have a hard time in the years to come. I can't help but think about how hard it is going to be for them too.

I am surprised there are no virtual candlelight vigils for the families of the victims and for the victims themselves on DU. There are virtual candle websites online that offer virtual candles for free. I just see so much anger and misplaced aggression on DU and even on FB right now. The act of killing those children (and the adults who were killed too) is still resonating pain and grief and negativity.

As hard as it is to cope with all of this for us, I can only imagine what it must be like for the families of the victims who were taken from them and the victims who lived through it but are traumatized still. I wish there was a way to send out positivity (positive vibes, I mean) into the world to try to counteract some of the horror.

The thing that has helped me cope with the way I have been feeling was the press conference that the father of the little girl who was a victim, named Emilie, said. He was magnanimous in his forgiveness, yet said his daughter didn't get her amazing empathy from him. I think she did. His press conference was very positive and healing. I was really impressed by his empathy for the shooter's family. That takes an amazing person to be able to forgive that soon and that honestly like he did. That helped me not totally lose faith in humanity, although I have to say it is a fragile faith in some of humanity, not all of it.

On edit: His name is Robert Parker and his daughter's name is spelled Emilie. A video of the press conference is on CNN right now.

I don't think I could be able to forgive someone who murdered a child in cold blood. It does give me hope, though.

I wish there were a way I could help the families of the victims. They must be going through hell right now. I've been in tears over the past few days, thinking of those innocent children who will never have the chance to grow up, get married, and have children of their own. I can't even begin to imagine what their families are going through.

It's times like this that send my depression into overdrive, and makes me wonder what the world is coming to...

Who knew?

Where?