My first full-time job following college graduation was as a Child Welfare caseworker: I worked with the families of children in foster care, giving them direction and help as to how to reunite as a family. I have seen my fair share of the effects of child abuse and neglect. I often say, and mean, that for the most part I loved working with the parents AND children. The majority of the parents made sacrifices and changes and worked hard to demonstrate their love for their children and ultimately win them back. There were also some cases where I had difficulty identifying with or caring about a parent in any way, shape, or form. Sometimes it’s hard to find empathy for someone who hurt their child.
This past week in Newport, Oregon, a woman threw her 6 year old little boy off of a bridge. He did not survive.
This is very hard to stomach. The little boy had autism and pretty severely so. I can only imagine that as the person who cared for him and loved him the most hoisted him over the railing, he must have been so scared and confused. My heart drops to think about it. Rest in peace, little London.
I have been trying to work out what I am thinking about his mom. She had a son with severe autism and a husband who could no longer support the family due to multiple sclerosis. Anyone would feel a great deal of stress, but that on its own is no excuse for killing a child. However, from what I have read, it sounds like she has a history of mental illness which has involved hospitalization. I’m not sure whether her illness played a significant factor in all of this, but what I have learned about mental illness is how badly stress can exacerbate symptoms.
I have talked to a few people who say they don’t buy mental illness as playing a role in this horrible event. And I don’t know that it necessarily did, but I just find it interesting. I think when we see that something excruciatingly horrible has happened, we don’t want to let the perpetrator off the hook. When we see something like the horrific killing of an innocent child, something in us needs to be angry. Something like this seems senseless, and to make sense of it we need someone to be angry at, someone to blame. It’s human nature.
I don’t know about Jillian McCabe, or her particular diagnosis or illness or history or any of that, no more that what is being reported in the news. And the media will spin the story any way they want to get readers and listeners and viewers, making it even more difficult to know what actually happened. (Though I do tend to think the fact that she immediately called 9-1-1 makes it difficult to imagine that what happened was 100% pure sinister evil--though stranger things have happened.) What I do know is that mental illness is real, that it can be gravely disabling, and that it can take over a person’s life more than most people realize.
This past week I saw the movie Fury in theaters with my husband. After I see a movie, one thing I like to do is go onto IMDB and look up the trivia about the movie. One thing I found out about Fury is that during filming, Shia LaBeouf intentionally pulled out a tooth and injured his face for the sake of making the movie, and had an intense and dramatic religious conversion. For a few years, I have dismissed him as a drinking and driving child actor weirdo, but the things he did during the movie strike me as manic symptoms. I did a quick internet search to see whether anything had been written about him having a mental illness, but there was really nothing concrete.
I also think about Amanda Bynes, and her very public complete meltdown that she seems to have not recovered from. Media outlets seem to love making fun of her, despite the fact that she has spent months at a time hospitalized for a mental illness.
Let me make a few points clear before I go any further: 1) The vast majority of people with mental illness are NOT dangerous, and are in fact more likely to be victimized than to victimize. 2) A child having a disorder that makes them difficult to care for, whether it is a mental illness or anything else, does not justify harming the child in any way, in any instance.
However.
Sometimes a person’s mental illness causes them to be dangerous to themselves or others. The best way to prevent anyone being harmed is to get the sufferer of mental illness adequate support in a timely manner. The sooner the symptoms can be stopped or managed, the better. As evidenced by two celebrities (one of whom I am, admittedly, merely suspecting of mental illness), there remains a significant stigma around mental illness. Imagine going through a scary and stressful time, then imagine being afraid of negative consequences associated with asking for help. Is this how we want things to go?
Here are some things the average person can do to reduce stigma around mental illness:
- Interrupt! Interrupt discourse that says that mental illness isn’t real, or that it is a matter of pulling oneself together. Interrupt discourse that calls people “crazy” in a derogatory way.
- Do some research: find out what it means to have certain illnesses. I knew someone once who thought bipolar disorder meant that sometimes the sufferer has a “normal” mood, and sometimes they are depressed, and that with focus, a person can overcome this on their own. This is not true. Bipolar disorder involves periods of mania, which can even include psychotic symptoms!
- This one is hard for some people: Recognize that for many reasons, many people with severe and persistent mental illnesses abuse drugs. This is a population of people more vulnerable to drug abuse and addiction. Judging them or blaming them is not helpful, but what is helpful is having empathy and looking at the reasons for this, and for solutions to providing adequate support on a large scale.
- Each person has his or her own unique experiences. It is unreasonable to expect one person with schizophrenia to function on a certain level just because you know someone else with schizophrenia who functions on that level. Mental illness has different degrees of severity, and the kind of support someone has, as well as inborn strengths, make a difference.
Once again, I don’t know London’s mother’s individual situation, I just wanted to start a conversation about mental illness and stigma.
Please join me in praying for sweet little London’s soul, and for his family.
