Well said.

Some days I feel the internet is just one, huge, college seminar w/ freshman who went to crappy high schools.

@2: You give them more credit than me. I assume most of them didn't graduate high school.

If the post were about the difficulty he had dealing with a severely broken femur or the struggles she had dealing with his chemo, nobody would care. But we see mental health differently, as a personal failing, as something shameful. That is the problem. When we have healthcare for all, and when care for mental health is just health care, we might see fewer people living in pain, fewer people hurting or killing themselves, fewer people hurting or killing others.

That last paragraph kind of also applies to a comment thread.

Thanks for that, Megan. It is quite difficult to be the parent in a situation with a child whose behavior is not in your control. You can do everything right, get help, ask experts and your child may not respond.

It's very stressful and worrying and I appreciate Ms. Long's courage.

You also need to think about where the backlash is coming from. There has been a lot of demonization of people who have mentally illnesses in the last year. Those who have a mentally illness or who know people with a mental illness are pretty defensive right now because a lot of media is portraying them as dangerous and needing to be locked up for the safety of society. It seems like every story has a couple of people complaining of the fact that the asylums shouldn't have been shut down in the 70s (implying that the only way to be safe is to lock up people with mental illness en masse).

Anyways, why don't you do a study? Check out how many stories on The Stranger criticize people with mental illnesses for being dangerous (especially after a mass shooting) vs. how many stories accurately portray people with mental illnesses as being no more violent that the general public. Once you have the results, then post them. Only then should you complain about the backlash you are receiving.

@3 They can at least read & form complete sentences.

And yes, other days on the internet, I feel like I've wandered into a daycare center.

THANK YOU. Shit. This is like when people started complaining that complaining about Black Friday sales was racist and classist. Ugh.

per literally all of science, there is no connection between violence and mental health. those with mental health issues are NO MORE LIKELY to be violent than those without. go deep into the scholar.google.com k-hole and you'll find the same results i did.

that is the first reason why i cannot indulge that discussion.

i do not want to discount the struggle of liza long or any person who has parented a child with mental illness, but her child has never murdered someone, which means that her experience is automatically wildly different than the mothers of the people who's children DID murder someone. to appropriate their pain and their experience is regressive.

Go read the rest of her posts before this. Go read her twitter feed. The Liza who posted this is different from that Liza of only a few days ago. Her son in that post does not resemble her son in other posts or tweets.

Her abrupt character demolition of her son is extremely curious.

I think her post is a case study in mental illness, but maybe not in the way intended.

Maybe because it's called "I am Adam Lanza's Mother" when, you know, she isn't? And her kid hasn't killed anybody. Talk about sensationalism. Decisions made out of desperation for page views are never good.

@10 so what if her son, who she claims is violent and out of control at times, loses it and kills someone? How can that be prevented?

@13 the same way it could be prevented with any other human. im not saying people with mental health issues -are not- violent, i am saying they are no more violent than those without mental illnesses. i mean ... sane people kill people too. you prevent it by having less guns (statistically proven to prevent less gun-related violence!) and deconstructing a patriarchal culture that socializes men to feel entitled and one that encourages and accepts violence (NOT statistically proven to work, but when so many of our perpetrators of violence are men, you have to wonder if its because of how we socialize men!).

Agreed with @11 and @12 that the issue here isn't discussing her son's mental health.

If he does do anything I'm sure it will have nothing to do with this "my son is a monster" world tour his mother is on that everyone is treating as a productive conversation.

"The conversation has just started, so shut-up and listen."

Yes, that makes sense.

I've seen nothing but praise for this article. Lots of people sharing it on fb.

@18 Yes, that's what she's saying. Her son has a mental disorder that makes him angry and violent and she talks about it candidly for once. (I'm pretty sure she states explicitly how much she loves her son, and never once calls him a monster)

Also her previous posts may not be as candid because her son's mental disorder just might cause an internet backlash. One that puts more blame on her as a mother than thoughtfulness on what she might be experiencing...

naaaah, that would never happen, right?

Also, for people complaining about the title.

Shocking sensationalism is what gets people talking in this country.

Was the title in poor taste? Maybe.

Do you think this very important conversation would be going on with a title like "my kid has a mental disorder". Unfortunately not.

I find the voices saying that theirs are more valid than hers to be part of a long continuum of men on the internet telling women on the internet to shut up.

As a parent I felt enormous sympathy for Ms. Long when I read her piece. However, I felt then as I do now that it was terribly irresponsible of her to do so little to hide his identity. She changed his name, but gave her name AND a photo of the boy. What do you think will happen to him at his "school" this week? How do you think the other kids will behave toward him when they see this? He is a minor, and it seems unlikely to me that he would be capable of really giving any kind of meaningful consent to her discussing his problems all over the Internet. Surely there was a way she could have shared her story (as she has the right to) while still ensuring his privacy.

#23 Sorry, but you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. The sensationalism of the story is disturbing and unfortunate, especially since she has valuable things to say.

No, I'm going to criticize her plenty because she has fucked over her son in a big way writing that post. Giving her son a pseudonym isn't exactly protecting his identity when she uses her own name and includes a fucking picture of him. She has labeled her own a son a monster for the entire world to see. How is that supposed to help? He's a child and this is going to follow him for years and may hamper his ability to change and learn to cope with whatever illness he has. That is not helping bring attention to the lack of mental health resources and it certainly is not helping with the stigma that mental illness has (in fact it is reinforcing it as something dangerous people have).

It would have been different if she had actually put some real effort into protecting her son's privacy but she hasn't. Or if she had written it in a less sensationalist "my son is a future murderer" way. I don't care what her motivations were when the end result is jeopardizing a 13 year old kid's future when that future was already shaky.

@28 Please stop projecting. She didn't call her son a monster, she talked about him candidly and said she needs help.

You think the things he has done are monstrous, but she is not saying that.

She says, based on previous actions, her son very well could be a killer if he doesn't get the help he needs, but the help he needs is not something we are willing to talk about.

Could she have done more to protect his identity, certainly. Does that mean we should shame her off the internet and table the discussion? Nope.

@27 Yes, but that is a different issue. It distorts an important message that is and should be on the table.

@10 Does that include acts of violence against themselves?

And do any of those stuides break down types of acts of violence? Are mentally ill people more likely to commit some types of violence and people who are not mentally ill more likely to commit other types of violence?

Regardless, I don't see it as an either/or in terms of discussing gun control versus a discussion of how mentally ill people and their families are or are not cared for/supported in this country. Guns are way too easy to come by. And mentally ill people and their families do not have adequate help. And this shooting, along with the one in Colorado and the one in Seattle, speak to both of those issues. If we had better gun control maybe this tragedy (and a whole bunch of other bad things) would not have happened. If we had better care for mentally ill people maybe this tragedy (and a whole bunch of other bad things) would not have happened.

I think the thing that Liza Long's article does effectively point out is that we seem to expect families to be able to handle mental illness by themselves (at least up to the point where a crime is committed) but that is not a realistic expectation in many cases.

listening.

@28 has presented the other side of the argument, and I think both sides have a point. I thought she presented a view that I didn't understand, and really illustrated the struggle of a lot of parents. On the other side, she really thrust herself in the middle of a tragedy, and she didn't do much to protect her son's identity. Again, her and her main critic posted jointly that they don't want this to be a mommy war, and I wish the Stranger would get to that point.

Thank you, Megan. Agreed.

The issue was using her real name, thereby outing him. Yes, talk about what it is like but don't out your kid. That could be dangerous in and of itself.

I'm with @26. To have done so little to conceal her son's identity is more than just a little oversight. As a mother, and as somebody who has mental illness in her family, I thought it was deeply appalling. She deserves to be listened to, absolutely, and given compassion for what she lives with. But to throw her child under the bus like that was unconscionable. She's publicly marked him for life now. Her struggles don't balance that out in any way. Heartbreaking.

What's actually strange to me is I see the majority of people haranguing Ms. Long about her post are women.

Alithea's digressions about patriarchy, aside, she's particularly cruel in the face of the kind of things this mother has had to face. And let's not forget that she has two other children Ms. Long is trying to protect as well.

Sounds like a right mess for sure, and one society should learn from and try to heal, but blaming the messenger seems pretty lame. Jezebel's post on it was particularly putrid. This just seem like women beating up a poor mom who'e reaching out and asking for help from society for a son she doesn't want to lose wholly to the vortex of mental illness.

Geez ladies. She's hurting and conofused, if she made a mistake, give her a break. Or better yet, reach out and GIVE HER A HAND!!!

Here's another response: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/201…

@39: Thanks, Baconcat. That, written in clear, measured language, makes a compelling case that Long was wrong to expose her son like this.

She has the freedom to express herself. Hooray First Amendment.

Her son, however, is not old enough to provide "informed consent" to her to plaster his HIPAA-protected medical information all over the internet.

A protective, fully-functioning parent would understand this.

Does her need to publicly vent trump her child's right to privacy?

I saw an interview of her yesterday on CNN: she is in pain, for sure. She admitted this was a cry for help.

Coming from a mother in the same shoes as Ms Long there is nowhere else to turn to for help. Don't judge until you have walked down this lonely horrific path yourself. What is a mother supposed to do when noone listens.

Liza has told my story, as a Mom. To say she is causing stigma by her honest portrayal of her life as the Mother of an ill child is to show ignorance beyond measure. Stigma is caused by the LACK of discussion over mental illness issues. These illnesses have been shrouded in silence and mystery for far too long. As the Mom of three diagnosed children of severe mental illness, I consider it very refreshing to hear a family member write with courage and dignity about her struggles to get help for her son.

Here's the deal: if a woman writes about her experiences as a mother, and says anything other than "it's wonderful, I love my child so much," she will be attacked. As a bad mother, a bad woman, or the cause of whatever problems exist. Guaranteed. It almost doesn't matter what the specific content is. I hope the author saw it coming and was prepared to handle it.