It’s sooo much more than a Gun problem!

How or where do I begin??  What is wrong with our world??  It’s become so very sad and disturbing! It’s as if, as a society, we talk about school shootings as normal news.  Unfortunately, it seems to be happening more often than it should, maybe that’s why.  It’s like we talk about the shooting for a day or two, new news comes along, it’s forgotten until another one even worse happens.  How do we get this to end???

Let’s start with guns!  If you know me, you know that I’m not a huge fan of guns! I don’t have a problem with them, I just don’t choose to own one.  I think that if you choose to own one, be responsible with it.  Keep it locked and out of the reach of children.  Don’t flaunt it around like it’s a toy or as if it makes you tough or cool.  Teach your children gun safety and what/why guns are used.  Let me be very clear, I believe that Guns are NOT our problem.  They add to our problem and we need to address the “owning a gun” process, but they are NOT “the” problem. 

Mental Illness IS our problem and it needs to be addressed immediately!!  These children are sick, disturbed, sad and need our help.  Almost all of the children who have committed these horrific school shootings were showing signs of mental illness way before these events occurred.  These children were described as loners, weird, outcasts, etc.  These descriptions add to our problem as a society.  We label people and post it all over the internet and expect humans not to have feelings and to be able to ignore it.  But, we are human, we have feelings.   These feelings can only be hidden/masked for so long, then they come to the surface.  Eventually, they affect who you are and your actions, if not addressed! Unfortunately, with Facebook/Instagram/Twitter, if someone says something bad about someone, it’s there forever for everyone to see.  It’s not like in the old days where you talked bad about someone and the next day it went away, now we have it in writing for all to see! 

We also tend to act like we don’t care what other people think of us, but that is so far from the truth.  We do care.  We want people to like us, to accept us and to be our friend, that’s human nature.  We want to be wanted, everyone does!

We, as a society, treat Mental Illness like the plague.  We talk about people and say they are “crazy”, “psycho” & “weird”, but we don’t offer any ways to get help or fix these issues!!   Their brain is “broken” and needs to be fixed.  

Have you ever tried making an appointment for a psychologist or psychiatrist?  I have!!!  First, you have to make an appointment with your primary care.  Once they confirm there is an issue, you will then be referred to the specialist, this appointment usually takes weeks, even months to get in to…and that’s if you’re an adult and have insurance!  Now, imagine you are 12, 15, 17 years old, would you have the knowledge to call all these doctors, be able to talk yourself through these thoughts and “wait” to get into the doctor.  NO!!  Kids don’t have that mind set, everything is RIGHT NOW!!  So, if help isn’t there, they feel the world is over and the cycle begins!!  They need something the moment when things just don’t seem “right!”   There needs to be access to these doctors, everywhere, at all times!

We need to make these resources readily and immediately available!!  It needs to be something that kids have easy access to, whether at school or at home!  We have commercials all over TV, billboards, magazines, & Facebook about Stopping Smoking, we need to do the same for mental illness.  We need to have hotlines, free clinics, access to help!!  This needs to be in schools, YMCA’s, clubs, etc!   We need to give these kids a chance to get better and be better.

Many of the children who committed these crimes have none or very little parent presence in their lives. They have never felt LOVE! Can YOU imagine how that would feel?  Would life matter to you if you felt that YOU didn’t matter to anyone else?  These kids are not sitting down with their parents at night for dinner and talking about their day.  They aren’t spending the weekends doing family activities and feeling loved.  Most of them have been left to raise themselves from a very young age.  They’ve had tortured childhoods that have finally caught up with them.  They have always felt like an outcast and felt as if their life never mattered to begin with.  This is a very sad cycle that needs to be addressed immediately.  It will not go away until we rid ourselves of the stigma of mental illness.

I’m not blind to the fact that there are horrible/evil people in this world, but I also know that many of them are created by our society.  I can’t believe that there are this many horrible/evil people that were born this way. 

   

I hope and pray that we can find a way to fix this, sooner rather than later.  Our children should feel secure and safe when going to school.  It’s something they should look forward to and enjoy.   Us as parents should not feel this sense of worry when we drop our kids off at school.  Our world has changed and it’s our job to change it back.  Let’s get back to the good ol’ days.