01-12-2011, 05:43 PM
Thanks kiva, I appreciate the work you do and I've also worked with troubled youth, it can be very discouraging and sometimes frightening. I also worked with a young man who had an IQ in the low 70's and trouble with aggression. He self-medicated with pot and energy drinks. (usually consumed 3 or 4 of those before coming to school) then smoked pot at home. (A lot of our kids with the most severe ADD went that route. Energy drinks are just more fun than Ritalin.) Anyway, Dad was also mentally ill and couldn't help the son. By age 13 he'd already been arrested several times for assault but hadn't done it at school so was with us. He was also 6 foot 4 and 240 pounds.
The thing is, we would sit together when I helped him with school work (he was at about 3rd grade level) and he would say things that were sweet and kind of deep, the whole thing was just heartbreaking, because you know that without very good and very expensive community mental health care intervention for most of his life, he's going to end up homeless and/or in jail.
I've been advocating for better mental health care for adolescents and young adults for over 20 years now, maybe this is the wake-up call that will finally lead to action.
It's hard to use cost as an excuse when you consider what this past Saturday just cost.
As for Loughner, he could have copied and pasted the you tube ramblings, there is certainly similar stuff in the fringe corners of the internet. We'll see what his handwritten notes were like, so far it seems that they contained only a couple of words.
The thing is, we would sit together when I helped him with school work (he was at about 3rd grade level) and he would say things that were sweet and kind of deep, the whole thing was just heartbreaking, because you know that without very good and very expensive community mental health care intervention for most of his life, he's going to end up homeless and/or in jail.
I've been advocating for better mental health care for adolescents and young adults for over 20 years now, maybe this is the wake-up call that will finally lead to action.
It's hard to use cost as an excuse when you consider what this past Saturday just cost.
As for Loughner, he could have copied and pasted the you tube ramblings, there is certainly similar stuff in the fringe corners of the internet. We'll see what his handwritten notes were like, so far it seems that they contained only a couple of words.