Columbine 10 years later

[moderndayhippie]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-04-13-columbine-myths_N.htm?se=yahoorefer

So, I guess I just never paid much attention the the follow up after that crazyness happened. i still thought the killers were goths who were atleast affiliated with their "trenchcoat mafia".

Honestly, reading this was more scary than what I originally thought had

Comments

[mehganftw]

I've been there done that. Luckily, I have a history of depression and mental illness in my family, and a mother who is a nurse, so she caught on and got me the treatment I needed. I was on zoloft and xanax (I also have anxiety problems) for a long time until I learned to manage my mental status naturally. I hated zoloft because I felt like a zombie, but I do know that unmanaged mental illness in teenagers can lead to very disturbing results. Chris was on all kinds of drugs in high school, and dealt drugs, and stole, and was in a very bad place in his life. He would get drunk and try to go out and drive and "wrap his car around a tree". Luckily, we're together now and we're in a much better place financially, to where he can get the help he needs.

I've seen many people in school fall into drug habits and self-mutilation and various other forms of self-abuse. I can't tell you how many friends I've had that killed themselves that outwardly seemed healthy. I honestly don't think it would be a bad idea for schools to have a shrink on staff instead of just guidance counselors because we all know how great those are. Chris's counselor told him to drop out of school, get his GED and try to join the military (which at the time was bad information, since the military wouldn't accept GEDs anymore).

It's very sad to see things like Columbine and Virginia Tech happen. It just seems to me like if these kids were truly that bad off mentally that someone would have caught on before it got that out of hand. :(

[brandyeileen]

I refuse to take most daily prescriptions. Most of those SSRIs and mood stabilizers just made me worse. I'm okay with my Klonopin because I hate taking it so much that I rarely do. I hate pills every day - ugh! It is true that when you don't care if you live or not, the choices one makes are severely and sometimes fatally flawed. I'm glad I managed to get a handle on my crazy through behaviour modification and cognitive therapy. I'm glad for everyone else that manages to keep a hold of their crazy, however they do it! ;)

[moderndayhippie]

When I was a teenager, I REALLy wanted to be on meds because I was so miserable. but my parents thought it was just hormones. I mean, I survived without them... but there was a lot of ugly stuff that happened that might not have happened otherwise. I didn't know of another way to deal with it.

But I get the thing about meds turning you into a zombie. I didn't kno wmuch about that apsect back then, but now I feel the same way. I wouldn't want to go through life emotionless.

Mind if I ask what exactly behavior modification and cognitive therapy consists of?

[brandyeileen]

For me, it's not just turning into a zombie. When I tried Lamictal, I sat on a couch for almost two weeks straight before I refused to take it again. I mean, it stabilized my mood, sure, right down to "I couldn't care less about anything." Completely ruined that summer semester for me. I mean, I didn't care if I ate, slept, went to the bathroom, showered, or anything else so going to classes and doing school work was right out.

There are two types of behavior therapy out there - cognitive behavior therapy and dialectical behavior therapy. They have some differences, but both work to help a person identify why they react the way they do and to understand it such that the next time a similar occurrence comes around, that individual can modify their reaction to it based on that understanding. I'm not sure I'm explaining it well, so here's an example:

Before I started DBT, people who didn't return my phone calls were obviously either upset with me or didn't really like me. Now, people who don't return my phone calls are either upset with me, don't really like me, or have a lot of stuff going on that they are trying to juggle. Maybe that's a bad example. ;) I don't really want to go into the nitty-gritty of why I thought people who didn't return my calls were abandoning me forever or how that made me feel.

Anyway, it's really a self-awareness process. It's long and painful and totally worth it if you are wholly committed to changing why you react the way you do to certain situations. It's usually group and clinician driven, but most of the work is done by you. So, as far as exactly what they are, it sort of varies by clinician from what I've seen.

Everyone likes to run their groups differently. The one-on-one aspect of it also varies somewhat from therapist to therapist, though most of them want some sort of diary or record of target thoughts and feelings that are considered a priority. Those priorities are decided in conjunction with the patient, but preservation usually takes precedence over quality of life. It can take awhile to feel effective, though people around me started noticing differences quicker than I did. I mean, I was still having a lot of the same reactions, internally, but the time I took to try to process and work through them resulted in people not seeing me really react, if that makes sense.

Both of Wikipedia's entries were sound, the last time I read through them all the way (which was probably at least over a year ago). It used to be really hard to find a DBT group anywhere in Texas, but times are achangin' so I figure you might have decent luck down there in San Antone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy

[brandyeileen]

Oh, and CBT is something I am not as familiar with but is similar in a lot of ways to DBT. They kind of have different goals and work in different ways, each with their own target group of potential patients. I'm familiar with DBT because of being borderline, but CBT may be what's right for you so I included it. You may have even been using some of CBT's or DBT's core techniques without even realizing it, by the way.

[moderndayhippie]

I agree on the shrinks at schools. I read an article that said one school brought in a shrink specifically to speak with kids about sex, love, birth control, and all of that. They had to bring in an outsider because the students felt like the guidance counselors were judging them or pushing their morals on them. I think that's a great idea. School counselors dont' do too much, in my experience. I was turned in in 8th grade because my teacher saw cuts up and down my arms. i told the counselor it was from my cat ( I didn't even own a cat) and she let me go.

I can't believe the counselor encouraged Chris to drop out! that is like the anti-thesis of what they are supposed to be there for!