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I'm back...

Kanika Sethi - April 24, 2007

Ok, so I've been on a 5 month hiatus from Intent Blog. Sorry, had a baby. (For those of you who care, we named her Mira!) Guess I'll consider it my "maternity leave". Did you miss me? Wait, don't answer that yet....

But I'm back, and feeling like blogging more than ever these days...nothing like a little sleep deprivation to bring out the real bitch in me. Kids are asleep (for now), husband is out of town (again) and I'm ready to bear it all....

For some reason, I decided to start watching the news again last week.... Of course, I'm a little more than pissed that NBC decided to humor a dead, psychotic, victim (yes, he was a victim as well as a killer) and share with the world the more than disturbing images he left behind. I have taken it quite personally.

Who do I blame for the sickening shooting spree that occurred at Virginia Tech? I blame the gun lobbyists, who have Washington in the palm of their hands. I blame the media, for sparing us few details about school shootings in Columbine, and violence in general. I blame the video game companies for glorifying the use of semi-automatic weapons. I blame the government, who does not adequately provide for our mentally ill. I blame the schools for allowing bullying to take place. The mental health facility where Cho went for help, for not following through with treatment. The gun store owner, for not doing a thorough background check. And finally, I blame the Cho family (yes, I think they are responsible) for not seeing what was happening to their son and taking steps to help him.

I know this sounds harsh, but let me please explain myself. My older sister was diagnosed with a mental illness when she was 19 years old. As a member of a South Asian family, I can honestly tell you how difficult it was for my parents to come to terms with my sister's condition (in fact, I'm not even sure they have completely reached this point yet.) However, my sister is stable now, on medication, living in a safe place, and has a steady job because my parents were wise enough to admit that there was something terribly wrong with her, and address the problem as soon as possible.

I can't even imagine where she would be right now, had they done what the Cho family did and ignore the mental anguish and suffering of their child. In dire straits, perhaps? Living on the streets, and rummaging through garbage cans for her next meal? Or possibly dead. Of course, my sister was only suicidal, not homicidal. Yet, I still see some parallels between her story and Cho's.

I don't remember much of my childhood. Perhaps I blocked out a good deal, because I sometimes really do think that the unhappy moments outnumbered the good ones. I do remember that my sister was a very sharp minded, very sharp tongued teenager, who terrorized me, a child six years junior to her, and has dealt with many awful demons in her life.

As a teenager, like Cho, she spent a lot of time holed up in her room. Apparently she was studying. Who knows? She had no friends to speak of and, like Cho, was supposedly ridiculed by her classmates in school. I recall that she was always very jealous and angry when I brought friends home from school (which I seldom did, for obvious reasons). I can also remember being physically hurt by my sister – and even hiding from her, so I could avoid being the brunt of her anger. But at the time, my parents may have just chalked her behavior up to sibling rivalry or teenage angst. Whatever the case, they decided to let things take their course.

When my sister went off to college in Iowa, she started to act more oddly than ever before. She would call home and start ranting and raving, swearing uncontrollably at me, my younger brother, and my parents. I remember feeling a sick, panicky feeling whenever the phone would ring. Other incidents – such as a rape accusation to a fellow classmate – and a general unhappiness with her situation at school – led my sister to transfer to a college closer to home.

When she would come home for school breaks and holidays, our family would constantly be on edge. One awful night, she decided to take a walk through the streets of our neighborhood. At around 2 or 3 in the morning, she rang a neighbor’s doorbell, telling them she was cold and asked if she could borrow a sweater. Thankfully, we live in a small and safe community and our worried neighbors called my parents who promptly checked her into a mental hospital. My brother and I were stunned with disbelief. I can distinctly recall asking my parents what exactly was wrong with her – her odd behavior had simply become the norm to me as a child and teenager.

Anyways, to make a long story a little shorter, my sister was repeatedly hospitalized for the next few years. She has been on several different medications and has had several different diagnoses. Still, she managed to graduate from college – in six years -- with much help from my mother, who spent countless hours on the phone with college personnel, lobbying for one chance after another for my sister. But our family, in whatever way possible, has managed to handle her situation in the best way they can. It has been a long and arduous journey, which is far from over, but we have faced that fact that she is not, and will never be, normal. And we've committed ourselves to helping her get through life with our support.

What if Cho’s family had faced up to the fact that their son was not normal and needed help? Could things have turned out differently for him too? We will never know. But I think they should have tried.

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Posted by Kanika Sethi at April 24, 2007 07:17 PM

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Comments

Kanika
Very soul baring post that made me cry.
Love Mallika

1. Posted by MallikaChopra on April 24, 2007 09:45 PM

Interesting post
not many people talk about such things that happen within their own family in fear of the social stigma attached to it

2. Posted by avinash on April 25, 2007 12:45 AM

Kanika, nice to know that you named your baby 'Mira' Nice and simple Indian name.

"What if Cho’s family had faced up to the fact that their son was not normal and needed help? Could things have turned out differently for him too? But I think they should have tried."

There are millions of children like Cho who are neglected by their families and spurned by the societies... some of them turn out to eb street riminals but very few become maniacs like Cho. There is no one to balme. These things happen and there are far worse things which happen to people which we or the media are not aware of or don't pay attaention.

3. Posted by Jeff on April 25, 2007 12:49 AM

Welcome Back Kanika,

Congratulations, Mira is a beautiful name.

Kanika, you write,"What if Cho’s family had faced up to the fact that their son was not normal and needed help? Could things have turned out differently for him too? We will never know. But I think they should have tried."

We really do not know the whys and wherefores of what Cho's family realized about their son's condition, but there is no doubt in my mind that if he had gotten the medical intervention he obviously needed as a young child things most likely would have been different. Yes, there are many pieces of this story that can be faulted as a contributing factor in this shooting rampage.

The fact that your Sister was and is getting the help she needs is a wonderful success story. Dealing with a family member who is afflicted with a mental illness has to be one of the most difficult experiences a parent or sibling can go through. It is WORK, in every sense of the word, becuase the person afflicted needs so much help in so many ways that it is and can be completely overwhelming to the people who are responsible for the care.

We, as a society need to be much more aware of the mentally ill so we can become more supportive and we need to educate our children at a very young age about the effects of name calling, bullying, and alienation on those who act different from us.

Kanika, thank you for sharing your experience with you Sister's illness with us..ruth

4. Posted by ruth on April 25, 2007 04:58 AM

I once went an entire summer vacation without speaking to another kid my age and almost nobody else. We lived quite far out in the country, but I had a bicycle that could take me places. Nonetheless, I never spoke with anybody, and when asked to do so (mostly by my mother), it was done with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. I had extremely buck teeth and was about a foot taller than everyone my age, and felt like I was a freak.

Beyond that, we went to church and listened to the pastor who was molesting his congregants children. But he bought me records which we listened to on his quadraphonic stereo system, so I guess it seemed like it was worth it.

Depression is accompanied by an accute sense of separation. Luckily, in most cases, depression is depressing, so its victims don't react...at all.

The worst of all was the beginning of school in September...knowing that everyone else had buzzing stories to tell each other about all the things they'd done with their friends and families. I walked about a quarter mile to the bus stop, and I choked back the tears.

Because you never cry on a bus.

So...

I have nothing but compassion for this child and his parents, their paralysis, the ghosts that haunted them, this child's need to write in order to expel his pain, his latent anger, like toxic exhaust.

5. Posted by danashields on April 26, 2007 06:28 AM

All of her days have gone soft and cloudy
All of her dreams have gone dry
All of her nights have gone sad and shady
She's getting ready to fly

Fly away, fly away, fly away

Life in the city can make you crazy
For sounds of the sand and the sea
Life in a high-rise can make you hungry
For things that you can't even see

Fly away, fly away, fly away

In this whole world there's nobody as lonely as she
There's nowhere to go and there's nowhere that she'd rather be

She's looking for lovers and children playing
She's looking for signs of the spring
She listens for laughter and sounds of dancing
She listens for any old thing

Fly away, fly away, fly away...

6. Posted by Jean-François Désaulniers on April 26, 2007 11:58 AM

Hello Kanika and Everyone,

I just read danashields #5

Dana, Thankyou for sharing that experience with us, it makes me cry, though. There is nothing more heartbreaking than children or young adolesecents suffering lonliness and despair, I too have nothing but compassion for their struggles. It sounds like you have lovingly embraced the child, you once were..ruth

7. Posted by ruth on April 26, 2007 01:21 PM

Hi everyone,
Thanks for your thoughtful replies. Dana, your post brings a lump to MY throat. I think we all had moments like that in childhood, but to go on like that for months on end must have been very traumatic. I am glad you are sharing. It's tough, but I know, from my own experience, that telling your story brings about a certain healing.

I am rereading my previous post -- where I go on blaming the whole system -- and wondering where all those strong feelings came from! Of course, I feel extreme sympathy and compassion for the Cho family. I just wish they had read the signs, instead of (as Avinish says) "fearing the social stigma" and taken matters more seriously. Maybe they just didn't know how...my family is, indeed, lucky in that way. We had many resources available to us.

Anyways, I hope that some good comes out of this and people do have more compassion for those who are suffering, like Cho obviously was.

Peace,
K.

8. Posted by Kanika Sethi on April 26, 2007 03:20 PM

I think that maybe the entire Cho family suffered from his malady. I was adopted, and sought (and found) my biological mother, and I am as certain as can be that these things are genetic.

Family lineage is inherited from centuries past. I can say for certain that were it not for the fact that we had no guns in the house AND that the minister carefully taught silence and shame as his sunday sermons droned on, I'd have thought seriously about killing those who were so cruel...though not the minister, of course.

There's only one way to cope with that ongoing cruelty and that is to make it black and white in your mind: I am good and they are evil...and at the same time I am evil and they are good.

It reminds me of that passage in the New Testament saying, "they had no natural affection."

9. Posted by danashields on April 26, 2007 03:40 PM

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