Posted on 01/09/2011 1:38:03 PM PST by SatinDoll
Please find it in your hearts to pray for Amy Joanne Loughner and Randy L. Loughner, the parents of mass murderer Jared Lee Loughner.
These two people raised a troubled, mentally unstable son who committed a horrific act today…but I don’t see any evidence these two are bad people who had any knowledge of what their son was planning...
(Excerpt) Read more at hillbuzz.org ...
. I've learned that in most cases like this, it's simply wisest to wait 'til more of the facts are in. Informed commentary is generally contingent on information.
Why haven’t we heard more about the parents?
We should pray for them all..including the Loughtons. In fact, we should pray for Jared too. It’s what Christ has commanded us.
She is a Pima County employee, from what I have seen.
If (and I emphasize IF) he has some condition such as clinical Schizophrenia, they did not "cause" it. That is a terrible and unfair myth that somehow mental illness is "caused" by bad parenting, or is just some character flaw in a person. Nothing could be further from the truth. I come to this opinion as the coordinator of a family education program in my state for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) to educate family members who have loved ones with serious mental illnesses. Schizophrenia (if that's what he has, and it sure seems like it) is a result of very real physical differences in the brains of those affected. No one asks to be affected by such terrible mind diseases, but it can happen to the best of families. It can happen at any age but schizophrenia most often shows up in young men in their late teens or early twenties. We have some friends with a 20-something son who was on top of the world and had an appointment to the Air Force Academy. He was in his second year when he began getting symptomatic and was ultimately removed from the Academy and later diagnosed with severe schizophrenia. This is a good, loving family and their son had, up till this time, been a normal happy, healthy young man. His illness was not a result of anything his parents did or didn't do.
It’s practically impossible in most states to get the involuntary committment of an adult...until after he has killed somebody. Often, the first person he will kill when he finally goes off the deep end are his parents.
I have had friends who have had schizophrenic children and it is impossible to deal with them either as adolescents or adults because you receive no support from the legal system. They can’t be committed until they have already committed the crime of violence, and I am sure this guy’s parents were dreading the day when it would happen.
He was kicked out of the middle college after he became a behavioral problem, according to Fox News Live. (and his parents were notified).
The police were called to the middle college campus five times because of problems with Jared Lee Loughner. He was told he could not continue until he went for psychiatric care and deemed not a harm to himself or others. He never returned to that college. (his parent were notified).
Neither his upbringing nor his political beliefs were the trigger. This kid was clearly schizophrenic.
Loughner used to speak critically about religion, and liked to smoke pot.
Arizona court records show Loughner has twice been charged with previous offenses. The first, in October 2007, related to the possession of drug paraphernalia. It was unclear what the second, a year later, related to. Both charges were dismissed after Loughner completed a “diversion program”.
Yep it’s called “guilt parenting” especially in the case of divorce or where one parent “befriends” the children instead of being a united front with the other parent. Then it’s one parent and one child against the other parent. The child senses a divided household and plays it for all it’s worth.
You try to say something, they’d just ignore you and turn around and walk back into the house,” said Ron Johnson, 60, a retiree who lives directly opposite the Loughner’s tan, one-storey home. “The kid - I never talked to him. He acted just like his parents and ignored you.”
Stephen Woods 46, and his son Anthony, 19, live next door to the Loughners and said they saw the parents or the son walking their dog, but rarely spoke to them. Stephen Woods said he clashed with the suspect’s father after leaving some trash at the curb that did not get picked up. He said he doesn’t know what the parents do for a living, and the most he sees of the family is early each morning when the father waters his garden.
I’ve lived what you’re talking about and yes, death threats from a teenager are terrifying.
To say that there is nothing that can be done is wrong. We packed him off to a private boarding school WITHOUT his permission.
Too many parents are wimps.
Schizophrenia, particularly that involving paranoia, involves a disconnect from reality.
Loughner asked his friends to forgive him for the forthcoming assasination. This is not the behavior of a schizophrenic.
Jared knew what he was doing.
***We have got to change the way we deal with mentally ill and mentally unstable people in our communities. People think it is unfair to institutionalize mental patients, then those same people are shocked when one of the loonies fries a circuit and kills someone, a whole bunch of someones, or just commits suicide by cop.***
I agree totally. We release mentally ill patients on the promise that they’ll take their meds, and often they don’t.
By the way, I’ve prayed for his parents. I don’t even want to think of how I’d feel if he were mine.
Yep, I also think it adds to that unstable feeling. A child out of control. Kids need boundaries, whether they say so our not, it makes them feel safe. Someone is in control. I’m not a shrink but, I play one on FB...lol I do however think it can lead to a kind of madness. To a mindset of, I can do no wrong, if something goes wrong it’s someone else’s fault. And everything is acceptable for me, I can justify anything I do, kind of mentality.
He poor parents had struggled with him for years. EVERYONE knew he was a canon loose on deck. They went from agency to agency seeking assistance in handling him and the threat he posed to society. Time after time the buck was passed, and he continued living an openly psychotic and obviously threatening life until he snapped on that Fourth of July weekend.
Truth is, as a society we are less prepared to handle mental illness than any another condition that besets us. Kids who begin showing signs of serious instability in the preschool setting simply move along through life wreaking havoc on family and friends alike. Most, thank God, never reach the point of outright violence, but so many of them make life a living hell for loved ones.
What's really sad about the this latest example of our inability to handle the mentally ill is that it will happen over and over, again and again, with no plan to stop it.
Until you (The Papal “You”, not you as ‘fatnotlazy’) have had to deal personally on a chronic basis with someone who is truly mentally ill you have no idea what an experience in frustration and futility it can be.
And it's always the same, after the fact tons of information comes out as to just how sick the person really was and how many danger signals were sent and ignored.
And gun control is NOT the answer. Billy Ferry, the guy here in Tampa, used gasoline and a Bic lighter. The next guy will use a car or maybe a homemade bomb, one of the last used an airplane. Until we stop worrying about weapons and worry about those who wield the weapons we will be like a dog chasing its tail.
My prayers certainly go out to the parents in this latest case. Regardless of their complicity in his actions they need them!
Strategerist wrote “Schizophrenia is a brain chemical imbalance. It has very little to do with how a child is raised. The best parents in the world could end up with a paranoid schizophrenic Jared Loughner as a son.”
I agree. And if the schizophrenia rears it’s head when the ‘child’ is 18 or over, as a parent you have no power to make sure they get help as they can sign themselves out, refuse to go, hospitals and doctors won’t give you any records or council you as the parent since he’s 18 or older, it is his privacy that can’t be divulged unless the child gives his or her permission.
Where did he take his drugs.At home?
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