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Nancy Lanza feared son, Adam, was ‘getting worse’; ‘he was burning himself with a lighter’
NY Daily News ^ | 12/16/12 | MATTHEW LYSIAK AND STEPHEN REX BROWN

Posted on 12/16/2012 12:53:37 PM PST by jimbo123

Less than a week before her son would launch his horrifying attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School, gun-loving mom Nancy Lanza knew "she was losing him" and that "he was getting worse."

-snip-

Adam, who the coroner's office said Sunday shot Nancy Lanza, 54, several times in the head before unleashing a nightmarish attack that killed 20 schoolchildren and six others Friday, was prone to hurting himself, the drinking buddy said.

"Nancy told me he was burning himself with a lighter. In the ankles or arms or something," he recalled of a conversation they had about a year ago. "It was like he was trying to feel something."

(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: adamlanza; adamlanzabio; nancylanza; sandyhook; sandyhookmother; sandyhookshooting
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To: Chickensoup

Ignoring it didn’t seem to work too well.


81 posted on 12/16/2012 2:49:20 PM PST by AppyPappy (You never see a masscre at a gun show.)
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To: arasina

I’ve been acquainted in the past with a young teen who hurt himself intentionally. Said it was the only time he felt alive. Only time he really felt anything. He was the nephew of a former girlfriend. She took him in occasionally, since his home life was not very good with her sister. He’d been medicated with Ritalin from an early age. Not aware of anything else, but I wouldn’t be surprised. He was a decent enough kid, very bright, very serious, very quiet, slightly strange but not alarmingly so. Small for his age, verging upon emaciated. I was under the impression that the medication had done it.


82 posted on 12/16/2012 2:51:32 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: Sacajaweau

Some people suffering from depression do self-harm like that. They feel so numb and detached that they cut or burn themselves just to prove that they can still feel *something*, even if it’s pain. They can physically feel pain, there’s nothing wrong with their nerves, it’s their mental state.

}:-)4


83 posted on 12/16/2012 3:21:29 PM PST by Moose4 (...and walk away.)
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To: Red_Devil 232

“I hear a report this morning on FNC that claimed he could not feel pain. It is possible I am wrong but I don’t think so.”

I read something similar today. A kid that played baseball with Adam when they were younger said that they always had to watch out for him, because if he fell and hurt himself, he would feel it or be aware of it.


84 posted on 12/16/2012 3:30:38 PM PST by RedWhiteBlue (Mama tried)
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To: Red_Devil 232

“I hear a report this morning on FNC that claimed he could not feel pain. It is possible I am wrong but I don’t think so.”

I read something similar today. A kid that played baseball with Adam when they were younger said that they always had to watch out for him, because if he fell and hurt himself, he wouldn’t feel it or be aware of it.


85 posted on 12/16/2012 3:30:53 PM PST by RedWhiteBlue (Mama tried)
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To: Chode
if she'd lived, she'd of been sued into oblivion

She will still be sued, dead or alive.

86 posted on 12/16/2012 3:32:08 PM PST by frithguild (You can call me Snippy the Anti-Freeper)
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To: Aria

It’s difficult because children at that age are simply changing physically so fast that even medications can’t keep up with them.

Puberty is a big challenge, because usually it is a few years after that when adolescents have their first big crisis (age 16 or so).

But it seems that the parents you know are plugged into help and maybe things will go well for them. Prayers for this family.


87 posted on 12/16/2012 3:38:50 PM PST by livius
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To: muawiyah

Very interesting. Thank you!


88 posted on 12/16/2012 3:39:41 PM PST by livius
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To: RedWhiteBlue

That is exactly what I heard!


89 posted on 12/16/2012 3:41:15 PM PST by Red_Devil 232 (VietVet - USMC All Ready On The Right? All Ready On The Left? All Ready On The Firing Line!)
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To: gov_bean_ counter

Exactly. It’s happening to one of my family members as I type this. Her parents have NO recourse whatsoever unless their daughter (adult) commits HERSELF. Which will never happen.


90 posted on 12/16/2012 3:43:08 PM PST by bonfire
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To: jimbo123
Nancy Lanza knew "she was losing him" and that "he was getting worse."...decompensating paranoid schizophrenic.....
91 posted on 12/16/2012 3:44:19 PM PST by Intolerant in NJ
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To: jimbo123

That’s the impression the MSM would like to give. I guess she deserved to die. It’s the parents’ fault. The son was just an instrument. What crap.


92 posted on 12/16/2012 3:44:37 PM PST by kabar
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To: jimbo123

There was a feminist putsch against keeping patients in mental hospitals long ago, and it was accompanied by movies showing women trapped in mental institutions at the whims of evil male administrators. As for much of the current consequences being seen, maybe our national whorehouse needs to be cleaned up (moral bankruptcy). Both the mother and son should have been properly evaluated with the whole battery of tests.


93 posted on 12/16/2012 3:46:41 PM PST by familyop (We Baby Boomers are croaking in an avalanche of rotten politics smelled around the planet.)
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To: jimbo123
Childhood abuse and neglect can result in a cold blooded murderous rage.

The following video documentary is of an adopted girl who had been abused by her birth parents at a very young age... an age at which many might believe she should retain no memory of the abuse. The video is chilling and not safe for work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2-Re_Fl_L4

94 posted on 12/16/2012 3:50:06 PM PST by fso301
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To: greatvikingone
Things could be nipped in the bud while a troubled child is young if there were not so much emphasis on making the mentally ill the “same” as a normal child.

I sort of get what you are trying to say here, but understand this is a very slippery slope. There is a very real danger of branding and profiling for “pre-crimes” anyone who doesn’t quite conform to the social norm or especially those who don’t conform to the prevailing PC culture as being mentally ill or “troubled”.

I recall the case of a kid not long ago of a kid, kindergarten or first grade, who drew a crayon picture of someone with a gun. IIRC his dad was serving in the military and it was supposed to be a picture of his dad of whom he was very proud. This kid had been a good student, had never had been in any trouble before, never exhibited violent tendencies toward anyone. But when the teacher saw it, she freaked out. The police were called, the child taken away in handcuffs and indefinitely suspended, the school system told the mother her son needed psychiatric counseling and couldn’t return to school until he did - all because the kid drew a picture of a gun.

If parents could afford to have their mentally ill children cared for at mental institutions where there was structure, protection, and no pressure for being different, we might have different outcomes from all of these massacres.

What you describe simply does not exist. There are some good private and very expensive psychiatric hospitals, even some dealing with adolescences, but no long term care facilities where such a child would or could be kept indefinitely, such hospitals as you describe only deal with the short term problems and once the patient is stabilized - no longer an immediate threat to themselves or others they are returned to their families.

Most other psychiatric hospitals are not somewhere where you’d want to send a loved one – there is little structure or protection from abuse from fellow patients or even staff. Sadly unless in a very specialized day treatment or part time residential facility dealing with a specific problem like autism or retardation, in a psychiatric hospital, even among many private ones, more often than not those who are difficult to handle and profoundly retarded and those with Autism or non-violent people with borderline personality disorders who are not a danger to others or even some cases those with drug or alcohol problems are housed and placed and kept together with people who are truly psychotic and schizophrenic and truly dangerous.

I’ve seen this first hand with a family member who was diagnosed as being bi-polar who sometimes became manic but never violent and with a good friend who had a drinking problem.

After the breakup of her marriage, my friend relapsed and drank heavily and became very depressed one night and took a bunch of pills in a half hearted effort to commit suicide and dialed 9-11 and as a result was involuntarily committed for 4 days.

She was placed in the very same psychiatric ward along with schizophrenics and psychotics, men and women together in the same unit. One gal became so violent one night that she had to be forcibly placed in a straight jacket and put in “the rubber room” while my friend watched in horror and wondering why she was there with crazy people. Another patient saw and talked to people who were not there and was given to outbursts of anger if others including my friend didn’t see them too. And another patient, a male was constantly trying to masturbate in front of the female patients when the staff weren’t looking. My friend was given thorzine to keep her “calm” just like all the other patients even though she didn’t display any violent tendencies and didn’t want to take it and was in fact terrified that something might happen to her while she was drugged up and not able to defend herself. She got no counseling or referrals for her drinking problem while she was there, all they wanted to know was if she was going to try and kill herself again and was simply released at the end of her 4 days after some doctor determined she wouldn’t. Fortunately after she got out after the mandatory 4 day hold it was a real wakeup call for her and she went back to AA and has stayed clean and sober ever since. But she told me it was the most frightening 4 days of her life, she still has occasional nightmares about it – she knew she wasn’t “crazy” but said if she had spent much more time in that place, she probably would become crazy.

Add to that that there is great society pressure on parents not to institutionalize their children, even if they could or even should. What do you imagine most people would say to the parents of a young child who chose to permanently send their child away to an institution? Sadly quite a few would say “You sent your child away to an institution because you just didn’t want to be bothered; you were too uncaring, too selfish to care for them”.

Again, I’m very concerned with how we deal with the seriously mentally ill – we don’t deal well with them; we used to warehouse them in snake pits, hell holes and now we instead put them out on the streets to fend for themselves which is often just as worse.

And we don’t do a good job of protecting the larger society from those that are seriously disturbed and dangerous. But we also don’t deal well with their families; we don’t give them the ability to commit when it is warranted and good places where their loved ones can be sent and compassionately cared for, a place for them to commit their sick family members to if needs be. And we don’t’ judge these families well when they try to do the right thing and on the other hand we blame them when they try and fail because the system doesn’t give them many options.

And again we also need to be very careful in how and what we determine to be “normal”. The kid who is shy and socially awkward, nerdy, the kid who would rather read a book or work on math problems or play video games in their spare time than go to the school dance or football game or parties or participate in PC activies or might disagree with a teacher, or the kid who enjoys hunting and fishing and wilderness camping and going to the gun range with his or her dad who might also be a Tea Party member, may one day not be considered “normal” and even potentially dangerous if the greater society, and most especially the government decides they are.

95 posted on 12/16/2012 3:55:30 PM PST by MD Expat in PA
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To: txnativegop

What happened to the story the were saying Friday that the father was found dead in an apartment in New Jersey and the girlfriend was missing?


96 posted on 12/16/2012 3:56:31 PM PST by dandiegirl
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To: Parmy

Was there an event that set this kid off, or was this the result of his isolated lifestyle where the voices told him to kill?

It is hard to imagine him waking up and deciding that this was the day to kill his mother and others.


97 posted on 12/16/2012 4:00:06 PM PST by Delta Dawn (The whole truth.)
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To: Parmy

“In the old days, like 40 or 50 years ago, before Jerry Rivera, people like this would have been institutionalized before they could hurt others.”

I wonder if Whoraldo has connected those dots? I guess not: he’s too self-absorbed. Love to remind him, though.

(Good catch/connection.)


98 posted on 12/16/2012 4:04:32 PM PST by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Mr Rogers
for all i know he tortured her to get into her gun safe, but short of that, she was playing with fire when she knew how whacked out he was to keep more than one gun in the house, to be used against him if need be...
99 posted on 12/16/2012 4:05:46 PM PST by Chode (American Hedonist - *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
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To: frithguild
DOH!!! yeah, i forgot... they will come after her estate

prolly try and drag her husband into it too

100 posted on 12/16/2012 4:08:29 PM PST by Chode (American Hedonist - *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
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