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We do a lousy job with mental illness in this country.
Mary Anne — (archived)

Leaving aside the issue of gun control for a minute...

When I read the shooter might have been taking medication for depression after visiting a campus counsellor, it gave me cold shivers.

Anti-depressives administered to an isolated person without continuing supervision, which may very well be as much a description of campus counselling at VT as it is at a lot of other schools, equals very bad news. It's tied to suicides. A violent depressive would be more likely to take people with him.

I know a young man who was taking anti-depression medication as suggested by an on-campus counsellor and prescribed by the doctor in the clinic. He disappeared. When he finally called his parents, after several frantic days, he was disoriented and emerging from a fugue state... on the other side of the continent. He had disposed of all his identifying documents. His folks contacted the police, who talked him into going to the hospital, where his tox screen was clean. And this was a kid who has a family and friends, and no violent tendencies. He had people to talk to, and he talked to them often.

The shooter had not been in the habit of talking to anyone for a long, long time. I wonder if he said anything substantial to the counsellor, or if he (being smart, if crazy) merely said what he knew the counsellor wanted to hear.

In no way am I trying to excuse what the shooter did. I wonder, though, whether drug therapy without adequate supervision had anything to do with the trigger. It's a question that seems not to be asked yet. I mean, if we're interested in trying to eliminate a possible cause of tragic events like this.

We are really bad at recognizing mental illness, really, really bad about stigmatizing mentally ill people (who therefore don't seek treatment), and really, really, really bad at making sure people who are mentally ill can get early treatment for their illness, before they flip out and do something awful.

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