The more information that comes out about Mr. Card, the sadder I become.
I was right. The man was seriously mentally ill with what seems to have been command hallucinations; and what happened was almost a foregone conclusion.
Why oh why didn’t anyone contact the mental health system (and if they did, why did that system fail?)? Command hallucinations are intrusive, taunting, demanding, and never-ending, They would have been in his head constantly, and forcing some kind of horrendous outcome.
As I keep saying, I grieve for the victims, their families, and their friends. I grieve for those of us who didn’t know any of the victims but who have been affected by this horrendous tragedy. I grieve for the family and friends of Mr. Card.
And I grieve for Mr. Card himself. Serious mental illness of the kind that he was a victim of is worse than nightmarish. Whether the voices told him to kill himself, or whether he chose to knowing he might be forced to kill others again, is something we will never know.
But make no mistake. Although the vast majority of people with one of the mental illnesses – which includes serious depression – are non-violent, this group of illnesses is extraordinarily serious.
Suicide (pre-Covid) is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. Most people who die by suicide have some form of mental illness, primarily major depression.
My own beloved husband chose to die by his own hand because of a number of other medical issues that were killing him, but he was also dealing with serious depression. Had he not been, he might have been able to see his way clear to cope with those other medical issues (which included probable lung cancer).
Mr. Card’s illness was a tragedy. He was living in a hell, battling his own mind. He would have been unable to believe or trust anyone else because his mind – and the voices he heard – wouldn’t let him.
It was up to us to prevent this horrendous tragedy. We – all of us – let him down.
Think about all of the shitty, hateful comments being made. Our society sees and treats the mental illnesses as a weakness, as something to laugh at or condescend to. Given this society’s attitude, what are the chances that someone else coping with a major mental illness would want to come forward and ask for help?
My husband refused. (I had asked him to please get treatment but he either was too proud, or too ashamed of his “weakness”, or thought he could handle it himself.) And he died of a gun shot wound to his head as a result. And I still grieve.
We MUST do better.