Shooting rampage at my alma mater, UCSB. 7 dead. Horrifying.

<p>“Shrinkrap, as a concerned parent, if I knew my kid needed to take his meds to function well, by all means I would limit what I gave him in terms of support if he refused to take both professional and parental direction.”</p>

<p>I like to think I would too, and it has been more than a thought excercise for me. In fact, I posted here a few years ago, and some of the same folks posting today told me to back off! </p>

<p>Where would you draw the line? Car? Housing? Food? What if the “meds” didn’t “work” in terms of functioning “well”, or had “intolerable” side effects?</p>

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<p>Do we have any evidence that ER ever had a med regime that allowed him to function well? He was prescribed Risperdal, but never took it, so we have no idea whether it would have helped or not. Do we know of a time when ER was taking meds and was functioning normally, and then stopped taking those meds and stopped being able to function?</p>

<p>I know that people talk about schizophrenics who are stabilized on meds, but then stop taking them because they hate the side effects (which are awful) and slide back into delusions. But we don’t have any evidence that ER was in such a state, because we haven’t, so far as I know, heard of a medication regime that helped him.</p>

<p>Psychiatric medicines aren’t like antibiotics or something, where you take the med and you’re pretty sure it’s going to work. Rather, psychiatric meds are like experiments. You try one, it doesn’t work. You try another, it works but the side effects are dangerous. You try a third, it works, but then it stops working. You change the dose up, you change the dose down, you change everything about psychiatric meds frequently.</p>

<p>@sally305
He doesn’t take his meds
You limit your support. </p>

<p>Then what happens?</p>

<p>meds are not magic pills they have side effects. </p>

<p>Have you seen the movie “garden state”? </p>

<p>I think hindsight is easy, foresight is impossible-I truly don’t know what I would do if I had to deal with a mentally ill child. I would imagine it is very easy to say-I would do this or I would never do that-until you are actually in the middle of a crisis with your beloved child.</p>

<p>Mine would be living at home and attending a local CC under those unfortunate circumstances. Or any circumstances, really. I can’t see setting a troubled kid up in an apartment and hoping he pulls it together, somehow. But, this is not judging, it’s answering the question.</p>

<p>And, I have known people for whom the meds didn’t work or at least not for long and without intervals of varying levels of awfulness ranging from out of nowhere violent rants to weeks in the psyche ward. There was also a lot of pacing back and forth. And self-medicating with alcohol. But, this was an adult living on a disability check and not my child. His parents were done with him. </p>

<p>When you don’t know what your looking at and it’s your kid you are not going to see clearly. </p>

<p>@sevmom. </p>

<p>Exactly.
It isn’t as if people who have struggled mightily with these issues were too stupid to think of those “brilliant” suggestions from people who are Monday morning quarterbacking and don’t have a clue. </p>

<p>You have no way of knowing if a person it taking their meds anyway. My great aunt was in an assisted living facility and was administered her meds every day and still she didn’t necessarily take them. Even when a witness hands a person a pill or actually sees it go into the mouth it can still be pocketed and spit our or hid. I did her laundry myself just to keep tabs on how many pills I found in sweater pockets etc. This works with an 88 year old with dementia but likely not so well with a young adult male. </p>

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<p>In my limited experience of observing, this is absolutely true. The problem seems to be that all medicines that affect the brain processes fall under that medical reference term “not completely understood”. Very few people really understand how these things work, or even why. Add the fact that they don’t really understand the “source” of the problem in the first place and you have a situation that is perpetually unsettled. </p>

<p>Good friends have a son who is now 25. He has had substance abuse problems and is bipolar. For their own sanity, they had to distance themselves (while still being very supportive) as they were being consumed by his issues. He has been doing okay in the last year or so but is in a residential program that deals with his issues and they are not dealing with him on a day to day basis. They tried having him at home but the situation was just too volatile. Having a young adult child living at home is not always going to work. Elliot had a much younger brother whose needs were important as well.</p>

<p>Well, he also had a mom and a dad in two separate houses. But, I haven’t heard anything to suggest he was known to be at any level of crisis beyond depressed and always a little odd. We’re talking about mentally ill kids. They didn’t think they had one. </p>

<p>The mom said he was a special needs child when asking for more child support. The dad claimed he’d never heard that one before. So far, I haven’t heard anything about any actual diagnosis of anything. Just a lot of therapists, counselors which have also been called rent-a-friends, and one psychiatrist visit as an adult where he was prescribed the untaken medication. There was talk about Aspergers but also reports that it was only suspected. They didn’t know what if anything was really wrong with him. They were worried he might be suicidal not a homicidal maniac.</p>

<p>fluffy, I don’t know. I was just answering Shrinkrap’s hypothetical question. I didn’t say it would work. But I am protective enough as a parent that if I had any concerns at all, I’d want my kid close to home. </p>

<p>To go way back a few pages, I’m talking about psychotropic meds that have been known to cause/worsen mental illness.
I didnt say there was a " conspiracy" pizzagirl. Thats ridiculous.
Just because its commonly done doesnt mean it doesnt need oversight.
<a href=“Inappropriate prescribing”>Internal Server Error;

<p>Let’s just say it would take an awful lot before I put any of that stuff in my child. I could tell a few stories, but they’re way too long. </p>

<p>Sevmoms story is a good example. Many times things get too volatile at home and parents have to resort to removing the adult child from the home for their own safety. </p>

<p>Elliot Rodgers was not violent until he was. And, if he had been shipping him off to attend community college at the beach would probably not have been a consideration. We don’t even really know that he was being treated for anything, He got some anti-psychotics once and never took them. Maybe he lied about that to his parents. He lied about attending school which is a big one, really. And, this plot was a year or so in the making.</p>

<p>The parents said they didn’t recognize the person in the videos. They just didn’t know. They weren’t deciding what to do with a mentally ill child. They didn’t know they had a mentally ill child. He manipulated them, intentionally.</p>

<p><a href=“Video Elliot Rodger's Parents 'Crying in Pain for the Victims' - ABC News”>http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/elliot-rodgers-parents-crying-inside-victims-23909165?tab=9482931&section=4765066&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>“Elliot fooled everyone for a very, very long time. He fooled me. He fooled his family. He fooled everyone who saw him. He was a tragic figure. And now, when I talk about him, I talk about him knowing what he did. He is, in many ways, a monster.”</p>

<p>Quote from the family spokesman.</p>

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</p>

<p>And that’s corroborated from both the cops and what the murderer wrote about being relieved when the welfare check cops didn’t bother to search his apartment. </p>

<p>“They weren’t deciding what to do with a mentally ill child. They didn’t know they had a mentally ill child.”</p>

<p>Flossy, according to this article,

<a href=“Elliot Rodger was a 'Very Disturbed Boy' Says Virgin Shooter's Grandmother | IBTimes UK”>http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/elliot-rodger-was-very-disturbed-boy-says-virgin-shooters-grandmother-1449926&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Krilies, thanks. </p>

<p>That was an early statement on the first day which was walked back somewhat later. But, it’s also from an attorney on day one. He mentioned bullying a lot in the rest of that press release. He was explaining/defending but that position seems to have morphed a bit. There’s no explaining or defending going on anymore. Just grief… Nobody saw the evil. They obviously knew he wasn’t fine. And receiving care is questionable since he wasn’t taking the meds but they may not have even known that since he was lying and plotting. They knew he was depressed and possibly suicidal at the end not evil and psychopathic. I didn’t mean to suggest they thought he was fine. Sorry. </p>