Do you feel like you know a potential Jared Loughner or Seung-Hui Cho?

I'd make a joke as well, but the system doesn't allow his name to be typed. Swear, it comes out as asteriks. See Wenalway. Like magic, I tell ya.

Sometimes those weird kids at your school, well maybe they are the only Mormon in town. Or so smart they don't relate. Or hate the fact that their parents moved to some backwater and can't wait to get out.

Just being odd or different doesn't mean it is a mental illness.

I have known lots of kids that just never fit in. I don't think anyone of them were later diagnosed as mentally ill.

All this verbiage about how Americans just don't understand mental illness, well it is just one more thing most people don't get.

I love how some of the pundits are playing dime store psychiatrists and diagnosing Loughner (is it pronounced as Loner? I haven't paid attention.) as some sort of paranoid something something.

Now we do have a local gadfly and I'm pretty convinced he's going to shoot up city hall some day. And I'm not the only one who thinks that. The city hid in the budget the cost of making the council chamber bullet proof. Removed windows as well, so someone couldn't sit on the roof and shoot the chamber up.

 

We hired an assistant city editor once who was a little off, but seemed competent. By chance, I ran into a former co-worker of hers at a convention a few weeks later. He refused to answer any questions about her. We soon learned why. She was several bi-polar and often went off her meds.

I asked the ME before I went to a new paper a year later, why he didn't get rid of her. He blinked and said "i don't think the security guys can stop her." A few years later, she was let go in a round of layoffs. I e-mailed the ME to see what happened, his response was he checked his tailpipe every night when leaving work.

 

How ignorant. Just because someone goes off their meds doesn't mean they'll harm someone else.

Ninety-nine percent of those suffering from bipolar disorder or schizophrenia would be too scared to do anything to anyone else. They're far more likely to harm themselves.

 

I let a bipolar woman who I had worked with babysit my son for a few months when he was about 6 months old. I did my research and decided there was no reason not to trust her, but I definitely got some weird looks from people.

 

When I was in college, the guy down the hall--when he was into the grain and grape--used to come into our two-bed dorm room which had a stuffed chair between the beds. He was carrying a switch blade, and he would throw it into the chair, and then he'd say, "That's where your heart would'a been." Pulled that three or four times. Roomie and I never did more than keep a close eye on him.

My son was in Iraq for a year. Those nights he spent in the Green Zone, he had a roommate--three-bunk trailer--who was a stone schizo, used to make all sorts of threatening remarks about shooting this or that person. And since it was a war zone, everyone was armed and kept their weapons with them at all times. After spending a few sleepless nights on full personal alert, my son managed to get himself out of there. The guy was sent home on medical leave shortly thereafter; as far as my son knows, the Army took care of him, but he's not sure. The Ft. Hood thing didn't offer much encouragement as to how the Army deals with its mentally deranged.

These people need help, and it's damned hard to know the right thing to do. It's not something they teach you in citizenship class.

 

I approve this message.

 

I once overheard a circulation call. Guy was pissed at us for whatever reason and said he was going to bring his shotgun to the newsroom and mow us down. So far, he hasn't bothered following up.

 

Short of someone making verifyable, tangible, specific threats, there's not much that can be done.

Haven't most people lost their temper at one time or another and at least SAID stupid shit? So how do you know when someone is blowing off steam and when they are serious about nuking the city?

Wouldn't want society to reach a point where they start locking up everyone who dresses funny or whatever. I mean, who can judge another person's insides and what they might do tomorrow?

I understand the threat is real, but it's just like dealing with Arabs and Muslims after 9/11. You can't just lock people up over appearance and suspicion.

 

In my spare time ... time when I'm not hanging out on SportsJournalists.com ... I play a fair amount of spades on Yahoo Games. It is an increasingly common occurrence for people to go off the deep end over something that happens in the game. You don't make your bid, your partner starts spewing obscenities and calling you dumbfuck or worse, purposefully sitting idle and delaying the game to the point where it's not fun for anyone. Without exception it's a complete overreaction to a game.

I wonder what those people do in their real lives. If the boss doesn't like a piece of work, how do they respond? Not a scientific judgement by any stretch, but it just seems like a lot of people are ready to snap at any moment.

Do I personally know anyone like that? I'm sure I do, but I can't think of anyone specific.

 

What kind of research did you do that possibly, even remotely allowed you to reach that conclusion?
Talk about asking for trouble.

Might have already been posted here, but I can think of a former SportsJournalists.comer, who posted under about a half-dozen handles and runs his own site where he converese with himself, who fits this bill.

 

I read everything I could about the disease, how it effected people, and how her history matched up with what I read. I talked to her husband and her teenage daughter (she also had a 7-year-old son). Everything I read said that people with her type of the disease were no more likely to be a danger to others than any other person would be.

 

You oughta see me during a hearts game.