My heart has been touched by all of the kind words of comfort, the encouraging words of support, and the best wishes for a speedy recovery for the girls who were stabbed “randomly” at Snohomish High School. It is what we do in small town America. Rush to the aid of our neighbors.
What leaves me cold is the fact that there are three young girls here, in trouble, in pain, confused, and unsure of what lies ahead of them.
The victims are obvious. Their scarlet pain is on display for all of us to comfort. But, there is another family here. A family with a daughter they love very much. This is as much of a shock to them as it is to the girls who were injured.
No one raises their child hoping they will become mentally ill, and hurt themselves or someone else. This girl is ill. She deserves compassion, and she and her family need support.
Now the rumors start. Because the story is simple, with no juicy bits to gossip about, the whispers shared between lockers in halls at school will become the truth for these ill-informed kids.
The truth of the matter is that the “perpetrator” is a young woman with a mental illness. A mental illness that has been misdiagnosed and mistreated by the doctors and experts her family trusted and relied upon for guidance and treatment. The school district quite often mislabels mental illness as behavior problems causing disruptive behavior issues. Once the child is medicated enough to stop disrupting the status quo, it is assumed the child is cured and safe to re-enter the general population.
This is the kind of behavior that eventually resulted in the tragedy at Columbine. Let’s spend a few more of our precious education dollars on identifying and helping these troubled children.
Tracy Anderson
Snohomish
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