By – Pam Williams
The following discussion contains some very personal information, but I am not one to hold back if I feel my own experience can help others.
Headline – Pulse night club survivor advocates for Uvalde community, mental health resources –
The key to curtailing gun violence is more attention must be placed on mental health. This is not being done; in fact, we are receiving less and less resources for mental health assistance. Little by little we see the school system cutting back on the needs of our students in the realm of coping with the stress and strain being placed on them due to the degradation of this society. The repercussions of having no one ‘out there’ for our kids to go to in a day of frustration and loneliness is simply unacceptable. If there is no one at home, there must be someone in our mental health realm within our institutions.
1 in 5 adults live with a mental illness
Almost 1 in 25 adults live with a serious mental illness
50% of chronic mental illness start before 14 years of age
75% of chronic mental illness start by age 24
Just over 10 million people over the age of 18 have more than 1 addiction or mental health disorder.
This is not the time to cut back on mental health support services; indeed, we must open our eyes with the realization we cannot afford not to increase support within our school systems and our institutions for those with mental health issues.
I am speaking from experience. My own son committed suicide, and I admit – with no true explanation, I did not see it coming. He shot himself with a handgun he had for several years, and he did not leave a suicide note. He owned the handgun, and he lived in my home; however, I never felt the gun was at fault. He was struggling with a mental health issue, and that is the bottom line.
Although, my son was 28, he was still living with me, and he had difficulty in maintaining a job. I was doing everything I could to help him, but even with that I could not save him from himself.
Someone might ask me if you could go back, ‘what would you do differently.’ I have turned this question over in my mind a thousand times, and the answer is always the same:
‘I would go back in time and stay with my husband, the father of my son. I would do everything I could to prevent a divorce from my son’s father. A broken home seems to be the normal for many of our youth now, and it is the culprit to their misery. We may not want to admit this as the parents of a lost generation; nevertheless, in my opinion it is true.
QUOTE – Who is the Texas school shooter? What we know | Fox News
Speaking to “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday morning, DPS Lt. Olivarez said the suspect had attended a local high school and lived with his grandparents. A man who was believed to be his grandfather told reporters on Wednesday he spoke to his grandson “daily” but said he “didn’t know” he had guns in the home.
“We haven’t able to identify any friends, a girlfriend, no gang affiliation, no criminal history. So, a lot of unanswered questions,” Olivarez went on. “But that’s why we’re trying to put all those pieces together, gather as much evidence as possible to try to bring some type of closure to those victims, to the families and also the community here and to all of Texas.”
Ramos was described as being a loner. He was unemployed and had no criminal history and no gang affiliation, DPS said. Gov. Greg Abbott said he had “no known mental health history.”