Today a horrible tragedy occurred when a young man with two guns shot and killed approximately 30 people, many of them children, at an elementary school in Newton, CT. Police have named the suspect, who is himself now dead, as Ryan Lanza. I'm sure the media will inform us about who he is over the coming days, and for the moment we can only speculate about his motivation for committing such a negative deed. We can and should also reach out to those who have lost loved ones to this horrific act of violence.
The death of a child is never easy because whether or not it is expected, it runs counter to the expectations of our support systems. Parents are supposed to die before their children. And we mentally and socially prepare for the deaths of our loved ones as they age. We don't typically prepare for the deaths of children unless that situation arises, and our social networks aren't typically set up to support grieving for children.
The loss of a child becomes much harder to bear when the death is unexpected and/or violent. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross articulated a theory of stages of grief in relation to loss in her 1969 classic On Death and Dying. A person is supposed to move in time through denial, anger, bargaining, despair/depression, and eventually to acceptance. This process can become arrested in the face of an overwhelming loss due to traumatic circumstances such as today's. When someone is intimately affected by such a shock and loss, their nervous system goes into survival mode curtailing the process of healthy grieving in order to get through immediate events.
I hope that those most directly affected are able to connect with mental health services and disaster response. I have quite a bit of confidence in EMDR's Recent Traumatic Events Protocol as well as the effects of treating traumatized children with Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy including its supplement for traumatic grief.
It is terror to imagine children being killed and witnessing killing. Other than organizing for direct response in order to provide appropriate mental health services to the survivors and families, I think one of the best responses is to offer metta--real loving-kindness. May they be safe; may they be happy; may they be strong; may they live with ease.
I was an elementary school teacher for DC Public schools during the DC sniper's reign of terror. Someone called in a suspicious person on a nearby roof, which led to several 4th grader's puppy piled in a corner with me, while I anxiously read them stories for almost two hours while waiting for the "all-clear".
No one among us has not experienced overwhelming fear. Likewise most of us have experienced moments of overwhelming anger and confusion. Whether the killer was suffering from the type of extreme alienation (first described in modern psychological terms by Karen Horney) or acute mental illness (Melanie Klein's schizoid position), he was having a hellish human experience that led to the murder of children. The easiest way to widen the gap between our own state of mind and the mindstates that lead to violence is to practice kindness and clarity.
Start easy and direct your love towards the surviving children. They need it. May they feel safe. Give it also to family members of survivors and victims. May they feel strong. Add others as you can. The first responders: May they feel content and strong. The police and public officials: May they live with ease.
The perpetrator will probably be harder. Keep in mind that he once was a little baby to his caretakers. At some point along the way he became oppressed by mindstates that led to a combined lack of clarity and kindness so sever that he could take the lives of children. And whatever the circumstances, he did what he did in order to attain something that would put him more at ease. May he be released from affliction.
If you're not there yet, don't sweat it. Give yourself some metta. May I feel safe; may I feel happy; may I feel strong; may I live with ease.
