The big question surrounding the Sandy Hook shooting is: Why? Why would Adam Lanza do something so horrific? Since then, reports have discovered that Lanza had Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism. Police are investigating whether his Asperger's might have been the reason behind the crime he committed. This has the psychology community and parents with children who have the condition disagreeing with the latest reports.
One person in particular is Emily Willingham, a mother of an 11-year-old with Asperger's who took to her blog to explain why the mental illness was not tied to the shooting. What she has to say is not only interesting, but it may just make you think twice about Lanza.
This shooting stunned me just as much as the rest of the nation and why Adam Lanza would do such a thing has repeatedly crossed my mind. Then upon learning he had a mental illness, I considered that he possibly could not have been a complete monster. It's still unclear what his motive was, but it's unfair to pin the whole tragedy on his Asperger's diagnosis.
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The controversy raised by this case is that once police discovered that Lanza had this condition, it was immediately pinned as the reason he did it. The media made Asperger's seem as a violent condition, making Willingham want to put a stop to this misinterpretation.
One of the major things being addressed in regards to Asperger's is empathy and the inability to feel this emotion. Willingham protests this notion and says that people with Asperger's lack the ability to follow non verbal communication, but they are STILL able to understand emotion. According to doctors, autistic people don't understand "cognitive empathy," or things like body language, verbal cues, and other social norms, but do have emotional empathy–much like the average person. Those with malice and no emotional empathy are categorized as psychopaths who don't comprehend feelings and are unattached to them.
Willingham explains that violence is also not part of the autism makeup, but instead says that autistic people are usually victims of bullying. She even refers to her autistic son who showed empathy through sadness towards the tragedy. Her son then in turn even suggested keeping the news from his little brother to not scare him. This shows that her autistic son is mourning just like the rest of us.
Therefore Asperger's can't be blamed in this crime, but other motives such as anger or a grudge had to play a greater role in it. Blaming Asperger's is simply an excuse to fault something that most people are not educated about. In Lanza's case it is still unclear what made him snap and cause one of the biggest school shootings the nation has seen.
I'm glad we're talking about mental illness and this country's treatment of it and people suffering from it, and I if anything, I hope that this discussion leads to some changes and hopefully some positive outcome from the Sandy Hook tragedy, which is so unbelievably tragic it defies any explanation.
Image via Twitter/ABC News
