As soon as Elaine Soonen found out that her son, Richard, wanted to take out some of his classmates, she took action. In fact, he wanted to strangle them, to get back at them.
“I always wanted to get back at them,” Richard Sonnen said of his classmates. “I always wanted to strangle them. … I was always mad. I was always angry and I would come home and cry to mom and dad.”
Richard was adopted from a Bulgarian orphanage when he was 4.5 years old. However, after a few months home he began to show anger and was unpredictable. Sonnen stated that when he was 6 Richard told her he wanted to kill her.
By eighth grade Richard was being treated by a psychiatrist and was on anti-psychotic medications. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and “other disorders”.
When he was a junior in high school Sonnen uncovered a plan that Richard had made to set bombs around the school, as he had been repeatedly bullied since middle school.
But what comes next is even worse. After being institutionalized (on his parent’s request), Richard stays for over a year and a half, gets well enough to attend college, and proceeds to allegedly make a threat against his new school.
However, now that Richard is over 18 his parents have no legal authority to medically help him and he leaves school to go live on his own.
What worries me about cases like this is that they seem all too familiar. I have a child that seems very much like Richard. A sweet as candy kid when he wants to be who also has the anger and aggression, a child who deals with psychosis (and tries hard to manage it), a child who WILL deal with bullying and who very well deal with bipolar.
My hope is that because we are dealing with the issues early and treating him early with therapies and medication that we can work through his issues before they become issues.
译文:
疯狂枪击的征兆?[养子有道]
儿子Richard动念头要把他的同学“干掉”！母亲Elaine Soonen一察觉这件事，马上采取了行动。其实Richard是要报复他的同学，想掐死他们。
“我一直想着要报复他们，”Richard Sonnen告诉他的同班同学。“真想把他们掐死……我总是发疯，我实在气死了，真想回家找爸爸妈妈，大哭一场。”
Richard是这家的养子，四岁半的时候在保加利亚一家孤儿院被收养。但是收养后几个月后他时常生气，喜怒无常。Sonnen 说，他六岁的时候甚至说要插死Sonnen。
八年级的时候，Richard接受精神病医生的治疗，用了安定药物。经诊断，他得了躁郁症(周期性情绪过度高昂或低落的疾病)，强迫症和别的一些心理疾病。
他到高中三年级的时候，Sonnen发现Richard预谋在学校周围埋下炸弹，因为他初中的时候就经常遭到欺凌和恐吓。
接下来更糟糕的是，应父母要求，Richard被送入专门机构接受管教，在那里待了一年半之后，他的情况有所好转，能够进入大学学习了，但是在新学校，他仍然涉嫌恐吓。
但是，Richard已经年满18岁，没有任何司法机构能够为他提供援助，他不得不离开学校，独立生活了。
令人生忧的是，这样的案例屡见不鲜，还十分相似。我的孩子和Richard也有一些共同点。这样的孩子有时也很可爱，有时却狂怒暴躁，攻击性强，心理方面有待控制，也努力在控制自己情绪，其精神两面性又使他们做出欺凌弱小的举动。
我希望能够我们家长能够尽早处理这些问题，通过治疗和药物解决问题，不要亡羊补牢，发现为时已晚。