I am reading a heart wrenching book at the moment by Sue Klebold, the mother of Dylan Klebold, who, along with Eric Harris, was responsible for the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. I won’t go into details about the tragedy that in itself is incomprehensible, however, what I do want to write about is what I have learnt whilst reading this book.
This event was a complete and utter shock to the Klebolds’, who had no idea what was really going on in their son’s mind. The family home was filled with love and the family was anti-gun and violence. Dylan presented as a typical teenager who had good relationships with his parents, his brother and had a good group of friends. Sue Klebold has spent the last 17 years working through how this came to happen and trying to juxtapose her beautiful loving son with a cold killer.
The strong message that comes through in Sue Klebold’s experience was that she didn’t know what to look for in her son, signs of depression were not picked up by those who were closest to Dylan because everything seemed “normal”. He socialised with friends, he went to the senior prom, he had a job and he was about to head off to college. She has had to work through her devastation of not persisting in getting Dylan to talk about things. Dylan would dismiss his mother by telling her he was too tired to talk. She blames her ignorance. It’s also important to know that she does not use depression as an excuse for Dylan’s behaviour as no apologies or excuses can make up for what he did. If anything, the one thing Sue Klebold has taught me through reading her story, is that when my child wants to speak or tell me something, I need to stop talking, acknowledge his feelings and just listen.
The following links are helpful in supporting parents in recognising signs and what help is out there:
http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/depression_teenagers.html
https://www.youthbeyondblue.com/understand-what’s-going-on/depression/signs-of-depression
http://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/healthprofessionals/depression/treatingteendepression.cfm
A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of a Tragedy. All author profits from the book will be donated to research and to charitable organisations focusing on mental health issues.
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