On Mental Illness
Thoughts
on Why
the Virginia Tech
Shooting Happened
by Pete Feigal
The toughest part of
my job as a speaker is that I’m often called into a school
or community after there has been a tragedy, a suicide or violence.
People want to know “why?” and
I don’t
have the “whys.” “Why?” was the question that defined
my own life: Why was I struck with terrible depression as a young teenager? Why
did I have to spend years in “The System?” Why was I so lonely and
had to live in such pain and fear?
The breakthrough for
me came when I was diagnosed with MS, and asked the doctor, “Why did I get MS? I’ve been battling mental
illness almost my whole life.” I didn’t think I needed
another “character builder.” And the doctor answered
my question and said that I didn’t do anything wrong. I had
simply got MS. Like Buddha said, in our lives we’re going to
have ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows and we don’t
get the one without the other. We wouldn’t KNOW the one without
the other. They are all gifts, teachers and meditations in our lives,
wanted or not. I’ve learned now that there are often no “whys,” no
one to blame, no test of faith, or punishment for some broken law.
Sometimes things are
within our power to change, and sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes drunks run red lights, sometimes we get MS
or schizophrenia or cancer, sometimes our sons get addicted to Meth
or our daughters get pregnant. Sometimes there are divorces or diagnoises
of terrible illnesses, or even deaths. But if we try to find “why,” to
lay blame for everything that happens to us in our lives, good or
bad, it can distract us from living our lives and seeing that even
in those tough times, there are great insights learned, deeper connection
with others, and a reawakening of our hearts of courage.
When asked about the
poor young man who did the shooting at Virginia Tech, or the young
man who did the shooting at Red Lake or the two at Columbine, or
the man at the Amish school, or any of the other places of pain
that seem to be epidemic in our country these days, I tell people
that if these young men are to be pityed as much as their victims.
That the illness or abuse or bullying or torture or isolation that
they went through as mere children must have been a hell too terrible
to imagine. That if their bodies were as ill, twisted and in as
much agony as their minds and souls were, we would have all taken
pity on them and taken them into our own homes so we could care
for them. That spirits can become ill just as flesh can. That if
we want this terrible toll to end, we have to honestly examine
and change and fund the kind of culture and programs that will
not allow anyone to slip through the cracks. That the price for
helping those in crisis, illness and pain will be high in money,
but worth it a thousand times over for the human suffering it will
ease. That we must wake up from the selfish nightmare that has made
our culture one where kindness is weakness, honesty is foolishness
and cruelty is entertainment. And to struggle to have the wisdom
and grace to understand that sometimes there is nothing anyone could
have done differently, no crucial ingredient that could have been
discovered, and that, frighteningly and frustrating as it sometimes
can be, there are no “whys.” ![]()
