Adam Lanza’s Mental Health Still Doesn’t Explain The Violence That Happened
Last night, Frontline aired a special that investigated the mental health and family life of Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza.
While “Raising Adam Lanza” spent a great deal of time explaining the low end degree of Autism Lanza was diagnosed with, it also highlighted another mental illness Lanza suffered from that many did not even know existed.
In addition to Asperger’s disease, Lanza also had sensory integration disorder, a condition that severely heightens or lowers sensory perception. When experiencing physical pain, people with SID can either feel it in abnormally overwhelming amounts or barely know it’s there.
“For these kids, the volume is turned way high,” Alice Carter, director of the clinical psychology program at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, told Frontline. “So what seems reasonable to most people is very overwhelming to them.”
Just to show how uninformed this country is when it comes to mental illness, not only is SID not listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), but it still is not clear whether SID is its own disease or an excess of symptoms from another condition related to Autism.
Neither SID or Aspergers is linked to violent behavior. What is, however, is being plagued with a mother who has no idea what to do with a mentally disturbed child.
Sean Levinson | Elite.