My Name is Greg Vukelic...And Thank God You Haven't Heard It Before

My mindset the last few days has been confused. Conflicted. Frustrated. And I had no idea why. A elementary school had been attacked. An unknown number of people had been shot and killed. Reports were few and far between regarding the events, but more details were being released as I paid attention to my Facebook feed and the news sites. Something began to eat at me. I wasn't sure what. I saw the arguments explode across the internet. The gun control comments. The, "Why God, why," exclamations. These caught my attention, but didn't hold it. But I started to gravitate to the comments regarding mental health. I read some articles. I watched and listened to some more coverage. I listened, and in some cases participated in, conversations about the shooter and the incident. I realized very early on that any answers we got would be wholly and cruelly unsatisfying. As I explored the situation within myself, continued to watch coverage my feelings began to clarify. My thoughts began to coherently gather themselves, and I forced myself to expose myself to memories I have not thought about in years.

I am going to preface this story with the comment that I have never been diagnosed with any disorder, nor do I think that I should be. But my history both personally and professionally is quite extensive with the mental health field. I worked for years in an after school program for children with a litany of physical and mental disorders, primarily Autism and Asbergers. The purpose of this blog was to document and communicate my time in Sitka, AK working with teenagers in a mental health setting. I have multiple years of personal therapy in my background. I am not entirely sure where to start this whole story, or rather how. Or what purpose it serves.

I guess I will start when I was in grade school. I wasn't the most popular kid in my class of 22. In fact, the argument could be made that I was the least popular kid in it. My social skills were (and still remain) lacking. My inability to communicate with my peers led very quickly into frustration on both sides, from the eye rolls and feigned deafness to my comments on their side, to increasingly loud and intrusive interjections on mine. I was the kid in the corner with his nose always in the book. I was unathletic. Did not know how to assimilate myself into their group, and whatever ways I tried to work my way in were met with ridicule and derision. I got increasingly frustrated. And over the years that frustration turned to anger. As anyone who knew me at the time would tell you, I was far from a joy to be around. My fourth grade teacher noticed this and called a parent teacher conference. I remember bits and pieces of this exchange, but nothing serious, mainly me being asked if anything was wrong. Convinced I was about to get into trouble, I quickly made up a lie about having the same nightmare about monsters every night and that it was really bothering me. I 'developed' eye problems and after I took my eye test the doctor asked me to wait outside while he asked my mother if I was having any trouble at school. When she asked why he informed her that my eyes were better than alright and that he saw this in people who were having some problems in school. On the way home my mother asked me what was going on. I'm almost positive I quickly responded nothing.

Around this time, again, fourth grade, I began to realize that I wasn't getting any attention minding my own business; in fact, I was still being targeted by my classmates and nothing I could do would deter them. So I began to act out. My anger began to manifest itself. I mentioned before that I was unathletic and so I was always one of the last people picked in gym class. I would make sure that the person who picked me last or made fun of me for messing up in the field was repaid, usually in the classroom when one of their responses was wrong. This quickly spiraled into more ridicule and all the while I was trying to be everyone's friend. It was not a fun circle to be in. But I was getting some form of attention; people knew I was there and that I was around. Which was almost better than nothing. I responded to all of this by feeding my anger.

 It is incredibly easy to get and remain angry. I spent every school day hating school and feeding that anger with sleights, both real and imagined. Around this time I started having suicidal thoughts. Nothing crazy, and nothing imminent, but the thought of, 'maybe it would be better off if I wasn't around,' kept creeping in around the periphery. I struggled with so much on a day to day basis that I was not prepared to deal with, and did not know how to communicate it with anyone. This continued for a few years, with me getting angrier and more unbearable to be around, and my classmates responding in kind. I spent every day on my paper route thinking about everything that had happened previously that day.

 Then Columbine happened and everyone's attention focused on this, and in kind, the shooters. So much time and attention was put into trying to identify who they were and how they could do such a thing. I don't remember too much about it. But it was on everyone's consciousness. Around this time I threatened to shoot my class at graduation. I don't remember the comment or to whom I made it to. I made up a story of the initial comment and convinced one of my classmates to corroborate it. But I know I made it. I also know I wasn't serious. But there was a new source of attention. The principal called me in to talk to me. Apparently the cops showed up one day, but I was home sick. Parents 'anonymously' called my house telling my parents to pull me out of school. People were talking about me.

Nothing really came of this, but I continued to get angrier. I continued to feed my addiction to hate. Comments were still being made. I continued to feed them, consumed with my new found love for attention. I began to think about not if I would do it (I never would have), but how I would do it. I had no access to firearms, but I never concerned myself with that because I would never need them. It's a hard thought to formalize, because I never actually thought of shooting anyone. I never pictured myself mowing anyone down. There was never anything fantasized, nothing imagined, no pleasure obtained. It was purely logistic. But it became easier and easier to think about.

At this point in the story, it had all but quieted down; I hadn't made any comments, and no one had brought them up in quite some time. But, after a tae kwon do lesson I made some comments, quite gleefully and impressed with myself, of what certain things, Pepto Bismol if I remember correctly, would do to the intestines of animals. That next day one of the people in that locker room who also happened to be the leader of my Boy Scout troop called my mother and told me about what I said. I remember the aftermath of that call incredibly vividly.

 One of the most intelligent and compassionate people I know, my mother was in a condition I had never seen before. She was crying as she threw me in the couch. She told me about how embarrassed she was and how she couldn't keep getting phone calls like this. Tears streaming down her face she banished me to my room. I couldn't tell you how long I was there until the knock came on my door, but I remember being angry and thinking that I had done nothing wrong. My mom walked in and quietly sat down. She started by telling me how sorry she was and how much she loved me. She said that instead of reacting the way she should have, she should have realized that Chris was only calling because he cared about me and wanted her to be aware of what I was saying and doing. But she said it wasn't going to stop there. I was getting some help. And so I officially entered the mental health world.

 I could continue here and explain everything that happened in my sessions, everything that I discussed with the woman who became the primary caretaker for my mental health. But that isn't the purpose of this post. The purpose is that I had people around me that cared enough about me not to simply ignore or gloss over what I was doing or saying. That those people had the means to take proper care of me, to bring me to a highly qualified individual who worked very hard to help me figure some things out. I was never medicated, and I was never institutionalized. I had people to continue to support me. My parents. My best friend, a young man in a wheelchair who was a few years older who I still converse with on a daily basis. The aforementioned fourth grade teacher. My ninth grade history teacher. People throughout college and my professional life. People who probably have no clue the impact they have had on my life, people who probably have no idea they saved my life, but who have helped me learn and evolve along every step. People who have shown so much love and understanding. People who I am not sure realize how much they mean to me.

It took me years to work through that anger. Anger that ebbed and flowed throughout my high school years, anger that still manifests itself in sarcasm and a defensive stance on almost everything. It is something that I struggle with keeping at bay, at focusing on what I have instead of what happened in the past. An anger whose capabilities I am terrified of if it had been allowed to continue to manifest and grow.

My story ties into the realities of the past week in a simple way: as a society we are focusing on the wrong thing. News vans are parked outside this family's community, prying apart his life and trying to figure him out. Answers we will not be receiving any time soon. I find myself drawn not to the details of his life or intentions, but rather the coverage. I find this young man's life being completely dissected and gone over in ways that I can state with almost 100% certainty never got 2% of that attention. Attention that I thrived off receiving 1% of 1% of the focus of.  I made it a point to not pay attention to the young man or his life.  But I am terrified of the angry, neglected individual who is seeing this same attention.

Over the next days and months much will be made about this. We will dissect this up and down. I implore us as a society to practically ignore the shooters and the people who commit these horrors. People will scream and yell on both sides of the gun control issue. People already have their polarizing views on the surrounding issues of the incident. I implore us to focus on the victims, humanize them, show us baby pictures and interview family members of how beautiful and happy they were, as opposed to how the criminal was a 'quiet and weird young man' who was a 'ticking time bomb,' who everyone always knew was a little off.

I have no idea if this came off on any level of coherence. Maybe I should delete it right away and file it away in the revisit every couple months and thank God that it never went farther. But that would be ignoring the issue. I have no clue how many people out there have thought about these things, about how people need to be more aware of what is going on around them as opposed to ignoring it and hoping it goes away. Because it never does.