Alarmed by the barrage of horrifying mass shootings in the US of late, we are all shaking our heads and wondering, “what is happening to us? What is going on here? What does this mean?” Researchers have been looking into what, to me, are “new” places in an effort to comprehend what appears to be a not only alarming but growing trend. The most recent run of rampages, apparently neither politically, racially, nor ideologically motivated, have sent some researchers to the internet to track shooters’ “online footprints” in search of warning clues or explanations.
In studying the most recent suspect in the “Highland Park” mass shooting, experts discovered a trail that I certainly had no awareness of. I, of course, am no paragon of savvy about what goes on in the online or social media worlds. Tracing the 21-year-old shooter’s recent activity, including his online activity, revealed a startling, dramatic, and relatively new cyber sub-world or underworld. Emerging in the last couple of years, it was certainly new to me.
This new genre of online communities consists of blood, gore, nihilism and the creation of fictional identities exhibiting and glorifying those traits. Particularly jarring, according to researchers, is the way they appear to blur reality and fantasy, creating a psychotic-like confusion of Self. An opportunity to “be” someone else, and then an obscuring of identification of who I am “really.” Designed to be immersive, “viral”, or result in prolonged and repetitive hours of “play,” apart from whatever the psychological impact of such horror might be, combines with the still not fully understood brain impact of protracted screen time, on especially developing brains. And these sites tend to be most frequented by young people between 13 and 21 years of age. We see, in effect, a scrambling of alarming content with a potential for brain damage, precisely in prime years of identity formation and brain development. Where I might be inclined to exclaim “oy vey!” that would seem trivializing here. Throw in the context of climate change, and any vision of the future may seem apocalyptically blighted.
Trauma simmers (and potentially ultimately boils) with confusion, conflict or simple lack of identity at the heart of neglect. So, a child of neglect might be particularly vulnerable and susceptible to the offer of an alternative and powerful identity and even a loose posse of similarly searching and lost souls like themselves, all lacking distinction, purpose, connection or even something to do.
“Analog” Footprint
Apart from this troubling digital footprint, what about the concrete and observable signals that something is terribly amiss? Who is even watching? The young Highland Park suspect was hardly subtle in scattering his clues: suicidality, homicidal threats to family members, violence-laden artwork, even a chilling mural-sized painting he left on an outside wall of his mother’s home of a sinister smiley-faced figure brandishing an assault rifle. Somehow, he remained stunningly invisible in the days, even years leading to the massacre. What was this young man’s story? Attempting to track his actual history did not turn up too much.
Living with his father and a paternal uncle, he was quiet and withdrawn, tending toward depression. The men thought he was a good kid, but to be honest, it appeared no one was really looking. When his father helped him obtain his weapons, he claimed the boy was going to use them for target practice, or so he “believed.” Some neighbors commented that his “parents worked long hours.” Perhaps he was left unsupervised too much? In 2002, his mother was convicted of leaving him alone in a hot car when he was two years old. These are the stray crumbs of childhood material I was able to find. His father matter-of-factly and non-defensively said, “I want a long sentence; that’s life. You know you have consequences for actions. He made a choice. He didn’t have to do that.”
To my lens and sad eyes, this adds up to another story of deadly neglect; in this case, deadly for so many more than the original “child” in question.
Invisible
So often, I hear clients say – at least those new to me or my work – “—-But nothing happened to me!” If one isn’t using the familiar and perhaps “valid” triumvirate of sexual abuse, physical abuse and more vaguely defined “emotional abuse,” they come up empty. They may even come from significant privilege, pointing to paid-for fancy educations, plentiful food, money and creature comforts. Or, in the cases of less plenty, they may point to hard-working parents doing the best they could to provide, often with their own traumatic backgrounds. This may make for additional layers of shame and guilt for “complaining, suffering, or inexplicably feeling so bad.” Layer on top of that, the “protective lenses” of denial or even gaslighting that much of the larger world wears, and individuals feel that much more despicable and unworthy for feeling bad.
The field of psychological trauma has known for years about the pivotal and decisive impacts of early attachment relationships (the primate researchers have known even longer.) Trauma experts decades ago coined the term “developmental trauma” as catchment perhaps for all these uncategorized or unacknowledged micro or even macro-injuries. The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – the diagnostic “dictionary” relied upon by clinicians for insurance coverage) has yet to include them, despite well-documented field trials.
In 1995-97 the ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) Study was admirably undertaken, turning up reams of hugely valuable data about the relationship between “small” and “large” childhood experiences, linking them to medical and mental health outcomes. Only in the last few years, a quarter of a century later, has this information penetrated the larger medical and mental health fields, let alone the field of education and the public at large. Neglect in its various iterations is, of course, included. Childhood neglect is not nothing! Perhaps everyone is tired of hearing this from me. And maybe my emerging from my own invisibility is to wave this flag.
Again, as the attachment researchers began to document and teach us long ago, mirroring or not has profound developmental impact. Many of us are very familiar with the famous ‘Still Face” research on this. It is impressive if you have not seen it and well worth the quick watch. Being seen, mirrored and understood are like food and shelter for the growing and developing organism. They are foundational building blocks to knowing who we are; to coherent identity formation.
Connection
The shootings leave a whole new population traumatized: families and loved ones of those murdered, witnesses to the atrocities, and the larger world. Meanwhile, how many young and old are still glued to their screens, or unaware, as I was, of an additional variety of internet infections and potentially magnetic or “bingeable” content. As essential as connection is, babies to caregivers, communities, nations, is the mandate to connect the dots. Twenty-five years later, families of the Columbine dead still grieve. They will never get over it, nor really will any sufferer of traumatic loss. It behoves us to connect the dots.
Increasingly I am compelled by the interconnection of social, social justice and individual psychological trauma. It can seem to be a Gordian knot of complexity to tackle it all. That is another reason why we need each other. You have skills and inclinations, creativities and ideas that I don’t have, and universally vice versa.
Let’s work together.
Today’s song (an all-time favorite of mine!):
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
