Are you pondering what I'm pondering?

So yesterday, I went to the doctor, and, as always happens, even though you've made an appointment you're left waiting. So, while waiting I picked up a magazine which had no doubt been there forever and started flicking through this Marie Claire. In it was an article that got me so pissed off, I wish I had written down notes about it so I could explain it all to you in better detail but here goes. I tried Googling it but that was pointless.

Ok, the title picture was a poster of The Matrix, and the article was about a 19 year old mentally unstable guy who shot both of his parents after "being obsessed about The Matrix". Yep, I'm sure that's why he killed them. Anyway, it might have been this false title page that convinced me to read on, and boy am I glad I did, because somewhere in there was a real story about this guy.

The guy was living with foster parents, where he had been since age 10. Both of his birth parents were prostitutes and drug addicts and he was removed from their custody by the state when he was very young. The article didn't say where he lived between the ages of about 2 and 10 though, but anyway, he had a crappy childhood, that part is clear. The kid wet his bed even at age 10 which apparently his foster mother used to beat him for because she thought that made him an idiot. So, the kid has deep seated problems which are ignored by his new parents. He only has a few friends, who describe him as always being a loner and always witnessing his parents berating him for not doing well enough in school. Oh, and then there's school. The guy had very thick glasses and was constantly bullied. He suffered from depression from not having friends, not having a girlfriend and feeling like he was in a prison when at home.

So I guess I don't quite see the logic of how The Matrix is blamed as the cause for him shooting his parents, when clearly there was more going on here. The article went on to talk about the "heavy metal" music he listened to and the "violent video games" he played. These were things apparently brought about by his lawyer, who thought his obsession about these material things might have effected his psyche. This was ruled out by several psychiatrists, but the writer of the article still felt the need to take this angle from the title page all the way through. It finally went on to say that psychiatrists did find though that he had mild schizophrenia, something they say should have been identified at age 10.

Hello?!? Am I the only one getting this? Geez, Marilyn Manson really was the voice of reason in Bowling for Columbine. All this kid needed was someone to actually listen. Clearly nobody ever did that.

Obviously murdering his parents was extreme but this isn't just black and white. Guess it's similar to the Columbine killings in a way because those guys just felt shat on by everyone and didn't get the help it was evident they needed early on. When will people learn, I wonder. It certainly won't happen unless people open their eyes and see what's happening right in front of them instead of trying to gloss over things and trying to find causes and blame in material possessions.