It gets better

The Ohio school shooting the other day made me think about bullying. At first, everyone thought the suspect targeted the students that he shot. Even the security footage shows him, T.J. Lane, going straight for the students at one particular table. And that led news agencies to assume the teenage-shooter had some reason to go after them. They thought, because he was quiet and a bit of a loner, that he had been bullied, and maybe this group was made up of the offenders.

That doesn't happen to be the case. Yesterday, he even said that he had done it and that the victims were random.

But I was still dwelling on the idea of bullying, and the depression Lane must have been suffering from. They did say he was from a broken home, both parents had been arrested for domestic violence and he was living with his grandparents. A poem on his Facebook wall was an interesting glimpse into his mindset - completely unsatisfied with his life, lonely, lost and feeling weak and wanting to prove himself. And who knows if he is a psychopath or just a severely depressed kid, I'm sure it's something that will be discussed in his trial and that he'll undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

This 17-year-old will be charged as an adult and three of his five victims actually passed away. Lane will be charged as an adult which means in Ohio will be eligible for the death penalty. What really gets me is how young they all are. How none of these kids have even done anything yet or have gotten the chance to really prove themselves or experience the world. And it's all just so terribly tragic. For the town, for the other students, but most of all for all the families.

And how can high school kids feel safe if they never know when someone might just snap with no provocation?

I've kind of gone through some strange depression issues stemming from different facets and during different times of my life. In high school, I wrote poetry as well. My best poem in creative writing class was about suicide. We were given an assignment to write about something creepy, it was October it only made sense, but instead of a ghost story or a trick-or-treating tale I went with one of the most bone-chilling ideas I could think of. And the reason I was so good at portraying was because I had toyed with the idea. Never seriously, but it was something I had thought about, it had crossed my mind. And at that age, everything feels so hard and so much more intense than it actually might be. When you look back, you wonder what was happening. What the real issue was and why you were hit so hard by it. My Xanga is a good example. Half the time it sounds like my life is the worst, but I can't remember what the problem was half the time.

This teenager had a rough family life, and as always, that greatly affects how a person feels. And there are some, like me, that have no excuses. But God help the families and the people of that town and anyone else who has ever felt the same.

I just wanted to make clear that no one is alone. Whether you are bullied or just insecure within your own mind, it's not that you're abnormal. It happens, and things can get better and it does help when you can talk to people. That may be the most difficult part for some, but before doing anything think about the affect you'll have on others. How sad they would be without you, how sad they would be if you did something to someone else, how good things have the potential of being in the future, how things can always change. I promise it can get better.

Sorry this post is intense, but things like this are so heartbreaking, sometimes it's necessary to actually talk about them freely.