Sit in My Lap, Head Down (TW: Gun Violence, Mentions Suicide)

 "Turn the lights off, be absolutely quiet and, whatever you do, don't look outside,"

my mother said as she herded my brother and I to our room. At 3 years old, I could sense the urgency in her tone and, perhaps that being a driving force in my curiosity, I looked anyway. Just outside my bedroom window, between the blinds, was a man donned in plaid, rifle in hand, scanning my apartment building.

I found out, as an adult, that the man I saw was one of a few involved in a hostage operation involving the next door neighbors.

In Riverside, CA, especially in the 90s, much of the neighborhoods were riddled with crime. I remember a time when my mother was working in a Day's Inn when a group of men stormed in with the intent of armed robbery and held her at gun point, in execution-style, while they claimed what they came in for. She quit immediately after it was all said and done.

At 4, my mother and I were walking around what was formerly known as Tyler Mall with her friend and friend's son, when suddenly my mom pulled me to the floor behind an underwear stand in JCPenney.

"Brittney, don't look, just stay quiet--Shhhh! Sit in my lap, and keep your head down," She hissed quietly. I could tell she was terrified but I wasn't sure what of until I heard commotion.

"Everyone stay the f*ck down! Don't you f*cking move!"

It was another man with a gun. A rifle.

I peeked over at my mom's friend who desperately pressed her son to her chest the way my mother held me. I could see the fear in her eyes but was crushed by the force of my own mother's arms to look up and scan her expression. At one point I could turn my head just enough to see over the top of the underwear stand and saw the man in question.

I don't remember how long we sat there for, but I do know it felt like a long time before we got out safely. It wasn't long after that incident that my mother moved my brother and I out of Riverside, the city she grew up in, and into what was once a little yuppie town known as Temecula but has since grown drastically.

My upbringing, from an early age, taught me to fear guns. That guns are not to be touched or perhaps even looked at. Guns serve few purposes, and those are to harm, threaten, or kill oneself or others. This idea only reinforced itself over time as a family member of mine had their firearm rights taken away after an attempted suicide. It was also this idea that brought forth to me that people with poor mental health's ability to handle firearms could be taken away. The Second Amendment did in fact have limitations.

I sometimes look back on my life and realize how grateful I was to not personally have access to guns growing up. I sometimes think I would not be here, or that some of my loved ones would not be here. The generational trauma and other issues my family and I have faced would not combine well with guns I think.

Which is what brings me to my point:

Yes, I am among the many who believe the startling amount of gun violence in this country can be attributed to the poor mental health practices of the collective. Of our entire society. It is one of the reasons I focused on social emotional skills in my time as a Montessori teaching assistant. The amount that the average person knows about themselves and others regarding mental wellness and social emotional skills is astounding, and it's an ever-growing problem as the rate of which society shifts and changes becomes incompatible with certain societal and cultural norms. 

For example, it was once more societally accepted that men work, make money, and lead and women stay home, maintain the house, and raise children. Now, we have two-income households and a standard for which men are taught to think of themselves which is no longer compatible with the way households operate these days. We have plenty more single women raising children and working full-time as well as breadwinning women and stay-at-home fathers. We have other genders to consider so that gender roles play less and less of a role in society overall. Even if men don't consciously tell themselves that they're not manly enough if they aren't tough stoic leaders that shouldn't display or discuss emotion, there is still a lingering societal pressure in many cases for men to behave as such. A subconscious damage to what is truly, humanly authentic.

A male lion will kill and sometimes eat cubs of an existing pride in attempt to prove his worthiness as a patriarch.

Young men who are bullied are often made to believe that they're not tough enough. They don't have the skills or mindset to push away those expectations and have healthy wholesome love for themselves regardless of how society views their "masculinity." When this masculinity is challenged and young men lack the resilience within themselves for a natural and wholesome self-love, violence ensues. You don't have to agree with me--let the research speak for itself (1, 2, 3).

Let me add "not all men," because, yes, not all men. Not all straight white men or any other kind of men otherwise. But still too many men. The numbers have to be noticed at some point. Many men are very self-loving and healthy men. I am not talking about those men. I am talking about the large number of men who seek validation outside of themselves and may even  kill in order to receive it. This validation-seeking is the reason so many news outlets have now ceased to mention the names of suspects or even show their pictures--to avoid validating violent suspects by glorification via fame.

I was inspired to write this post especially after the Robb Elementary shooting, but also after seeing this graphic floating around on social media:

First I want to validate the fears this graphic presents. As someone with CPTSD, I don't want others to think I'm about to go shoot up a school, playground, office, supermarket in a primarily black neighborhood, church, music venue, etc. There is a stigma in society that already exists against mental illness. Mentally ill people are dangerous, mentally ill people are incapable, mentally ill people are a failure to society--yadda yadda yadda. I've heard it all. I've dealt with the discrimination toward my mental disorders. I completely understand. I also didn't have access to mental healthcare growing up due to a lack of health insurance and a low narrative about mental health treatment. Here's the kicker--nobody really did.

The average person does not learn all the social emotional skills they need at home or in school. The average person is not taught at an early age on how to deal with trauma and enhance skills in resiliency. White males socioeconomically have more access to mental health treatment, but not the skills as should've been taught to each and every one of us during our upbringing. Nobody is really encouraged to seek mental healthcare because it is not normalized at an early age--especially not for the "toxic masculine" culture that drives men and especially straight white men. 

We are taught math skills and literary analysis skills we are not all likely to ever use in the real world but we are, at the same time, not taught how to navigate ourselves emotionally and socially in the real world. We are not taught the art of introspection. In fact, in the culture of men, introspection and observing one's emotions and how they affect themselves and others is especially discouraged. This lack of self-understanding manifests in both men and women as destructive behaviors--both to others and selves.

To love oneself enough to not feel a need to cause harm to others in order to gain validation is precisely what much of what mental wellness practices aim at. There is so much narrative around earning money, being successful, making a name for oneself, having the coolest new gadgets, phones, etc. Capitalist schemes involving who has the best skin, or the biggest muscles, the best shaped butt, etc. (Note: this is coming from someone who is mostly pro-capitalism). The collective's priorities are on image and appeal. The collective's mental wellness is outwardly focused as opposed to inherently offering ourselves unconditional love which is, in turn, not true mental wellness. 

This is why gun violence is in fact a mental health issue. This is why toxic masculinity is a mental health issue. This is why the collective should be more regulated in its access to firearms until the collective is more educated in their own emotional regulation and their understandings of one another. Incorporate unconditional love in our classrooms, teach our students and youth that value is intrinsic and comes from within and not some trophy, and teach men from the moment they're born that their emotions are valid and they deserve to be listened to, cared for, and loved without needing to prove anything to anyone about who they are or how tough they are.

I urge you, Reader, regardless of gender identity or level of masculinity, to look in the mirror and tell that person you love them for all their faults or flaws, and that they have nothing to prove to anyone. I urge you to do it today. Every day. Before you leave the house for work, and before you go to bed at night. You are not perfect, because nobody is, but you are valid and you are strong, and your voice deserves to be heard and loved by the people in your life and especially by your own self.

Furthermore, please consider giving this other blog post a read.

Hurt people hurt people. 

"The hardest thing for a man to do is deal with himself, to introspectively confront his own emotional pain and trauma--so he can stop unjustly inflicting it on others." 

- Mr. Jason Wilson

Listening to: "Gold Guns Girls" by Metric