Mother's Reckoning : Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy (9781101902769)

by Klebold, Sue; Solomon, Andrew (INT)

  He had friends, but he did not feel as if he belonged. In one journal entry he lists his “nice family” among the good things in his life, but the hugeness of our love for him could not penetrate the fog of his desolation. He understood himself as a burden, although we never once felt he was. (Tom and I did worry aloud about how we would pay for his college tuition, which haunts me to this day.) He expresses anger at a world where he does not fit, is not understood. At the beginning, the anger is directed mostly at himself. Gradually, it turns outward.

  • • •

  I thought it might be helpful to have a distillation of a few points.

  1. Nothing you did or didn’t do caused Dylan to do what he did.

  2. You didn’t “fail to see” what Dylan was going through—he was profoundly secretive and deliberately hid his internal world not only from you, but from everyone else in his life.

  3. By the end of his life, Dylan’s psychological functioning had deteriorated to the point that he was not in his right mind.

  4. Despite his deterioration, his former self survived enough to spare at least four people during the attack.

  —E-mail from Dr. Peter Langman, February 9, 2015

  That Dylan was seriously depressed is not up for debate. A posthumous diagnosis is, of course, impossible, yet some experts believe the problem may have been more serious.

  His journals are difficult to understand, and not simply because Dylan’s handwriting was so poor. Toward the end of his life, he wrote things like “When I’m in my human form, knowing that I’m going to die, everything has a touch of triviality to it.” A statement like this implies that, at least part of the time, he did not feel human. It was as if being human was out of his reach: “made a human, without the possibility of BEING human.”

  Dylan was intelligent and educated, and a better-than-average writing student. Yet in the journals he often made strange word choices. Sometimes the words he used weren’t real words at all, but neologisms—words he’d made up, like “depressioners,” and “perceivations.” The way he constructs his sentences is unusual, too—as in the passage I’ve already quoted: “such a sad desolate lonely unsalvageable I feel I am.” This isn’t the shorthand of a journaler; there’s almost a singsong quality to many of the iterations that recalls Dr. Seuss.

  This was one of the first things Dr. Peter Langman noticed. Dr. Langman, a psychologist, is an expert on school shooters and the author of a number of books, including Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters. Our conversations in the course of writing this book have been difficult for me; they have also brought me insight and some measure of relief. With his permission, I have relied heavily on his interpretations to make sense of Dylan’s writing.

  Dr. Langman told me he had originally intended to leave Dylan out of Why Kids Kill because he was unsure about Dylan’s motives. There were too many contradictions: How did this kid, widely reported to be shy and gentle, turn into a vicious killer? Then, in 2006, the sheriff’s department released some of Dylan’s writings to the public, offering a window into the disparity between how Dylan presented himself to the world, how he behaved when he was with Eric, and how he seemed to himself.

  Dr. Langman believes that the early descriptions of Dylan as shy, extremely self-conscious, and self-critical may mean he suffered from a mild form of avoidant personality disorder. People with APD are shy past what we consider to be normal introversion. As Dylan entered adolescence, the stressors in his life became unmanageable for him, and he progressed to schizotypal personality disorder.

  Schizotypals often seem “odd” to other people. (Dylan was often described as goofy by people who did not know him well.) They may be paranoid, or especially sensitive to slights, as Dylan was. They often use strange, rambling syntax and unusual words, as Dylan did in his writings. They withdraw into a world where reality and fantasy are not always distinguishable. These are not full-on delusions, but a fuzziness in the boundary between what is real and what is not. This fuzziness is increasingly evident in the journals: in reality Dylan felt profoundly inferior, and so, according to Dr. Langman, he created a fantasy where he was a godlike being. Toward the end of his life, that fantasy predominates.

  I do not myself know what to make of Dr. Langman’s diagnosis. I’m not sure what’s worse—knowing Dylan was suffering from a serious impairment, or knowing I did not recognize such a serious impairment while he was living under my roof. There is little succor in either.

  With the help of Dr. Kent Kiehl, who studies the brain structures of criminals at the University of New Mexico, I had Dylan’s journals analyzed independently. The reviewer found no evidence of a formal thought disorder, but points to

  persistent and unrelenting themes of depression, suicidality, and alienation….and increasing dissociation from his sense of himself prior to the onset of his depression. As his inner pain and sense of alienation worsen so too does his dehumanization of others….This grandiose identification, dehumanization of others, loss of emotive capacity other than the experience of pain, and the promise of a release from pain, form the context of a delusional inner world that lead to the suicidal and homicidal plans discussed in the journal.

  The reviewer also points to “prominent borderline themes” throughout the journal.

  The report ends,

  With only the journal to go on it is not possible to make a definitive diagnosis but major depression with transient psychotic episodes and/or borderline personality disorder with transient psychotic episodes are the most compelling diagnoses based on this journal.

  In the end, it doesn’t really matter what Dylan’s particular diagnosis might have been. Nobody disputes Dylan’s depression, or its ability to confuse a person’s decision-making process. In fact, nine out of the ten school shooters Dr. Langman profiles in his recent book, School Shooters: Understanding High School, College, and Adult Perpetrators, suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts. Even if serious depression was the only thing going on, Dylan was not, as Dr. Langman put it to me, “in his right mind.”

  • • •

  Kay Redfield Jamison, in her masterful book about suicide, Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, writes: “Most suicides, although by no means all, can be prevented. The breach between what we know and do is lethal.” In Dylan’s case, of course, the decision to die was lethal not only to him, but to many others.

  Even if a person does not discuss their intention to die by suicide, there are often warning signs that they are in trouble. Certain events, such as a previous suicide attempt or trouble with the law, can put people at higher risk. There are often behavioral indications as well, like social withdrawal and increased irritability.

  If those warning signs are noticed and recognized for what they are, treatment can help. Because—and this was hard for me to hear when my loss was recent, although I derive great hope from it now—suicide is preventable. Every expert I have talked to emphasizes the wealth of successful treatments for mood disorders, if people can only be convinced to take advantage of them, and stick with them.

  Not every suicide is preventable—yet. (Ed Coffey, a physician and vice president at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, pioneered a program called Perfect Depression Care, which made a goal of zero suicides in the program. When asked if reducing suicide death to zero is realistic, he’s known for shooting back: “What number would you choose? Eight? Does that include my mother, or your sister?”) Brain health disorders can be pernicious. Sometimes they progress, and win. We can say the same thing about cancer, though: even with gold-standard treatment, some people will die from the disease. Does that mean we throw our hands up in despair? Or do we commit ourselves to early detection and prevention, and to better and more personalized treatment—to catching these diseases at Stage I or II, instead of Stage IV?

  I sometimes feel envious of families who did everything they could to obtain effective treatment for a loved one, even if they ultimately lost that fight. My son strugg
led alone with his illness. I did not suspect Dylan was depressed until I was shown his writings and learned he thought about suicide and longed for the peace and comfort of death. His closest friends, boys he hung out with every day for years, did not know how depressed he felt. Some of them refuse to accept that characterization to this day. But I was his mother. I should have known.

  Dylan might have died by suicide later in his life; that I cannot know. Eric might have hatched and executed a version of the plan to destroy the school by himself, or with another kid. He might have gotten through the crisis without violence, or gone on to commit an act of terror in another place and time.

  What I do know is that Dylan did show outward signals of depression, signs Tom and I observed but were not able to decode. If we had known enough to understand what those signs meant, I believe that we would have been able to prevent Columbine.

  CHAPTER 12

  Fateful Dynamic

  Definitive statement: “I do not think that Columbine would have happened without Eric.”

  —Note from a conversation with Dr. Frank Ochberg, January 2015

  Dylan’s journals also shed light on his relationship with Eric—and, in particular, the terrible interdependence fatal to them and to so many others.

  In the summer of 1997, Dylan’s friend Zack started dating Devon, who became his girlfriend. Nate also started dating a girl. To us, this was hardly noticeable—Dylan still spent time with Zack one on one, and Zack, Devon, and Dylan all hung out together. He spent time with Nate and other friends, too. Yet Dylan experienced Zack’s new relationship as a betrayal. This is another example of the marked separation between Dylan’s reality and how he perceived that reality.

  The summer Zack met and fell for Devon, Dylan and Eric started spending more time together. Eric’s name appears more frequently. Dylan writes about suicide many times that summer, as he did many times previously, but there are no homicidal comments in his journal until that fall. Even after the boys have begun making plans, Dylan reveals a secret in these most private pages: he believes he will be dead by his own hand before they have a chance to carry them out. After talking about the temptations of suicide for close to two years, Dylan finally says good-bye in June 1998. “This is probably my last entry. I love my self close second to [redacted] my everlasting love. Goodbye.”

  The next entry, dated January 20, 1999, begins with his dismay at finding himself still alive. “This shit again. Back at writing, doing just like a fucking zombie.” Later in that entry, he mentions the plan with Eric as a possible solution to the way he feels. “I hate this non-thinking stasis. I’m stuck in humanity. Maybe going ‘NBK’ (gawd) with Eric is the way to break free.” (NBK—for Natural Born Killers, after the Oliver Stone movie of the same title—was the name the boys used to refer to their plan to attack the school.)

  After that, the journals become noticeably darker and more hopeless. Dylan’s thoughts are more scattered and difficult to understand as he comes to believe that Eric’s plan represents a way out. His ambivalence is present right up until the shootings.

  At the end of his life, Dylan was connected to only two emotions: anger and hopelessness. Any feelings that might have connected him to others in a positive way were beyond his reach. He believed death was the only possible escape from his pain; there simply wasn’t anything else left in his emotional toolbox. To use Joiner’s language, he perceived himself to be profoundly alienated from everybody on earth. To use mine, Dylan was loved, but he did not feel loved. He was valued, but he did not feel valuable. He had many, many options, but Eric’s was the only one he could see.

  • • •

  One night, probably during his junior year, Dylan told me, “Eric’s crazy.”

  I responded, “You’re going to meet people all your life who are difficult, and I’m glad you have enough common sense to recognize it when you see it.” I told him his dad and I had a lot of confidence in his ability to make good choices, with or without his friends.

  Our confidence was misplaced, but neither did we have any idea of what Dylan was dealing with. I had no inkling that the situation might be truly dangerous. Nor did I have any conception of what Dylan meant by “crazy.” Eric was higher-maintenance than Dylan’s other friends, and I’d seen evidence of his volatile temper at a soccer game. The problem, though, was much more serious.

  Like Dylan, Eric kept journals—private writings where he reveals his innermost thoughts and feelings. They are almost unreadably dark, filled with sadistic images and drawings, fantasies of rape, dismemberment, and scenes of massive destruction, including, in more than one place, the wholesale extinction of the human race. Dr. Langman writes, “[Dylan’s] journal is markedly different from Eric’s in both content and style. Whereas Eric’s is full of narcissistic condescension and bloodthirsty rage, Dylan’s is focused on loneliness, depression, ruminations, and preoccupation with finding love. Eric drew pictures of weapons, swastikas, and soldiers; Dylan drew hearts. Eric lusted after sex and fantasized about rape; Dylan longed for true love.”

  Based on his journals, many of the experts I’ve spoken to feel comfortable saying that Eric displayed the traits and characteristics of a psychopath. As with Dylan, a true posthumous diagnosis is, of course, not possible. (In any case, because the adolescent brain is still developing, a formal diagnosis of psychopathy is only possible after the subject turns eighteen.) Even so, Eric certainly satisfies a great number of the diagnostic markers associated with this personality disorder.

  Psychopathy is characterized by diminished empathy and provocative behavior. Most important, psychopaths (also called sociopaths; some experts differentiate between the two, the majority do not) don’t have a conscience, the part of the mind that enables us to feel guilt. They lie without compunction and are often highly skilled manipulators. There are some psychologists and psychiatrists who believe that psychopaths can be successfully treated. The ones I spoke to are not convinced. Not every psychopath is a criminal or a sadist, but if they do move in that direction, as Eric did, they can become highly dangerous.

  A 2001 study of adolescent school shooters, prompted in part by the massacre at Columbine High School, resulted in two interesting findings. The first is that 25 percent of the thirty-four teenage shooters they looked at participated in pairs. This is different from adult rampage killers, who most often act alone. Dr. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist and expert on targeted violence and threat assessment, authored the study. He told me that these deadly dyads mean it’s absolutely critical for parents to pay attention to the dynamics between kids and their friends. The second finding from his study: typically, one of the two kids was a psychopath, and the other one suggestible, dependent, and depressed.

  This appears to have been the dynamic between Dylan and Eric. In Eric’s yearbook, Dylan gloats about bullying kids, but in the privacy of his journals, he reveals his shame and guilt, and promises himself he won’t do it again. It’s very like the posturing on the Basement Tapes. There were distinct gaps between what Dylan felt, how he behaved around Eric, and what he did.

  Dr. Langman believes Dylan’s ambivalence may have extended up to the massacre itself. On at least four occasions at the school—always out of Eric’s earshot and line of sight—Dylan let people go. The physical evidence suggests two incidents during the rampage when Eric went to retrieve Dylan, perhaps to make sure he was still on board. I take no comfort from this—Dylan committed atrocities, end of story. But learning about his ambivalence devastated me. In my notes after a conversation with Dr. Langman, I wrote:

  Crying too hard to take any more notes….I had made myself accept Dylan as a sadistic killer, but I had not yet come to grips with a Dylan who was trying to counteract his own “evil” with moments of goodness. I think I met this Dylan for the first time when Langman talked about it, so it gave me a different Dylan to grieve for.

  Dylan’s ambivalence also made me feel even more culpable than I did already. Dr. Marisa Randazzo directe
d the Secret Service’s research on school shootings, and (as Marisa Reddy) was one of the authors of the landmark federal study of school shootings conducted jointly by the US Secret Service and the Department of Education. Dr. Randazzo and Dr. Meloy both told me that when troubled kids learn they have other options besides homicide and suicide to solve the problems plaguing them, they generally take advantage of those other options.

  Dylan did make efforts to extricate himself from the relationship with Eric. My guilt about this, in particular, fills me with despair. After the two boys got into trouble in their junior year, Dylan made an attempt to distance himself, and he asked for my help. We developed an internal shorthand: If Eric called to ask Dylan to do something, he’d say, “Let me ask my mom,” and shake his head at me. I’d say, loudly enough to be heard on the other end of the line, “I’m sorry, but you can’t go out tonight, Dylan. You promised you’d clean your room/do your homework/join us for dinner.”

  At the time, I was simply happy that Dylan wanted distance. I had told both my sons they could always use me as an excuse in an emergency. I was thinking particularly of drinking and driving, but I meant any unsafe situation. So I was pleased, not only that Dylan had taken me up on my long-standing offer, but that he’d found a way to separate from his friend without hurting Eric’s feelings.