I have been fascinated by anything horror literally all my life.
My dad introduced me into horror movies when I was young. My earliest memory of
horror movies I've seen was The Leprechaun and Scream on VHS. Leprechaun gave
me nightmares for years, but I got over it. I literally don't watch any other
kind of movies other than Horror and True Crime.
When my dad passed away untimely in 2005 I
was only 14. It was sudden, tragic, and completely unexpected. This fueled my
fascination with death. I think every young kid/teen who goes through the death
of a parent becomes naturally curious about death on their own so for me, I
went banana sandwich. My passion is serial killers. Oh god I love serial
killers. I've watched too many to count. I take it pretty serious actually, but
it's funny. My husband had a college thesis where he had to critique a
student's essay from like 1991 about the death penalty. It talked about a
serial killer and specific facts I had already known, so reading the other
person's essay I completely dissected it and helped him write the thesis and
correct all the errors the other person had. It was so funny because he told me
only I would know this stuff.
With all of this being said, this week I
have been stuck on the Columbine Massacre. For those who are unfamiliar, Dylan
Klebold and Eric Harris were senior high school students that massacred 12
students and 1 teacher. I have spent every day this week dissecting everything
I can find about the massacre, to the shooters themselves. I feel like I am finally
able to paint a pretty clear picture. I think this is a fascinating case where
the mixture of high school stress, being an outcast, unpopular, bullied,
parents who were not involved with their kids, and becoming an adolescent went
haywire.
When you look up about Adam Lanza and
James Holmes it’s hard to really paint a picture because all we know is what we
read and what we are being told. With Dylan and Eric, man, nearly everything
was made public. Their personal journals, their websites, home video footage
(to an extent, basement tapes were sealed and destroyed earlier this year),
even their parents journals were made public. While it's still hard to
understand what exactly made them decide to shoot up their school, we got to
see inside their minds and it's really sad. What can make 2 seemingly normal
kids hate themselves, life, and people so much. I think when it really comes
down to it, people don't understand just how much bullying can affect people.
No matter what you tell young kids in high school, high school is everything,
their world. You can't explain to them after high school none of it, and no one
from it will matter. Dylan and Eric were so close to graduating and being rid
of all the people who tormented and bullied them. Sadly they were so consumed
in their own self-loathing and the need for revenge they couldn’t hold on.
I'm on the other side of the fence. While
what happened was so extremely tragic, I sympathize with Dylan and Eric. They
were so consumed they couldn't recover. Eric was even on anti-depressants and
didn't seem to improve. I also sympathize because it is clear their parents
clearly weren’t more involved with their lives. Had their parents cared a
little bit more, maybe they would have seen their journals, maybe they would
have seen the stashes of weapons and explosives in their rooms. If they had
cared to ask questions they may have seen things with their children were
clearly not right. I feel like if their parents were more involved, this could
have possibly been avoided. There was a time a gun store had called Eric's
house and his dad picked up by mistake, and the store called to let him know
that his clips and ammo were ready. Rather than ask further questions, the dad
simply told the store that he hadn’t ordered and ammo or clips. Wouldn't you
think that was weird? How could someone possibly call someone else by mistake
about ordering this kind of thing? Eric later wrote in his journal that if his
dad had asked more questions, everything would have been ruined.
I just really can't shake this story. I
don't think I'm going to stop looking into it for a while. I'm currently
working on reading their journals. I have already read the transcripts for
their "basement tape" videos. I was sad to read that earlier this
year those videos were destroyed. They were never made public or released due
to fear that other people would take ideas from them and carry out similar
heinous acts. But come on, have you read the news lately? When are kids looking
at videos like this and carrying out school shootings? They seem to be doing
just well on their own.
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