When Gayle Giese heard about the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, about 20 miles north of her home in Broward County, Fla., she said one of her first thoughts was, “Oh my gosh, they’re going to blame this on mental illness.”
She thought of her 26-year-old son Andrew, who has schizophrenia.
“He’s a wonderful person with a terrible illness,” she said.
Giese says Andrew is extremely sensitive. “He gets upset when he hears about violence of any kind,” she said, adding that she decided to tell him about the shooting before he heard about it on TV or on the radio.
“I think it helped a great deal,” she said.
In the days following the shooting that claimed 17 lives, Andrew was glued to the news coverage. “He asked me if I was going to give blood because he heard they were asking people to do that,” Giese said.
A predictable pattern emerges each time there is a mass shooting in this country: the initial shock and search for answers gives way to a debate over guns and mental health care. The latter presents a dilemma for many Americans who experience the realities of mental illness on a daily basis, as well as for those who advocate for increased access to mental health care and work to combat the stigma surrounding conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Giese is concerned about the consequences of associating acts of violence with mental illness because, she says, the link is not borne out by facts or her experience with her son.