I Keep Deleting This Post

Trey Smith

Several days ago I penned a post. It was difficult to write -- actually, it was quite agonizing. When I was finished, I scheduled it to post the next day, but before it went live, I deleted it. I have written on the subject matter of that post several times since and yet I ended up deleting each one of them.

So, here I am again debating whether to post this or not.

Within two or three days of the shooting in Newtown, information started to come out that the shooter (Adam Lanza) had been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and a personality disorder. As it so happens, I have Asperger's Syndrome and Schizotypal Personality Disorder (which may or may not be the same type of disorder as the shooter -- IF he even had a personality disorder at all).  

Noting these potential similarities, it freaked me out big time.  It led me to ask myself a haunting question: Could I someday be an Adam Lanza?

After much soul searching, I am convinced that the answer is a resounding NO!  

I am a pacifist.  I loathe guns and I certainly don't own any.  I have a big heart and, in this venue, I continuously exhibit a tremendous reservoir of compassion for others.  I don't always express it well or in ways that other people understand, but there is a lot of love and goodness in me.

But there IS another side.  I hear voices and see things that aren't there.  I sometimes get very depressed for reasons I don't understand.  Often, when the hallucinations are quite numerous, I have a tendency to shut myself away from others and brood.  When I brood, I more readily notice a dark hole inside that, to be quite candid, scares the hell out of me.

Because of my weird brain chemistry, my internal life has been an ongoing pitched battle.  On the one side are (for a lack of a better word) my demons.  On the other side is my heart.  The latter always wins out -- with two exceptions in my youth that I have shared in this space before -- and this should provide me with a high degree of confidence that it will continue to win out.

For the most part, it does!  And yet, because I'm a very anxious lad, I sometimes worry about how the aging process -- dementia, for example -- might impact this situation.  I also worry that one day I might progress to full-blown schizophrenia since individuals with my disorder have a greater propensity to do so than the average person.

One of the chief reasons I keep deleting posts of this nature is that I do not want to add to the hysteria of some that people with Asperger's or personality disorders are ticking time bombs that could go off at any moment and, therefore, should be rounded up and locked away or worse.  The overwhelming majority of folks who have one or the other pose no danger to society whatsoever.  I'm not talking about anyone else here; this about me and me alone.

I am a very sensitive person.  When terrible things happen in the outside world, it messes me up.  My OCD kicks into full gear and I can't seem to stop myself from reading and watching all the various news reports for hours on end.  The more I read and watch, the more discombobulated I become.  I sit for hours -- often in a darkened room -- trying to wrap my head around what has occurred.  I cry and cry.  At times, I'm inconsolable.

This is why -- despite the sometimes dark thoughts that bubble up from the dark hole -- I am convinced that I will never be an Adam Lanza.   My tender heart is far more powerful than the misfiring wires in my brain.