March 20, 2005

• ew. that's creepy.
• "He can learn spiritually and emotionally who he wants to become, because that's what life is about." How'd he get a hold of a gun ?
• That was my question, too, Cardenio.
• in fact, it is surprising she wasn't able to predict this one. What is going on here? Yeah, I think it's all suspicious his mom wasn't psychic too. I wonder if that means it's all her fault? He started reading as a toddler, played piano at age 3 and delivered a high school commencement speech when he was 10, saying he was so unusual he practically "qualified for the endangered species list." A person entering one of the most emotionally trying parts of life, someone who, no matter how hard his parents tried to give him normal experiences was inevitably isolated by the immense differences between himself and his peers - that anyone could even fill that role is debatable - kills himself. As he himself states, he was an endangered species. Where's the mystery? Thankfully, he had a loving family. I wish them well at the most difficult time of their lives.
• I wish he could have hung on long enough until he was of age to move out and live on his own. His mother sounds like a real flake and was probably one source of the boy's problems. It's as if she was grooming him to be the new messiah. Talk about pressure.
• Jesus, you guys. You've decided to speculate that what a mother says as she tries to make sense of why her son would shoot himself in the head while she shopped for groceries, without even a note to explain why he may have done this, makes her 'a real flake'? That's really disturbing.
• What should she have said? "Huh. I see my extraordinary son has shot himself in the head. Well, you know, what can you do? Kids that age, they never tell you anything, always full of surprises! Worm food now. Shall we move on?" Thankfully we've got people who never met any of the people involved ready to set her straight armed with the in-depth knowledge gained by reading two short articles.
• C'mon, speculating, pontificating and dime-store analyzing is fun. Lighten up. She'll probably never see any of this and even if she does, she'll chalk it up to our chakras being unbalanced or out of line or something.
• "We told him, ‘Gosh Brandenn, you're immortal now,'" Martin says. "‘You're going to live on because your music captures a little bit of your life.'"
• Yea, MJ, you nailed it there. Tried and convicted by newsprint, again. We think we're so "enlightened" because we read newspapers instead of gossiping over the back fence. Maybe his mother was a pushy bitch. Maybe she wasn't. Maybe he was a pain in the ass. Maybe he wasn't. Fer shure, what he was was a 14 year old prodigy. Gotta be a tough thing for a kid. Sometimes I wonder how ANY teenager in this day and age manages to make it to adulthood.
• Oklo: I'm having trouble finding the humor in a 14 year old comitting suicide.
• Try harder.
• If I ever needed a reason to commit suicide, my mom posting this picture of me on the internet would probably work.
• Cute kid. What a forehead!
• Try harder. posted by oklo at 10:44PM UTC on March 20, 2005 I am hurt by your levity. I do know how it feels to lose a child. A 14 year old dying by his own hand is not funny or entertaining in anyway. This makes me sad.
• oklo: *plonk*
• Jesus, you guys. You've decided to speculate that what a mother says as she tries to make sense of why her son would shoot himself in the head while she shopped for groceries, without even a note to explain why he may have done this, makes her 'a real flake'? uh - it's what she says, not that she's responding, that, yes, I would say, do make her "a real flake." "...maybe the physical, earthly world didn't offer him enough challenges and he felt it was time to move on and do something great," his mother, Patricia, said... her comments are a little creepy, imo.
• uh - it's what she says, not that she's responding, that, yes, I would say, do make her "a real flake." Because you know that should your child inexplicably shoot himself, you would be a pillar of sober logic? How do you know what the "right" or "wrong" thing to say is in a circumstance like this? Kick 'em when they're down much?
• A teenaged relative of mine committed suicide in September. You say things to try and make it feel better -- to try and believe that the person is out of pain and in a better place. Luckily, my family didn't have to say those things to the media.
• "We're rationalizing now." -mother Patricia Bremmer Taken from here.
• Close friend of mine did the same thing, about a couple of years older than this kid. He wasn't a prodigy, but he was intensely sensitive, super smart, and just as isolated. One of the reasons I'm so fucked up is because he asked me for help, & I neglected that. He was dead two days later, by a method far nastier than the one used by this kid. I find that having any kind of levity about such an event so offensive that I come out of my hole to shake my fist. However, I also grok that when things are horrible, sometimes you have to use black humour to deal with it. I read research recently that suggests humans with their monkey brains simply cannot relate to other beings outside their direct environment, beyond about 150 individuals or so. This explains a lot. They're just cardboard cut-outs unless they're part of your 'tribe'. Having Asperger's makes me see this in a different light to most. It's not easy being green, and it's not easy communicating to aliens in an insane world. The guy probably felt like the only sane person in a world run by psychopaths. His decision may, in the long run, have have caused him less suffering. He would have had a hell of a time. This is not a civilization that tolerates people who are different. In fact it is a civilization that ostracises them. I shudder to think what the kid went thru at school. This fucking society sucks sucks sucks.
• There really isn't anything useful you can say about his death, except how tragic for the family, unless you actually knew the kid, then there may be plenty you can say. The fact is, we'll probably never know what put him over the edge, and senseless speculation by the uninvolved masses will achieve next to nothing, except that maybe a few parents pay closer attention to their own kids. Maybe.
• This post really bothers me. Are you implying, by the second to last link, that the mother may have directly contributed to the boy's suicide? Because there's nothing in the preceding links that would give any indication of that. Like Meredithea, my family experienced the fallout from the suicide of a teenager, and it took years for any of us to speak coherently about it. I can understand her 'flakiness' under the circumstances. How would you respond to the microphone in your face after losing your son so inexplicably?
• Well drivingmenuts I do find that speculation on tragedies like these can be fruitful for informing my own understanding of the world and how I want to relate to it. Stories and experiences from lives remote from my own have always been something I've wanted to address. Of course it's a long way from that kind of abstract speculation to me making any pronouncements about the rights, wrongs or facts of the actual case which of course is fairly idle in the general run of things. I guess I'm trying to say that the sorrows of the world can be a source for an informed discussion between friends, but I'd agree we should steer clear of uninformed value judgements. Sympathies to those for whom this story is a reminder of painful events in their own lives.
• One thing this made me think is that it must be really hard to get through the turmoil of adolesence if you're clever enough to see the futility of it all and sensitive enough to feel the pain but not yet experienced enough to just enjoy life for the sheer hell of having survived it and the small joys of the everyday. (Again, not implying that's why the lad killed himself.)
• Nooooo...he did it because his mom wrote about dolphins.Twice! That's what's going on here.
• What Nostril said. Most of the world doesn't take kindly to people who are different.
• I personally place the blame on George W. Bush. This would have never happened if we stayed out of Iraq.
• You know he might have just been fucking around with the gun. A 14 year super prodigy is still a 14 year old. How did he get the gun in the first place is what I want to know.
• loto: your comments strike me as those of someone who sits in front of his computer all day with no knowledge of what actual human beings feel. You need to go outside and actually meet people. Maybe you could actually make some friends, and come to empathize with their problems. And, you might even find that you would be destressed if one of them commiitted suicide. And, it doesn't take much to go from there to feel bad that someone you didn't even know killed himself. I would agree that this is newsfilterish, if you had said that, and that we can make no difference in the pain the survivors are going through, if you had said that, but what you said makes you look like a self-absorbed twit.
• It is amazing what you've construed from a simple post trying to bring some levity to the blame game which played out above. It was even said in this thread that some people resort to humor to deal with tragedy. I am one of those people. This boys death is a tragedy, no doubt about it. He could have been one of those rare few who make an actual difference in this world but instead the only thing most will remember him for is being a prodigy who killed himself before he was out of his youth. What I said did nothing to diminish that. If you want to overreact to my post that is your choice, but personally I think an adjustment of the ol' sarcasm meter might work out better in the long run.
• High intelligence comes with the constant burden of being able to see the truth within humanity.
• The truth is that likely not one of us here can possibly fathom everything that went on in this kid's brain. I've been labeled "gifted" my whole life, it took me most of my life to be able to move among my peers without feeling like a total outsider, and I don't have the first clue what it was like to have the probably non-stop mental symphonies going that this kid had. This is a horrible tragedy, and I hope that he has found the rest he was evidently seeking. Also, what moneyjane and Nostril and said. Particular emphasis to bratcat's comment. I have no personal knowledge of what it's like to have a child ripped from you suddenly, but I've seen it happen to friends, and it pretty well broke them. Whatever else you think about the mother, she's to be commended for staying on her feet and forming complete sentences.
• I think donating his organs was a wonderful gesture. When my brother committed suicide, we did the same thing, and it helped ease the pain. Has anyone heard his music? What's it like?
• Donating the organs of someone young who's died suddenly impresses me as an extremely sane and humane act on the part of a bereaved family. Scientists are now saying that full maturation of the human brain doesn't occur until the mid-twenties or as late as thirty. And the last-maturing area of the brain is the one responsible for social awareness and relationships. Hope that, in the event Brendenn's parents ever read some of the unfortunate comments made above, this information may serve to explain if not excuse a lack of social awareness displayed here and there in this thread.
• /young pups smackdown
• So the kid had 20 IQ points on me and parents who made him apply himself, and look what happened to him. Maybe my Mama will soon be glad I'm such a fuck-up.
• As always, bees has a good comment. Whatever else you think about the mother, she's to be commended for staying on her feet and forming complete sentences. I cannot fathom what it would be like to deal with the asshole press at a time like this. Kudos to those with compassionate hearts who have posted here.
• The Center for Disease Control has a factsheet that helps to throw some light on this silent scourge. The risk factors for suicide it lists are: * Previous suicide attempt * History of mental disorders, particularly depression * History of alcohol and substance abuse * Family history of suicide * Family history of child maltreatment * Feelings of hopelessness * Impulsive or aggressive tendencies * Barriers to accessing mental health treatment * Loss (relational, social, work, or financial) * Physical illness * Easy access to lethal methods * Unwillingness to seek help because of the stigma attached to mental health and substance abuse disorders or suicidal thoughts * Cultural and religious beliefs—for instance, the belief that suicide is a noble resolution of a personal dilemma * Local epidemics of suicide * Isolation, a feeling of being cut off from other people OTOH, the risks are mitigated by the following protective factors: * Effective clinical care for mental, physical, and substance abuse disorders * Easy access to interventions and support for help seeking * Family/community support * Supportive ongoing medical and mental health care relationships * Skills in problem solving, conflict resolution, and nonviolent handling of disputes * Cultural and religious beliefs that discourage suicide and support self-preservation instincts. It's kind of easy to blame society, but in the end it's up to all of us to strengthen those mitigating factors in each of our circles.
• Very sad.
• Anger as army chief claims suicidal people are less intelligent
• Lieutenant-General Anthony Palmer is an asshole. Isn't it amazing that ignorant uncaring assholes manage to rise to the highest rank/obtain political power? Wait. I think I see. Scum floats.
• Bluehorse: While I would generally support an asshole/military officer correlation, I would also support the idea that people who kill themselves have made possibly the dumbest choice possible. Child prodegy or not.