To understand its and to feel that i was a to write a book. There is much learning that had to go on and healing. I just think it took that long. It is a very powerful book. It covers a range of emotion, grief, anger, fear, do talk about those emotions and was there a progression, seemed as you learned more things change for you. Can you talk about that . Yes, there is always a progression after a loss of any kind. The progression that i am most aware of in looking at it from a distance, from the distance of time was in the beginning i was certainly feeling very much a victim of the tragedy. I was at b will welded, i did not understand what had happened or why. I could not make sense of any of it. I was humiliated, grief stricken, i was terrified. As time went by and i began to understand a little about how he died, a little bit about his own suicide i think i became mayor of a survivor. Identified with other survivors of loss from tragedies or suicides or murder suicide. I became a little more active, little more interested in all of our welfare together. I began volunteering and trying to raise funds for Mental Health or to prevent suicide. As time went by more think i became an advocate. I began became someone who was determined to make a difference. To write some of the wrongs. To use funds to try to make it possible for Brain Research to occur for support programs to occur. There really was a progression and im sure i am still in it. One of the things you talk about in the book and people want to know, is how could you not know, and then over time you come to say that there were some warning signs that had you know what you know now you would have picked up. Can you talk a little about what you knew then and what you came to know . Unfortunately i had no idea dylan was suffering. That he was having suicidal thoughts, that he was even cutting himself. He wrote about that in a Journal Journal entry i only read long after his death. Dylan did have some trouble his senior year of high school. He stole something with eric from a park to band. He was assigned to a juvenile diversion program. At that time i was a baffled. I. I cannot understand why he had done such a terrible thing. I remember asking the diversion counselor, does this mean something . Does this mean he needs help . Does he need counseling . At that time, nobody seemed to think that he did. He was given an assessment which was the only tool they had at that time to use, dylan was asked to check out his own feelings about himself. He checked off nothing about feeling suicidal, feeling homicidal. The only thing he checked off was that he needed a job in had financial concerns. We spoke with him and had a support program in place. Dylan dylan promised us he would get his life on track and he did. That is what was so confounding about all of this. He continued to go to school, he had a job, he applied at four colleges and was accepted. Over the next 1414 months of his life he did demonstrate to us that he was doing okay and doing well. There were times that he was moody, there were time when he spent time in his room. But he continued to function during all of that time. He had friends and he did activities. He we had no idea of the level of suffering and disorientation, this filter through which he was seen the world. We were not aware of that until long after his death. What were some of those warning signs now that you would tell other families and parents to be looking forward and thinking about . I think one of the main things i to look for is a change in behavior. Once someone suddenly does something very out of character. That is exactly what happened with dylan. But at the time, friends and family members who knew him did not believe that was significant because they believed so much in his goodness and the fact that he was a teen, he was experimenting and things would be fine. That is one thing that i would say to people. If suddenly you have a child who gets in trouble as dylan did. He also he also got in trouble in school about the same time. Those are warning signs that something could be terribly wrong. We have to do a much better job, certainly i i wish i had done a better job of asking more openended questions and to listen without judgment. To listen without trying to fix things but to really listen to try to understand what he was feeling. I think some people would say, these are typical teen behaviors, how do you think people should look at it so they know the difference between what is the typical teen behavior they are seen and what needs to be looked into work carefully . That is the conundrum. Typical teen behaviors can often be the same behavior that one might have if one is depressed. Sleeping patterns that change, eating habits that change. Behaviors that change. It is very difficult sometimes to tell. That is why his parents we cannot operate under the delusion as i did, that everything was fine. Because we have a child that we love the way trust, we believe there goodness, we believe in their health, their their ability to make good decisions. I think all of us have to be aware that someone we love may be struggling. Struggling with life and death thoughts and they are working very hard to hide those from us. Simply that awareness will change the way we parents in the way we interact. I think that is a question that people have is, why . Why did dylan do this . I note you talk in the book about lots of folks theories about that and media and others, but im interested in what are your thoughts on that question . First of all, the the likelihood that someone you love, that a child you have will take part in a school shooting, the chances of that happening are one and millions. This is not an everyday occurrence. This is not something every parent should be concerned about that his or her child will become a school shooter. The far more dangerous thing first children is how many of them have thoughts of suicide. If we look at a murder, suicide such as the columbine tragedy, murder, suicide is a small subset of suicides. Perhaps a one or 2 of suicides will result in the killing of someone else. My recommendation is that we focus very much on trying to understand suicide and try to prevent suicide so that these things dont erupt into a terrible tragedy. You did ask why this happened. In the book i talk about the more effective question to ask is how does this happen. What is the mechanism of how ones thinking deteriorates. The way ive come to explain this to myself is really a medical model. If we look look at suicide and consider it to be a health risk as we would Heart Disease or diabetes, we know that there are many factors involved. There is personality and how the person interacts and views his world. There are biological factors that show that someone might have a tendency to think, act, eat, or live in a certain way. There are certain environmental factors and that is not just the home but could also be the School Culture of the national culture. Especially was suicide there are triggering factors, there are things that occur in ones life such as bullying that can impact the risk that one is having. So my my answer to that question is what happened to dylan was a very rare set of circumstances that overlapped perfectly if you want to look at it in a diagram of interlocking circle where everything came into play of meeting a friend who is very disturbed, very controlling and angry, dylans, dylans own vulnerability, his own wish to die. His pain that he was in, psychological pain, the bowling that they experience together in the school. All came together in what came to be a horrible perfect storm. It you a little in the book about this issue of Mental Health and you call it brain health. You say that he was experiencing depression. This contributed to his desire to die by suicide. But then you talk about something that concerns me is someone who advocates for families and individuals affected by Mental Illness, and that is the stigma. The view that late somehow there is a link between Mental Illness of violence and it prevents people from getting the help that they need. You say here that you do not mean to imply that dylans brain Health Issues made him capable of the atrocities he would eventually an act. To do so would insult the hundreds of Million People around the world living with depression. You talk about the stigma meaning many people who are struggling do not pursue the help they desperately need. You go on to talk about some of the Research Round violence and Mental Illness that it is a very small risk. You talk about doctor Jeffrey Swanson and his research. Can you talk about the research that you document in the book and white it was important to point out that this link is not generally accepted that if you have Mental Illness that youd be violent, in fact the general rule is that people with Mental Illness are not violent. Only about 4 of serious Mental Illness have a risk factor that is just 4 of incidents. I am glad you asked that. Certainly. This is one of the most difficult things about writing this book. I did not want to make it any more difficult than it already is for anyone who is struggling with a Mental Health issue there is certainly enough stigma, not fear, i did not want in any way to make anyone assume that someone who is even feeling suicidal is necessarily a risk to other people because it is not true. They are at risk to themselves. Ive said before that we are really talking about a very small percentage of someone who might then go on and kill other people. I feel there is a very delicate balance in this discussion. This is one of the most difficult things in writing this book. I believe someone who is struggling with Mental Illness is really a greatest risk to him or herself. Knowing that someone is having thoughts where they are in pain and they wish to die and they want the pain to stop, this does not necessarily make them dangerous to other people. But when all these factors as i mentioned before our happening in such an unusual way then they can become a risk to other people. But that is not the case. That that is not the what happens most of the time. What i would love to see is i think in the Mental Health community there is almost a fear of having this conversation of when does violence against oneself or others play a role when someone is ill, when someones brain is not working properly. They dont have the tools for selfgovernance what is that place where violence becomes a reasonable option i wanted to raise that discussion simply because i feel too many people do harm themselves when they are feeling badly and when they are suffering and under stress. We have to find a way to help people and to also acknowledge that sometime suffering does lead to violent acts against oneself in particular. But rarely against others as well. We cant be afraid to have that conversation and try to understand what is happening and to intervene before it becomes a stage iv situation where someone dies. You talk in the book about how the media talked about the story, it was something that was newsworthy. You also say there is a way to talk about this responsibly. Can you talk about that and why you thought that was such an important point to raise in your book . The media i feel plays a very huge role in inadvertently perpetuating violence. Even we know with reports unjust suicides that dont involve the deaths of other people there are protocols that schools can follow said they do not increase contagion. I believe we really need to have much clearer standards on how to report on violent incidents as well with as much care as we put into some of the research on how to prevent other suicides. Columbine happened it was a world phenomenon. One of the reasons it was perceived to be a phenomenon is it was the beginning of 24 seven news coverage. People were bombarded with images. Images images of people running from the school, images of dylan and eric wearing the clothing that they wore, surveillance tape showing guns. Showing their names, faces with body counts. There was a fight certainly to release the tapes to let people observe how they plan to and what they said. The i said talk to indicated to me and certainly i support this and believe it, this is a very dangerous. When we have disenfranchised youth who are observing these events, seen seen all of the attention that the perpetrators get, it is titillating, it is something that makes them want to do this more. One of the things people tend to forget about columbine is that columbine itself was a copycat situation. Dylan. Dylan and eric referred to this event in their own communication with each other as an bk which is natural born killers. It was a movie. They were doing a lot of the modeling off of the movie they had seen. A lot of these images, repeatedly repeatedly showing them and talking about them it is very irresponsible and part of the media. The book itself is really about your journey and youre thinking over time about this incident and reflecting on it. Can you talk to us about that journey, about your reflections and what you learned, the lessons you learned over the time that you are writing. You said and the beginning it took you 17 years to process what had happened. Talk about what you learned and what you want people to learn from the journey you have been on. This is going to be very fragmented but it is disjointed. One of the things i learned is that love is not enough to protect someone that we love from illness. That that illness may be a Mental Illness or brain illness. I think i had always believed in my heart that you could love away someones bad thoughts. That is very naive on my part. I think there is something in me that believed that. That is one of the lessons i took away. And that is we have to do much more than just love someone and be there for them, and be supportive and be on their side. Much more more has to be done and how we communicate, and how we support, and how we have access to good health care, good, skilled technicians that know how to help in different situations. Another thing i feel i learned was bad advice and that is never trust what you see. What you see may be a lie, someone you love may be working very hard to wear a mask that hides what they are thinking or feeling. Always be aware of that. It will change the way you interact. I think what i learned about myself, perhaps more than anything else i learned from the nature of a tragedy that is complex such as this one, it was very hard to just focus on pure grief for the loss of my son. That was one of the things i had to work very hard in therapy. Do not focus on your humiliation, dont focus on your fear of being sued by all of these families, dont focus on your life changing and coming to an and as you know it. The real work in all of this is to find your way back to the grief for the individual you love who did such a terrible thing. I think by focusing on that grief of other individuals have losses due to suicide and murder, suicide the important thing is to remember the way they died is not who they were. You talk in the book about the mail you got, boxes and boxes of mail. We talk about how it helped you i had letters from families who had a loved one who died by suicide and going to the point about getting that support. Hearing those stories really seem to help you. I know at nominee where i work we have support group and education classes led by other families, other people who have Mental Illness. Talk about why that was particularly helpful to you. After Something Like this happened you really feel that no one else can understand what youre going through. I surely felt like i was going through a Looking Glass and i was living on one planet and everyone else was living on a different. When i spoke with people who have lost children to suicide or who had loved ones who are incarcerated, it was somehow very comforting. It was comforting for me to know that i was not the only one trying to sort this out. Other people had experienced these things. And to see that they were going on with their lives, they were productive human beings, they had not let this destroy them. Is very heartwarming that maybe someday i would have a life that might feel like a normal life again whatever that might mean. You talk about how you could get back by listening. Can you talk a little more about that. We find that too, when people move to be able to help someone else and listen to someone else they can help and heal them. Can you tell about how that affected you . To me that wasnt porton marker of my own healing. After a traumatic loss we have a need to talk about it. We all do. It is like that old poem, when the old man wants to talk about what he experienced with the albatross and tell everybody. I think by re telling our stories and talking about what we are experiencing, thinking, feeling, it takes the sting out. It allows us to desensitize a little bit. To get use to hearing that and knowing that it is us and it is our lives and it is what we need to live with. When we get to a place where we are able to listen to someone else and not feel a need to interject how we are feeling or to say yes, that happened to me, i know how you feel. Would not need is gone that is really a marker that we have come a long way in our own healing. I was so filled with joy when i found i had gone to a place where i no longer needed to talk about my loss in my story, but i was able to listen to someone else because i think when you give some of the opportunity to talk, to tell their story, and you listen and support and you dont judge, think that is the greatest gift we can give to another person. You talk in the book about how you wish you listen to more to some of the things that were going on with dylan, his perfectionism, some other characteristics. Can you talk about that and what you wished you had listened to and what you think was important to here . I did talk with someone who gave me a question that he recommended, he was a psychiatrist and he said heres something that i think every parent ever losing attention ask, i wish i had asked this question to ask when dylan was living. It is this. Tell me something about yourself that no one understands but that causes you pain. And then listen for the answer. Dont try to talk them out of it, dont try to say yes, but. Or its because youre a teenager youre a teenager these are tough years, just listen. When they have completed answering the question, then say, tell me more about that. I share that with everyone i can because its a perfect example of an openended question. It is a way to ask something to give someone an opportunity to speak, to hear what they have to say, to listen without judgment, to experience empathy for what their experiences without trying to jump to what to do about it. You say in the book that you are not excusing what your son did at columbine, to want to talk a little about that and your feelings about the tragedy . I did not want anyone anywhere to think that i was simply concluding, well dylan was depressed, therefore he became a murderer. Thats ridiculous, its untrue. I cannot ever fully explain how dylan could get into a place