Mental Illness and Public Tragedy: Recognizing Critical Warning Signs
In 2020, I was asked to review a submission for AJN’s Viewpoint column. Reviewers are not told who the author of a work is, nor are authors informed who is reviewing their submission. But I hadn’t gone very far when I knew exactly who the author was and what she was writing about.
Photo © Shutterstock
In my career I have read and been moved by many articles and first-person accounts, but this time was different. Each word took me closer into what I realized was a very personal viewpoint on an unimaginable national tragedy.
The author of the article was Arlene Holmes, a nurse and mother who was writing about her son James, who on July 20, 2012, opened fire on movie theater patrons in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 and wounding 70. (Her article, “Why a Nurse (and Mother) Didn’t Know,” was eventually accepted and published in AJN‘s June 2020 issue.)
Asking the same questions over and over.
After completing the review of this article, the questions I asked myself were the same ones I ask each time we hear of such tragic events happening at the hands of someone who has a mental illness:
What could have been done to change the outcome and prevent […]
