He’s 22, legally an adult. He’s no longer a student, not a dependent even for tax law purposes. Also he’s in the age range when the onset of schizophrenia is most common. If he’d been 16, “where in the world were his parents?” would be a reasonable question.
Where were they? Who knows? Too distant so he went off the rails for lack of guidance, too controlling and too much in his life so he rebelled by getting into drugs the moment he got a chance.
Leave his parents out of it, except to pray for them. This is their tragedy—losing a son to madness—as much as it is a tragedy for those who lost children, siblings, parents, or grandparents to death.
Amen. I have thought, if I were the mother of a mentally ill child who killed someone, that I would so much wish that he had killed me instead, and kept the pain and sorrow in one family.
I did know a mother who kept her schizophrenic son at home, and created a job for him in her company. He killed her and his father, and my prayer was, “Dear God, how horrible. Thank you that it was them...”
I have and continue to pray for his parents.
I worded it poorly..I’m wondering about the background of this young man and how it may or may not have a bearing on who he’s become.