Klebolds: Like your family?

As I've listened to Susan Klebold talk about her life with Dylan, I've marveled at how different her family dynamic was from mine.

The Mother's Day incident was the most severe confrontation she ever had with her son? That, in itself, is astonishing to me. It seems so ... tame.

My mother routinely hit me when I was a kid. She didn't beat me to a bloody pulp, but she did hit me, yes. She would freak out at me over the smallest things and yell at me for hours. I was terrified of her. To this day, whenever I hear that tone in her voice, I lose my emotional self-control - it's like a PTSD reaction.

Even after I got to be bigger than her and the tables were turned - now she was the one who was afraid of me - she would still scream at me at the top of her lungs. I would scream back at the top of my lungs, and - if things got really bad - start smashing things to bits. One time, I started pounding the wall and, before I knew it, made a hole about the size of a small pizza. Another time, I had to stop myself from smashing her car door off of its hinges - I satisfied myself with ripping the *handle* off the door.

But, at the same time, my mother knew *everything* of importance there was to know about me. I kept no secrets from her. In fact, I routinely "confessed" to her - if I did something that I knew would make her unhappy, I told her immediately, because I knew that she would be ten times angrier if she found about it some other way. And she kept a close eye on me. She wouldn't even let me close my bedroom door - it had to stay open at all times. She wouldn't let me out of the house, either. Even if I had wanted to go on a shooting spree - and I never did - I wouldn't have been able to start thinking about finding a way to do it. She had me on a tight leash.

I didn't get to do any of the things that kids are supposed to do in high school - go to parties, get drunk, and so on. I didn't do them in college, either. In fact, I've never done them - I've never had a drink in my life. I have lots of alcoholic relatives, but I have no idea what it's like to be drunk.

I know that my experiences were not normal, so I don't have a good baseline for how normal Dylan's childhood and adolescence were.

What about you?

Here's a Mother's Day story from my youth:

One Mother's Day, when I was maybe eight or nine, my mother and I went to breakfast at a new restaurant. (It was awful - the food was crappy and the waiters were rude. My mother was in a bad mood throughout.)

When we went out to the parking lot after our meal, there was another car parked right next to my mother's. Whoever was driving had parked his car sloppily, so that there was little room for my mother to squeeze through to get in her car.

Her car was red; the other, white.

There was a dent on my mother's driver-side front door, with a tiny little speck of white paint in the dent. (It was clearly the other guy's fault - my mother's car was brand-new.)

"THAT FUCKING ASSHOLE!" my mother screamed at the top of her lungs. "FUCKING ASSHOLE DENTED MY CAR!"

Still screaming, she unlocked our car ... opened her door ... and then began *smashing* her door against the other car, until it was very badly dented. She must have done it ten or twenty times. The other guy's car alarm was wailing.

I broke down in tears. I kept begging her to stop. But she wouldn't. She had a wild look in her eyes and kept screaming "YOU DENT MY FUCKING DOOR? I'M GONNA DENT YOUR FUCKING DOOR! I'M GONNA DENT YOUR FUCKING DOOR!"

Finally she'd had enough and stopped. We got in the car and drove away. She was screaming and yelling about the guy who dented her car all the way home.

So, yeah, Susan Klebold's story doesn't strike me as all that significant. Neither do Eric's writings - my mother would unload on people like that, wishing death and destruction on them, all the time.

There was a lady who lived on our street - an older lady who babysat for a living. She refused to watch me when I was a baby because my mother wasn't married. My mother had to find someone else to watch me. At the time, it was a huge hassle for her.

Up until a few years ago, when this lady either died or moved away, my mother would routinely look at her and say, "That fucking bitch. I hope one day someone runs her over. I wish nothing but death on her. I hope she dies a slow, painful, agonizing death."

My mother never forgives and never forgets. She holds on to everything. If you cross her today, she will hate you until the day you die.

But is she a psychopath, or is she someone who endured horrific abuse from her own parents (and a succession of violent men in her life, including my father)?

She claims that my grandfather routinely subjected her to severe beatings. I can't verify that - he was like a father to me, and he never laid a hand on me.

But she also claims that my grandmother was extremely cold emotionally - like a sociopath. I can verify that.

My mother loved her grandmother deeply.

On the day that her grandmother died, we were at my grandparents' house, eating dinner. My grandfather got the phone call. He was devastated to learn of his mother's death, as you might expect.

My grandmother immediately threw us out of the house - we had to leave right in the middle of the meal. She literally slammed the door in our faces.

I will never forget the experience of my mother breaking down in tears as we drove away. To this day, I find the callous insensitivity that my grandmother showed toward her own daughter - not even allowing her to grieve a loved one's death for one second - appalling.

My family dynamic is seriously fucked up.

And, yet, here's the thing: I have never had homicidal impulses, or even strong suicidal ones. There are times when I hate the world, but I find ways to deal with it.

I take it for granted that some people harbor truly dark thoughts and impulses. I know I do. But I find outlets for them that don't involve hurting others.

I will always believe that Eric (and Dylan) could have found constructive outlets for their rage and pain.

Thank you for sharing with us about your upbringing LPorter.
I have to say that I do believe that every family has its secrets and therefore there are things about Dylan's life and home life and upbringing that we will never know.
And by that I do not mean anything bad or sinister at all.
Maybe Dylan didn't get everything he needed from his parents emotionally in some way but I do not believe he was abused by his family in any way.If he  was ever abused by someone else, it seems he never spoke of it and I seriously doubt that occurred.
There is no way that Sue could fit her son's entire childhood in a 300 page book and there were probably some incidents she left out that mean nothing in the whole scheme of things but that people might misinterpret.

My relationship with parents was nothing like Dylan's. My parents were a lot stricter and more repressive than his and I had tons of screaming fights with them all while growing up.
From what we know it would seem as if he had a great relationship with them but he obviously felt some resentment towards them because he said things like "My parents gave me my life buts its up to me what I do with it. If they don't like it, that's too bad."

I have to admit that's pretty cold especially since he knew he was going to kill himself too.

Incidentally, I mentioned the Mother's Day freakout to my mother the other day, and she told me that I must have been mistaken - she'd never done anything like that in her life.

Whether she honestly doesn't remember it, I can't say. It's likely that she's blacked out a lot of stuff.

.

For me, it's actually frightening how similar Dylan's family was to mine growing up. I got into arguments with them, of course. But they were never crazy strict. They were just like how Sue described her parenting style. They always wanted to know who I was with and where we were going or what we were doing. They didn't let me stay over at friends houses that they hadn't met the parents of. They let me express myself even though they hated all the black I wore. And even though I would say they were very involved in my life, they were completely clueless when it came to knowing what I was thinking or really up to. I was their baby, their little girl. They knew I had problems but they always seemed to believe it was just a phase. I can definitely see how Dylan hide his plans from them. Hell, I could have planned a massacre in my room and my parents would have never caught me.

After this book I am almost jealous of Dylan for having parents who were more-or-less sane and reasonable.

Early in my life, my mom did try very hard to be the type of sane, reasonable parent that Susan was, and in many ways she reminds me of her a lot.  But unlike Dylan's mom, my mom had 1) a shit marriage, 2) post-miscarriage stress, and 3) the local Judgy Moms' Club judging her (and me) because I was adopted.

Another thing that's striking is how many personality traits I had in common with Dylan as a kid.  I thought, before this book, that he'd been this completely easygoing teddy bear of an infant, in contrast to my colicky impossible-to-soothe rambunctious younger self...but...no.  He wasn't that much less difficult.  He had health problems, stomach problems.  He fussed and cried at night, until they found out it was because he was bored.  He was precise, methodical, stubborn, perfectionist, independent, couldn't stand losing, wasn't good at sharing his toys--my parents also called me a "little trooper" because I was determined to see things through, and though I did have bizarre childhood fears, scary amusement park rides were not one of them (I had a drive to confront every single one of the fears I did have as a kid because I hated how it felt to be scared.)  I would focus intently on reading and puzzles, and I could entertain myself easily.  I was content to get wrapped up in activities such as those in the privacy of my room, but I was also active and eager to go out and do things, see sights, play outdoors and so on.  The major difference was that in him, nobody saw these traits as wrong or bad.  But in me, they were seen as fatal flaws.  I suppose because Dylan did have privileges socially that I didn't (egad, SJW-speak, I know, but there may be some truth to it.)

My parents, growing up, were also screamers.  Yellers.  Shouters.  I can't remember a day when there wasn't some kind of shouting yelling match between them.  This probably contributed to my mom's stress, which contributed to her losing her temper with me and flying off the handle about relatively innocuous things I did.

Despite this, I got through pre-middle school years pretty well.  I valued tolerance, diversity, equality, feminism, environmentalism, violence wasn't the answer, always be honest, knowledge and learning are good, and so on.  I had friends.  I had people who liked me.  Neither my mom nor I were religious, or socially conservative, but a lot of the people in my new neighborhood were and judged us negatively for it.  That and the aspersions cast on single moms, which could not have been fun to deal with on top of post-divorce hysterics and everything else.

Then came the bullies, and Husband 2.  I, too, discovered that it wasn't cool to be smart.  It wasn't cool to be liberal or progressive in my new hometown either.  So there was the conflict--be the kid my mom wanted me to be, or fit in with the other kids.  I couldn't do both.  And that was constructed as my fault, somehow, because again, I was supposed to be the "kid who had something wrong with them."  Despite, oh I dunno, being possibly the smartest kid in my class, but that didn't matter.

Husband 2 was also a bully.  A big-mouthed, small-minded, domineering self-centered bully who demanded that children should be seen and not heard and expected everyone to obey him.  He shouted at his children and called them names, physically manhandled children, made fun of my mother and me for being nonreligious "cultural jews" and left-wing academic types, and despite his fake-hippie pretensions being an art-school burnout and a Grateful Dead fanatic, was very protestant-conservative and wasted no opportunity to foist his way of life on her and me.  My mom bought into it.  I didn't.  From there on out, as they say, shit got real.

Bullying continued, at home and at school.  The administration did their job as usual by blaming me for everything, and Mom sided with Husband 2 on everything.  He didn't like me, so she didn't either.  He wouldn't get out of my face, so she didn't either.  This was around the time when talk was made of "behavioral disturbances" and "getting help."  I'd seen counselors before, saw nothing wrong with it and thought it was a completely normal thing for people to do.  Also I'd been de facto expelled, though they didn't call it that, they called it being on home instruction due to social problems.  Whatever.  I was glad to be out of that school.  I think maybe--maybe--they were scared I was going to shoot the place up, but back then I had no intention whatsoever of doing anything like that.  Sure I had angry daydreams now and then about rampaging through the halls with my stepdad's chainsaw, but they were only daydreams and not anything I wanted to do in reality.  I never talked about them either.

So pretty much all of what was recommended as "treatment" was for my parents to be harder on me, which translated to constant physical intimidation and violence.  No leaving marks or causing injury but anything short of that was perfectly acceptable if I put one foot out of line.  By that time I was like, "nope, no more letting myself get bullied," so I learned to fight and learned to enjoy it, which I had many conflicts about because I still wanted to believe in nonviolence.  My mom still paid lip service to it, but her "negotiation" was a fake-nice front for expecting me to do everything Husband 2 wanted, and resorting to wrestling with me if I stood my ground.  No matter how reasonable I tried to be, anything short of complete compliance meant a fight.

After long enough in MMA: The Family Sitcom, I ended up in one of those shithole troubled teen programs that you occasionally hear about on the news when something egregiously abusive happens.  Well, there are tons more of them, and some of them escape notice because they do just enough licensed legitimate therapy to get away with their real purpose.

I would like to believe that getting help for a depressed child would be so simple and preventative as most people make it out to be, but that so-called help just contributed to things spiraling out of control.  Nobody was checking anyone--my mom was suddenly going against everything she taught me growing up, siding with this douchebag she married against me, both of them were dehumanizing me completely and I was worried for a while that my life might end up in real danger if I couldn't get out of that house.  Every step of the way, the doctors and mental health professionals colluded with my mom and her husband, and encouraged what they were doing.

Any self-esteem issues, trust issues or emotional issues I had before got worse afterward.  My surface behavior was impeccable, but underneath I was a wreck and it was a matter of time before I couldn't function as an adult.  They'd taken someone who was determined, independent, and a critical thinker, and turned them into a confused, despondent, hopeless dependent who was terrified to think for themselves or attempt to do anything without someone else's approval and assistance.  Sure, I got medication, I had my room searched, I went to whichever therapist I was told to see whether I liked it or not, and it wrecked my life.  It didn't prevent me from doing some horrible crime, because I never had any reason or intent to.  I talked angrily sometimes ("I'll kill you, you jerk,") but I only ever fought defensively.

So yes, one could say I have a massive case of the green-eyed monster for Dylan's decent upbringing.  

(P.S.  For my mom, that reaction jpg of a gold star that says "you tried" in comic sans)

I feel like I can completely identify with Dylan personality wise, but his family was completely different from my own.  

I was the youngest of three kids and the only girl.  My oldest brother had a drug problem and my other brother constantly had trouble in school.  I was the "shiny penny" of the family....like Dylan.  I did everything myself, never had to be told to do my homework or projects for school......and was very introverted like Dylan. I was in gifted classes as well.  I feel like when you're the quiet child, or the child who doesn't cause any disruptions, you tend to get overlooked.  It feels safe to not worry about that child....who they're with....what they're doing.  

My mother denies things that I did in my childhood and refuses to believe them even when I tell her what I did.  I think parents get it stuck in their heads that a particular child is good and could never have a problem, and despite all the warning signs and changes that child goes through, they just can't see it...or refuse to see it.

Dylan's mom paints a picture of a nearly perfect childhood.  I can't identify with this at all.

browneyes11 wrote:

For me, it's actually frightening how similar Dylan's family was to mine growing up. I got into arguments with them, of course. But they were never crazy strict. They were just like how Sue described her parenting style. They always wanted to know who I was with and where we were going or what we were doing. They didn't let me stay over at friends houses that they hadn't met the parents of. They let me express myself even though they hated all the black I wore. And even though I would say they were very involved in my life, they were completely clueless when it came to knowing what I was thinking or really up to. I was their baby, their little girl. They knew I had problems but they always seemed to believe it was just a phase. I can definitely see how Dylan hide his plans from them. Hell, I could have planned a massacre in my room and my parents would have never caught me.

This was also very similar for me, and in that sense I feel I can relate to Dylan's family life.

I am an only child. Growing up my parents always worked and I was able to have the things I needed. We were not overly rich but I never really had to struggle for anything. We always went on family holidays and I was lucky enough to visit nice places and travel abroad. I remember dying my hair green when I was 11. I did it with some cheap dye I bought in my local town, I was allowed to separate from my parents whilst we were in town for around an hour with a friend them meet back up with them (as long as I promised to stay in the same building) and i was trusted to do this. I believe I proved myself as trustworthy as I was often allowed to do small things independently, like walk to the local shop alone and come back.

At school I was painfully shy. All my school reports from that time talk about how shy I was, I was also easily embarrassed. I had a few close friends but was never the centre of attention and always seemed to take on a role that was second in command to another louder more confident friend. My parents knew all my friends parents and I was allowed sleepovers etc. I struggled a great deal with my appearance, I had horrific acne which was pointed out to me by others on a daily basis. As a result I used to stay in the school library and read (which i enjoyed) rather than go outside at break times with the other kids. I even got a library badge made for me that had 'librarian' written on it. I didn't communicate too much with others but still had a small group of close friends. My parents didn't know I struggled with anxiety through much of my early teens and neither did I, I didn't understand what was going on I just knew something wasn't right. I guess I didn't want to worry anyone (even though I knew they'd want to know) I just never told anyone.

When I was around 15 I found some friends who were fellow "Goth's." By 15 I had embraced that side of myself. I would go to their homes to "do homework" and we would sometimes drink alcohol. Some of those friends would go out on a weekend to a local bar. At that time it wasn't difficult to get into a bar or club when you were underage. As long as you looked 18 it was fine. I did not look 18 but I went anyway, hidden amongst a group of my male friends who were over 6ft tall I was never asked for my ID. Drinking without my parents knowledge became something I did regularly. Sneaking out of the house late at night was also not unfamiliar. My parents never knew or even suspected anything, and they had no reason to. I was doing well in school and they knew my friends who were always polite and well spoken.
The worst it ever got was when a few friends came over to our house, we were drinking in my bedroom. One friend got too drunk and whilst trying to sneak him out of the house my Dad saw from the upstairs window. He was really angry with me and I remember him confronting me as I went into my bedroom upstairs. He was convinced my drunk friend must have been on drugs due to the state he was in and forbid me from hanging out with him again, luckily he didn't see the vodka bottles on the floor of my bedroom. I also did hang out with this guy again because I was secretly in love with him and he never knew, he wasn't interested in me though and neither was anyone else. I didn't have a boyfriend at all in high school. I kissed one guy when I was 15 (and drunk) but I didn't like him and he wouldn't leave me alone for months after (he told people I was a slut who had done all sorts with him)
My parents also didn't know when I started to feel very depressed at 17. I would spend time in my room and say I was doing homework. They assumed my sleeping late was just a teenage phase. Nobody knew either when it got much worse in my later teenage years.
My parents trusted me and we always talked, I would describe our relationship as close. I'm sure if they knew how I was feeling they would have done everything possible to help but I just never told.
I saw a great deal of similarities in Dylan's upbringing and my own. I experienced myself first hand how easy it was to hide things from parents as a teen. Sometimes I used to be convinced my parents knew what I was up to, but if they did they would have put a stop to it or made me get some kind of help. Me and my friends used to joke about how much trouble we would be in if our parents ever found our alcohol stash or caught us drinking.
One of my friends self harmed, their parents never knew. One was sexually promiscuous, and her parents never knew. All of these friends did well in school had part time jobs and were trusted kids from good families. It's so easy to hide things.

On a slightly unrelated note I really enjoyed reading others stories in this thread.

Thank you all for sharing your stories. I think it's quite clear that poor parenting wasn't the cause of Columbine.

My parents don't remind of me of the Klebolds at all. My childhood was a little closer to Eric's with moving around a lot. I was bullied in elementary and middle school, but by the time high school came, I was fairly well liked but still very quiet and shy. I excelled academically but was extremely depressed and suicidal during that time.

My mother is an addict with some undiagnosed mood disorder that caused her to lash out uncontrollably at my brother and myself. She was a bit harder on me, which may or may not have something to do with me being female. My father, on the other hand, reminds me a lot of the American Horror Story character Kit Walker. He was and is an unrelenting force of goodness and love. He can pull the best out of a terrible situation, and he is probably the only reason I didn't commit suicide during periods of severe depression. He is definitely the only reason my mother is tolerable and somewhat better now. I feel very lucky to have him in my life.