Is April the Cruelest Month? Why all the Shootings?

[steven johnson]

April has the highest suicide rates. The latest rash of shootings has brought out more theories about impulsive violent bahavior with the beginning of spring.

Shawn Johnston, a semi-retired forensic psychologist in Portland, Ore., points to the seasonal change. He speculates that the shooters' homicidal and suicidal thoughts festered in winter, then came alive with energy provided spring's sunshine and warmth. He tells MedPage Today that many patients on antidepressants who commit suicide do so at a point "where they're just starting to get better and now have energy but haven't yet had a complete mitigation of all of their delusional thoughts."

The Columbine and Virginia Tech massacres both occurred in April.

Rather than look at the time of year, Mark Kopta, University of Evansville's (Ind.) chairman of the psychology department, looks at the decade. He tells ABC he found three mass murders from 1930-1970, three more in the '70s, 10 in the '80s, 17 in the '90s and 25 since 2000.

Why the rash of shootings?

[Idealism]

1. Ahh, T. S. Eliot

My favorite poem!

[tomreedtoon]

2. A young man's fancy turns to love...which he doesn't get.

And that's not strictly sex, or even affection. It might be a job the young man would love to have that he can't get, a car he's forced to sell, people hounding the young man to pay off his college loans. So when love doesn't come, a young man's fancy turns to vengeance.

Can you blame him? Oh, I'm sure you'll blame him. But I don't think you should.

[Abq_Sarah]

3. April is not a fun month

If you're self employed.

[JenniferJuniper]

4. I believe it is.

I remember a Psychology professor of mine had a slightly different take on it. He believed early Spring is an especially difficult time for people who are depressed or have other mental problems. Winter's darkness is lifting and the world should be looking brighter, but because they feel no better, they feel even more hopeless and alone.

“April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.”

[northofdenali]

5. Celebrate spring solstice - it does make a difference.

What is Easter but a celebration?

[Kitty Herder]

6. I'm always more depressed in March and April.

But it could just be me.

[napoleon_in_rags]

7. No, there's something there.

There was this horrible black acid trip from when I was young, we just called April buttshit. It was characterized by the sense that hope and redemption had finally come, but everything was the same. That's the horror of spring in some ways...The sense that winters depression will last forever. You really just have to wait it out.