I wanted to be a school shooter

Clickbait title is clickbait, but it is true.

In the United States, we have a problem with school shootings.

Just recently was one at a high school in Florida, which has been the main impetus for me to talk about my own experience on the matter.

Whenever one of these things happens, the media cycle inevitably hits two major talking points: gun control and mental health. Never have I seen real action taken on either of these fronts, so I have no desire to waste my time or yours by going down either of those rabbit holes. Instead I intend only to [try] to explain why I once idolized shooters like Klebold and Harris of the Columbine massacre.

I was always a "weird kid" I suppose. I didn't fit in, I had few friends, and I got picked on/bullied a fair bit. I was granted a reprieve when my family moved to a different state after I finished elementary school. This allowed me an escape from everyone who had already learned how to push my buttons. Anonymity was space to breathe. But when Columbine happened, I remember seeing it on the news and thinking "Finally. Someone [like me] had the courage to fight back."

Klebold and Harris were my heroes for many years. (Point of fact: I have not felt this way for a long time.)

I kept this to myself, of course. I knew quite well that I would get into trouble if anyone ever found out how I felt--that I entertained fantasies of planting bombs and shooting up my school.

I never followed through on these fantasies though. I never drew up plans or researched how to make explosives or get my hands on guns. Truthfully, I never wanted to hurt anyone. My fantasy was just a way to compartmentalize all the anger I felt toward people who, in my eyes, were undeserving of their social status. I was terrified of all those "normal" people. Because I had been conditioned from an early age that I was weird and they would make fun of me if I caught their attention. Isolation was a defense mechanism, but it ate away at me from the inside--the only way to cope with being alone is to decide that being alone is what you want. And when you're by yourself, everyone is your enemy. You have to hate them or else you'll hate yourself.

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but if I had shot up my school, I wouldn't have done it to go after anyone in particular. I didn't want revenge. I wanted to make a statement. I wanted every would-be bully in the country to hear me: "Don't pick on that weird kid or one day he'll kill you and all your stupid fucking friends."

If there's anything I've learned in the decades since then, it's that nobody's hearing that message. Media narratives make it clear: it's never the bullies' fault, it's the sad loner kid who's just messed up and who let this kid have a gun anyway?

Missing the point.

I've had a long time to reflect on what I went through, how I saw the world around me as inherently hostile, and why I reacted the way I did. I don't have answers, but I can see that mass murder isn't one.

I think the only thing else I can add at this point is a message from Sue Klebold: