Nah @ the bolded. You cant even compare the 2. Theres no way you have a kid who wants to commit mass murder and there were no signs. And the issue with your daughter was resolved from your parenting, as it should. If you and your wife werent involved it could of turned out worse, so idk why you're downplaying your role in that.
You think there’s “signs” because you watch too many movies. We, as the viewer, get to see their actions that are actually being done in secret. They hide these words/actions from their family members and friends. People are great at lying to others and themselves. You can easily hide these things.
As a kid, I would capture lizards and put them into empty two liter bottles, then I would blow them up. I once found a baby crow, put it into a puddle of water and ran it over w my bike multiple times. I felt like complete crap afterwards and had my parents known about that, had anyone known, I probably would’ve been evaluated by a doctor or counselor. As I got older, it’s always stuck w me. I was horrible for that. But it’s still something I’ve never told anyone until just now...
I’m ashamed of that. But regardless of my emotions then and now, it was still something done in secret because I know how ppl will view that. Someone couldve said I was a killer in the making. (I wasn’t, obviously) The only point I’m trying to make here is kids, teens, adults all lie and wear masks. We front about our thoughts and feelings. We keep a closet full of crap that only we have the key to.
We aren’t taught about being transparent. Transparency is viewed as a weakness. We grow up hiding and lying about things and it grows more and more as we get older. We, of course teach this isn’t the right view, but the majority of people live this exact way.
And I’m not trying to downplay my role as a parent at all. My point is that when I conversate w my daughter, everything on the surface seems so great. Yeah, there’s discussions of small struggles, things that are tangible; report card, behavior of the day etc and we can talk and address those things easily.
But what’s mentally internal; feelings, thoughts, insecurities etc aren’t easy to pull out. My daughter tells me she’s doing well, then I take it as such. I SEE no other reason not to. When I seen the texts, it was only then that I was able to see her internal struggles that weren’t on the surface. It gave us an in-depth look that we couldn’t see and allowed us to step in to help fix those issues.