Like so many of you, I’ve spent the past few days imagining and dreaming about what the Reiners’ life was like. It is horrible, unnatural, unimaginable. Only, I have a small window into it. Sixteen years ago, my then-20-year-old son went through a period of darkness and mania and violence. It came on suddenly – as his autism had when he was three – and gripped our entire existence. Mine, my husband’s (his devoted stepfather), his brother’s and his sister’s. There was not a day, not an hour, not an activity or holiday or decision that we weren’t governed by this terrible thing.
The worst part was the chaos. There was absolutely no predicting how my beloved child would act or what he might do. You THINK you know what I mean by unpredictable, but you do not. I’m talking about walking 20 miles in bare feet through a -10 Minnesota winter night; drinking a bottle of ketchup; and submerging his laptop in a bathtub of water.
Was it schizophrenia? Possibly. That’s what the doctors said. Looking back, I think it was more likely a response to a brand-new medication that his University-affiliated neurologist had insisted he take. When I said the drug was hurting my son, the doctor not only doubled down, he got a state order to enforce it – and threw in some mandated electroconvulsive therapy just to be sure.
All of this is beside the point. It’s just context to tell you that it was like a shroud fell in our home and every moment from the day those mandates began was a nightmare. I have written about this – years ago. You can go find the essays if you like (I’m not promoting my work on the back of this tragedy either). My point is, I understand. A little. I know what it feels like to watch your child go insane and have nowhere to turn.
You may tell me there are resources. There are not. There are locked psych wards that your child can occupy for mind-numbing sedated hours and it feels like a march toward death. The police try to help, they really do. But they can’t, because they need to STAY in order to step in when things get bad and they can’t. It’s not their job.
Friends? THEY DISAPPEAR. I assure you, nothing clears your life of interested, concerned people like an oversize young man who’s acting crazy. Your neighbors avoid you. Your mother and father and siblings stay away. You’re on your own. And it is the most frightening, soul-sucking hell I have ever experienced. There is no order, no solace, no sleep.
I cannot say for certain, but I’m guessing that this is how Rob and Michele Singer Reiner lived for years. All their money? Didn’t matter. The fame, the intellect, the effort, and love? Didn’t make a dent. I am so paralyzed just thinking about this, it’s hard to write these words.
We were lucky, in a way. My husband and I seized our son back from the system and detoxed him best we could and found a way to patch things up. My son apologized for harming me; he bared his soul, which was blameless and good. We had a quiet, somewhat melancholy adult relationship when he died in 2016—maybe (certainly at least in part, I believe) as a result of the medical mistreatment he’d received.
And oh, I mourned him and will forever, without end. It’s been nine and a half years and I am only now, barely, able to open myself up to a whole day. I worried about my child the day he hurt me and I was shattered forever, beyond repair, the day he died.
So when I tell you that the last thing those parents thought as they were being murdered was, “What will happen to our son?” I say it with conviction.
You never let go. You never abandon your child, no matter what: even if they turn on you or steal from you or cut you off. You keep trying and loving them and that is what I see in the story we’re reading in the news about Nick Reiner’s parents. True love.
You have no idea what’s happening inside someone’s marriage or home or family life. And the hardships people mask are myriad. This is the most sinister I can name, in part because cowardly people lay blame on parents who are just holding on.
I will not listen to it, or profit from it. Some things deserve only sorrow. This is one.
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