As the mother of adopted children I often worry about things like mental illness. My sons were adopted through foster care and at least one of their mothers suffers from mental illness. I try to read studies and we see therapists to try to have answers before we even have questions. I hurt every time I see the news of mass shooters who never got the help they needed for mental illness. But I cringe at the thought of prescription drugs or a lifelong misdiagnosis that follows these children into adulthood. As a human I think something must have happened in these murderers childhood to trigger this impossible to understand outcome. I read the words of these mothers who didn't know what evil lived under their roof. I wonder what if one day I am the mother of a killer? What do I watch for? What behavior isn't typical behavior for a child born into trauma? I write down the words of my children that don't feel right. I study the way they interact with other children their age. I watch how they respond in social settings. Do they make friends easily? Are they nervous? I watch how they respond when they are angry, frustrated, scared and happy. I try to focus on the responses and body language of every new situation. Maybe they are perfectly normal children who behave slightly different due to the trauma of being removed from their biological parents, the rollercoaster of the courts and fear of loss or maybe they have an underlying issue with mental health. Either way as a mother I want to make sure my boys feel love so completely that the thought of harming another makes them sick. I spend my evenings playing games, watching movies, hugging and loving on my kids with everything I have so that maybe that is the things that keep them grounded in the hard times. I encourage them with positive words and conversations. I speak to them like adults when they do something wrong so they can grasp the severity of the things they do. We talk out the reasons of their actions. We discuss how things made us feel, why we react certain ways. It is incredible the changes we witness daily from 2 scared little boys who didn't deserve to be born into the painful homes they were originally born into. We do not hide the adoptions from them. We talk openly about things so they can hear things directly from their parents not strangers. My hope one day is that as a generation we can help those with mental illness deal with daily stressors and put an end to the broken mind. My hope is that we can reach people in painful places and end mass shootings. My hope is that my boys will never have to worry about the things in their minds that are scary.