FOURTEEN DEAD IN DENVER SHOOTING !

by Phizzy 114 Replies latest social current

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  FlyingHighNow

  I take it that a Mentally insane person would just grab a gun at whim and start to shoot. This guy had a CLEAN record and no signs of any mental illness.

  You are comparing the definition of mental illness with the legal definition of insanity. Realize that depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar illness and BPI with psychotic features, scizophrenia and more are illnesses that affect perception of reality to varying degrees. People function at different levels when they are mentally ill. If you've ever watched a person slowly descend into madness, it's not an okay one day and completely crazy the next kind of thing. Delusional thinking can creep in insidiously. The changes can be so gradual that the loved ones and friends just think the person is becoming gradually more difficult in personality. This shooter is being described as unstable. The pressures and rigors of the courses he was taking could be a big part of why he snapped.
• 

  glenster

  An earlier post is a link to a man who studied the Columbine shooting who
  suggests we reserve judgment on the psychoanalysis of Holmes. Most such hunches
  about the pair who committed the Columbine shooting were wrong--one was just
  antisocial (a psychopath with no ability to feel for others, etc.) and the
  other was just depressed about problems socializing as well.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre#The_search_for_rationale
  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/opinion/sunday/the-unknown-why-in-the-aurora-killings.html

  Most seriously mentally ill (delusionally shizophrenic, manic depressive)
  people don't do these things, and we shouldnt assume most mass murderers must
  have been mentally ill those ways (so not culpable). Hitler's men and the 9-11
  group believed anti-social crap (bastardized Darwinism pseudoscience about
  eliminating "lesser" people regarding race and handicaps, Islamist extremism)
  you could call wrongfully antisocial therefor psychopathic without having such
  serious mental illnesses or asperger's syndrome, brain tumors, etc.

  A high school lady friend of Holmes said she thought he was weird for rooting
  for the villain in movies (recently true of Holmes regarding the Joker, a
  violent anarchist). Holmes showed an outsider's way of creating a dating page
  profile and leaving an answering machine message for a gun club manager to hear.
  He was said to be spitting at others from his jail cell then uncommunicative
  like a lawyer told him not to talk to anybody. All of these fit the antisocial
  idea as well, and the shooting was psycopathic. Beyond that, I'd wait to see
  what a psychiatrist manages to find out.
• 

  Quendi

  I really appreciated what FlyingHighNow and glenster have said in their latest posts. We have more questions than answers right now and even time may not give us all the answers we are seeking. If Holmes has a mental illness which can be traced to an organic cause, then its onset may well have been a gradual one as FlyingHighNow suggests. In any case, we will have to wait and see.

  That hasn't stopped people from drawing all kinds of conclusions even though less than four days have passed since the massacre. I suppose much of the initial reaction we're seeing arises from shock and horror about what has happened and so is only natural. But I also wish that some restraint could be shown by the media in its coverage. But with ratings to measure and advertising to sell being two major motivators for them, I suppose that is a vain wish.

  Quendi
• 

  FlyingHighNow

  I think most people haven't made conclusions yet about Holme's as to mental illness. We just don't know enough. We do know he wasn't stable.

  --one was just
  antisocial (a psychopath with no ability to feel for others, etc.) and the
  other was just depressed about problems socializing as well.

  Both of these are considered mental illness. Just depressed? Depression can cause delusional thinking, in some cases and it certainly destorts a person's perception of reality.

  I recall reading in Patty Duke's book A Brilliant Madness, that she got on a plane headed for Washington D.C. She wanted to warn everyone about something she was delusional about. Patty has bipolar.

  I am not convinced of anything when it comes to this young man's mental state, but I am convinced that normal, stable people do not plan and act out such horror.
• 

  Finkelstein

  Its obvious that this guy was suffering from some semblance of mental delusion, confused about reality and fantasied fiction.

  He proclaimed to be the Joker and died his hair red to look like this fictional charterer.

  Schizoid personality disorder (SPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a lack of interest in social relationships, a tendency towards a solitary lifestyle, secretiveness, emotional coldness, and apathy. Affected individuals may also demonstrate a simultaneous rich, elaborate, and exclusively internal fantasy world, [ 1 ] although this is often more suggestive of schizotypal personality disorder.