I'm tired of the mental illness claims Re: mass shooters (long, personal, and detailed)

[AZLD4Candidate]

Being an asshole is not a mental illness. I am so tired of people using mental illness as a cover-all.

Most mentally ill people are not outwardly violent. They direct the violence on themselves (addiction, suicide, alienation, isolation).

What people don't know about mental illness in this country will fill volumes, especially when they come out with that "just get help" line.

Those with mental illness, mostly, see no purpose for help. They know there is something wrong and it's because of them. They turn it all inward and internalize manifestations.

I'm being bullied because I deserve it. I'm being ostracized because I deserve it. I'm torturing myself because when I do, no one else can hurt me as much as I hurt myself.

Mental illness is the Eye of Sauron and it controls you. Sometimes you can withstand it. . .sometimes it overtakes you. But the illness is always there.

And mental illness is always triggered by some trauma. Let's look at a few of the most common:

BPD is normally caused and triggered by abandonment.
Bi-polar is normally triggered by abuse.
MDD is normally caused and triggered by overwhelming events
Psychosis is normally caused by trauma and the sufferer creates their own reality
Psychopathy is normally caused by lack of boundaries
PTSD is normally caused by trauma
OCD is normally caused by trauma
Schizophrenia is normally caused by trauma
Social Anxiety is normally caused by trauma
Eating disorders are normally caused by trauma
BDD is normally caused by trauma
Paranoia is normally caused by trauma
Disassociation is normally caused by trauma
Catatonia is normally caused by extreme trauma

Notice a pattern for all except one. Psychopathy. Psychopaths and sociopaths are created through lousy parenting.

Even most drug use can be summed up simply in its reason

Cocaine - party drug
Crack - escape from reality
Heroin - escape from trauma
Pot/Hash - enjoyment
Kedamine/X/Molly - Party
Meth - escape from trauma
Alcohol - escape from reality/trauma
Acid/Shrooms/Peyote - escape from reality

There is a reason many mental illness patients are heroin abusers, crackheads, tweekers, and alcoholics. It's their escape from their reality and their trauma. And when the pain of the addiction outweighs the escape from using the substance, when the mental illness sufferer sees no way out of the pain of the trauma and now the pain of never-ending addiction, the last cry for help is suicide.

Remember that. . .suicide. If they own a gun, mental illness sufferers will normally turn it on themselves, all the why apologizing for doing it and causing everyone around them the agony and misery they know they caused. It isn't a weak way out of a temporary problem. . .it's the only escape from the hell that mental illness sufferers feel on a daily basis. They know their existence is not only causing them misery, but everyone around them. You could tell them it isn't, but the Eye of Sauron is sometimes too strong.

Let's now bring it all back to my first statement. . .mass shooters aren't mentally ill, they are just assholes. Being an asshole with a huge ego and a sense of entitlement you aren't getting in your own mind isn't a mental illness. Shooting up random people in a public place is not a mental illness. . it's an ego trip.

PLEASE STOP SAYING these people are mentally ill. They aren't and they do a massive dis-service to those of us that are.

Yes, I am. I've been institutionalized twice in my life. I am Asperger's (developmental). I am PTSD (bullying and abuse from pretty much everyone I've come in contact with, including family and employers). I am Bi-Polar. I have BPD due to the abandonment I ave dealt with. I have Body Dysmorphic Disorder and believe that no matter how hard I work at the gym, I will always be a fat cow of a man. I have a severe inferiority complex because most, if not all, achievements in my life can be summed up by something my father said to me when I was nine: "Why should I be happy for you doing what is expected of you."

Never once did I ever look outward in dealing with the trauma. I looked inward. Which is why I spent years self-medicating with alcohol. Which is why I attempted to end my life four times. Which is why I seal myself off emotionally from most people. As Simon and Garfunkel said: Cause a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries.

Mass shooters are not mentally ill. They are assholes. Vincent Van Gogh didn't shoot up France. He committed suicide. Which, sadly, is the end for too many mental illness sufferers. But the trauma doesn't end with their suicide. Their memories are always defiled with comments like "they took the coward's way out" or "why didn't they understand people loved them" or "why did they have to do this to me." Three normal comments about suicide that completely dismiss the reasons. . .for mental illness sufferers, it's an escape. Shooting up a parade, a supermarket, an elementary school, a church, a concert, a restaurant, a nightclub, etc. isn't an escape. It's an ego trip.

[msongs]

1. it's attention seeking, like trump nt

[AZLD4Candidate]

3. You're a little more tactful by saying attention seeking.

But we both say the same thing: "Being an asshole is not a mental illness."

[LoisB]

2. Very profound. Should be required reading for everyone whose first reaction to these mass

shootings is that "he must be mentally ill". Thank you

[iemanja]

4. Thank you for posting this

I find a lot of the “they’re mentally ill” posts really hurtful. Not only do some posters assume all (white) mass shooters are mentally ill, but we see posts claiming all Republicans are mentally ill. What do they think posts like that fell like to mentally ill DUers? Too many show no understanding of mental illness and no desire to learn about it; they use it as a cudgel and in the process display a kind of bigotry that wouldn’t be acceptable toward any other group of people.

Your post is helpful for those of us who suffer from mental illness, but I fear it will make no difference to those who rely on mental illness as a slur. No matter how many times it is pointed out, they continue.

[brewens]

5. A Trumper posted "another psycho" in response to the parade shooting. My reply was,

"Boy Howdy! This pic says it all" which was him at the Trump rally! LOL They make it really easy on me sometimes.

[AZLD4Candidate]

6. Agree. MAGA Shaman, the Chicago Incel, and the rest aren't psychos. They are assholes.

And as I keep saying: "Being an asshole is not a mental illness."

[IcyPeas]

7. And good luck finding a therapist if you are lower income

[littlemissmartypants]

8. I'd like to see some evidence in peer reviewed scientific literature for these assertions. nt

[iemanja]

10. Then search Google Scholar

They are there, especially about the mentally ill being more likely to be victims of violence.

[littlemissmartypants]

12. I've searched plenty of sites for information on all kinds of conditions.

It's the OP making the assertions. Not me.

[iemanja]

13. And you've never read that victimization among the mentally ill is more common?

You can read NAMI’s website to start. https://www.nami.org/Advocacy/Policy-Priorities/Stopping-Harmful-Practices/Gun-Violence-Research

[littlemissmartypants]

14. Please stop. I didn't ask for your help. I'm not interested in what your stance is on the opinions

of the OP. If I was I'd have asked you directly. Besides that you have totally missed the point.

[BlackSkimmer]

23. This.

I somehow doubt the OP is qualified to make these assertions.

The recent Copenhagen shooting was perpetrated by someone with known mental illness. He had gone off his meds.

[Hortensis]

34. Yes.

That there can also be physical causes, including genetic, for mental disorders has been established. And I question that mental traumas would always be caused by others, never developed through or contributed to by one's own traits.

Seemingly, any link between radicalization, extremism, terrorism and mental illness has so far been very inadequately studied. Results of often poorly done studies reportedly range from minor correlation to strong. Political factors may also have suppressed needed research into this, which manifests both far more frequently and far more violently on the right than the left.

Fwiw, the 3 mental disorders claimed are not the same 3 claimed in an earlier post; at least one is not.

[Botany]

9. The man is mentally ill.

This mentally ill mother fucker did not even do the right thing in the end which would have been to kill himself.
Edit .... I am not blaming the mental illness as much as I am blaming our system that lets people like
this buy assault weapons.



I bet ya he bought the assault rifle legally too. What part of "a well regulated militia" was he in?

Fuck the NRA!

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/police-robert-crimo-iii-is-person-of-interest-in-highland-park-july-4th-mass-shooting/

[AZLD4Candidate]

11. Which mental illness do you suggest he has? Being an incel asshole is not a mental illness

[regnaD kciN]

16. From looking at that "Awake" video...

…while it was still up, it sure looks like he was schizophrenic to me. This wasn’t just a matter of someone being pissed-off at his circumstances, this is someone who was completely under the control of something else, even if he didn’t want to be.

[Lil Liberal Laura]

15. Bullshit

The mentally-ill who do commit crimes would do so at a much lower level if this country actually gave a fuck about the mentally-ill. We just write them off because some (not all!) of them are incapable of holding a job, therefore they are not Good Little Capitalists!

[TomWilm]

18. 👍

According to the the Danish courts, about a quarter of the Danish murders are done by mentally ill people. And comparing the intentional homicide rate of victims per 100,000 inhabitants, there are relatively six times as many murders in the United States.

[AZLD4Candidate]

24. What does that have to do with anything I said?

[Aussie105]

17. I don't really care to psychoanalyze why some do the random shooting bit.

It's a waste of time.

Just take guns out of the hands of those who can't be trusted - that's civilians and a large part of the police force.

But . . . if you say, 'It is the way we do things here in America, guns are part of our national identity' then you need to get used to it.
Maybe wear a bullet proof vest when you go out, and check your life insurance?

[raccoon]

20. And make sure you have a will. Nt

[Model35mech]

21. Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to know who can't be trusted.

If only we could preemptively ID them.

Surprisingly, only a little over one-third of gun homicides are ever solved. So we don't know -anything- about the trustworthiness of the 2/3s who are never identified and whose backgrounds cannot therefore be known.

Our understanding of the backgrounds of the 1/3 who are known are frequently biased reporting of relatives and acquaintances of the mass-murderer who post-hoc are motivated to dissociate themselves from the murderer and report what they think investigators want... weirdnesses in the murderer's life.

What problems in a person's life turn a person to resolving them with gun violence? They may actually be the same problems that don't cause other people to turn to gun violence.

If only we could know what we can't know ahead of time... we might take guns out of more untrustworthy hands. But most of us don't see the world through a mass-murderer's eyes or have a mass-murderer's perception. Most of us don't really see a gun as a tool in solving the problems we have with society.

BTW, wearing a bullet proof vest in public places is treated as threat indicator to security/law enforcement.

[RobinA]

31. If You Don't

figure out why somebody does the random shooting bit, you will never be able to deal with the problem. Nobody says, "Oh look, here's this gun sitting around. I'll go out and shoot up a shopping mall."

[Emile]

19. Mental illness caused by playing video games.

They blame everything but the gun.

[hlthe2b]

22. Equating HATE to mental illness/deficiency has become reflex. If that were true, were all the NAZI

leadership mentally ill? Of course not.

Our society is all too ready to dismiss that which we cannot relate to or understand, which is so horrible that we cannot process as "mental illness."

Because we refuse to see the truth. Hatred, guns, and violence are intricately linked. This is domestic terrorism, something for which we don't even have an official designation nor Federal law defining.

[AZLD4Candidate]

25. The thing is Hate is not a mental illness.

[hlthe2b]

26. As I said...

[markie]

27. heavy stuff

thanks for sharing...

[mopinko]

28. i mostly agree, but freud is dead and ought to finally be buried. it's not all mom's fault.

it's chemical, it's genetic, and it's not the level of trauma that matters, it's the level of resilience.
no child grows up w/o bad shit happening. some are scarred, and some are fine.

what we know about mi at this point is still the dark ages. it's barely above pseudoscience.
freud still holds center stage w most shrinks. freud was the FIRST step to understanding the human mind, and despite so much of his shit being debunked, proven to be sexist bull, we're still using his twisted lens. try to find a jungian therapist. if you arent in a big city, you wont. any other school. you wont.
until there is a definitive blood test or brain imaging that define mental healthiness, it might as well be a daily horoscope.

[nolabear]

33. You'd be surprised where psychoanalysis is going.

These days Freud is mostly seen as an historical figure who was onto something with his concentration on the effects of early experiences, but he was a white, European, well off male of his time, and while he invented the wheel, most of us drive complicated vehicles (to beat a dead metaphor). There are many other schools of thought and treatment, as I think you might know since you advocate Jung. Diversity is still a difficult issue but a great deal of work is being done in trying to address it. It’s very hard, given how we tend to be privileged, taught only what others who were/are privileged write and study, and only in the last few years are wider points of view and case studies available. There’s also much attention paid to biochemistry and working as a team to address all the issues at once.

So take heart. While there’s still acknowledgment of the old boy, Freud is not high on the analytic educational landscape these days.

[mopinko]

35. it's been a while since i was on the couch, but

i can assure you it never did me a damn bit of good.
last therapist was a staunch feminist, but still a freudian. ugh.

[nolabear]

38. I hear you. I don't think I'd have benefitted from that either.

I know (mostly knew—they’re dying out) some old Freudians and liked them as people, mostly because they were sort of characters and they didn’t mind me being a Freudian sceptic. Tbh I have liked a lot of Jungians too and as a writer have gotten great joy out of his insights but I don’t think I’d have taken to a Jungian analysis either. I’m eclectic in approach but have found relational and self psychology to be really helpful.

[mopinko]

39. the one thing i found useful-

my shrink sent me to a 6 week mindfulness class. i picked up a very useful concept- we all see the world through a unique lens.
if only shrinks saw themselves as opticians, correcting our lenses. that would be useful. but i've only ever seen them validate distorted views.
i know someone who had a shrink who actually did that. but from what he tells me, dude had mad skills.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

29. Your illuminating commentary will disturb Moscow Mitch.

Thank you. I wish you peace and am glad you shared.

[Novara]

30. IT'S THE GUNS

Do you think he would have stood on top of a building raining bullets down on crowds of families if he couldn't get his hands on that weapon?

There is a good chunk of the population that is walking around with mental illness but they don't murder people. There are a lot of shooters who murder people and who aren't mentally ill.

The common denominator in all of these mass murders is THE GUN.

Maybe the truly crazy might take a machete and start hacking away in crowds, but that isn't these shooters. These shooters are acting out their anger and frustration with the world by killing because they can easily get their hands on guns. That isn't necessarily mental illness, although most people think someone "has to be crazy" to do such a thing. It's having an easy tool. People in other countries have anger just like we do. They don't have mass murders like we do. They have mental illness like we do. They don't have mass murders like we do.

Have you ever done something stupid in anger? Like throw something against a wall? Kick furniture? Scream at someone who didn't deserve it? You acted out in anger. But you have a filter that kept you from murdering in your anger and rage. And maybe you didn't have an AR15 lying around. Not knowing how to exercise a filter isn't necessarily mental illness.

But the bottom line is the GUNS. No matter what these motherfuckers were angry about, they got their hands on guns and used them to work out their anger. That's a big difference between us and them. That's a big difference between our country and others.

[nolabear]

32. With respect, this leaves out a great deal and generalizes far too much.

Many of the disorders you cite have a strong biochemical component, and diagnoses of any mental illness (a horrid, catch-all term that I agree does no good and much harm) are complex and multifaceted. And there are often comorbidities that make diagnoses and treatment difficult and, sadly, often experimental. I expect, as a person who deals with the issues you mention, you well know the frustrations of that.

Your point is important but I’d caution about being absolute regarding any disorders. I say this as a retired mental health professional who has great respect for the resilience people show in trying to get better. I agree that what many see as substance abuse is very often a desperate attempt to self medicate, as are the actions of many who suffer.

Hang in there. I know it can be exhausting.

[Sympthsical]

36. The police were contacted about a suicide attempt in 2019

They were called another time when he was apparently having an episode and removed weapons from the home.

Just watching his videos, I was struck by the potential mental illness going on with him as far back as five, six, seven years ago.

His problems were known. Just not enough was done.

I know people want a straight up Proud Boys scenario so they can get their internet slap fight on, but it appears this was a young man struggling with some form of mental illness or distress for many years.

After watching his videos, I posted elsewhere here that I did not think this was some clear cut ideological thing. The more evidence comes out, the more confident I am in that initial read of things.

But if people want to say, "He's MAGA! It's all MAGA!" nothing's stopping them. I mean, look around.

[Groundhawg]

37. We are all tired of the reasons mass shootings happen.

But mental issues absolutely plays a part.