<p>The discussion was about the kind of mentally ill that would require care or constant supervision. He was uncommunicative but functioned normally. They had no real reason to think he wouldn’t be okay at school. It’s scary. </p>
<p>They didn’t know their own son. I mean, their spokesman is now calling him a “monster”.</p>
<p>There needs to be much more strict gun control in California. There needs to be many more background and psychological tests from time to time in my opinion. Congressmen are sitting on their butt getting filthy rich and aren’t acting upon this matter. Theater shooting, sandy hook, and now this. What’s next?</p>
<p>Ted Kazinski’s brother, Dylan Klebold’s mother, Adam Lanza’s father…when you read interviews with any of these people, it becomes clear that it’s hard to view the people we love in a completely dispassionate and rationale light. I know, for me, when I look at my children, I don’t necessarily see only who they are today. There’s always that ghost of the baby and child that they were before that shades my impressions. I’m sure ER’s parents are the same. They saw the lonely teenager and the little boy who loved “Land Before Time” behind the arrogant and hateful facade that forms the total impression for the rest of us. I can’t imagine what it must be like to label your own son a “monster.” </p>
<p>Good point, EllieMom. We just see the recent events and the information that makes the news. The fact that he may have been the cutest kid in the preschool dance recital would be part of the family’s view and memories, but not the general populus.</p>
<p>The linked article where grandma says he was very disturbed also says that he lived in a luxury home and mingled with A list stars - both of which are stretches. </p>
<p>Yeah, you know reporters have to fill a lot space, and speculation and rumors fill space. I think more truth will come out in the coming months about the shooter and his family and what they did or didn’t do. My heart goes out to everyone involved. A tragedy for everyone. </p>
<p>We had an experience with our foster son’s brother (he was not in our custody) many years ago that could have ended similarly. In the end, he was the only one who lost his life in the incident - but it could have been much, much worse. And, yes, there was a lot of soul searching and second guessing. But everyone - us, his foster parents, the foster system, mental health professionals, the legal system, law enforcement, did the best we could with the information we had. Nothing could have been predicted. </p>
<p>I havent read this whole thread, so this may have been mentioned. I would encourage everyone to read his manifesto, it is really eye opening. The sad thing is, he was very talented. His manifesto almost reads like a movie script. If he had used his talent, he wouldve probably had the life he so truly desired.</p>
<p>@Krilies @Flossy I think they knew he was seriously disturbed but they thought it was in the ‘no social skills acute social anxiety isolation’ sense not in the ‘attack’ sense. However, his father saying ER never showed anger doesn’t 100% line up with the ‘many many shouting phone calls’, the more recent ones, while he was drunk, that he had with his father according to his old roommate who moved out at the end of last year. I am assuming that the yelling still manifested as frustration, not aggression. I did note his temper tantrums seemed to run more to tears than to attacks, but I also note the laptop he destroyed in a fit of anger and do wonder if that was the only time it happened. However, attacking objects in frustration is still a fair remove from attacking roommates with a hammer and machetes. I mean, who has machetes?</p>
<p>I will say that I think whatever diagnosis he should have had, a big issue for him was his inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. When I think about it, the movies actually DO show people walking and having hot blondes hit on them, and Alpha Male, the movie he mentions where the teen is taken to parties in Isla Vista (and gets seduced) before being killed as revenge on his father, might well have been precisely that sort of fantasy. </p>
<p>Yesterday I read an article about that PUAHate site he went to, and someone observed a ‘displaced PUAHater chat board’ they have set up before they find another fetid swamp to inhabit, now that the site is off line. Apparently ‘Alpha Male’ is a buzz word, not just in the dog training sense (where I’m more familiar with it) but in the ‘incel’ world. (That stands for ‘involuntary celibacy’ apparently, to those who think that is a status inflicted on people by a warped society stemming from women being able to choose their own mates so they all choose the same few – who knew these words even existed?) Anyhow, the handful of males at the ‘top’ of the dating food chain are referred to as Alpha Males. I wonder if that movie had that theme at all? And certainly ER thought there was a ‘recipe’ to being one, the sunglasses, the car, the clothes… But unlike people who are not mentally ill, he didn’t see it as a fantasy, but as an instruction book, apparently.</p>
<p>Right, and “never showed anger” applies to practically no-one, so yeah. Pulling out incidents here and there and trying to understand just doesn’t work. No-one saw him as evil. Most mentally ill people are not fundamentally evil and exactly how that happens I don’t think anyone knows, yet. Plus, he was very good at actively hiding it. Come to think of it, some perfectly sane people are evil too. So, maybe that’s the bigger issue than the therapy or drugs.</p>
<p>Here’s more detail from the police </p>
<p><a href=“Deputies Knew of but Didn't Watch UCSB Killer's Earlier Videos”>http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/deputies-knew-didnt-watch-ucsb-killers-earlier-videos-n118166</a></p>
<p>We all do our best at the time. Each one of us brings a different view of events based on our past experiences that is impossible for others to truly comprehend. So we do our best with what we have. </p>
<p>We don’t know what tone people used when they spoke, what they actually said and how it was heard. Everyone just used their best judgement and moved forward. His parents just moved forward one step at a time and made their decisions. The best they could do. The therapists did what they thought was right at the time. As did the police.</p>
<p>I don’t believe we can Monday morning quarterback this to lay blame. Of course we want to lay blame because it gives us the impression this could have been stopped and we had some sort of control over the horrific ending.</p>
<p>I am thankful the girls didn’t open the door for this guy at the sorority house. I am thankful he just didnt drive up and down these streets running over everyone in his path. I am thankful he took his own life instead of continuing to take other peoples lives. This was horrible. This could have been much much worse.</p>
<p>Will this happen again. Yes. We just do not have the ability to predict when people will actually lose it. </p>
<p>Until we (parents, professionals) are able to responsibly pierce the veil of privacy surrounding the mental health history of individuals…this will happen again…and we will again say…‘there were signs…’.</p>
<p>I watched the interview with his former roommate, and was very impressed with that well-spoken and thoughtful young man.</p>
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<p>However, from what I’ve gathered from talking with acquaintances who work as mental health professionals about his manifesto and rants, the fact he had those markers greatly fed into, reinforced, and exacerbated what they suspect is a serious personality disorder. </p>
<p>Far more than what you’d find from someone living in a seemingly non-hierarchical environment like a hippie commune. </p>
<p>So, it doesn’t really take a mental health professional to deduce in retrospect that he had a serious personality disorder. However, at the time whoever he was seeing seems to have missed it. </p>
<p>Of course, I know it’s not that easy. But, it is frustrating to hear all of these so-called experts on television explaining that they don’t know anything about this issue. A rant. My apologies.</p>
<p>Hmmm . . . most hippie communes that I’ve heard of are STILL patriarchal. It just means that the alpha having sex with all the women is even that much more culturally sanctioned. Patchouli oil vs Armani doesn’t factor in at all. </p>
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<p>Two word rebuttal: Helter Skelter. </p>
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<p>From the discussion with the MH professionals and looking up the personality disorders they suspected he had based on his unguarded writings and video rants, folks with the ones they suspect are so good at putting up a charming and well-adjusted front that they could even fool unwary MH professionals. If that’s the case, what more could the parents have done…especially considering there’s plenty of evidence the murderer lied to his parents and others convincingly. </p>
<p>One example is his telling his parents he was bullied in the incident which he instigated when he tried pushing happily socializing couples off a roof and ended up getting pushed off in the process. This is clearly shown when his parents’ lawyer continued to maintain that story in the earlier filings and subsequent documentation which contradict the murderer’s and the parents’ earlier legal filings on that incident. </p>
<p>Moreover, because of the nature of those disorders, the MH professionals I talked with said they’re unlikely to see patients afflicted with such disorders unless they’ve committed a serious crime or otherwise were reported by others as definitively posing a harm to others or themselves. </p>
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<p>I’m referring to a genuine hippie commune, not a situation where one charismatic individual with apocalyptic and messianic delusions gathers willing followers and have them follow in those delusions. </p>
<p>Equating Helter Skelter with the hippie communes is similar to how some falsely try to associate hippie communes with Jonestown preacher and the associated forced mass suicide. </p>
<p>However, while there may be some peripheral associations with the hippie counterculture, both are examples of extremely hierarchical groups controlled by a charismatic leader and contrary to the prevailing norms of the hippie communes I know of and 60’s era hippies I’ve known. </p>
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<p>If there is a personality disorder whose defining feature is that the person can put up a charming and well-adjusted front, then ER didn’t have it. His parents didn’t think he was charming and well-adjusted. His roommates didn’t think he was charming and well-adjusted. The psychiatrist “Dr. Sophy” who prescribed Risperdal didn’t think he was charming and well-adjusted. Everyone thought he was socially maladjusted and unhappy. Nobody thought he’d be a mass murderer (because who thinks that, seriously, of someone they know who doesn’t go around waving axes) but a lot of people thought he was a suicide risk.</p>
<p>Dr. Sophy? Oh no. He “dated” former abused Beverly Hills Real Housewife Taylor Armstrong after her husband strangled himself and has been involved in a bunch of celebrity dysfunction including the Michael Jackson case and was also famously treating Charlie Sheen during his episode of strangeness a few years ago. Ugh. Hollywood. </p>
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<p>What you’re not getting is that there is no utopia for the mentally insane. Caring families are recast as oppressors. Kindly gestures are viewed through twisted eyes as evil deeds. Neighborhood dogs tell you to shoot girls with long brown hair. Little children need to be drowned in the bathtub to save their souls. </p>
<p>The delusions may be shaped by the environment, but the person’s illness is the ultimate source. Mental illness cannot be cured by kindness and love and modeling good behavior. I wish it could. </p>