<p>^^Interestingly, Gavin saw him before he went back to Santa Barbara when he had his broken leg and urged him not to go back, but per his manifesto he was already determined to kill people ‘if he couldn’t have them’ so wasn’t buying. I’m certain that wasn’t the reason he told Gavin.</p>
<p>Its apparent they tried a lot of things to help their son.</p>
<p>There is a mysogonist (sp?) thread in parent cafe about this incident that has a different perspective–male privilege and societal perspective. </p>
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<p>I think that’s an unfortunate way to express what you’re saying. He should not have accepted “blame” or “personal responsibility” for having a mental disorder. He just needed to accept that he had one, even though he didn’t deserve to have one, and he needed to work on issues that other people don’t have to work on. He apparently was unwilling to accept that he was not neurotypical.</p>
<p>It’s not uncommon. Lots of young Aspies say, “There’s nothing wrong with me. Why do I have to change? Why doesn’t the world accept me just the way I am? I’m fine, the world is wrong.” </p>
<p>IMO, BunsenBurner had it right on the other thread:</p>
<p>“We are talking about two issues here: mental illness that makes a person think that killing is an acceptable form of dealing with perceived “mistreatment”, and the issue of misogyny that steered said person towards thinking that not “having sex with hot girls” was somehow something every guy was entitled to and therefore had been badly mistreated.”</p>
<p>This thread has been discussing the mental illness part, and the other thread has been discussing the misogyny part.</p>
<p>CF
Externalzation of blame refers to someone not accepting ownership of some things that may be within their capacity, or shared capacity to change. He blames the world for his perceived injustices. We are not talking about the underlying psychopathology.
<a href=“http://treatmentandrecoverysystems.com/library/defense-externalization/As”>http://treatmentandrecoverysystems.com/library/defense-externalization/As</a> the old addage says, the first step to fixing a problem is recognizing that you have one.
Again, it has not been established that he was diagnosed with AS, so that analogy has limited utility. </p>
<p>Here is an interesting abstract about externalization of blame in confined delinquents <a href=“Not my fault: blame externalization is the psychopathic feature most associated with pathological delinquency among confined delinquents - PubMed”>Not my fault: blame externalization is the psychopathic feature most associated with pathological delinquency among confined delinquents - PubMed;
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<p>We really don’t know if his parents “didn’t do anything between the police visit and the massacre.” I realize you did say “IF.” I would think if they were as worried as they were to call police after the original videos, they were keeping some tabs on him through contact of some sort. But we really do not know. However, his father said he spoke to ER, for example, the day before the massacre and they had plans for ER to get together with the family the day after the massacre.</p>
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<p>I’ve seen that, and certainly some of the people cheerleading after this event are obnoxious and show a dark belly of society. However, in this case, I think ER would have accepted any theory of why he wasn’t getting what he deserved that made it someone else’s fault. @Cardinal Fang did you read the manifesto? Honestly, I think the Aspie side of it may have compounded his social problems, but his idea that women only exist to give him sex etc and should be punished if they don’t isn’t anything I’ve ever run into with people I know with Aspies. I understand you have a much greater knowledge of this, but I’ve known a few people on the spectrum, one being a lacrosse team casual friend of my son’s (he didn’t talk much but had a real sense of humor and my son can talk enough for any two people, easily.) Another, much deeper into the spectrum (if that is how you put it - autism not Aspergers) who couldn’t function normally in society and had state social workers take him out for outings to give the family a break, and who we had to break up cub scout meetings for (long ago) before he got back, because if he saw a bunch of kids socializing (he was considerably older) he might get very angry and start breaking furniture etc. We didn’t meet there often, but his parents didn’t think hiding from him that his brother had a social life entirely was the best thing to do either. Both acted out of frustration, neither would create a world construct with them at the center and a duty towards them from all the rest of society, imho. I’m not an expert but when I speak of that part of ER I don’t think I am speaking of the traits that may have been there due to Aspergers, although the frustration definitely seemed to contribute.</p>
<p>His fringy Hollywood upbringing is a factor in this warped thinking, although the mentally unstable part is clearly the notable factor. Jealousy consumed him. In other words, his choices were to win the lottery and get a hot blond or go on killing spree. He knew he had problems, just the wrong ones. An ordinary, fine life was not enough.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/27/justice/california-elliot-rodger-wealth/index.html”>Elliot Rodger's family struggled with money, court documents show - CNN;
<p>I tend to agree with what some other posters said above. Maybe his upbringing was a part of his exposure to what opportunities he saw other have, but its quite possible that his disorganized thinking and focus of his rage cold have happened if he grew up poor.</p>
<p>The Perfect Storm</p>
<p>Actually, he had the benefit of many attempts at treatment and support services because of his family’s financial situation. There are unfortunately many many people with mental illness that are not so fortunate. Many wrongly end up in the legal /penal system.</p>
<p>People are blaming the legal penal system for not hauling him in soon enough. We can’t have it both ways. Who decides? He was an adult so it’s not exactly his parents.</p>
<p>@Cardinal Fang - sorry, I didn’t see your post at 10:34 before I started writing my later post. I do think something else was going on. I know he bought into that idea, but I felt more like it was available and fit his victim mindset he already had – his self interest is just bizarre throughout, not just dealing with sex He twice mentioned his anger that his mother wouldn’t marry a rich man even if she didn’t want to and put her own feelings aside because it would be so much better for him to be rich and he didn’t understand why she didn’t see that. Things like that.</p>
<p>If you are referring to my comment above, actingmt, I was referring to people incarcerated in the prison system who really have mental health issues. That is very different from the lack of intervention in this case. IMO the cops should have asked to go into the apartment, especially in light of the reason they were called.</p>
<p>I think at the very least a weapons check makes sense when suicide is threatened. His guns were registered. The police and the killer both knew they couldn’t enter without a warrant. Maybe, they should get a warrant before going on these calls. But, they are responding to emergencies situations so they can’t. Maybe, they should deal with the imminent threat and a mental health professional should follow-up on every case. But, there’s no funding for that and these situations are extremely rare in relation to the number of mental health calls every day in every municipality. And, if he was seeing MH professionals they obviously missed something, too. Why do we think they would spot it that day? Maybe, the worried parents are the only ones left to make sure there is appropriate follow up. But the unwilling kid is 22 so their hands are pretty much tied. No-one knew he was a psychotic killer until just before the rampage. Cops were called for a routine welfare check because of a worried mom. They determined he was okay and had him call home. Anyway, the killing spree was not until the next month.</p>
<p>He said if they entered his room it would been over. I wonder what was in there, because a couple of guns in a drawer and some stuff on a computer wouldn’t immediately be notable, either. </p>
<p>I think we mostly agree here, collegevetting. He had real problems, and rather than admitting that he had them, facing up to them and trying to do the best he could, he adopted a victim attitude. And the horrible misogyny of the men who think women are just objects to collect was available to him-- he was able, online, to find other people who ascribed to that view and who ended up fueling his rage.</p>
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<p>Ok, it is just unfathomable to me, however, that parents who were so concerned that their child might take his own life that they called the police, wouldn’t go up there immediately, remove him from his surroundings, talk to his roommates, … do anything to change the status quo. Calling on the phone and planning a family get together sounds like it was probably the status quo.</p>
<p>Maybe its just me (but I doubt it), I’d do everything I possibly could think of to stop my child from killing himself if I thought that might happen.</p>
<p>Perhaps they thought that if they went there, that would set him off.
Which if they had a contentious relationship, might have done.</p>
<p>Bay, I think they’d been concerned that he would take his own life for years. And they’d been changing things around, for years. They thought he sounded bad, but then the police reported back that he was OK. </p>