Schizophrenics or psychopaths(Vt killer)

[undergroundpanther]

Ok In the 80's I spent some time in a forensic halfway house.I was there to escape my abusive home they had an opening and I jumped.

There were a few residents besides me there who had no criminal background.

The rest of the residents did and it wasn't petty theft or drug dealing.

One guy in a paranoid relapse sniped out people from his bedroom window including an fbi guy.
This guy was TERRIFIED of a relapse.He felt such guilt and shame over the 12+ people he killed it shattered him twice. The guy was not a monster he was sick, but after he regained his mind and realized what he did he felt like a monster every day.


Another guy started a fire that killed a bunch of people.
He wasn't a jerk but he too was scared of relapse.He helped me get my GED, he tutored me past some of the math anxiety that had been a barrier for me for years.. and I still have a solar powered calculator he gave me for passing the test.


Another guy was a really kind guy,he was artistic and we had alot in common he had beautiful eyes. I asked him out and he ran away crying.. I had no clue what that was about... so after about a half hour I began to get concerned. I told staff I was concerned and I went to his room and knocked on his door.He opened it. I asked if he was Ok I asked if I said something wrong, I told him I was sorry. He began to talk I listened. He told me he was scared to get close to anyone..I asked why..he said because he was a rapist. He was unable to look at me as he told me this.He just was sobbing as he sat there crumpled shaking and he said he would rather kill himself than risk ever doing that again. My heart went out to him. I asked if he was sick when he did his crime..he said yes he was.I said I don't hate you obviously you know what you did was bad,and you know it is caused because of your illness,I don't think all of what you are is an illness. but I don't want to make things worse for you either. If you want we can just stay friends. He seemed relieved. He said he wishes he never did it. I said I wish he never did that too. But I told him I don't hate him for it because It's obvious to me he knew it was wrong once he got help and got he mind back and knowing what he did was bad and to not want to ever do it again is what matters to me the most.

So we remained friends until he was discharged.I still got a few of his sketches of the cat I adored that lived at the halfway house.

And there was the last guy he was different. He felt no pain upon remembering what he did.He was a racist asshole too.He intimidated the other residents sometimes. I hit him upside the head with a big metal serving spoon when he tried to grope me in the kitchen. When he cornered one resident I kicked him in the nuts and stomped his head and grabbed the resident and ran to the office. The asshole was forced out of the forensic mental health program and sent to jail for he was not mentally ill he was a psychopath.
He was totally different then the other residents.


So when I think of the VT killer his problem could have been a mental illness tormenting him or he was a psychopath who killed because he loved seeing suffering like a drug,and killed himself rather than be caught.

Sad thing is we may never know why the VT killer did what he did.. Profilers will guess and assume all sorts of things as they go over everything with a fine tooth comb. People will make up their minds.

I myself hate what the guy did killing all those people.
But as for the killer I cannot hate him personally as if he was a psychopath, because with him dead I cannot know what was in his mind and heart if it was tremendous pain or a perverted pleasure driving him to kill.So I draw a blank on him as a person because I do not know.I still HATE what he did.


Here is where the issue gets personal.
I know there were times in school when I was relentlessly bullied where I acted out violently out of sheer stress and abuse that went on over months,and years.I would be cornered by a gang of assholes everyday for a month and when I couldn't take it I'd explode and attack them biting their faces or whatever until the school sent people to break us up.Than the principal would threaten me with corporal punishment, suspension whatever..I was so messed up one time I turned and smashed the office window and cut myself with it. I became insane by the second year of middle school after all the shit the bullies dished at me year after year and after my cat was murdered. It was too much. I took it out on myself,most of the time I'd slice my arms and write things in blood on the bathroom walls..I drew some really bizarre shit in art class. I knew people knew I was unhinged. They'd giggle and dash to the other side of the hallway to avoid me like it was some big fun to poke fun at the loon.

But the bullying did not stop, the psychopaths of my school took delight in tormenting the tormented and those with the authority to stop it did not care to involve themselves in it unless it looked like the school might get reamed by pissed off parents. The teachers always looked the other way. I could not fathom the rationale for their indifference. I blamed it on myself that I was the predetermined shit can or something, that the universe hated me.

Eventually I felt so abandoned by everyone I thought seriously of blowing up the school. Why? Because I felt trapped there .I felt like I was there just to be hated,spat upon, hit, humiliated. I felt like I had a big invisible target on me only bullies could read that made all the teachers not care if I was dead.

If I ran away I would be truant,and breaking the law if I ran home I'd get my ass kicked for being truant.No way out. I was trapped. Suicides before had failed. The teachers and school counselor did nothing to help me except weekly talks they did not stop the abuse or get me out of my horrid home... and in January the woods was not a hospitable place to hide or live no matter how many layers you piled on... Eventually I was so overwhelmed I went so far as to make a few firebombs,bring them to school.

As I sat at my table intending to blow up the cafeteria,lighter ready to go.. but than I realized when one of them laughed the only 3 people who were kind to me a few times were in there too. They did not deserve to die like that. So I walked out,took those bottles and smashed them on rocks in the woods behind the school .

Scary thing was nobody knew what I was thinking of doing.I would have gladly spilled my heart if there was one person I could trust who would listen and help me.Because nobody dared to care about me enough to get involved and know the hell my life was nobody knew.No one wanted to LISTEN let alone help and take this situation I was in seriously. My screams and tears were all suppressed.

A school massacre similar to the horrific things happening recently could have happened in 1978.. and after that year was my first year of high school .That year I begged my mom to take me to a shrink when I freaked out seeing a cat that was hit in the school intersection...And in the psych ward where I was for 6 months I made my first friends who treated me as a human being.But upon discharge I was forced to go back into my abusive home.I lost it again.But I was not forced back to school.That I think was the wisest move the oblivious school board ever made.

When I saw Columbine happen I saw myself in Kliebold and Harris.I cried for all the victims,all of them including Harris and Kliebold.Soon after the hysterics wore off an awareness of bullying and the terrible toll it has began to be taken seriously. Why does it take a tragedy to get people to PAY ATTENTION to the least and wounded among us? WHY?

So you never know who might be a massacre waiting to happen And you will make sure you never know if you never bother to care, listen or get involved with the life of that weird quiet kid that makes you uneasy who seems like they want to just disappear. It is not easy to hear the pain that resides in a tormented heart. It is easier to pretend it's all ok. Blow it off say sick truisms like"boys will be boys" or he was just trying to be funny" We as a culture have got to realize the way we treat each other it is NOT ok. School shootings, Imus being fired for sexist racist slurs..it is NOT OK to treat some of each other this way..
And if we as individuals do not step up and care who will do ANYTHING to change this abusive culture and realize social situation as normal is not normal at all, in fact the way we treat each other especially the socially wounded and different, the unpopular, is very very sick in this country?

[JuniperLea]

1. Thanks for this, undergroundpanther

We've had these discussions before. You've done well educating the DU masses; sometimes only the anecdotal stories can bring the human element into focus.

My first thought is always the same... and I thought it yesterday...

That poor kid.

[AZBlue]

2. Wow.

Thank you for sharing this.

And if we as individuals do not step up and care who will do ANYTHING to change this abusive culture and realize social situation as normal is not normal at all, in fact the way we treat each other especially the socially wounded and different, the unpopular, is very very sick in this country?

Nothing more that can be said really.

[ms liberty]

3. Thank you for sharing this...

It is so courageous of you to open up about something that was obviously a traumatic and disturbing time in your life. It sounds like you came out of it with an insightful, caring personality. Your perspective on this is valuable and informative, and I think you've given us all something to think about. I agree with what you said here.

This is a far more useful conversation to have about this tragedy - this is the discussion we SHOULD be having, but aren't. Giving you a K&R. Thanks.

[blm]

4. I have a schizophrenic sister - I hear you.

Religion is a trigger point for her the last ten years.

[undergroundpanther]

13. Religion is a trigger for me too

because of what happened before with me too.I am drawn to it and repelled by it.At the same time.I wish it would just go away.People would shut up about it quit trying to convert,leave people alone shut up shake the dust off thier feet like adults,keep it to themselves go pray in a closet..like thier jesus said to, and people like rev.phelps would just die.

[Gman]

5. Very few people have your insight

To me it's obvious that when this thing happens it is done by someone not rational. No rational person gets up one morning and says, "I think I'll go kill 30 people today." That's crazy. If you read this guy's skit, he was very troubled and had am extremely great deal of pent up anger. Anger and any other negative energy will burst out at some point and that's what happened at VT.

Thank you for sharing your insight and giving us a first person account of what goes on in someone's mind. Without your insight we can attempt to imagine what went on in this young man's mind. With your insight we get to see a first person account of the pain and anger that must come out somehow. Thank you.

[UndertheOcean]

6. Thanks for sharing..

Its very brave of you to do so , and obviously you are a very delicate and caring person..

[Madspirit]

7. The mentally ill

I've lived with schizophrenics. They, along with the majority of mentally ill, are more likely to be victims of crime than to perpetrate crimes. I spent two years in a state mental institution. The only violence we saw was that against US.
Lee

[hang a left]

11. My grandma is a paranoid schizophrenic

she wouldn't harm a soul but is very tortured. However, when I was younger, my sister was really into true-crime books. I have picked up more than a couple of her books about schizophrenic serial child murderers. So to say that they never commit acts of violence is not true. However most of them don't.

[undergroundpanther]

14. Agreed

you'd be surprised how many staff at mental hospitals choose that job because of the total POWER they have over the patients lives in the hospital. Only in the psych ward can you be stripped naked,tied down like a rabid beast like some sick S/M scene,and injected with who knows what..against your will.Being declared insane is one way to jail and torture people legally in America. And some psych drugs are torture. Look up the effects of Anectine.It is used as "behavior mod" for the "aversive"reinforcements.Some staff and shrinks ARE psychopaths and most parents that send their kids or loved ones who send family to these places have no clue of the potential abuses staff can get away with especially if the unit head doctor is a psychopath..That is a whole other story.

[knitter4democracy]

24. Read Mount Misery by Sam Shem.

He's a psych, and it's a fictional account of a psych residency (very similar to where he went). You're one-hundred percent right.

[Annces]

8. You make the point that he could be a sadist

I never think of that at first, but of course it could well be true.

[undergroundpanther]

15. It is a possible

He could be sadistic because he likes seeing others suffer or it could be caused by his illness as in a projection issue or morbid jealousy thing.Or if he was schizophrenic sadistic voices he heard could've coerced him.

You will never know why because he is dead and all the people describing what they knew about him are on the outside looking in. They can only guess,and never KNOW what this guy was dealing with inside the confines of his mind and heart...
Remember that.

[hang a left]

9. I was bullied a bit, but more made fun of than anything else in school.

I also had some terrible untrue rumors spread about me that made going to school every single day a horrible dread. It was so hard to be an adolescent. However, I had nothing even close to the abuse you received at school. I had it tough at home as well.

I turned my anger on myself and used drugs. Then then heavier drugs that lead to even more self-destructive behavior.

undergroundpanther, I just want to thank you so much for your post. I don't most people understand that child abuse in the home and in our communities wrecks lives. And for the people that may have a chemical imbalance can drive them over the edge.

[zippy890]

10. thanks for writing this

shedding light on aspects of our society most people want to ignore.

[Gregorian]

12. Understanding is the highest level of being.

That is how I feel about this. Your experiences were not wasted. I was so small that no one dared pick on me. I was lucky in that sense. But like you, I saw the underbelly. I felt what the unfortunate feel. There are other reasons why things happen. Just because we can't always see them doesn't mean they don't exist.

I'm not fully able to find the words. But you touch on something that is very important in many ways. I would hope that it is not lost on this society. I would hope for more understanding.

I have always said that we are fragile. It's the thing that we want to see the least. But is perhaps the most important. That weak link. Don't look at it. But it is the thing that must have attention paid to it. It is where things fall apart.

It's time for a reevaluation of how we operate. There is an array of people and how they work. Let's not ignore. Let's not belittle. But let's understand. Even if we don't understand. If we try, we at least make an attempt.

It's a massive thing that you have done, to not judge and convict Mr. Cho. The easy way is to follow the emotions and be an animal. It's the first step in being logical and humane. A step toward true understanding. I would even say loving.

[undergroundpanther]

16. I can't convict Cho

Because he is dead.He has no way to tell why he did what he did.

If he was alive..

And I saw him in court sneering and poking at the victims wounds and cutting up like it's funny, and bragging or acting like it was all a game and he can do no wrong. I would see for myself he was a psychopath piece of shit and I'd be wanting him to be put to death or at least locked up until he dies.The only way we would be safe in that instance is only if he was in jail or a grave that is,if he was a psychopath.

If he was in court talking about strange delusions, or voices or something like that I'd feel sad for him hoping he got help and was not trusted with freedom until he was really ready for it.It would be tragic and he might in ten years be like the guys in my OP at the forensic halfway house.

If he was depressed and traumatized and confused by the pain of abuse,secrets and shame over years, my heart would cry for him because it is so close to my heart's story. I know what it feels like, even though I did not do it..And not only would I want him to get some real help but also to be safe. For once safe from the people who do not care about him.Safe and cared for like he matters as I hope his victims would be cared about.Because trauma is like that it wounds everything it touches if what it touches is capable of caring and feeling.And to be wounded means you can care and feel alot that is why trauma hurts sensitive people so much.

[Gregorian]

17. Thanks.

What I want to say is I wish our judicial system had the kind of rational thinking you exhibit. I've always felt that there were excusable and inexcusable reasons for behavior. Even extreme behavior. I saw a documentary on one of India's highest security prisons. There was a story of a man who had killed a woman. And either her mother or sister had found a way to understand that man who did the killing. They actually became friends. He visited their home for dinner. It was the most healing thing I've ever seen. He and her had overcome the desire to fall victim to retribution, and had come to understand each other.

[AuntPatsy]

18. Im not sure what I feel about your story, but I do applaud your being

so open and honest which more times than naught leaves one vunerable to ridicule, for the first time in my life I am having to face dealing with someone with obvious mental instability and I am not doing a very good job with it. Not as easy as some feel it should be.

[undergroundpanther]

20. thanks but I have more to add here

I have faced the most sadistic ridicule you could imagine for years.
Now I don't care what anyone thinks if their opinion is based in ridicule. I disregard their bullshit and they lose my respect.And they prove to me they are dead inside.I draw a boundary and admit thas person is toxic to me.Thier comments are disregarded.

If I knew how to do this boundary making years ago to shut out abusive people and not take their ridicule as a thing worth my consideration maybe things would have been different, I dunno.

I know however seeing the torment some people go through can be frightening to someone who is fortunate and has never felt such painful stuff.Alien and scary.

But I feel this bad stuff, the trauma, this pain, the hole inside our souls,the mental illness, the way it all feels to be part of a culture of psychopathy , however much or less you have trauma inside yourself is not the point here this is not a victim contest or stoic contest.

Facing reality of what we do and say to each other in the name of security, control,social domination,and obedience,conformity pleasing authority, or avoidance is exactly what our culture needs to stop running away from.

We need to stop all the bullshit so we can begin to reach out and respond, learn to trust ourselves and know each other again as people.


Traumatic issues like child abuse, alcoholism ,drugs,rape,verbal abuse,poverty, violence,social death sentences, bullies, outcasts,social domination,pecking orders,the shit we learn from our parents and this sick culture that hurts us but is invisible and everywhere like air,We must deal with it directly instead of shoving it down the collective unconscious and letting it play out in verbal abuse online,or violent movies or a homicidal guys like cho at VT...

And we must stop this denial of the pain of it all ,stop playing the"normal" game itself, stop believing the lies we tell ourselves to keep the bad feelings away. We must Get past the shallowness, the social crap, the aching isolation,the petty distractions, the bullshit media,and learn to shut out what people (including experts)say,and form our OWN thoughts..We need to get past the pretensions,assumptions bigotries and crap..And empathize with each other's experiences on a much deeper and more honest level than we are,regardless of what we fear others might say or what ridicule we might fear hearing.

Did you read the comments to Cho's strange violent plays? People ridiculed about grammar.These scared little monkeys played self superiority games rather than face what sick things resided in Cho might reside in themselves.They were such puffed up petty people they failed to even ask WHY was cho so messed up failed to even feel anything but an ego trip, failing to introspect as to why they just HAD to say such stupid , insipid thoughtless ridiculing comments about this.
http://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/04/17/cho-seung-huis-plays/

WE need to be courageous hearers and sharers and not let petty ego bullshit get in the way of being a human being...We need to step outside ourselves.Shut down the arrogant defenses.We need to get over our own asshole and face down the fear of being human in an unpredictable dangerous world we cannot control and cannot force to behave in accordance with our fears,wills and wishes..and grow up.

THe results of all of this mess resides inside us all. It needs to be cracked wide open, examined and the secrets said and heard and we need to re learn how to feel each others pain,without fear,and empathize and draw boundaries without blame or shame or games .We need to stop playing master and servant.We need to admit we are not as sane as we want to be,not as clever as we wish,admit we need each other more than we need to buy stuff or believe crap or control everyone else's life and share the really tough burdens of this life and the comforts of it without fearing incurring unwarranted shame from those who have not been scarred who are afraid of being'tainted' by others traumas they are afraid of hearing and taking some responsibility for.We all need to accept the human condition is real and hurts us as it is for ourselves and accept how it is for others and quit turning away and quit ignoring it and making it worse for some so others don't have to be bothered with the gritty details of survival on the bottom of the social food chain..

We all need to stop pretending and help each other grow up together, not as little stunted islands pretending if we just make believe hard enough the threat isn't there.We cannot go on pretending misfortune or trauma will never happen to us..We must admit we are fragile, we also must admit certain members of humanity are not like us they are unable to love and unable to feel shame they are dangerous,and we have to do something to protect ourselves from psychopaths.In a way that works and is effective and does not harm people who are NOT psychopaths..We must learn to value each other even when we do not understand them or relate well and we must stop the control game crap and get honest about what we REALLY fear and ignore the fucking propaganda telling us what we should fear...If we fail to do this kind of emotional maturing as a culture we will NEVER heal from this trauma And history will go on repeating.Psychopaths will go undetected because they look so normal and when we all play normal and fake who we are the psychopaths can blend right in and ruin everything they touch..And when nobody bothers to stick their neck out and stop by-standing it is a sociopaths playground...and if we as a society do not get past this selfish anxiety and fear of the other enough to help each other history will keep hurting us until we finally kill life on this planet.

[AuntPatsy]

23. Very inspirational, I just wish more people would read this...

As I stated, I am not sure how to handle the situation I am now facing, I have never thought I would ever have to understand, perhaps that is the problem facing today's society's unwillingness to really tackle such an issue that far more people are facing in this world than is admitted to.

[knitter4democracy]

25. His plays weren't the most disturbing I've read, but there were themes.

With what was posted there, I wonder if there were abuse going on. He seems to bring up rape and abuse in places where it doesn't make sense with the storyline. If he'd been my student, I would've reported him to his counselor.

As for the writing, not every English major writes well in every form. Maybe he just wasn't into writing plays and instead was more of a poet or essayist or lit. critic. That isn't what bothered me--what bothered me was the repetition of rape and abuse. If he'd been raped but never reported it, it would explain some of what happened.

May he and those he killed rest in peace.

[Joe Chi Minh]

27. A profoundly interesting and emotionally absorbing post, undergroundpanther,

if I may say so. You sound a marvellous human being.

I remember watching a documentary on the TV about a schizophrenic who had long been begging the physician in charge of the mental institution he had been unwillingly released from, not to do so, as he feared he would kill someone - but in vain. In the event, he took a carving knife to a department store and made as if to cut the throat of a woman who serving at a counter there. The thing was though that he ran the knife across her throat the wrong way, i.e. with the blunt edge.

Yet, in spite of all this evidence of the essential goodness of his character, the idiot of a journalist kept referring to him as a psychopath, doubtless intent upon ratcheting up the sense of horror. Whatever the case, it struck me as lazy, stupid and insulting to make such a programme, when he was clearly not apt or indeed sufficiently interested to understand such a basic issue. It didn't seem to have even occurrred to him to him that the person concerned might have deliberately, perhaps with great difficulty, deliberately used the blade of the knife in that way - when he had already begged not to be released into the community for fear of hurting or killing someone.

A person could be a schizophrenic and yet a good person, even much better perhaps than most other people. Or a schizophrenic might presumably be a psychopath as well. The mental disease of schizophrenia is evidently distinct from the condition of pyschopathy (which I don't believe is a disease, but, rather, a preternatural level of total, completely unconscionable evil).

But the insight and empathy you evince in relation to such mass killers as you mentioned, made me feel quite ashamed that I had summarily dismissed them as evil cowards.

I suspect your own life has become a little less painful and more mellow for you over the years. I hope so, and if so, that it continues to improve.

So much unhappiness in our world and so many different kinds of suffering. Yet, however light our own crosses, at any stage of our life, I think most of us tend to believe our own are really heavy - until we read a post like yours. We all seem to have different thresholds of suffering. God bless you, matey.

[blitzen]

19. Apparently there is a link between Schizophrenia and Dry-Cleaning chemicals...Cho's parents own a...

Dry-Cleaning shop....Someone pointed out this study on another site:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=17113267&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum

Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, 10032, USA.

Tetrachloroethylene is a solvent used in dry cleaning with reported neurotoxic effects. Using proportional hazard methods, we examined the relationship between parental occupation as a dry cleaner and risk for schizophrenia in a prospective population-based cohort of 88,829 offspring born in Jerusalem from 1964 through 1976, followed from birth to age 21-33 years. Of 144 offspring whose parents were dry cleaners, 4 developed schizophrenia. We observed an increased incidence of schizophrenia in offspring of parents who were dry cleaners (RR=3.4, 95% CI, 1.3-9.2, p=0.01). Tetrachloroethylene exposure warrants further investigation as a risk factor for schizophrenia.

[Egalitarian]

21. Nice post...Agree and empathize with you, but

I wonder though about the psychopath? What are the origins of such a mental state or pattern? Are people just born this way, or is it at least a partially learned response, or a learned coping mechanism manifesting itself in violent egotism? Is what we commonly refer to as a conscience so deeply buried, so weak, that it is often claimed it is not present? I've never looked into it, but it seems to me that it would be possible for socio/environmental factors to create psychopaths in the same manner that they can create other mental dis-ease. Personally, it is this conviction that prevents me from supporting the killing of anyone other than in self defense.

I'm making a mental note to investigate this later. Until then, thoughts of other DU'ers?

[hang a left]

22. You bring up excellent points...

I am not a scholar, but a victim of both abuse and chemical disorders.

Luckily for me I am female and turned my anger towards myself.

However, I recall a few guys, that were in "the crowd" who did the drugs of the 70's, including acid, cannebinal, and speed. More than a couple of them flipped completely out. One guy, that I knew personally, had an accelerated onset of schizophrenia, and his parents just locked him up in his room. Another guy, he was really popular, charismatic, and good looking; flipped out as well. I think that the chemical imbalance was there already (I'm no doctor) but the drugs just pushed them over.

The same with childhood abuse. The chemical imbalance is there already, that is the precursor. Then you have activating events. Like sexual, verbal or emotional abuse in the home. Then the child ventures out and discovers that the abuses at home are equal to the abuses away from home. This absolutely has to leave an individual without hope. And living life without hope is a very scary venture.

So I guess what I am trying to say is this...

Our children our especially vulnerable. There is nothing more collapsing than knowing a child is experiencing abuse.

What is the answer?

It is sad. But there is none.

The only thing that we can do personally, is to touch a child's life when we can,

Our social services are broken.

God I want to drink....

[sojourner]

26. been out of academia for a few years, but last i heard

psychopaths - those with NO conscience and who actually get pleasure from harming others - are found to have a difference in their brain. some hypothesize that it comes from early head trauma, such as infection, or an actual head injury, or even something occuring prior to birth. it manifests early in life, tho' ------ and has some pretty unmistakable signs for those alert to them.