Yet another shooting, yet another "Aspergers Syndrome" diagnosis

[Daniel]

@ Ereth: /thank you for sharing your knowledge of this case. You're obviously much more familiar with his manifesto than I am. I have only seen snippets, thus far, but I do intend to read the entire thing. /i also knew nothing about his relationship with his parents. While the info you have shared about it does indicate some rough spots, they do not seem to have been truly dysfunctional or abusive people.Although..making an Aspie (or any kid) eat something you know they hate as a punishment is problematic,

I read most of it last Saturday, so I'm not fresh on all the details, but, as Ereth just mentioned (beat me to it!), it sounded like he was wounded by his father bringing his step-mother into their lives so soon after his parents split at age 6 or so--she moved in after they'd been dating for not all that long. He reported that he took from that a lesson about the importance of "getting" women, though I can't remember exactly what he said.

What do you know about his experience with bullying? CNN reported that someone had broken his leg, but they did not provide any details about the circumstances. Was bullying something pervasive in his life?

He details how he moved from school to school (as Ereth mentioned), and I recall that high school was particularly brutal for him for bullying. He looked younger than his years, and was consistently the smallest kid in his class. I recall multiple instances where he had crying fits because he was being forced to go to high school.

I also found it strange that he referred to having "play dates" with people up through high school. Like he was stuck in a child's mentality. He only gave up Pokemon in junior high because he thought other people thought it was lame.

The leg-breaking incident--he did that to himself in college. This was after he'd started acting out against people. He went to a party after downing a bottle of vodka, but he didn't know how to mingle with people, and was accordingly ignored. He tried pushing people off a ten-foot ledge (because they were having a good time), but ended up falling himself. Then he stumbled around after realizing he didn't have his Gucci sunglasses, went to the wrong house to try to get them back, and got pummeled.

Also, did you read anything about an actual living, breathing blonde haired woman who had 'rejected' (or simply declined) his advances?

Judging by what he wrote--he never even tried. He didn't give an indication that he ever knew how courtship worked. It was just this mysterious thing that sneaked up on him in sixth grade, and that's what it remained.

Now that I think about it, despite where his rage eventually took his mind, it seemed like it wasn't even the rejection of women that was the bug up his butt--he was obsessed with social status. Even before he hit puberty, he was hypersensitive to who the cool kids were. He remembered them all by name, back to grade school. Starting in junior high, what bugged him was the fact that coolness and popularity was now tied in to sexuality. It got worse for him when he observed that the guys who picked on him had girlfriends.

He didn't want love or affection--he wanted to be the alpha male.

With someone like him, teasing out what really happened to him & what was his own personal distortion or outright invention.

His screed is actually fairly well-written, like a novel with an unreliable narrator. The way he reports incidents--maybe because he was so narcissistic--it wasn't hard to tell what was really going on (for me, anyway). He was quite specific--he describes people doing things, and I could tell they were doing perfectly normal human behaviour, and then he describes his reaction--and he just took everything so personally. I don't think he made up a word of it. That might have been what resonated with me as "Aspie-like"--it was straight-up honest. His conclusions were just so very, very wrong.

Soup, if you end up reading it, I truly look forward to your insights!

I don't feel like reading it again; I've been feeling sad enough about this whole thing, especially after reading #YesAllWomen and the various online discussions that have arisen about misogynistic violence. That's been an eye-opener for me. I realized that in all the times I've ignored advances from women, I've never once been made to feel uncomfortable about it. Never once been made to feel scared, threatened, or even creeped out. That's a privilege of being male.

 

[Ereth]

Judging by what he wrote--he never even tried. He didn't give an indication that he ever knew how courtship worked. It was just this mysterious thing that sneaked up on him in sixth grade, and that's what it remained.

The specifics of courtship aside, I'm not sure anybody ever taught him how to socialize properly. He does mention some attempts he made (this is prior to being fully consumed by his delusions and narcissism). His father gave him a book called The Secret, which is apparently about a "law of attraction" which states positive events and circumstances can be "attracted" to oneself with positive thoughts and feelings. (I've been able to benefit from my psychologist's advice about how to break my depression-inducing negative thought patterns, but that's a little different than this.) This book basically says, "If you want it, you can get it by thinking positive thoughts." I personally think it's a load of crap. It certainly didn't help Rodger.

He didn't want love or affection--he wanted to be the alpha male.

I think he wanted both, at least at one time. Eventually his desire for positive attention became a desire to dominate, but he didn't start off as a would-be conqueror.

I don't feel like reading it again; I've been feeling sad enough about this whole thing, especially after reading #YesAllWomen and the various online discussions that have arisen about misogynistic violence. That's been an eye-opener for me. I realized that in all the times I've ignored advances from women, I've never once been made to feel uncomfortable about it. Never once been made to feel scared, threatened, or even creeped out. That's a privilege of being male.

Now, I'm definitely not saying that all men think this way, or that men cannot be similarly objectified and victimized, but there's a certain element of machismo in American culture (and certainly elsewhere, but I can only speak for my own country) which many, many young men adhere to and do not grow out of. Consequently, they believe they're entitled to power, money, and sex because they have penises. On several college campuses, for example, this sense of entitlement is so pronounced that women are described as "rapebait" or described in ways that completely dehumanize them. They are not seen as people, but as collections of body parts, including "snatches," tits, asses, and mouths meant to perform fellatio.

When I think about how closely certain elements of Rodger's thinking line up with this hypermasculinity BS, I feel extremely nauseated---and yes, frightened. Even the gentleman in that video somebody posted seemed to adhere to a light version of it---when he talks about how young men ought to court young women, he talks about how Rodger set his standards too high and aimed for "the tens"----that is, the most attractive women. Then he talked about how young men who can't land the best normally lower their expectations and "go for the nines, eights, sevens" and so on until they find someone willing to have sex with them. He might have intended it solely to discuss how heterosexual teenage boys usually think, but . . . I still find it troubling that he decided to rely on the "number scale."

 

[gonzerd]

The specifics of courtship aside, I'm not sure anybody ever taught him how to socialize properly. He does mention some attempts he made (this is prior to being fully consumed by his delusions and narcissism). His father gave him a book called The Secret, which is apparently about a "law of attraction" which states positive events and circumstances can be "attracted" to oneself with positive thoughts and feelings. (I've been able to benefit from my psychologist's advice about how to break my depression-inducing negative thought patterns, but that's a little different than this.) This book basically says, "If you want it, you can get it by thinking positive thoughts." I personally think it's a load of crap. It certainly didn't help Rodger.

*sigh*

 

[Ereth]

Yeah, that was exactly my reaction when I looked up the book.

Real parenting didn't seem to occur very often in this family---at least not for Elliot.

 

[Ereth]

Oh, you're allowed to contribute to the thread! I was just pointing out that platitudes about the government and schools don't directly relate to what's being discussed.

Anyway, I doubt Rodger had the opportunity to form a lasting attachment with his teachers---who might have been able to help him---since he switched schools so often as a child. And the core of every child's "guide to life," so to speak, is formed with the help of a parent or guardian. That doesn't appear to have been the case here.

 

[gonzerd]

Yeah, that was exactly my reaction when I looked up the book.

Real parenting didn't seem to occur very often in this family---at least not for Elliot.

I know that book. It was rather big among some crowds. I'd say it's downright dangerous. I only read parts of it. One of the things you're supposed to do is put pictures up of the things you want. In a way this helps to focus, I suppose, but that's also the thing, it makes a person obsess about something, without actually doing anything about it. It just breeds unrealistic expectations and that sense of entitlement. Aargh. I never get this but I actually would like to vomit right now.
A friend of mine, with whom I just reconnected, she must around 49 or so, was totally immersed in that kind of...what's it called, new age, energy type stuff. Reading aura's and what have you. It would absolutely drive me crazy, part because of the way it tainted all interaction and part because it was getting her nowhere, so it was difficult to see her struggle with stuff but not being able to help. We had a big falling out eventually. Anyway, just reconnected, got a letter and she's still stuck into that stuff. ****ing makes me depressed. I'll probably make some thread about it because I've often wondered if she actually might be aspie. But for now that's besides the point, so back on topic.

 

[Ereth]

I know that book. It was rather big among some crowds. I'd say it's downright dangerous. I only read parts of it. One of the things you're supposed to do is put pictures up of the things you want. In a way this helps to focus, I suppose, but that's also the thing, it makes a person obsess about something, without actually doing anything about it. It just breeds unrealistic expectations and that sense of entitlement. Aargh. I never get this but I actually would like to vomit right now.

Towards the end of his manifesto, Rodger wrote that he tried to visualize himself winning the lottery---something he tried to do several times. Of course, the odds of the lottery being what they are, he never won anything. By this point he was only pretending to still be in school to avoid tipping off his parents to his get-rich-quick = success scheme. Much of the money he still had he wasted on lottery tickets, and he refused to do work he considered beneath him (I think the specific job described was janitorial in nature). So . . .yeah. That book definitely didn't do him any favors . . .

 

[gonzerd]

Towards the end of his manifesto, Rodger wrote that he tried to visualize himself winning the lottery---something he tried to do several times. Of course, the odds of the lottery being what they are, he never won anything. By this point he was only pretending to still be in school to avoid tipping off his parents to his get-rich-quick = success scheme. Much of the money he still had he wasted on lottery tickets, and he refused to do work he considered beneath him (I think the specific job described was janitorial in nature). So . . .yeah. That book definitely didn't do him any favors . . .

I'd say it's definitely something that should be factored in, and there's a lot should that should be factored in. It says a lot about the kind of parenting, or lack thereof. And I don't mean to put guilt in the parents shoes or so, some people are just completely clueless about parenting, and I'm not looking for guilt. I should probably read that manifesto first anyway.

 

[Daniel]

The specifics of courtship aside, I'm not sure anybody ever taught him how to socialize properly.

I think he wanted both, at least at one time. Eventually his desire for positive attention became a desire to dominate, but he didn't start off as a would-be conqueror.

True--I agree with both points. I didn't grow up in the era of "playdates". I had to make my own friends.

It seemed like he was a fairly innocent kid, but really sensitive. Like that bit where he had his first enemy, and he invited everyone but that one kid who had been his friend but then wasn't (I don't remember what happened)--that was pretty spiteful. By the time girls came into the mix, though, I think he was pretty status-conscious.

That he remembers so vividly who was cool and who wasn't... When I think of my childhood, the stuff where I feel wounded now is what I remember the most. But if I put myself in a better frame of mind, the joyous memories come back!

 

[IContainMultitudes]

It is almost like re-enacting the movie Hunger Games, of which his father played a big part in producing it. I have never watched the movie but I have heard it is violent and gory.

I just wanted to mention that this is inaccurate, his father was a second-unit director on The Hunger Games (an assistant who shoots little bits of additional footage for a movie), and describing it as a "gory" movie is a great exaggeration. Even if it was an extremely gory film, I don't think that Eliott Rodger's father having a minor role in its filming would be especially relevant (There is a similarly-themed Japanese film called Battle Royale that is much more violent, and to my knowledge, nobody involved with the film or their family has been involved with any real-life murder).

I can't really comment much on The Hunger Games series, but I don't think it can be connected to Eliott Rodger's poisonous worldview in any meaningful way.

A Very Personal Reflection on The Hunger Games by Faith Erin Hicks | Tor.com

 

[Spinosaurus kin]

But Rodger had friends. It's true he was teased in school, and quite mercilessly at times, but he had more than one friend throughout his life.

I'm not sure that all the friends in the world would have been able to satisfy his need.

See! This is why nobody should really comment on such a complex issue! Even I fell into the trap!
For this occasion, I was wrong. Thank you for correcting me.

 

[Ereth]

Oh, it's not a problem. I'm sure I need to be educated on some points, too---because, after all, in the manifesto we only know of events from Rodger's side and no one else's. That first pretty blonde girl who apparently rejected him as a child? She doesn't remember him (it was over ten years ago, after all). Now people are hounding her, and putting all the blame on her. That's incredibly wrong.

The media scapegoating of Rodger’s childhood crush - Salon.com

 

[gonzerd]

Oh, it's not a problem. I'm sure I need to be educated on some points, too---because, after all, in the manifesto we only know of events from Rodger's side and no one else's. That first pretty blonde girl who apparently rejected him as a child? She doesn't remember him (it was over ten years ago, after all). Now people are hounding her, and putting all the blame on her. That's incredibly wrong.

The media scapegoating of Rodger’s childhood crush - Salon.com

The irony of retribution? Another testament to how easy we as humans get sucked into a sense of vengefulness, often without realizing it.

 

[Sunnylims]

I definitely don't think his parents intended to be abusive, and I'm not pinning all of Rodger's problems on them, because I only know about what Rodger wrote himself, but . . . I do feel they neglected him in some ways. They constantly shifted him around to different schools, and their late summer vacations meant he often started school late, after students had already begun forming friendships at the beginning of the school year. That's not good for a kid who is so shy.

His parents divorced when he was young, and apparently, rather than giving him time to adjust, Rodger's father announced that the woman who would become Elliot's stepmother was moving in only a few months after the divorce, with no period of time to really get used to the new presence in his life. Really shite, if you ask me.

To me, the only thing his parents did wrong was give him everything that he ever wanted, and if they didn't, he would throw a tantrum until they gave in. They never taught him the value of money or instilled any sort of work ethic in him.

In the manifesto, he writes that he didn't even think about having to earn his own money until he was 18 or 19, and that's when his brilliant idea to win the lottery was born, he thought that was the only way for him to have money. Either that, or beg his mother to marry a rich man for his sake (so pathetic)

His parents were paying for his apartment, car, clothes, school, and sadly, they inadvertently funded his arsenal. But to be fair, how were they to know that he would hoard all of their money just in case he needed to carry out his "retribution", which was in the back of his mind for nearly 2 years beforehand?

 

[Ereth]

His parents were paying for his apartment, car, clothes, school, and sadly, they inadvertently funded his arsenal. But to be fair, how were they to know that he would hoard all of their money just in case he needed to carry out his "retribution", which was in the back of his mind for nearly 2 years beforehand?

No, they didn't know he was hoarding money for that, and I'm not blaming them for it. But they raised a son who, unfortunately, stayed a man-child. They didn't ever try to educate him about sex, apparently, and so his first exposure to it became a pornographic video witnessed at thirteen or fourteen at an arcade. He never told them about it, as far as I know, so nobody put it in the proper context. And so many of his tantrums were quieted with shopping for cars or clothes. Where do you think he learned that?

I can't claim to know everything that his parents went through or that I could have done better in their place, but I still can't believe he was coddled and isolated to such a degree.

 

[Dynamic]

At it's root, I think much of this in many of these cases can often be boiled down to a lack of parenting and/or a lack of care from parents. That alone won't necessarily do it, but sometimes that combined with other things like difficult life experiences for a kid in that sort of home environment, suffering traumatic experiences, etc. I also think it is incredibly important to get a child diagnosed as early on as possible if a particular condition or disorder is suspected, and for the parents to put significant effort into understanding that condition, disorder, or diagnosis (if the kid has one) and then taking appropriate steps to modify their approach to parenting with various things, modify other aspects of the kid's life to better support him/her, etc.

In this case, they say he was diagnosed as having Asperger's early on, but I have yet to really hear anything significant to suggest that the parents took any significant effort to modify things, situations, and surroundings for their son once he was diagnosed. I haven't been looking for it either, so maybe they did, I'm not sure. It doesn't sound like they did based on the glance I took at his manifesto as well as several other stories/accounts. It also doesn't sound like the parents necessarily took any significant effort to even learn about the condition, what it meant, how they need to change things in their lives to help give him a better child hood, etc.

Again, I think society would be much better off if people put more effort and care into raising their children, as opposed to being distracted and focused on decidedly less important things.

One thing those of us in the US need to keep a careful eye out for is the growing public issue that is increasingly being pushed; mental health. I have been thinking about this quite a bit lately. There is discussion of legislation surrounding increased sharing of medical records with law enforcement and government agencies as well as designating an increasing number of conditions, disorders, and medical diagnoses as making a person ineligible to exercise certain rights (firearm ownership). Very easily this sort of legislation could be twisted to deny basic human rights, right to privacy, etc. for an increasing number of people. Very easily, especially with the continued push of buzz words in the media, such as "Asperger's" (the Sandy Hook shooter was also diagnosed with it), I could see ASD conditions being thrown in with legislation like that. Something to consider in terms of the political leaders we might choose to support.

 

[HelloDizzy]

I wrote an article on this, and unlike many highly opinionated people on this matter, I actually read the manifesto and analyzed it. Since I do have Aspergers (and I had no problem admitting that shooter Adam Lanza was an Aspie, so I am not worried about bad PR in the least) I did search for any sign of Asperger's. I did not find it. He was a Narcissist with severe social anxiety. He understood social cues better than many NT's *unless* it involved a woman and he adjusted to new events very easily as a child, had no obsession outside of social status. Aspies don't pick up and drop hobbies as they come and leave the world of trendiness. He did, repeatedly.

» Elliot Rodger’s Manifesto Analyzed

Anyway, AS or not, this isn't the kind of thing that I think can be fully blamed on one diagnosis or even really prevented. People have always been violent, it's just a lot easier to cause big destruction now than just running around shanking people with sharpened sticks.

 

[Daniel]

I wrote an article on this, and unlike many highly opinionated people on this matter, I actually read the manifesto and analyzed it. Since I do have Aspergers (and I had no problem admitting that shooter Adam Lanza was an Aspie, so I am not worried about bad PR in the least) I did search for any sign of Asperger's. I did not find it. He was a Narcissist with severe social anxiety. He understood social cues better than many NT's *unless* it involved a woman and he adjusted to new events very easily as a child, had no obsession outside of social status. Aspies don't pick up and drop hobbies as they come and leave the world of trendiness. He did, repeatedly.

Coming back to this one after some time away to gain perspective--I agree with this assessment. I related to his suicide note (I'm not even calling it a 'manifesto') initially because I have spent a good chunk of my life stuck in that Narcissistic mindset myself. My frustration, unlike his, turns inwards.

Even if he was an Aspie, his psychological damage trumped any of that. Same goes for me. When I fall into that wounded place, all sense of myself disappears--including AS. I lose interest in everything, and I just crave destruction.

 

[Tarragon]

I really didn't expect this thread to run and run. In fact, I wish I'd never posted it now. Instead of being about the way the press handles bits of information, it's turned into a general discussion about this person. Can we stop going over this now please on my initial thread? Any way of locking it? I didn't want to give that murderer any exposure on AC through my post, and I will be careful never to mention anything like this again. I don't like seeing my name linked to people being fascinated with someone's twisted mind. He was ill, very ill.

 

[Autism]

We all have the capability to turn violent. A normal person can keep that violent streak locked up in their mind, full well knowing that they would cross the line. Some of us can not do that, irrelevant what kind of condition a criminal suffers from.