James Holmes may have Aspergers?

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James Holmes is about as likely to be autistic as he is to be a Martian. I also doubt he's bipolar or schizophrenic.

However, "normal" people don't go on shooting sprees. Someone does something like this, they are almost certainly diagnosable with something.

I disagree, that is exactly the sort of generalization that keeps the stigma against mental illness going. Why cant a normal person commit such a crime? I mean I don't belive they are over all morally superior to mentally ill people or that they cannot do horrible things. Just look at Nazi Germany or the Salem Witch trials. You want to say everyone involved in things like that were 'messed up in the head.'

Now I understand the sort of logic behind the comment that one girl made to me during a lock down.....I was 'quiet', 'different', 'smart' and a loner(though not by choice) so she was surprised I wasn't the psychopath with the gun. When it is a mentally ill person who does it though maybe its this sort of stigma that alienates them even further. But being filled with hate and killing is not a mental illness it is unfortunately something all humans are capable of.

I think it is possible yes aspies can have trouble socialising with isolation and bullying. Of course that is never an excuse to do what JH did but it may if he is aspie and or other things go some way to explaining his state of mind. If aspies are pushed hard enough like everyone they can snap. I have been critisisised personally by people elsewhere for suggesting it but I am not the only one to say it as is expressed here. Some are aspies like anyone can go bad it doesn't mean all aspies are bad. If you type in James Holmes Asperger's into google you will see there is al ot of speculation on this.

If you've read the other thread that discussed this same topic, you would know that I do not think James Holmes has any mental illness at all. Mentally ill people in general are more likely to be targeted for violence than commit it.

A "normal" person is unlikely to commit such a crime for a variety of reasons - most of them virtually identical to the reasons that mentally ill people are unlikely to commit such a crime. The kind of murder you see from most people are crimes of passion - that is, often impulsive and likely fueled by emotion. You're not going to find such people spending months quietly planning a murder spree.



I believe that you believe that, but I do not think it is true. The simple fact is if most people were capable of this, it would happen significantly more often than it actually does.

I think most humans are capable of killing. I do not think most humans are capable of killing in the way James Holmes approached it.

What I mean is both people with and without mental disorders are capable of doing terrible things like this...not that the majority of either group is more capable of it. What I more mean is I think anyone could probably be pushed to the point of doing something like that or even just go along with it if its deemed socially acceptable(hence it being socially acceptable to discriminate against various groups in nazi germany for instance). Also I think some people are sadists who enjoy inflicting pain on others...which isn't nessisarily a mental illness I mean even people who bully are behaving sadistically too some degree.

I know that you meant that, but I do not agree with it. The idea of people being pushed to an extreme and snapping is cultural mythology. It doesn't really happen. The people who do appear to snap tend to have something seriously wrong with their brains (such as the brain tumor referenced for the UT clock tower shooter earlier in this thread), or they tend to be psychopathic or sociopathic.

If you read about the Milgram experiments, they do not demonstrate that anyone can do something monstrous. Instead, they demonstrate that when an authority figure tells them to continue, many do despite what their conscience tells them. This is not the same thing.

Someone who enjoys inflicting nonconsensual pain on others is not normal. They are outside the range of normal.

Discrimination is horrible and people who perpetrate it do refuse to acknowledge the effects of their prejudices and hatreds, and tend to blame the targets for being targets in the first place. However, I doubt that most "normal" people would "snap" and start shooting up gay people or black people or disabled people.

What happened in Nazi Germany is not as simple as "everyone went along with it." But what did happen is in line with Milgram's experiments: People who did go along with it did so because authority said that's the way things were to be. However, many resisted to varying degrees.

You're conflating several issues into one single thing.

I know that, I was just using it as an example that normal people can be capable of terrible things like mass shootings, discrimination against specific groups and even burning fellow humans to death at the stake. I don't see how I am confusing several issues into a single thing I am well aware these are separate issues its not like I think all this is directly connected I was using examples of people doing terrible things throughout history.

Holmes was clearly able to hyperfocus, otherwise he wouldn't have succeeded as a layman in building bombs complex enough to confuse even career ATF bomb guys, especially 30 of them. I don't know that autistics are the only group able to hyperfocus, just putting that out there.

Well considering its unlikely all who play with bombs have autism, I imagine they aren't the only group....even neurotypicals have obsessions and talents. So I don't really see the connection there really.

the only thing that can come out of this is stigma. for the same reason i don't tell people i have SLD. the only thing worse than people not knowing what something is, is when people think they know what something is.

if i tell some one close to me that i have learning disabilities, i mite as well tell them i have an IQ of 10. because that's what they think it is

i would hate for people to be wary of people that have aspergers because of an associations to violent behavior.

for some resin aspergers is in the Media quite frequently anymore. tack Glee and South Park for instance. thees are NOT positive portrays.

you do not want people to think of you as a sociopath if you are quiet and don't know how to flirt.

i do not think he is autistic. and if he happens to be, i hope it never goes public.

I bet he does.

For some people, social isolation makes them..."crazy"; ASDs don't change people's innate desire for such. Some are lucky in that they don't care all that much about social isolation, whereas others seem to be really bothered by it.

Martin Bryant and Anders Brevik have such, and an argument can be made for Cho. All were socially isolated.

If anything he is a Sociopath. Which is a term that was made up so that as has been said, he can be disassociated from "normal" people because it would make them uncomfortable to think that someone of sound mind like they view themselves could commit such a heinous crime

because it equals Media sensationalism and scapegoating! also creates a false sense of comfort for the NT majority

Most people just flip out a bit and it's over. Very few flip out and kill someone. Practically no one snaps and sets out to go on a killing spree.

As far as psychopaths and sociopaths, there are numerous instances of them killing people after getting fired, splitting up, getting a restraining order, etc. Most psychopaths and sociopaths never kill or even physically injure anyone, however.



As it turns out, the authority figure (in Milgram's experiment, a man in a white lab coat) is pretty crucial to this. Without a clear authority figure, people are significantly less likely to comply. Also, adding another person who objects tends to break whatever it is that keeps people going at it, and they'll object right along with that person.

If you think the experiments demonstrated that anyone could just decide to go do horrible things, you badly misunderstood them.



I am not pinning it on the mentally ill. I said I do not think James Holmes is mentally ill. I do not know what you are responding to, but I said the exact opposite of what you're complaining about. And for the record, I am mentally ill.



I actually made this exact point earlier.



Because while most people are capable of doing certain kinds of horrible things under certain conditions, it does not reflect a general tendency to just go off and do any kind of horrible things at will. And when I say "most people" I am also referring to people with mental illnesses who as I swear I have said more than once, are more likely to be targeted for violence than be the cause of it.

Last edited by Verdandi on 24 Jul 2012, 1:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

Its easy for us to appreciate how 'bullycide' works

This is similar. Yet we struggle to accept our own can become heinous murderers

In new zealand we have recently been promoting anti bullying measures [esp, regarding facebook, texting and social media]

due the the high incidence of young people committing suicide after being bullied publicly via websites

recently groups of young people [who know each other, from small towns] have been killing themselves

one by one over the space of a few months....

I sincerely hope progressive measures are implemented.

Otherwise bullycide and mass murders will become more frequent in our societies.... 'normal' 'aspie' or 'whatever'

alright sorry I'm awesome at reading apparently.....I'll go back and try and find what I was responding to, it looked like you were saying people with mental illnesses were more likely to be violent and I was also just kind of speaking generally others have tried making that connection so that wasn't entirely directed at you so I guess I misunderstood.