Was Ted Bundy Actually Autistic?

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I always assumed Ted Bundy was a psychopath, but I found something interesting on Wikipedia:

Who are your heroes?

What are you fascinated by/with?

Oh, here's a bit more:

I truly doubt it. He had a crappy childhood and was fairly Bipolar, in which his psychosis became obvious in his final murder spree.

Along with Bipolar, he was a psychopath (duh) and fairly narcissistic. He was an excellent liar though. You should see his final hours interview. Heart-breaking. He was a great showman.

Now, Unibomber: definitely. Jeff Dahmer: maybe.

No he wasnt, psycopaths lack emotions more so than autistics who usually just dont display it in an NT way, i for instance have far greater empathy than your average NT robot. Besides after watching "married with children" quite a lot during my childhood i think i would have noticed if he was even slightly autistic.

No. He had an f-ed up childhood: his mother had him young, she couldn't take care of him right away, she gave him to her parents, Ted grew up for a time believing his sister was his mother, his "father" was very abusive, one day they told him his "parents" were his grandparents and his "sister" was his mother, she took him back after she got married to a guy named Bundy.

Ted Bundy was haunted his whole life because he was illegitimate. He changed parents midway, finally living with his mother and her new husband. They had more kids together. Bundy always felt on the outs.

There's been a lot of speculation that he was Bipolar. His last murders in Florida seem to bear out some psychosis. He also had extreme anger problems. But he really knew how to lie well and use people.

I still stand with Bipolar, Psychopath, and probably Narcissistic PD. In all the biographies I've read on him, he never struck me as autistic in any way. Don't forget Psychopaths have "people problems" too.

Once you get up.

The down take is exponential, right!

I never heard about him being bipolar and wouldn't trust that if it's an official dx - bear in mind at the time of his arrest and imprisonment, manic depression was a catch-up dx. My brother who was dx'd manic depression in the late 70's even though he was clearly AS. I had an unlce who dx that too in the 60's, and later dx'd as schizophrenic, but he was likely AS as well. They didn't have AS back then for a dx, so a lot of them with misdx'd manic deprssion, schizoid., schizotypal or schizophrenic.

I think the case for him having a developmental disorder is very good. Many of his traits seem to be persistant despite environment. Yeah he had a f*cked up childhood, but that doesn't mean he didn't have developmental issue too. Moreover, people come from f*cked childhoods all the time, and don't turn into masterminding serial killers. Something about Bundy was very different from the start to result it such a extreme end.

I likewise think the case that he was an Aspie is pretty strong. Aspies can lie. My AS kids in class lie. I can lie - and really well. People don't suspect me for lying. They think I'm too naive, literal and simple for that. I learned as a kid that people doesn't think I would lie, so I lied a lot (mainly to keep from dealing with people and their negative reations to my oddnes), knowing I could get away with it. And I did.

And Aspies are typically ego-centric, and can be very paranoid and narcissistic, espeically if they are emotionally troubled. I've met many Aspies that had pretty grandiose ideas about themselves too. Aspies can suffer episodes of psychosis too - I have, although they weren;t violent and didn't lead to murder. But I'm not profoundly disturbed, so hey.

Lastly, he was brilliant and could only deal with people in a detached and convulated way, yet obviously had emotion. His impetus for killing was primarily emotional, and rooted in his own emotional inability to deal with frustration, rejection, and disappointment. Emotion seemed to distrupt his personal "logic," his perspection of things and he likewise apaprently resented anyone affecting him to the point his lost emotional control. This seemed to enrage him. Except for the murdering part, this not only sounds like an Aspie, it sounds like an Aspie man. (No offensive guys, but we understand that you struiggle with your emotions a bit harder than we Aspie women.)

And he was obsessive. No doubt about that. It's like he made an Aspie-like obsession out of his killings. Creepy, but out of the realm of possiblity that this was a (very distrubed) manifestation of AS.

I'm not sure why we Aspie want to think we can't be disturbed on top of being AS, except maybe fear about "one bad apple" thinking. Granted, there are people who have tried to argue AS is pyschopathy and we're all monster int heir midst. But reactionism aside, there's no law stating AS excludes psyhcopathy. Given how Bundy's psychopathy manifested - playing his own game with people out of resentment of conventional social games, holding them in contempt for their hypocrisy and lack of logic, intelligence and consistency - strikes me as a psycho with AS.

I used to think Bundy was just a narcissistic personality, but he's too complex and didn't exhibit the main traits. He's not like Hitler or Stalin - people who (I think inarguably) were NPD, and not AS (although people want to argue that). He didn't collect people around him as an extention of his own ego. He wanted to prove to people he could get them back and outsmart them for hurting him, betraying him and excluding him. That's not really narcissistic in the clinical sense. But Aspies can feel disproportionate feeling of powerless and wanted revenge when they lack healthy coping skills, which Bundy obvious lacked.

You know that Hans Asperger called his syndrome "autistic psychopathy"?

I'm glad they changed the name ...

Moderators,

In light of the Will Freund incident and other occasional bad press, it was incredibly wreckless and irresponsible for NeantHumain to post this thread in an open forum. I would encourage you to consider moving this thread to a more secure forum.

From what I have read on this thread, I doubt Ted Bundy was autistic. Serial killers are often empty shells emotionally, thus he wouldn't have a need to talk to anyone about his feelings and often don't have the same need for social interaction as the rest of the population, but they do usually have the understanding of the dynamics to put up a facade to hide their activities and manipulate people; sometimes even to lure victims. Since most of them have above average understanding of how the dynamics of social conduct work, that would make most of them sociopaths rather than psychopaths.

NeantHumain, since sociopaths and psychopaths aren't always serial killers or other kinds of extremely violent criminals, perhaps you could get the information about them you can't seem to find from us through introspection?

I think he had ADD. I understand, most Aspies are egocentric, but that's nothing against us. We could be a lot more rude than we are.

With the undoubtable emotional scarring Mr Bundy suffered set aside, I see a young man who's like's journey and experiences echoed my own in a lot of ways. The social ineptitude, not knowing how people related to one another. the bullying, the humiliations in school, the deep and intense focus he seemed to show in his interest, etc, are all indications that point to AS.

Remember this man comes from the pre-1980 era (correct me if I'm wrong), a time that AS was still in the outer limits of medical knowledge. When AS was still unknown to the English-speaking world, it would have been too easy to mis-Dx whatever it was that had this guy and not to be really able to pinpoint the condition he had. I think today's methods of Dx'ing would have revealed him to be AS-autistic.

I do not support or condone any of the choices Bundy has made. I look at this from a neutral stanpoint and notice the signs that are part of the syndrome we talk about at WP.