Dangerous Man Admits True Feelings
Last week on Dr. Phil, a mom asked for help for her son as she is afraid he could be the next mass murderer.
As an expert in human behavior, I can tell you that this mother is correct–her son poses a serious risk to us.
In this video above, her son talks and tells us how he feels.
I absolutely believe he is being truthful here.
People who commit mass murder (outside of the terrorists) from within our own society often do so because of underlying mental illness, but also because they feel that they are completely isolated, alone and ignored by the world. They feel transparent.
Isolation of a human being causes the exact thoughts this young man tells you. He wants to lash out at anyone–even innocent people. He has incredible courage to admit this.
Why does he want to target innocent people, you wonder? Because everyone looks through him, and doesn’t see him. And in his mind–everyone is responsible for not caring. You don’t care, I don’t care–no one cares–so people–all people–any person–every person needs to hurt like he does so they understand what they, you, have done to him.
They begin to fantasize about inflicting the pain they feel on others. They want others to hurt, exactly as Andrew says on the Dr. Phil show. And they do see those who have acted out before them as heroes, as hard as that is to imagine. Because those people had the encourage to make others pay for these violations.
This is how someone who commits a mass killing among our citizen often comes to the mindset that they do. It’s derived from extreme isolation and rejection, whether perceived or real.
If you know anyone in your life who struggles to maintain social relationships, is isolated and alone, and shows depressive, withdrawn traits–take time of your day to include them, to draw them in–to make them feel important and that they matter. Open up a lifeline to these people, talk to them, express care, show them their positive traits, and encourage them to seek professional help.
You can make a difference.
I agree with you, and I also agree with your thoughts on how to help someone. I’ve been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, and as a teenager, I went through depression that lasted for years. I never thought of killing anyone else, but I was consumed with thoughts of killing myself. I tried a few times, but because I never had access to firearms or any dangerous drugs that could kill me, I’m alive today and happy about it. I still struggle with relationships and mild depression, but I have a good career, an education, and a lot to look forward to. 🙂
Reaching out to someone withdrawn is definitely helpful. I had teachers, a counselor, and a few family members who I knew cared about me. That made a world of difference.
Extremely important and very well presented. I can not overemphasize – if you know anyone like this, get professional help, connect with that person, draw them in, and do everything you can to let them know they are NOT isolated and NOT picked on.
On a related note, I’ve long felt that the pain that people inflict on others (physical pain, emotional pain, etc) is their interpretation of the pain they feel inside. Maybe not always, but I’ve seen that many, many times. The pastor at church says it well: “hurt people hurt people”. I also believe that healed people heal people. See what you can do to move someone like the person in the video from pain to healing. That’s about as real as life and death can get and maybe the most important thing you can do if you know someone like the guy in this video.
It’s OK to get professional help, it’s OK to make sure the person has healthy responses to being picked on and feeling isolated. If you need to do it, then do it.
Thanks for posting, hopefully this will be a wake up call to those who need to hear it.
What’s troubling is that, today, that professional help is simply not available because the person who needs it won’t acknowledge it or seek it for themselves, and there are extremely strict limits on when they can be helped without their consent. By that time, it’s usually too late to stop a tragedy.
I have a friend who had a friend who was in exactly this situation. For something like 9 months to just over a year, everyone in the person’s family and circle of friends saw what was coming and did everything in their power to intervene and get him help, but at every turn their efforts were rebuffed by responses of “there’s nothing we can do, he hasn’t broken any laws” or “he’s over 18, so we can’t do anything without his consent if he doesn’t try to harm himself or anyone else”. Everyone in this person’s life saw the end of the tracks coming for his train, and everyone in his life did everything possible to stop it from crashing, and weren’t able to get any help from anywhere. Their situation came to an end when this person somehow got hold of a gun and started shooting at people in the street from his apartment balcony and he was shot dead by a police sniper, despite there being an approximately year long trail of paperwork and records with every state and local agency in the area that it was going to end that way– everyone knew it way ahead of time.
I wish I knew what the answer was to that, because the simple, straightforward answer (to make it easier– by lowering the hurdles–, to help people who need it in the absence of their consent) is one that I don’t think America at least would be comfortable with or accept. It’s asinine to me that when everyone in a person’s life can see what’s coming so long in advance, I just can’t accept that it’s so hard to do anything about it. It’s not hard to do anything about it. It’s hard for it to be any easier to do anything about when there’s always so much warning in advance. What seems to be actually hard is getting people out of their own way. It frustrates me greatly.
Maybe it’s just physical similarities, but this guy reminds me of Phil Ivey. They sound different but have a similar rhythm to their speech (I’m sure there’s a word for it that escapes me), as well as similair mannerisms. It’s weird, it’s like he chose one path in life and became what he is now, but if he chooses a different path he could have became the world’s greatest poker player (or achieve some other form of greatness).
Cadence might be the word you’re looking for?
ca·dence
ˈkādns/
noun
noun: cadence; plural noun: cadences
1. a modulation or inflection of the voice.
“the measured cadences that he employed in the Senate”
synonyms:intonation, modulation, lilt, accent, inflection;
a modulation in reading aloud as implied by the structure and ordering of words and phrases in written text.
“the dry cadences of the essay”
a fall in pitch of the voice at the end of a phrase or sentence.
rhythm.
“the thumping cadence of the engines”
Exactly
I think we should be kind to everyone, but proceed with caution!
Really appreciate your last paragraph there. Many in our society exclude and shame those who are different, just to feel superior. Showing some encouragement and empathy could help those going through invisible pain.
Please be careful folks. Read this:
Getting to Know the Injustice Collectors
by Julia Layton
December 16, 2015
The morning of Aug. 26, 2015, Vester Lee Flanagan II (aka Bryce Williams) walked up to two TV journalists during a live news broadcast and shot them dead. Two hours later, while a manhunt was underway in Virginia, ABC
News received a 23-page fax from the killer explaining why he did it.
None of it was his fault.
Black men and white women hated him. He’d been attacked because he was gay and black and driven to prostitution to solve his money
problems. While working at the TV station that employed his murder victims, he’d been sexually harassed and bullied. He’d suffered racial discrimination. In 2013, when the station fired him unfairly, he’d had to brutally murder his pet cats.
Flanagan, who shot himself and died later that day, was outraged. Much of that outrage seemed directed at the TV station, and he’d
murdered two employees of that station, so people understandably assumed the murders were an act of vengeance against his former employer.
That’s incorrect, though, says Dave Cullen on New Republic. It was an act of vengeance against humanity.
Flanagan was an “injustice collector.” It’s a
trait often associated with paranoia, narcissism and egocentrism.
Read more here: http://now.howstuffworks.com/2015/12/16/getting-to-know-injustice-collectors