“the ultimate evil behind sexuality is the human female.” He added that they “think like beasts” and “should not have the right to choose who to mate and breed with.”

In my general, but limited, experience, I have found knives to have more legal restrictions in CA than guns - blade length, mechanism, edging, degree of sharpness. Probably not relevant, but there is a double standard.

I can see where he's coming from but there was no need to go on a killing spree.

You can see where he's coming from?? Care to elaborate so we all don't think you're a woman hating nut case?

The scariest thing is there is a lot more people out there who have thoughts like his or worse every day.... But have a constant battle to keep them in check.... Others will loose the battle and more will die, it's just the world we live in

Quote:

Originally posted by Sugarpie

...

And saw at least 3 psychiatrists/therapists in the last few years.

The whole system failed in this case.

I have not been keeping up with all of the facts in the story but did they have him on any drugs for ADD, ADHD, etc. or is this just a basic case where he was just mentally disturbed?

I briefly read through the thread and it's refreshing to see at least the parents had some common sense to realize something was wrong. Usually most parents I have dealt with over the years think their kids are perfect and can and never will do anything wrong.

Maybe someone has heard something I didn't hear about or read about, but I don't know of any meds he was on.

This is not an act of ADHD however. ADHD is one of the most common disabilities in the world, and this isn't how it manifests. In fact, neither violence nor paranoia are traits of someone with ADHD. The planning and detail that he put into the act itself would be contrary to any type of ADHD actually, and ADHD sufferers, even though they act out mildly sometimes, they don't sit there for years at a time thinking that plotting a mass murder is okay. ADHD has impacts on one's ability to focus, not one's ability to distinguish right from wrong or to block out human empathy.

A student sticking his finger in the ear of the girl sitting next to him during a test? That's ADHD. Or he thinks she's cute. Either or. Maybe both.

Mass murder is something else entirely.

This wasn't a case of some inconvenient failure of impulse control or drifting off into a daydream during a corporate meeting. This was severe delusion, paranoia, and hostility. This was closer to Psychopathy. In fact, he fits most of the major characteristics of a psychopath. If we were to sit there with the DSM (the guidebook of mental illness psychologists use) and went through what we've learned about him in the news, he'd probably fit at least 18 of the top 20 characteristics of a psychopath, and he'd be at least half qualified for the other two.

He's almost a template for a psychopathic profile.

Not ADHD.

Those are very different things.

Quote:

Originally posted by sumo999

The scariest thing is there is a lot more people out there who have thoughts like his or worse every day.... But have a constant battle to keep them in check.... Others will loose the battle and more will die, it's just the world we live in

It is indeed the world we live in. But it doesn't have to be.

Bear in mind that it's entirely possible he also had ADHD, but ADHD is not what caused this. ADHD has nothing to do with violence, control, predatory behavior, revenge, or paranoia. They're not even remotely related. It'd be kind of like trying to attribute his actions to an allergic reaction to peanut butter. He may well have also been allergic to peanut butter, but that allergy isn't what caused him to do this.

Remember, people: he killed just as many people with knives as with guns. Quit blaming guns. Or if you wish to focus on guns, then why aren't you focusing on knives as well?

Quote:

Originally posted by Tarquin

ADHD is one of the most common disabilities in the world...

I agree with everything you say about ADHD, how it manifests etc, but I don't agree with the above statement. It may be the most studied pediatric mental illness, and the most prescribed, but that doesn't mean those people actually have it. ADHD was first observed and and accepted by the psychiatric community in the early 1900's, yet its diagnosis was quite low until the 1980's....every decade since, we've seen its rate of diagnosis double.
1970's - 1%
1980's - 3%
1990's - 5%
2000's - 8%
2010's - 15%

They are estimated numbers, but experts believe them to be accurate. There is no way a mental illness spreads that quickly through a population. People are lazy, so are parents, they want an easy fix for their child who is hyperactive...ADHD drugs are their babysitter.

Quote:

Originally posted by pamattie

Remember, people: he killed just as many people with knives as with guns. Quit blaming guns. Or if you wish to focus on guns, then why aren't you focusing on knives as well?

Because knives are tools and guns are weapons.

Note: Edited for grammar, because I am OCD like that.

On ADHD:

Quote:

Originally posted by Sugarpie

...
It may be the most studied pediatric mental illness, and the most prescribed, but that doesn't mean those people actually have it.

It's certainly true that it was over-diagnosed and that people over-utilized medications for it. At the same time, it's still a very common disability.

It's entirely possible for something to be both:

A) One of the most common disabilities in the world

and

B) Over-diagnosed and over-medicated.

In the case of ADHD both A and B are true.

Roughly 5% of children, and roughly 2.5% of adults, have ADHD. It's probably actually higher than that, since the actual behaviors can be masked and essentially overcome through behavior modification. I'm one of those. I was never medicated, and I've led a very successful life while excelling in both physical and cerebral career fields. But I was a damned rowdy kid, and I got arrested more than once as a minor. Still, today I wouldn't be diagnosable with ADHD because I've learned to compensate and change the manifestations of my behaviors that caused me so many issues as a kid.

But that doesn't mean it went away. It means I learned to compensate and hide it. Still, I doubt I'd be someone they could diagnose with it.

So yeah, it's over-diagnosed. It's over-medicated. I agree on all counts. But it is also one of (if not THE) world's most common disabilities.


Disability V Illness

I thought of this earlier, but kind of didn't want to be this pedantic. I've lost the urge to resist though. Blame it on my ADD, Baby.

ADHD is NOT a mental illness. It's a disability - and many argue that it's not even a disability. It's mostly because of the behaviors (particularly in young children) that it causes that it's considered a disability. The child afflicted with ADHD is actually just dandy. They're perfectly capable of surviving in the wild (if not moreso than a normal person), and they can do every task anyone else can (often faster and with higher quality). The only reason ADHD is considered a disability at all is because ADHD kids tend to act out more, which is disruptive to classrooms and polite society. Because this in turn makes it more difficult for the ADHD person, it's considered a disability.

But only because it makes it more difficult for the person who has ADHD to be able to interact in some aspects of our social customs. I couldn't sit still in church. I was disruptive. I acted out in school. I was super athletic though, and was really good at sports. I was unquestionably smart, but I couldn't sit still to take tests or do homework. This made my life hard. Thus, I was "disabled" despite all the perks and benefits of being able to make my mind move twice as fast as everyone else around me. It was a trade-off. I could give a list over a page long of how this "disability" has made me able to do things other people simply aren't capable of.

But yeah, parts of life suck for someone with ADHD, so it's deemed a disability.

Even so, a disability and a mental illness are not the same things. ADHD in NO WAY WHAT SO EVER alters a person's perceptions, understandings, or feelings about the world around them. They are NOT sick. ADHD is absolutely not linked to lunacy in any way, shape or form. It never has been and it never will be. It's not even the same category of phenomena.

People with ADHD are just as capable of remembering things as they actually happened as a normal person (if not better). They're just as empathetic. They're just as concerned, have just as much compassion, have just as much sympathy. They do not hear voices in their heads telling them to do things.

Mental illnesses:
Psychopathy
Sociopathy
Schizophrenia

Disabilities:
Dyslexia
ADHD
Deafness

Disabilities in no way alter a person's perceptions or emotions. It has no impacts on their memories, does not diminish their intelligence, and it really isn't even that anything's "wrong" with that person, except that they at times struggle with societal creations and constraints (reading a book - reading and writing in class is a societal creation, not a natural reality - and thus a dyslexic person is only deemed disabled because of how society failed to construct a manner of doing something that worked for everyone within it). The same is true for deaf people and people with ADHD.



Sorry about the rant. I just wanted to make it as clear as I could that ADHD is absolutely NOT a mental illness. Not remotely.

We've wandered down the rabbit trail several times in this thread, so I wanted to keep my responses as clear and separate as possible, SP.

Quote:

Originally posted by Sugarpie

...

ADHD was first observed and and accepted by the psychiatric community in the early 1900's, yet its diagnosis was quite low until the 1980's....every decade since, we've seen its rate of diagnosis double.
1970's - 1%
1980's - 3%
1990's - 5%
2000's - 8%
2010's - 15%

They are estimated numbers, but experts believe them to be accurate. There is no way a mental illness spreads that quickly through a population. People are lazy, so are parents, they want an easy fix for their child who is hyperactive...ADHD drugs are their babysitter.

Well, it's not as simple as that. People didn't always know what ADHD was or that it even existed. Often, kids were just punted from school or adults fired from a job for acting out or getting frustrated, and they were written off as bad apples. Only recently (50 years or so) has there been actual research on this behavior and it was only quite recently (the last 20 years or so) that there was physiological evidence to support the theory that ADHD brains work differently than other brains.

Not too long ago, the number of rapes reported in our country (and worldwide) was lower than it is today too. That doesn't mean it didn't exist. It always existed. We just learned to recognize it when it happened. We also learned to accept the reality that things like date rape and spousal rape are still rape. It now gets reported more often and people tend to refer to it for what it is now, because our education on the topic is greater.

The same can be said of ADHD. It's reported more because we have the tools to diagnose it better now, and because more people know what it is. In 1950, if you'd have asked me what my problem in childhood was, I'd have said I was a bad kid.

Today, I can say I was a "mostly good" kid, with some ADHD to help add spice to my life.

That's not unusual for disabilities. Once we learn that it's a disability and not someone's inherent personality or behavior we start recognizing it more throughout all of our society, so of course the numbers are going to rise.

No, ADHD is probably not more common today than it was in 1970. But our ability to identify it accurately is.

Both of these posts are really well produced Tarquin. Thanks for posting them to clarify the issues. I wanted to do the same several times, but figured that the points might be lost in peoples' need to vent. I would like to add just one more point to others reading this thread. Be careful about making a diagnosis without actually do the work it takes to gather the information needed from the source. It isn't possible here.

Just because a person can read the DSM, does not mean they know how to apply the terms. This point is less about this particular subject of this thread than it is about how lots of people throw diagnoses at people without understanding basic differences between mental illness, behavior disorders and disabilities. I know way too many people who's lives have been ruined by diagnoses that were inappropriate, casual remarks, or used as tools against others. I worked with a woman recently that was mis-diagnosed with a borderline personality and institutionalized. She lost most of her so-called friends who thought she was dangerous. She actually had an adjustment disorder, temporary in nature and triggered by an abuse episode that they knew nothing about. She was victimized twice. She completely recovered from both, after a lot of work, and is back on track with her stellar gift of teaching challenged youth.

Using terms like "mental illness" when we don't have the chance to actually get all the background information is un-ethical, as well as unnecessary.

As happens in many of these cases, the talking heads on TV make it even worse by modeling unethical behavior all over the place. The use of the terms is compelling to a casual user, and makes them feel like they are engaged in the conversation, but it just perpetuating the problem.

It's enough to say that this kid was pretty fucked up. The situation was made worse because every system surrounding him failed to intervene. Now 6 young people lost their lives over it. We got some work to do.

VDG,

Post more.

The problem is that the term 'mental illness' carries with it a certain perception that the person is unstable or psychotic...whether it be depression, anorexia, OCD, or yes...even ADHD. While its true that some metal illness, such as manic behaviour and forms of bipolar cause the person to act violent or wildly inappropriate, the truth is that most mental illnesses are easily controlled at times, even without medication. Tarquin, you say that ADHD isn't a mental illness, and I disagree, Its centred in the brain, and effects your behaviour and how you act. Call it a disability if you want, but I suspect you're only doing so because of the stigma attached to the phrase 'mental illness'.

I will also agree that we're able to identify different mental illnesses now, where 50 years ago we couldn't, so ALL mental illness diagnoses have increased in the last 30 years, but I still don't believe that ADHD effects 15% of adolescent population. And estimates say about 7% off the adult population have ADHD. We don't like to go to school, we don't like to go to work, we don't like responsibilities...thats being human. Almost everyone one of us would rather be on a vacation somewhere, or sitting on our patio with a drink, or golfing, or snowboarding, but just because you can't sit still in a meeting doesn't mean you have ADHD. The criterial for ADHD include about 50 different conditions, ranging from easily distracted to blurting out inappropriate comments, so when 10 year old Johnny goes to the doctor and his parents say he's hyperactive, the doctor diagnoses him with ADHD and prescribes Adderall. Medication for ADHD is supposed to be a LAST form of treatment; counselling to properly diagnose the apparent ADHD is supposed to be the first, but lazy parents don't wanna spend that kind of time taking their kids to therapy, so they push the doctor for a medication instead. This is why the rate of ADHD is higher than any other mental illness, and also why its the most studied mental illness by the drug companies.

SugarPie, I really have a lot of respect for you, but I think you are either using these terms loosely, or by their common/street definition, or by your personal standards. It's worth clarifying that, because you are not using them the way that a trained professional uses them (or as they were intended). When you state that some of the disorders are "easily" controlled, you might have some magic that the rest of us don't have. It takes a lot of work and perseverance. If you are classifying ADHD as a mental illness, it is not the way a professional classifies it. It isn't a mental illness. It is a disability (by professional standard), and that can be accommodated in many cases and under certain conditions. This isn't about stigma, although the terms mental illness, disability, behavior disorder, etc. all carry with them stigma. This is about professional use of terms.

I'm not going to touch any of the use of the other terms in your post, except to say that these reflect common mis-perceptions and mis-understandings. Another reason not to go down this road.

Ok...maybe 'easily controlled' isn't the correct term, but some (I never said all) mental illnesses can be controlled to a certain degree by the person. We have fully functioning alcoholics, people with dyslexia function fine and learn to cope. Exhibitionism is a mental illness...most of those people control the urge to take off their clothes MOST of the time. New evidence suggests insomnia may be a mental illness, and again, most of those people cope more or less most of time. Do they function as well as people without a mental illness...probably not; but you'd likely never know they anything wrong.

All I was trying to say is that some mental illnesses don't have that stigma attached to them, because you could meet a person with one, and never know it....because they have learned to cope with it. Where others, such as autism or schizophrenia are much more visible and carry that stigma...but because they all fall under the umbrella term 'mental illness' society tends to judge anyone with a mental illness as "crazy". Calling it disability is easier.

Totally agree. A gun is a stand off weapon. A knife makes it up close and personal.

Quote:

Originally posted by Sugarpie

...

Because knives are tools and guns are weapons.

Quote:

Originally posted by Sugarpie

All I was trying to say is that some mental illnesses don't have that stigma attached to them, because you could meet a person with one, and never know it....because they have learned to cope with it.

I agree with this, but I have to qualify that many mental illnesses appear in waves, where are others (by very definition) result in some of the most charming people you would ever meet. Ted Bundy (when he wasn't actually killing someone) was by some accounts one of the most charming people in the world. It took a long time before people finally figured out that he had a borderline personality, and was a serial killer.

Quote:

Originally posted by Sugarpie

Where others, such as autism or schizophrenia are much more visible and carry that stigma...but because they all fall under the umbrella term 'mental illness' society tends to judge anyone with a mental illness as "crazy". Calling it disability is easier.

Autism and schizophrenia are only visible to some people when they are going through a severe phase. There are many people with autism that are incredibly functional (see Temple Grandin for example) and you wouldn't actually call her autistic if you were to meet her. She is certainly shy, but you should see her around animals. Incredibly charming. Many of us who work (or worked) with lower functioning persons with autism would say it is a disability, not a mental illness. There is some evidence in the professional literature that as many as 60% of persons incarcerated can be diagnosed with autism, but even more than that have higher than normal IQ. This is one of the reasons why trained professionals in this field don't talk about "most" or "many" or any other general modifier.

Dyslexia is not a mental illness, but a disability. There are as many forms of it as there are people diagnosed with it. Multiple etiologies, and multiple treatments. Alcoholism can be either, depending on the etiology and response to treatment. Sometimes it is a behavior disorder, and other times is (and should be) considered a mental illness. I would argue that either disability or mental illness carry stigma depending on the crowd and condition. A professional would never avoid the diagnosis based on stigma. The diagnosis is about etiology and treatment. (It can also be about who's paying, but that is a separate issue).

Quote:

Originally posted by Sugarpie

You can see where he's coming from?? Care to elaborate so we all don't think you're a woman hating nut case?

I mean, I had no problem identifying the fact he was carrying a disorder of some description and that one doesn't necessarily have to be a trained professional to figure that out... I could have worded it better.
The sad part is he himself even knew it but lacked any capacity to address the problem, this arrogant narsisistic attitude caused it to snowball to the point of no return. Given his psychiatric history I find it hard to believe how easily he was able to buy three new handguns and ammo without anyone batting an eyelid. This put an elephant in the room that for some reason went overlooked. I know it's easy to say now and I'm not blaming the guns, I just think those purchases were an obvious indication that Elliot was up to something and with a state of the art identification system could have been stopped at the counter, then some form of behavioural monitoring or full time psychiatric care be implemeted from that point.