[girlwithbrownhair]

It seems to me that so many of the recent mass shootings have been committed by people on the autism spectrum. Right now I'm thinking about the Connecticut shooting...and am indescribably sad. But the Aurora, CO shooting too, they said he appeares to have had Aspergers.

What do you think of that? Do these shooters being id'd as having autism or Aspergers make it harder for you to tell people you have it? Do you feel extra stigmatized? Worst of all, do you think we really are more capable of these sorts of crimes...?? I...don;t know what to think, anymore.

I mean, when you're feeling bullied or misunderstood, ostracized...have you ever felt so rage-filled that you ever, in your wildest thoughts, thought about doing something similiar? If so, what stopped you?

Becasue..when I was in high school, I did entertain that fantasy, of hurting certain classmates who really were truly and well monsters towards me. I mean, physically tormented, emotionally. I had PTSD for years after high school. But I never did anything because deep inside I loved my parents too much, and feared retribution. Thank God, I mean, thank God I never did anything, because today when I look back, my tormentors had pretty terrible lives themselves. And I can see that I was pretty immature, and really, terribly self-centered, in a non-deliberate sort of way.

Anyway, thanks for listening and maybe answering.

[enchanted]

I am sorry you had such a hard time in school, kids can be so cruel

[Hellion]

I don't think I can take the media's word for it whether or not any of these people actually were on the autism spectrum...it is certainly possible but its not as though autism makes people do that it might be a factor as to why they may have been ostracized which may have be a factor in such crimes.

As for stigma it might create, I keep in mind it's ignorant to assume someone is going to do something terrible like that because they have a certain mental disorder....sure it doesn't help but its nothing new.

Anyways I suffered a lot of bullying and ostracism growing up, and sure sometimes I did think about what I could do to get them all back. Not really sure what stopped me...maybe it was that I dealt with things more internally ended up trying to commit suicide instead of trying to kill or hurt anyone else. I suppose now what prevents it is I simply have no desire to kill anyone unless I had to in self defense or something. Of course in addition to being on the autism spectrum I have PTSD and since I've been aware of the symptoms of that I seem to have developed a weird issue where I can do things I would not do.....if I get experiance disassociation or whatever its called when my rage mode thing is triggered it can get rather bad, luckily though that never lasts so long I could do anything to that degree without getting stopped long before due to complete insanity. I end up hurting myself more than anyone else.

I think everyone has a breaking point autism or not, when someone is pushed to that point bad things can happen...though I certainly cannot claim that everyone who commits a mass shooting did it due to anything like that...as I don't know what went on in their heads exactly. Ironically enough the media jumping on autism or other mental disorders is likely to only increase stigma which only creates more ostracism and alienation of people with autism or other mental disorders.

[Rapunzel]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2248782/High-school-tech-club-student-turned-cold-blooded-executioner-How-classmates-remember-genius-Adam-Lanza.html

Here is an article that discusses this shooter.

I think that some of the characteristics of Asperger's can contribute to incidents like this - difficulties connecting with others and having social contact, and deficits in understanding and expressing emotions. I don't think that a lack of empathy is really the right characterization - we struggle with theory of mind, and don't pick up on how other people are thinking or understand our own emotions or how to talk about them. People can't tell how distressed we might be, because we don't know how to tell them or show them. There is also sometimes a distorted sense of justice - overemphasizing the pain that someone else caused to us in comparison with ideas of retaliation, justice, or making them feel the pain of what they did to us.

That said, I don't think that people with Asperger's are more likely to become violent than anyone else is. I think that I am extremely peaceful (even if I did joke about blowing up teachers' cars in high school when I felt hurt by them), and I think that most of us are really very peaceful.

[-jimi-]

People with Asperger's are good victims. I have been slandered and beaten as a kid and scammed as an adult. I think 90 % of people with AS have been victims of crime.

THIS is the real problem. So called normal people are perps and they get away because they are "normal" so being heartless is totally fine.

What makes news is when one of "us" snaps. Most of us would NEVER. Everyone can snap and when someone with AS does, he snaps in an AS way. A BPD would snap in a BPD way. Know what I mean?

But the news will make us look as monsters and there is little we can do. It will just be more hell given us, but we're used to it....

[autotelica]

My therapist was kind of weird with me today. She started talking about that guy and then stopped abruptly. We talked about something else and then returned to the shooting. She started talking about that guy again and then quickly changed the topic, clearly uncomfortable.

We got onto another topic (more whining from me), and then--apropos of nothing--she just blurted it out. "They said the shooter had Aspergers!" It's like she couldn't hold it in anymore. I told her I wasn't worried about it. And then, I guess to mop up any awkwardness, she said people with Asperger's are more likely to be the victim of violence than the perpetrators of it. I almost laughed because it sounded like she'd just memorized a pamphlet or something!

It's cool, though. I know I'm her only patient who has been diagnosed as having AS and she doesn't have any experience with it, so it makes sense that the whole thing is making her think.

[emgreen]

I don't have AS (I'm bipolar)...But when I read the title of this thread I figured it might relate to the Connecticut shooting. I'm so sorry the news reports speculate that the shooter had AS...The stigma you folks might already bear is horrible. I just wanted to add a note of support & sympathy. In my opinion, the contention that the shooter had AS might just be another fact the media's gotten wrong.

[CantExplain]

I suspect autism is just a lazy diagnosis. They used to blame everything on psychopaths, remember?

[Sila]

CE might want to clarify that a bit more detailed, at first glance it looked like you were saying autism is a lazy diagnosis - period. Not in relation to the media "diagnosing" murderers with it to try and make sense of the crime.

Also just to clarify things further- Autism and Aspergers are not mental disorders. They're neurological / developemental. They can coexist with mental disorders, and possibly even spur the onset of some. But alone, aspergers/autism does not cause it and is very loosely related to any violence- if related at all. People on the spectrum are more likely to be victims than the actual criminals themselves. When they are violent, it is usually inward in the forms of self injury, suicide attempts, etc.

[Hellion]

Originally Posted by Sila

Also just to clarify things further- Autism and Aspergers are not mental disorders. They're neurological / developemental. They can coexist with mental disorders, and possibly even spur the onset of some. But alone, aspergers/autism does not cause it and is very loosely related to any violence- if related at all. People on the spectrum are more likely to be victims than the actual criminals themselves. When they are violent, it is usually inward in the forms of self injury, suicide attempts, etc.

I don't see how it being a neurological/developmental disorder prevents it from being a mental disorder, as far as I know it's all three of those. Its certainly not a mental illness but it is still a disorder having to do with the brain so I'd still consider it a mental disorder.

Also, I think sometimes victims can reach a breaking point, and the results can be quite shocking I suppose it depends on the individual if they will more take it out on themselves or direct it at others. So in that sense the autism could still be a factor but certainly not a cause I just know from personal experience if one is socially 'weird' it is possible to get bullied and ostracized which could contribute to violence, but then it also contributes to suicide and self harm.

[Callista]

People with autism are statistically less likely to commit crimes than people without autism.

It is, however, not impossible for a person to be both autistic and a sociopath. Both conditions are very common; autism is 1:100, sociopathy, anywhere from 1:100 to 1:20 depending on how you define it. Even by sheer chance, there will exist some autistic sociopaths, and some of those will go on to commit highly-publicized crimes. Moreover, people who commit highly publicized crimes are extremely likely to either be diagnosed with a mental disorder or have a prior diagnosis made public, because it is comforting for people to think that somehow, someone who did something horrible could not have willingly chosen to do it; it's comforting to think that humans are not capable of things like that, to excuse it. But humans are perfectly capable of doing horrible things, however much we like to pretend they are not.

There has been some research on autism and morality, and it's been established that autistic people have firm systems of morality just like non-autistic people do. The only difference seems to be that autistic people are more likely to prefer concrete rules (such as "It is important to make sure everyone has enough to eat") rather than working by feelings ("I would feel horrible if I didn't help that hungry person") . While autistic people are less likely to experience emotional contagion (the tendency to pick up the emotions of those around you), their sense of compassion is entirely unimpaired: Once they are informed of someone else's feelings, they care just as much as a non-autistic person would. Some actually care very deeply, perhaps precisely because they are not used to being aware of others' emotions, so that when they are made aware, they are unable to ignore that reality. I have met autistic people who will cry inconsolably if they understand they have accidentally hurt another person, or hurt an animal, or even damaged a beautiful or delicate object.

Just like any other human being, autistic people are capable of choosing between great good and great evil. Occasionally, an autistic person will choose evil. He does this not because he's autistic, but because he's a human being and he made a choice. Autism doesn't impair your ability to make moral choices. Certainly it can be easier to choose to do something evil if you have been mistreated for a long time; but the very existence of people who have been mistreated, and who do not choose to hurt others, proves that this is a choice and not an inevitability.

It worries me that autism may become associated with antisocial actions in the public mind. As far as I'm concerned, the best I can do is to be an example of an ordinary, non-homicidal person who happens to have autism--awkward, disabled, often socially oblivious, but someone who, like most people, would rather die than kill an innocent. I advise the rest of you to do the same. Autistic people are not saints, but we're not demons either. If we can just tell the world what it's really like to be autistic--what our mundane, everyday lives are like, how we experience all the same human universals that they experience--then autism won't be scary and foreign anymore.

[NYCDoglvr]

The much bigger issue is a mentally unbalanced person's ability to get his/her hands on guns. He may have killed his mother without them, but couldn't have massacred large numbers of children. There is a stigma with all mental illness, that doesn't change. Will it increase because of the terrible murders? Probably. But the only people whose opinion matters are those we care about; it's a good idea to focus on the loving support we get.

[-jimi-]

Very nice post, Callista.

[bluesycorax]

I can't help but wonder if as a result of having aspergers he had isolated himself which narrowed the chances of him being diagnosed with another disease or condition. I would think people who socialize more may be in a position to become aware that they may have something else wrong. I am just not convinced in any way that these acts of violence were as a results of aspergers. At the very least there was something undiagnosed. It is rather difficult to diagnose them after they are deceased though not impossible and I'm sure they are trying to figure it out now but it may be difficult if he isolated himself which will leave only Aspergers in the public mind which is unfortunate.

I think your childhood fantasy was just that, a fantasy nothing more and many people experience fantasies like that I think though seldom admit to them or ever act on them. Its probably just a coping skill. Perhaps I'm wrong about that but that is what I've come to believe in my many decades of life and from various sources.

I'm not so sure I want to go blasting that I'm proud to have Aspergers these days, the public can be cruel with very little information and the press doesn't seem to mind providing the small bits of information and disinformation for those feelings.

[Callista]

The assumption here is that a murderer must have been driven to it by some sort of mental illness, that killing people is a sure sign that you're insane. But that's actually not true. When someone deliberately kills another human being--especially involving the sort of planning it takes to go on a shooting spree--it's a choice.

Yes, some murderers have a mental illness. But having a mental illness does not usually make you unable to tell the difference between right and wrong. Most people with mental illnesses--including very severe ones--are perfectly capable of understanding the implications of killing another human being. And once you get to the point that you no longer understand what "murder" means, much of the ability to plan a murder has vanished as well. I honestly can't think of more than a couple of cases where a person had a mental illness and committed a murder they would not have committed if they had been mentally healthy. Most of the time, it's not a mental illness causing murder--it's just that a murderer happens to have a mental illness.

I know most of us here have struggled with mental illness. Think of the times when it was worst for you--when you weren't thinking clearly. You might have been confused, sad, withdrawn, or even emotionless. But you didn't randomly turn homicidal. You were still yourself; you were impaired, distressed, maybe even angry; but you didn't go out and kill people, because your code of ethics includes "I don't kill people."

Yes, quite a lot of people think about killing a bully or a nasty boss or even a noisy neighbor. That seems to be quite unrelated to whether they actually do ever kill anyone. Unless it's an actual obsession, I'd consider it quite normal to think about killing someone who truly angers you. It's really very common to have "unacceptable" thoughts like that popping into your head. Don't sweat it. You might daydream about strangling somebody, but it's highly unlikely that this is an indication that you intend to do any actual strangling.

[Nihil]

I think it may be more difficult in the future to be open about having Aspergers, depending on how paranoid people get about it. I don't think that would be a large population of people, but I could be wrong.

[Callista]

It seems we are mourning one of our own among the victims, too--a boy named Dylan Hockley, who was autistic.

Article

Nicole Hockley said that her son had an amazing bond with teacher Anne Marie Murphy — and that on the day of the shooting she searched for Murphy, knowing she would never leave Dylan alone.

She said Murphy never did leave Dylan — that Dylan died in the arms of his beloved teacher, who also was killed.

Hockley recalled asking Dylan at one time why he flapped his arms when he got excited. She hadn’t expected an answer because Dylan had a form of autism that left him with undeveloped language skills.

“Because I am a beautiful butterfly,” he told her.

... “If one butterfly can cause a hurricane, then 26 butterflies can change the world,” [Dylan's mother] said.

Earlier, family friends recounted stories of how they came to know the family, and of the happiness Dylan brought to them.

They described Dylan as a joyous, loving little boy who often would laugh himself silly by repeatedly replaying parts of his favorite movies.

It's just not fair. Too young...

I've been discussing this at Wrong Planet, too, and someone there made a very astute comment: "It wasn't autism that caused this tragedy. It was hate."

[JustLikeHeaven]

I don't feel any stigma from being diagnosed with Aspergers. Most people don't even know what it is.

I have to agree that people with Aspergers may tend to be easier targets for bullies but rarely become violent because of it. It takes another illness to drive someone to that kind of violence.

[NightSarabande]

Originally Posted by girlwithbrownhair

It seems to me that so many of the recent mass shootings have been committed by people on the autism spectrum. Right now I'm thinking about the Connecticut shooting...and am indescribably sad. But the Aurora, CO shooting too, they said he appeares to have had Aspergers.

What do you think of that? Do these shooters being id'd as having autism or Aspergers make it harder for you to tell people you have it? Do you feel extra stigmatized? Worst of all, do you think we really are more capable of these sorts of crimes...?? I...don;t know what to think, anymore.

I mean, when you're feeling bullied or misunderstood, ostracized...have you ever felt so rage-filled that you ever, in your wildest thoughts, thought about doing something similiar? If so, what stopped you?

Becasue..when I was in high school, I did entertain that fantasy, of hurting certain classmates who really were truly and well monsters towards me. I mean, physically tormented, emotionally. I had PTSD for years after high school. But I never did anything because deep inside I loved my parents too much, and feared retribution. Thank God, I mean, thank God I never did anything, because today when I look back, my tormentors had pretty terrible lives themselves. And I can see that I was pretty immature, and really, terribly self-centered, in a non-deliberate sort of way.

Anyway, thanks for listening and maybe answering.

Thanks for sharing this. I also went through hell during high school, so I can relate a bit to this post.

[Hope.Floater]

Ok I'm going to be honest, I read the first three sentences of the original post. This is a topic I am extremely sensitive with in many ways. First off I am the mom of a 6 and a 7yr old. Those are the ages of the children who were killed in the Connecticut school shooting. My 7 yr old is Autistic which is another sensitive topic. Third thing I am labeled as having a mental illness.
Mental Illness already has a major stigma that many of us advocate and educate to reduce. It seems whenever something this terrible happens “mental issues” are to blame and now that Autism is in the forefront this is being added to the list of issues to blame when one or more particularly Americans can’t take society and do something totally outrageous. Many people in this country are ignorant when it comes to mental health and Developmental education. If one were to research statistics they would see that both people who suffer from mental health and developmental issues are more likely to be the victim of a crime rather than the perpetrator.

[Rapunzel]

I think you have a very good point there, Mighty Mouse. Mental illness doesn't cause shootings. The isolation and anger over mistreatment would be significant factors. I think that there does need to be a focus on mental health, because people with mental illness deserve to receive appropriate treatment, and because if people understood mental health better, stigma could be reduced and people could do a better job of being aware when there is someone isolated, emotionally wounded, etc. and could reach out to them and help them to feel like they are a part of the community. I would never go on a shooting rampage, but I relate to how hurt and excluded people must have felt before they got to that point, and I'm sickened that it seems to be happening to so many people.

[Callista]

Odds of someone with a mental illness committing a violent crime: Same as the general population.

Odds of someone with a mental illness being a victim of a violent crime: Ten times the risk of the general population.

I think we need to protect, not fear, the mentally ill. The mentally ill are a very vulnerable group, and when someone is vulnerable, the rest of their community should help keep them safe.

[avlady]

i've spent the majority of my adulthood i'm 52 now, in and out of hospitals, for mental illness, after an accident which left me dibilitated. when you say the odds of a mental illness person being the victim of a violent crime is 10 times the amount is so true. the scapegoat is the mentally ill person. the people in the hospitals and groups where they are i found i've felt the safest around already. they stick up for each other, would even put their lives in danger for another patient before they put it in danger of a worker.they even treat the social workers respectively and become friends to them. the stigma is the worst part-it is hurtful and decieving. i remember getting on the bus every day was everyday hell to get to the center that i belonged to at the time.

[Hellion]

I hate that feeling that I was the last to find out I wasn't normal functioning and a bit on the odd side but rather....way way way off socially and such. Not sure if I prefer knowing why I got treated the way I did at school, or when I couldn't see what everyones problem was. It was mentioned to my parents that something could be wrong or whatever but they didn't pay much mind and didn't want to put me on meds for understandable reasons, and I certainly didn't think I had any sort of mental condition either. Maybe some sort of awareness of it would have helped, though I've heard of some 'therapies' that don't sound very theraputic to me that I may have been exposed to if more attention had been paid to my weirdness.

Stigma and ignorance are probably more of an issue than 'the mentally ill'. though I realize autism isn't nessisarily a mental illness I'd catagorize it more as a condition.

[Callista]

Yeah, autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder. An autistic brain is a healthy autistic brain, not a sick typical one. Kind of the way a person with Down syndrome has a healthy brain, despite their intellectual disability, because what's different about them is that their brain just developed differently. Autism's like that. So are learning disabilities, for that matter, and many other life-long, stable disorders. I wish people would remember that, because it is crucial to how these disorders are managed: Instead of trying to make them vanish, it is prudent to teach the person to compensate for them, to live with them instead of trying to push them away.