Aspies For Freedom

I totally agree here.  I wouldn't sympathize with him much at all, there's really nothing that justifies killing random, innocent people.  I'm sorry, I just can't sympathize that much with someone who does these things, however bothered he was by society at large.  I can see why he might have reached a breaking point, but his difficulties still don't justify his "ultimate actions."

As far as finding a label to put Cho under, such as autism or whatever, yes that's a problematic thing and of course just "loner" in general could have a negative impact on students/folks who tend to keep to themselves, from over-reported incidents like these.

But as someone else pointed out in this thread, it's not autism or schizophrenia to blame, in the end it was the shooter's free will who decided to break that "judgment" barrier manually; it would be the same thing for any other individual, with or without autism or schizophrenia, or other "neurological difference."

It might be easier for sociopaths/psychopaths to break this "judgment" barrier and play God by deciding to end innocent folks' lives, but that's still a manual decision and in the end it is the individual who is accountable, not the individual's "neurological difference" or "disorder."

Anyone else agree?

Bull. I was bullied in school, but you don't see me running around killing innocent people. That's as much as of a cop out as saying he was merely "sick" - unless we're suffering from a disorder that causes us to be so severely delusional we can't tell the difference between right or wrong, we and we alone make our own choices. We live in a cowardly society these days; it's always supposedly someone or something else's fault that you committed a crime, got fat, smoked away your lungs, etc. Whatever happened to responsibility?

If some attention-seeking headcase decided to murder my sister and three dozen of her innocent schoolmates in cold blood, like hell would I be all "Oh, he was bullied so he was the victim in all this." I don't like to swear... but *** him, and *** any other murderous narcissists who thinks causing innocent people to suffer is at all excusable because other people were mean to you.

What now... sociopathy is the new emo?

Except he didn't "get his own back" on his bullies, he became the bully and killed dozens of innocent, random people.

Except I doubt this was a psychotic episode so much as a psychopathic one. He continued the cycle of bullying by victimising people weaker than himself and deserves no more sympathy than whoever picked on him.

I was just clearing up your misunderstandings about the standard clinical terms...

Yeah. There's not necessarily anything they could have done to prevent it, or anything they did which caused it - but could you imagine the guilt and distress they must feel, in addition to the grief of losing a son they loved? Blargh, I feel as terrible for his parents and sister as I do for the parents of his victims.

It was a bit like that with my own (now dead) father. He wasn't a mass-murdering monster, but he still did some fairly deplorable things. I honestly think that emotional conflict between loving someone and yet hating them for what they did is one of the most distressing things you can possibly feel. If my sister did what Cho did... Jesus, it's too horrible to imagine. I think I would just die of heartbreak. His poor family.

That's because they're narcissistic hypocrites.  They think they're entitled to this "double-standard," because THEY SAY SO!

I'm going to say that probably about 25% of all people have significant neurotic tendencies.  That's a "natural" thing, even when it fits the criteria for labels such as "anxiety disorder" or whatever.

I'd say significant psychotic tendencies aren't even related to neurosis, etc.  I don't see how neurosis leads to psychopathy.

Absolutely.  And you made your point clearer to me.

Sometimes I just "miss" the bigger picture of what someone is saying, I perseverate on a certain detail and it comes off as "I'm examining something unimportant, and probably missed the point."

I'm not sure how to explain this difficulty.  I call it "lack of central coherence" because that term makes a lot of sense for me.  I am not a scholar and haven't read books on all these things, but it seems to make sense as in this:  I look at a lot of details but don't fit them all together to comprise a bigger picture.

I don't know if that's just a "different thinking style" or a "common Aspie thinking style" or what it is.

Thus, I fear I may be seen as "dense" by others because I frequently (not always tho) miss the main point.  And for this reason sometimes I think I'm lacking intelligence, or something.

I really get down on myself over this.

opps wrong person, sorry marianna.