I don't know how I feel about Mark Manson, as generally speaking I don't think much of people who write for Thought Catalog and I feel like his social theory is still pretty undeveloped, but this was an interesting article: http://markmanson.net/school-shootings
QuoteIn 1998, a high school junior named Eric Harris from Colorado wanted to put on a performance, something for the world to remember him by. A little more than a year later, Eric and his best friend Dylan Klebold would place bombs all over their school — bombs large enough to collapse large chunks of the building and to kill the majority of the 2,000 students inside — and then wait outside with semi-automatic weapons to gun down any survivors before ending their own lives.
"It'll be like the LA riots, the Oklahoma bombing, WWII, Vietnam, Duke and Doom all mixed together," Eric wrote in his journal. "Maybe we will even start a little rebellion or revolution to fuck things up as much as we can. I want to leave a lasting impression on the world."
Eric was a psychopath, but he was also smart.
Reminded me of some thoughts I was having about bullying, and how in some cases it can be a warning sign that there is something amiss with the reported victim of the bullying.
That is an interesting article.
Indeed it is, the links drawn between terrorism and the portrayal of mass shooters seems fairly accurate.
However.
There's something about this guy that seems off.
http://markmanson.net/books/models
QuoteAnd since reading it, I've also landed numerous phone numbers and have a date this Wednesday. I actually enjoy telling girls straight up, "I'd like your phone number," and so far I haven't had a negative rejection either. A few with boyfriends or fiancees, but stuff like that is rolling off me. That doesn't even touch on the increase in my fashionability, my rekindled exercise–you were right, Yoga classes have a LOT of in-shape ladies–and a willingness to explore and try new things.
QuoteI've been involved with seduction since 2006 and I've consumed a lot dating products. Many try to make their readers into "pickup artists" – today I gag at the term.
But you don't do that. I like how spend so much time in the book reinforcing the fact that we are good human beings at our core and it's a matter of presenting ourselves honestly, without apology to everyone we encounter. And you give the reader the tools to strip away all the disguises that other seduction gurus have said we need to wear at all times.
To me, this looks and sounds exactly like the kind of shit I was referring to in QG's Rape culture thread.
Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 12, 2014, 04:50:00 AM
Reminded me of some thoughts I was having about bullying, and how in some cases it can be a warning sign that there is something amiss with the reported victim of the bullying.
Could you expand on this a bit?
There's some decent points in there, but I also feel he's trying too hard to engage in reductionist claims about the complex causes of what makes someone a killer. Funnily enough, it's not the comparison with terrorism that bothers me, I find that to be actually somewhat apt even if I think there are crucial differences he is ignoring (terrorists are, by and large, not mentally ill. School shooters, by contrast, largely
are), but this paragraph bothered me:
QuoteBut this "witch hunt" we go through every time a school shooting happens is a total ruse. Elliot Rodger didn't become a killer because he was a misogynist; he became a misogynist because he was a killer. Just like Eric Harris didn't become a killer because he loved violent video games; he loved violent video games because he was a killer. Just like Adam Lanza didn't become a killer because he loved guns; he loved guns because he was a killer.
So everything that is wrong with school shooters is that they are killers? Well fan-fucking-tastic, we've reached the crux of the problem. That's the kind of reductionistic thinking that really bothers me, because when you take it beyond a certain point, you're just writing down tautologies.
"Killers kill." May have have a heap of grant money, now?
I hereby dub thee a Senior Research Fellow of the Research Department for the Institute of Tautological Research Studies (Research Institute).
Husband and I were having this discussion yesterday. Anyone who wants to kill, is going to do it. Bottomline. No gun safe is going to stop a teenager with a vendetta and enough common sense to steal their parents' keys to the safe. No "bulletproof blanket" is going to stop a really psychotic person from finding their targets and going around the necessary means of protection anyway, and giving teachers the right to carry at work could end even worse if their assumptions are wrong, and they are jumpy...because shit happens, but we shouldn't eliminate the idea entirely. What we SHOULD do is train teachers and school police to recognize behavior patterns associated with these types of individuals, just like they do in Israel. If red flags go up, take action immediately.
Yes, killers are gonna kill, but if we can figure out how they tick, we may be able to stop incidents before they occur. Granted, this isn't foolproof, a psychopath who's very good at being fucking crazy can probably hide certain behaviors.
But, you know, training people costs money. It's cheaper to ban guns or arm others to the teeth.
I just had a radical idea.
It has been known to happen that people are influenced by their direct surroundings.
School shootings tend to be done by people who go to school regularly, it is almost as if they are forced to be there.
It may just be that there is something about schools that triggers this behaviour in some people.
Quote from: Regret on June 12, 2014, 03:02:37 PM
I just had a radical idea.
It has been known to happen that people are influenced by their direct surroundings.
School shootings tend to be done by people who go to school regularly, it is almost as if they are forced to be there.
It may just be that there is something about schools that triggers this behaviour in some people.
Oh cool, so fuck education, then.
I'm pretty sure he's thinking about the schooling system rather than education in general. I've considered the same myself, I hated formal education with a passion and dread to think what I/others could/would have done as an idiot kids with access to guns and no real understanding of long term consequences.
True, but let's be honest, it was a crazy leap in logic.
You notice what else I noticed about all the school shooters? They were at least half-white. We must eliminate the white race in order to cure this menace.
*obligatory Bulworth quote here*
How about, instead of concentrating on characteristics the shooters also shared with tons of other people who never shot anybody, or concentrating on obvious factors that the shooters shared (ie; they killed people), we instead look at common factors among the shooters that are not shared with non-shooters?
Crazy, I know.
But that sounds like work, and I need to upload this half-assed blog post now.
Quote from: Hoopla on June 12, 2014, 02:11:41 PM
Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 12, 2014, 04:50:00 AM
Reminded me of some thoughts I was having about bullying, and how in some cases it can be a warning sign that there is something amiss with the reported victim of the bullying.
Could you expand on this a bit?
Sure. I have a fairly long post about it around here somewhere, but I have no idea where so I'll try to recap. This is a really touchy arena because what I want to say could so easily be interpreted as victim-blaming, and that is not how it's intended at all.
When you have a kid who is being bullied by one or two or a small group of people who habitually bully other children as well, it is fairly obvious that the problem lies with the bullies. However, sometimes you have a situation where a kid is picked on, or rejected, by all of his peers for being "different". I think this kind of situation bears close examination, because our tendency in the current zero-tolerance atmosphere is to assume that the majority of the kids are being assholes, making life miserable for the poor different kid.
The majority of diagnosed psychopaths in prison report being bullied as children. Elliot Rodgers reported being bullied in childhood and in college.
Psychopaths have a pretty pervasive inability to take responsibility for their own actions; everything is someone else's fault, always. She made me kill her. He had it coming to him. I was just trying to be friendly and they jumped me. The story is often very, very different from the perspective of the other people involved.
Elliot Rodgers filed a report claiming that he was bullied at a party, picked on for no reason at all and pushed from a balcony when he was just minding his own business and trying to have a good time. He later admitted lying when witnesses told a very different story, about a belligerent Rodgers, angry that he wasn't getting attention, getting aggressive with a group of people who were laughing and talking. Rodgers ultimately jumped from the balcony in a rage, breaking his ankle. But it wasn't his fault; they
made him do it. They weren't talking to him or paying attention to him, like he
deserved.I think it's possible that a situation where a child is routinely bullied/beaten up/excluded not just by a group of peers, but by most or all of his peers, might be an opportunity for evaluation and intervention. Nobody really knows what to do with children who have oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder -- the labels given to children who exhibit behaviors linked to psychopathy in adults -- but early intervention could help improve the outcome for them and the people around them.
This is also relevant to the 12-year-old girls who tried to murder their friend. Children at that age are not diagnosed with psychopathy, but that is very much an example of the kind of thing that happens when two conduct-disordered children find each other. The problem then becomes not "how do we punish them?" but "how can we keep them out of circulation?". Kids who commit premeditated murder (as opposed to the "got involved in something that got out of control" kind of murders) at an early age almost invariably kill as adults as well, if they make it that far, so while trying them as adults seems Draconian and unethical, it may be the best bet to keep them out of circulation.
Makes sense. The cries of bullying could be real...or they could be a pathological need to be the victim, either out of a sense of generalised superiority or as a more cynical manipulation of the sentiments of others.
They aren't all victims of bullying though. Some are just deranged from the get-go, but that's not a convincing enough story for everyone to swallow. Here's a source involving Columbine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/24/opinion/the-columbine-killers.html
QuoteHarris wasn't bullied by jocks. He was disgusted by the inferior breed of humanity he saw around him. He didn't suffer from a lack of self-esteem. He had way too much self-esteem.
Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 12, 2014, 06:06:06 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on June 12, 2014, 02:11:41 PM
Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 12, 2014, 04:50:00 AM
Reminded me of some thoughts I was having about bullying, and how in some cases it can be a warning sign that there is something amiss with the reported victim of the bullying.
Could you expand on this a bit?
Sure. I have a fairly long post about it around here somewhere, but I have no idea where so I'll try to recap. This is a really touchy arena because what I want to say could so easily be interpreted as victim-blaming, and that is not how it's intended at all.
When you have a kid who is being bullied by one or two or a small group of people who habitually bully other children as well, it is fairly obvious that the problem lies with the bullies. However, sometimes you have a situation where a kid is picked on, or rejected, by all of his peers for being "different". I think this kind of situation bears close examination, because our tendency in the current zero-tolerance atmosphere is to assume that the majority of the kids are being assholes, making life miserable for the poor different kid.
The majority of diagnosed psychopaths in prison report being bullied as children. Elliot Rodgers reported being bullied in childhood and in college.
Psychopaths have a pretty pervasive inability to take responsibility for their own actions; everything is someone else's fault, always. She made me kill her. He had it coming to him. I was just trying to be friendly and they jumped me. The story is often very, very different from the perspective of the other people involved.
Elliot Rodgers filed a report claiming that he was bullied at a party, picked on for no reason at all and pushed from a balcony when he was just minding his own business and trying to have a good time. He later admitted lying when witnesses told a very different story, about a belligerent Rodgers, angry that he wasn't getting attention, getting aggressive with a group of people who were laughing and talking. Rodgers ultimately jumped from the balcony in a rage, breaking his ankle. But it wasn't his fault; they made him do it. They weren't talking to him or paying attention to him, like he deserved.
I think it's possible that a situation where a child is routinely bullied/beaten up/excluded not just by a group of peers, but by most or all of his peers, might be an opportunity for evaluation and intervention. Nobody really knows what to do with children who have oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder -- the labels given to children who exhibit behaviors linked to psychopathy in adults -- but early intervention could help improve the outcome for them and the people around them.
This is also relevant to the 12-year-old girls who tried to murder their friend. Children at that age are not diagnosed with psychopathy, but that is very much an example of the kind of thing that happens when two conduct-disordered children find each other. The problem then becomes not "how do we punish them?" but "how can we keep them out of circulation?". Kids who commit premeditated murder (as opposed to the "got involved in something that got out of control" kind of murders) at an early age almost invariably kill as adults as well, if they make it that far, so while trying them as adults seems Draconian and unethical, it may be the best bet to keep them out of circulation.
My wife recently hired a young woman, who in the interview seemed extremely exceptional... she was outgoing, intelligent, had all the right schooling and references... her first week there she came to my wife in a panic that someone had given out her information to a guy who was stalking her online. My wife obviously took this very seriously, and took her to a board room to discuss... the conversation quickly broke down as the female described the situation it seemed obvious (I don't recall the exact details at the moment) that it would have been impossible for this individual to have gained any information about the female, at least from her very very new job.
A week or so later, she came to my wife again, in tears. She claimed that her co-workers were in cahoots against her, talked about her all the time behind her back, made running jokes at her expense, and finally deleted the work she had due. My wife has known her co-workers for years, and obviously found all this a little hard to swallow. Keep in mind she's been at this job for less than three weeks at this point. My wife gets IT to look into the issue, and they discover that the work was never on the computer to begin with. Suddenly the new girl remembers that she had it all on a flash drive, which she must have taken home. Or maybe one of the other employees stole it, trying to sabotage her.
Also, somewhere in this conversation her stalker comes up again, but this time the stalker is a female. Someone from high school, apparently. When my wife mentions the male stalker, the girl begins to cry that nobody ever understands her.
I told my wife: you have to get rid of this chick before she comes in and stabs the fuck out of everyone. And get your supervisor to do the firing. That seems like a lot of warning signs to me. Am I right?
Even if she doesnt stab everyone she sounds like a completely poisonous person to have around. Kill it with fire.
Quote from: The Suu on June 12, 2014, 04:17:03 PM
Quote from: Regret on June 12, 2014, 03:02:37 PM
I just had a radical idea.
It has been known to happen that people are influenced by their direct surroundings.
School shootings tend to be done by people who go to school regularly, it is almost as if they are forced to be there.
It may just be that there is something about schools that triggers this behaviour in some people.
Oh cool, so fuck education, then.
Not really, the world is full of other forms of education than the ones where school shootings most often occur. (I think that mostly happens at American Highschools, though i'm not sure and either way it would an interesting subject to read more statistics about.)
Education is my most favourite thing in the world,
(high)school on the other hand tried to make me hate learning and reading.
Quote from: Junkenstein on June 12, 2014, 04:38:30 PM
I'm pretty sure he's thinking about the schooling system rather than education in general. I've considered the same myself, I hated formal education with a passion and dread to think what I/others could/would have done as an idiot kids with access to guns and no real understanding of long term consequences.
Thanks for putting my intended message in words, for some reason that is difficult for me.
Quote from: Cain on June 12, 2014, 04:45:00 PM
True, but let's be honest, it was a crazy leap in logic.
You notice what else I noticed about all the school shooters? They were at least half-white. We must eliminate the white race in order to cure this menace.
*obligatory Bulworth quote here*
How about, instead of concentrating on characteristics the shooters also shared with tons of other people who never shot anybody, or concentrating on obvious factors that the shooters shared (ie; they killed people), we instead look at common factors among the shooters that are not shared with non-shooters?
Crazy, I know.
Leaps that are taken often become mere steps, it is sometimes hard for me to keep track of my own deviance from the norm.
Anyway, a more important question than what they share, is what they
don't share with other people in similar situations. Like your earlier comment about the dissimilarities between school shooters and terrorists. I still think there can be something specific about school that increases the chance of people going wrong in this way. Maybe it´s the schoolculture dominated by people too young to have fully developed their capacity for empathy? Or maybe it is the mandatory aspect, the first thing you learn is that the teachers are your enemy, they are the most visible powers that force you there doing unpleasant things with people you don''t like in a straight backed sitting posture that is very stressful for your back. But soon you realize that it is your parents who sent you there, so they are if not your enemy at least very bad at being your ally. And when you try to take a day off the police captures you and returns you to that hell so you can´t trust them either. The only people who come through school without severe trauma are those who can connect with the other
prisoners students, either through friendship or manipulation. Luckily for most people humans are quite adept at this art of socializing, so the percentage of damaged students is less than 5%, personally I wouldn't accept a destroyed-humans-rate (in a mandatory setting) above 0.01%
One in ten thousand emotional wrecks is already quite horrible, but i see the advantages of education and I can tolerate some horror in my society in exchange.
Anyway, enough rambling. I have to get up for work in 6,5 hours.
It seems we forget that children are mirroring the behaviors they are most influenced by. One of the scariest things that has come to be problematic in our beloved American culture is the "sit down", "shut up", and IF children show any rebellion to adhering to long ass hours in mundane and tedious in a classroom setting, the system brings to reason that they need MEDICATED into the disciplined state of mind.
I couldn't possibly come across as though I condone the actions of the children responsible for the shootings, however, I am suspicious that perhaps the systems in place risks representing a reprehensible drone maker and perhaps blurring the educational persuasions so that those within the system are damned if they do and damned if they don't adhere accordingly.
For a student to show excellence and high aptitude, as a society, we often refer to their evidence of accomplishments as "show boating" and such.
Maybe this is *just* my perception and qualifiably flawed but I see it, none the less, nationally.
Quote from: Cain on June 12, 2014, 08:49:45 PM
Makes sense. The cries of bullying could be real...or they could be a pathological need to be the victim, either out of a sense of generalised superiority or as a more cynical manipulation of the sentiments of others.
In some cases, they are the instigators, but because they perceive things as always being someone else's fault, they report it as bullying.
Essentially, my thought is that when one child is persistently shunned by most or all of their peer group, it might be worth evaluating them.
Quote from: Hoopla on June 12, 2014, 09:38:00 PM
Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 12, 2014, 06:06:06 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on June 12, 2014, 02:11:41 PM
Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 12, 2014, 04:50:00 AM
Reminded me of some thoughts I was having about bullying, and how in some cases it can be a warning sign that there is something amiss with the reported victim of the bullying.
Could you expand on this a bit?
Sure. I have a fairly long post about it around here somewhere, but I have no idea where so I'll try to recap. This is a really touchy arena because what I want to say could so easily be interpreted as victim-blaming, and that is not how it's intended at all.
When you have a kid who is being bullied by one or two or a small group of people who habitually bully other children as well, it is fairly obvious that the problem lies with the bullies. However, sometimes you have a situation where a kid is picked on, or rejected, by all of his peers for being "different". I think this kind of situation bears close examination, because our tendency in the current zero-tolerance atmosphere is to assume that the majority of the kids are being assholes, making life miserable for the poor different kid.
The majority of diagnosed psychopaths in prison report being bullied as children. Elliot Rodgers reported being bullied in childhood and in college.
Psychopaths have a pretty pervasive inability to take responsibility for their own actions; everything is someone else's fault, always. She made me kill her. He had it coming to him. I was just trying to be friendly and they jumped me. The story is often very, very different from the perspective of the other people involved.
Elliot Rodgers filed a report claiming that he was bullied at a party, picked on for no reason at all and pushed from a balcony when he was just minding his own business and trying to have a good time. He later admitted lying when witnesses told a very different story, about a belligerent Rodgers, angry that he wasn't getting attention, getting aggressive with a group of people who were laughing and talking. Rodgers ultimately jumped from the balcony in a rage, breaking his ankle. But it wasn't his fault; they made him do it. They weren't talking to him or paying attention to him, like he deserved.
I think it's possible that a situation where a child is routinely bullied/beaten up/excluded not just by a group of peers, but by most or all of his peers, might be an opportunity for evaluation and intervention. Nobody really knows what to do with children who have oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder -- the labels given to children who exhibit behaviors linked to psychopathy in adults -- but early intervention could help improve the outcome for them and the people around them.
This is also relevant to the 12-year-old girls who tried to murder their friend. Children at that age are not diagnosed with psychopathy, but that is very much an example of the kind of thing that happens when two conduct-disordered children find each other. The problem then becomes not "how do we punish them?" but "how can we keep them out of circulation?". Kids who commit premeditated murder (as opposed to the "got involved in something that got out of control" kind of murders) at an early age almost invariably kill as adults as well, if they make it that far, so while trying them as adults seems Draconian and unethical, it may be the best bet to keep them out of circulation.
My wife recently hired a young woman, who in the interview seemed extremely exceptional... she was outgoing, intelligent, had all the right schooling and references... her first week there she came to my wife in a panic that someone had given out her information to a guy who was stalking her online. My wife obviously took this very seriously, and took her to a board room to discuss... the conversation quickly broke down as the female described the situation it seemed obvious (I don't recall the exact details at the moment) that it would have been impossible for this individual to have gained any information about the female, at least from her very very new job.
A week or so later, she came to my wife again, in tears. She claimed that her co-workers were in cahoots against her, talked about her all the time behind her back, made running jokes at her expense, and finally deleted the work she had due. My wife has known her co-workers for years, and obviously found all this a little hard to swallow. Keep in mind she's been at this job for less than three weeks at this point. My wife gets IT to look into the issue, and they discover that the work was never on the computer to begin with. Suddenly the new girl remembers that she had it all on a flash drive, which she must have taken home. Or maybe one of the other employees stole it, trying to sabotage her.
Also, somewhere in this conversation her stalker comes up again, but this time the stalker is a female. Someone from high school, apparently. When my wife mentions the male stalker, the girl begins to cry that nobody ever understands her.
I told my wife: you have to get rid of this chick before she comes in and stabs the fuck out of everyone. And get your supervisor to do the firing. That seems like a lot of warning signs to me. Am I right?
Yes. Maybe not warning signs of violence, but definitely warning signs of a disturbed and manipulative person who will be nothing but trouble to keep around.
Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 12, 2014, 11:01:05 PM
Quote from: Cain on June 12, 2014, 08:49:45 PM
Makes sense. The cries of bullying could be real...or they could be a pathological need to be the victim, either out of a sense of generalised superiority or as a more cynical manipulation of the sentiments of others.
In some cases, they are the instigators, but because they perceive things as always being someone else's fault, they report it as bullying.
Essentially, my thought is that when one child is persistently shunned by most or all of their peer group, it might be worth evaluating them.
This may apply to me, I can't tell.
How would i tell the difference between a diseased social setting and paranoia?
I just take my good experiences in elementary school and university (and after that the various jobs i had, though not all were good experiences) as weak proof that it wasn't me who was the cause of the conflicts.
Quote from: Regret on June 12, 2014, 11:33:32 PM
Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 12, 2014, 11:01:05 PM
Quote from: Cain on June 12, 2014, 08:49:45 PM
Makes sense. The cries of bullying could be real...or they could be a pathological need to be the victim, either out of a sense of generalised superiority or as a more cynical manipulation of the sentiments of others.
In some cases, they are the instigators, but because they perceive things as always being someone else's fault, they report it as bullying.
Essentially, my thought is that when one child is persistently shunned by most or all of their peer group, it might be worth evaluating them.
This may apply to me, I can't tell.
How would i tell the difference between a diseased social setting and paranoia?
I just take my good experiences in elementary school and university (and after that the various jobs i had, though not all were good experiences) as weak proof that it wasn't me who was the cause of the conflicts.
That has been what I've encountered, however, as well. There have been a few people that I've known for more than twenty years who seem to acquire moderately healthy relationships with those that are more like minded and yet really struggle with mainstreaming. It's not problematic until it seems that there has been some kind of misalignment in levels of comprehensible communication and/or perception of adversarial presence.
The part about diseased social setting vs paranoia is one of the most fascinating to me. People will jump on any leading band wagon, it seems, as long as it's not their ass getting burned. *dunno*
Quote from: Regret on June 12, 2014, 11:33:32 PM
Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 12, 2014, 11:01:05 PM
Quote from: Cain on June 12, 2014, 08:49:45 PM
Makes sense. The cries of bullying could be real...or they could be a pathological need to be the victim, either out of a sense of generalised superiority or as a more cynical manipulation of the sentiments of others.
In some cases, they are the instigators, but because they perceive things as always being someone else's fault, they report it as bullying.
Essentially, my thought is that when one child is persistently shunned by most or all of their peer group, it might be worth evaluating them.
This may apply to me, I can't tell.
How would i tell the difference between a diseased social setting and paranoia?
I just take my good experiences in elementary school and university (and after that the various jobs i had, though not all were good experiences) as weak proof that it wasn't me who was the cause of the conflicts.
You wouldn't really have to tell the difference. A kid who is lacking social skills for any reason to such an extent that they are getting persistently shunned or actively picked on by the majority of their peers is probably a good candidate for evaluation and maybe social skills and empathy coaching, even if they aren't a budding psychopath. A kid who is consistently creeping out their gender of romantic interest or is approaching people in a way that others consistently perceive as threatening or insulting will most likely benefit from skills coaching even if they aren't at high risk for becoming a killer.
Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 13, 2014, 08:02:07 AM
Quote from: Regret on June 12, 2014, 11:33:32 PM
Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 12, 2014, 11:01:05 PM
Quote from: Cain on June 12, 2014, 08:49:45 PM
Makes sense. The cries of bullying could be real...or they could be a pathological need to be the victim, either out of a sense of generalised superiority or as a more cynical manipulation of the sentiments of others.
In some cases, they are the instigators, but because they perceive things as always being someone else's fault, they report it as bullying.
Essentially, my thought is that when one child is persistently shunned by most or all of their peer group, it might be worth evaluating them.
This may apply to me, I can't tell.
How would i tell the difference between a diseased social setting and paranoia?
I just take my good experiences in elementary school and university (and after that the various jobs i had, though not all were good experiences) as weak proof that it wasn't me who was the cause of the conflicts.
You wouldn't really have to tell the difference. A kid who is lacking social skills for any reason to such an extent that they are getting persistently shunned or actively picked on by the majority of their peers is probably a good candidate for evaluation and maybe social skills and empathy coaching, even if they aren't a budding psychopath. A kid who is consistently creeping out their gender of romantic interest or is approaching people in a way that others consistently perceive as threatening or insulting will most likely benefit from skills coaching even if they aren't at high risk for becoming a killer.
Very good point.
Though it kinda made my self-absorbed angst fizzle.
Oh well, back to being a functioning human I guess.
Quote from: Hoopla on June 12, 2014, 09:38:00 PM
My wife recently hired a young woman, who in the interview seemed extremely exceptional... she was outgoing, intelligent, had all the right schooling and references... her first week there she came to my wife in a panic that someone had given out her information to a guy who was stalking her online. My wife obviously took this very seriously, and took her to a board room to discuss... the conversation quickly broke down as the female described the situation it seemed obvious (I don't recall the exact details at the moment) that it would have been impossible for this individual to have gained any information about the female, at least from her very very new job.
A week or so later, she came to my wife again, in tears. She claimed that her co-workers were in cahoots against her, talked about her all the time behind her back, made running jokes at her expense, and finally deleted the work she had due. My wife has known her co-workers for years, and obviously found all this a little hard to swallow. Keep in mind she's been at this job for less than three weeks at this point. My wife gets IT to look into the issue, and they discover that the work was never on the computer to begin with. Suddenly the new girl remembers that she had it all on a flash drive, which she must have taken home. Or maybe one of the other employees stole it, trying to sabotage her.
Also, somewhere in this conversation her stalker comes up again, but this time the stalker is a female. Someone from high school, apparently. When my wife mentions the male stalker, the girl begins to cry that nobody ever understands her.
I told my wife: you have to get rid of this chick before she comes in and stabs the fuck out of everyone. And get your supervisor to do the firing. That seems like a lot of warning signs to me. Am I right?
Could be schizophrenia?
When step-Mang #2 got married, I sat next to one of her good friends at the wedding reception. Seemed like a nice, sensitive young woman. But she talked...A LOT. I started to realize that across however many hours dinner lasted, she talked entirely about herself and while I learned a great many things about her extremely complicated, drama-stricken life, she didn't once ask anything about me. I could have written biography of moderate length about her while she, on the other hand, would've had trouble remembering my name.
When she wasn't yammering to me, she kept going over to step-Mang #2 and tried to embroil her in yet more drama, plots and what have you.(Most of which centered around the desperately unhealthy relationship between her on again, off again boyfriend). She was fairly sure that all the woman in the bathroom room were talking about her, giving her the 'evil eye' and all the rest. Aside from the compulsive talking she was drinking at a fairly alarming rate, even for a wedding.
Later on, we heard from Step Mang #2 that this behaviour got worse & worse complete with 'voices in the head' and all that. Turned out to be a classic schizophrenic break which, thankfully was diagnosed and medicated (correctly for once) and the person concerned is doing pretty well and getting on with things.
One of the interesting features of schizophrenia that I heard about is the way in which it slices up time perception & memory. It's possible that she (the new hiree) sincerely believed she had done the work or was about to. Because a person suffering from this loses the normal linear sequence of events, they can frequently end up in odd situations, places etc without a proper memory of the how & why. Maybe she believed she had done the work and couldn't find it because of 'time slippage' and then panicked that it was missing. If you're paranoid, you're going to assume someone else must've fucked with it.
This woman sounds like she needs help. Gotta wonder if this has been diagnosed or whether she's got medication(s) that are not being used correctly, if at all.
Don't know enough about these things in terms of threat level to your wife or other employees. Having seen this in Step Mang 2's friend (and some others) it seems like a different type of problem to the 'I hate my parents/school/police so I'll shoot them' syndrome.
Oh, undoubtedly you are right... it's just that when it comes to my wife, I want her to be as safe as humanly possible. I don't want to sound like I'm mental illness witch hunter, but when Nigel mentioned that aspect of the bullying phenomena, the story (which is still ongoing, that incident I mentioned only happened a matter of weeks ago) popped into my head.
Quote from: Hoopla on June 13, 2014, 07:25:12 PM
Oh, undoubtedly you are right... it's just that when it comes to my wife, I want her to be as safe as humanly possible. I don't want to sound like I'm mental illness witch hunter, but when Nigel mentioned that aspect of the bullying phenomena, the story (which is still ongoing, that incident I mentioned only happened a matter of weeks ago) popped into my head.
I know how you feel. In Mrs Mang's last job, she worked with some pretty deranged people. Some of them were kind of people where you just had this feeling that you're going to see them on the 6 o'clock news complete with camera close ups of crime scene tape and those little markers they use for shell casings.
Does Mrs Hoopla have other work colleagues or higher ups to talk to or does the buck stop with her?
I dont know. Sometimes its not paranoia or schizophrenia. Sometimes individuals unknowingly are narcissistic in the way that they make their own worst imaginations come true by positioning themselves accordingly. At what levels are investigators of such consequential situations equipped? Its not like there is a sleep test to measure how sedated or how under the potential narcissistic personality has become (self or otherwise) hypnotically induced. Its further compounded by multiple moves and by how many more people becomes involved because sometimes, without even knowing, each influential and/or inflictive personality represented by the various roles of others risk further induction. Also, just as forcing an abrupt awakening upon an obvious sleeping sleep walker, the awakening of those induced under hypnotic levels can be irrevocably traumatized. Its a massive misconception that only magicians and illusionists perform such feats. These things do not require an adept hypnotist to put any one under, rather, instead, it seems to require such skill to awaken individuals out of such states, allowing adequate recovery which is much like the decompression tank time given to deepsea divers upon resurfacing.
Quote from: Hoopla on June 13, 2014, 07:25:12 PM
Oh, undoubtedly you are right... it's just that when it comes to my wife, I want her to be as safe as humanly possible. I don't want to sound like I'm mental illness witch hunter, but when Nigel mentioned that aspect of the bullying phenomena, the story (which is still ongoing, that incident I mentioned only happened a matter of weeks ago) popped into my head.
There's a certain level of self-preservation that means that it really doesn't matter what kind of crazy it is; when your alarm-bells go off you should listen to them and get away as far and as fast as reasonably possible.
The sad thing is that this does mean that a lot of mentally-ill people who need help become isolated, and society does need better mental health care and intervention, but at the same time any given person's mental health is not your responsibility, and your safety IS.
Quote from: The Right Reverend Nigel on June 15, 2014, 04:13:35 AM
Quote from: Hoopla on June 13, 2014, 07:25:12 PM
Oh, undoubtedly you are right... it's just that when it comes to my wife, I want her to be as safe as humanly possible. I don't want to sound like I'm mental illness witch hunter, but when Nigel mentioned that aspect of the bullying phenomena, the story (which is still ongoing, that incident I mentioned only happened a matter of weeks ago) popped into my head.
There's a certain level of self-preservation that means that it really doesn't matter what kind of crazy it is; when your alarm-bells go off you should listen to them and get away as far and as fast as reasonably possible.
The sad thing is that this does mean that a lot of mentally-ill people who need help become isolated, and society does need better mental health care and intervention, but at the same time any given person's mental health is not your responsibility, and your safety IS.
Sometimes isolation further complicates the condition.
I had always hoped that instead of society coming into better provisions for accessible mental health care and intervention that more members of society would pick up an increased interest in better understanding toward such individuals. It's not an adversarial view, it's just a little more in depth. Personal safety and preservation should be a primary concern and focus but for some of us the levels of compassion and emotional boundaries prohibit the expected distancing that is common in isolating. Also, in some cases, there can be severe separation anxiety and trauma induced hysteria eruptions that are often perceived as temper tantrums. Long term, the flare ups have the potential to change the biochemical levels of the sufferer and ensue autoimmune disorders. One of the more passionate quests that may help in adequate and effective isolation methods is doing so and taking the measures necessary that limit, if not prevent detrimental levels of anxiety, trauma, and such.
It is something that ultimately affects to us all. *hearts* as *heads*