NOT GOOD, Connecticut shooter was diagnosed with Aspergers..

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Totally agree. The DSM diagnosis guidelines are so ambiguous and provide so much flexibility, and there is much in the killer's actions that is inconsistent with an ASD, that it is entirely plausible and, yes, probable that the purported diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome was completely wrong. There is no reason to accept "the media"s reporting on this matter.

After developing some insight about the young gunman's life, I keep pondering why he would kill his own mother. Did he have some kind of a bad relationship with her? Was he upset at her because she divorced from his father? I just don't understand why the gunman would kill innocent people if he was very shy, solitary, and never bullied by his peers. There have been some cases in which people commit shooting rampages as a result of being tormented, hated by people, or having emotional or psychological problems (for example the Virginia Tech gunman, and some single PA man who claimed he was socially rejected by women).

I figured out how to fake eye contact at an early age thanks to my speech therapist. My second grade teacher broke me of my rocking habit by mentally torturing me. I also learned how to not react badly to loud sirens or sneaker squeeks. An aspie can learn to deal with sensory stuff and stimming. I know I did and my psychologist said I was a text book aspie on all my tests.

He was very withdrawn and reacted badly when forced to speak publicly. You should not make a diagnosis about anyone unless you are a psychologist who has the person's complete history and mental evaluation test results.

Last edited by Todesking on 17 Dec 2012, 12:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

That is a good point. I personally think it might have been paranoia created/augmented by his mother. She was part of some sort of group which believed that you needed to be prepared for the apocalypse and had stocked up on food and weapons for that very reason -- according to an article I read. He might have imprinted on his mother very deeply and could've taken what she said very seriously. I think we've all taken things literally once or twice, and perhaps he did the same there? Without the question in his mind: is what she's saying true or is my mom a few fries short of a happy meal? It's likely he literally believed the world was ending. I don't know how he thought the world would end but perhaps killing people was something he reconciled in his mind by telling himself he was somehow saving them? Or perhaps he thought they were connected to the world ending. Truthfully, I can't say what he was thinking. It just seems to me like paranoia would've been a very plausible cause and it certainly has a place where it would've come from, as opposed to trying to figure out what violent nature was hidden but never showed itself.

He had something against women, which probably was influenced by his relationship with his mother. All of the adults and most of the children killed at Sandy Hook were female, and his mother, which is telling.

If everybody becomes ashamed of their ASD and hides it then a lot of 'normal' people on the spectrum will go under the radar. Eventually if the only autistic people the public hears about are mass shooters that will only hurt people with the condition further. I noticed that Temple Grandin gets a lot of 'I'm so sick of hearing about her' on this site. Would you rather we just fixate on people like Lanza? People like Grandin and Alex and the rest of the guys at WP are important in showing people who autism is beyond sensational media headlines and panics.

Info reported from friends and family

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... wtown.html

If true,that he was on Fanapt, which is primarily a drug for schizophrenia, but has been prescribed for other lesser conditions, then he was on a medication of very questionable effectiveness.

Fanapt is of questionable effectiveness, having been rejected by FDA in 2009 for not being as effective as exsisting drugs and then approved in 2010 although no new studies were conducted by the maker Novartis. Novartis sold the drug to Vanda, but then bought back in to share it.

http://www.examiner.com/article/fanapt- ... ipsychotic

Drug regulators in Europe (CHMP) rejected the drug this year.

http://www.pharmatimes.com/Article/12-1 ... _drug.aspx

The drug study itself has been called into question

http://www.pharmatimes.com/Article/12-1 ... _drug.aspx

Last edited by Toy_Soldier on 17 Dec 2012, 12:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

If one looks at the definition of psychopath, Lanza fits the bill. All of a sudden, according to the press, he is supposed to have ASD. No one knows for sure, but it is not a good thing that this has now happened. Lack of empathy is very different from not being able to express ones emotions. Many aspies have very high moral standards, and the so called lack of empathy is because they appear to be unemotional because they have difficulty knowing how to show emotions. This is to do with not being able to know what you are doing physically with your facial muscles (at least that is the way I am), rather than having no feelings. I cannot see myself when I speak, I have no idea what I look like, and it is already too much to think of but what I am saying at the time.

Why does the press let on to things that they are so ignorant about. The psychopath truly has no feelings, no compassion and does not care about what he or she does to another. This has nothing to do with what an ASD person has. Now we will get people coming out of the woodwork, paranoid about Aspies in the way that people used to be about schizophrenia.

Already there is a Baptist preacher on the net raving about Aspies being evil etc. What next, witch hunts?

Last edited by hilofoz on 17 Dec 2012, 12:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

Of course, as an Aspie, I thought he was for real!

Wow! so somebody with Aspergers goes crazy and shoots a bunch of people and everyone on this forum is so concerned over what the nuerotypes are going to think of us?

If you meet one person with autism you have met one person with autism. We are not all clones.

Not qualified in the area but some doctors believe that low dose antipsychotics should be prescribed for some people with Aspergers. Sounded like another off-label use of a dangerous chemical to run a mile away from. (Dont know if this has anything to do with this incident because we dont have the correct info at this time.)

Not much of the general public understands the autism spectrum well enough to make that distinction.

Correct, we are still going on wharever is 'leaked' or unverified sources.

This person was likely seen and being treated by one or more professionals and nothing as yet has been said officially on what the diagnosis and treatment was. I just hope his records weren't shreaded.

My take on this persons situation so far is that this was not just aspergers.

You have evidently not been reading what people are posting on many of the articles. "...Keep your evil kids away from ours..." "...I will blow away your precious Aspie..." Granted we are dealing with the internet crowd here but then so are we.

I'd hate to be 'that guy', but, no, if the guy was not able to get his hands on an assault rifle, the death toll would have been identical, because he left it in his car and used only his pistols. Not to say that I see any point in allowing assault rifles to be legal, mind - shotguns, long rifles and pistols I get the rationale for, assault rifles I don't. But this is being one of the highest death toll shootings, plus the fact that he used only pistols, shows that whether or not assault rifles are involved doesn't really matter as much as how much bloodlust the guy has and/or his shooting accuracy and/or his ability to block exits.



Honestly, I already admire American society for having anti-discrimination laws. Singapore has never had any, and refuses to institute any. Granted, having anti-discrimination laws doesn't stop your 'friends' from being douchebags, but at the very least, it prevents your jobs from being affected. I'm not trying to say that your life isn't going to be bad because of discrimination, only that it can be a lot worse. And I'm glad that at least in here, bullying me doesn't involve gutting me and leaving my entrails in an alley... which is true of some other countries, so even what we have here isn't as bad as what could be.

http://www.tafep.sg/faqs.asp#A2 [Psst. The 'tripartite' arrangement is actually that of the SNEF ('Employers', actually a government organisation), NTUC ('Workers', actually a government organisation) and the Civil Service (Government), so it's actually a single actor system where the government decides everything. Pretty neat, huh?]

An idealised solution would be one in which we can completely remove the discriminating masses from society, but history has proven time and again that you can't do that with a massacre, people just have even more children and come back in greater numbers than before (cf. World Wars and associated baby booms). Another one would be populating a spacecraft with only Aspies and colonising a new planet, but that's not going to be a practical possibility within our lifetime. What we have to do is somehow live with them. Either through laws and practices that foster understanding initiated top down(an anti-discrimination law is an excellent place to start, but it's not the solution if in isolation), or through awareness programs initiated ground up. This is for the overall solution. The individual solution is to simply withdraw from normal society, and associate only with people that understand you, so as to minimise discrimination. This need not mean associating only with Aspies, but associating with NTs that aren't jerks (a minority from my experience, but still a pretty sizeable minority - enough that you don't have to completely be a hermit) would work as well.

Of course, there's a conflict of interest between ground-up initiated awareness programs and defending your own interests. If you declare your status you may help the cause somewhat, but it will almost surely make your own life worse in most cases. That's probably a reason why we haven't really solved the awareness situation yet.

Well, that and the incredible stupidity of the average person. I keep lowering my expectations, and still constantly overestimate their intelligence, it's kind of annoying.



Well, I can't say I think the USA is the best country, there are a couple of countries I like a lot more (Japan, Norway, etc). However, Singapore is definitely worse. We have a lower incarceration rate than you guys, but probably that's because we have the highest execution rate in our region, and the second highest reported execution rate in the world in the past (and there are also unrecorded executions, so we don't really know the true number), though recently things have appeared to have gotten better, and I'm thankful for that. [P.S. all the executions for the past 40 years or so have been handled by the same man. He has the world record for most number of executions performed as an executioner, most number of executions in a day, and most number of simultaneous executions carried out in all history.] Not to mention we also execute citizens of other countries, which to me personally is a highly unacceptable practice.

Also, our jail conditions are so horrible it makes American jails look like luxury suites - and American jails are by no means comfortable accomodations!

We have very low doctor-population ratios, and mental health diagnosis rates are low because most of them remain undiagnosed and untreated - largely because of the lack of anti-discrimination laws. Cameras are literally everywhere, and we don't just have one of the densest police presences in the world, we also have one of the densest military presences due to citizen conscription and such. In a land where citizens are not allowed to bear private arms, you often see military police patrolling areas like the airport or trains with assault rifles - which is complete overkill when a revolver/pistol would do when the most armament anyone else can possibly bear is the humble kitchen cleaver and/or darts. A particular soldier created an uproar a while back when he carried a loaded assault rifle to the shopping district one day when he had girlfriend problems. It's fortunate he never actually pulled the trigger, but given our population density, if he had, the death toll would have been in the hundreds - probably 50-70 gun-related, and the rest from the ensuing stampede.

Oh, and in spite of our ridiculous legislation, police and military, we're only the second safest place in the region. Malaysia somehow manages to achieve lower violent crime rates without any of this.



I still got bullied in spite of being physically larger because the whole class + the teacher was in on the act. How big you are doesn't mean **** when you have 23 people cooperating to bring you down.

Also, stapler bullet caltrops on the chair, rubber bands with embedded stapler bullet spikes, hornets (paper bullets shot with rubber bands), spiked hornets (same as earlier, except with stapler bullets embedded again), garden variety rubber bands, curry chicken drumsticks and bubble tea pearls are just some of the many projectiles I've been hit with. The worst case was when a garden variety rubber band hit me in the eyeball.

Oh yes, and pepper spray in the eyes, partially shielded by spectacles. It took me the better part of two hours to get my vision back.

Remember, no anti-discrimination laws.

Did I mention that I'm planning to migrate to Japan? I've been planning on it for the past 5 years, and steadily learning the language. Once I get my degree I'm out of here. I've suffered enough personally from people here, but that's ok, in the suffering I've also acquired a ridiculous tolerance for it. You might call it desensitisation.

But there's no way in hell I'll allow my children to face this kind of treatment. If I could, I don't think I deserve to live.

Well, thank you, Bruno Bettelheim.

Really though, funny how everyone starts lateraling the ball when the s**t hits the fan. In any other context this sentiment just wouldn't be had on this forum. People would be up your butt over it in about ten minutes, maximum.

On another note, I consider myself an avid line-watcher. The line I am talking about is the one that marks the "cutoff" level of severity in regard to what can meaningfully be called autism. Let's say it's a scale of 1-10 (yeah, I know it's not actually linear like that...it's just supposed to be a representation, you Aspies) and that "1" indicates profound autism, while "10" indicates normality.

I like to imagine a short line drawn through this scale indicating the "level" being invoked by the language people use when discussing autism. If you do the same for a while, you will notice that, in the autism community, there is a lot of game-playing when it comes to this line. Most of this relates to shifting the line while arguing this or that aspect of autism in order to support your side of the argument. This will happen in arguments about the nature of autism, the nature of Asperger's, the relationship between autism and Asperger's, the etiology of autism, services for autistic individuals, the education of autistic children, etc.

By far the most common "game" that's played is for someone who's defending autism against some sort of negative correlation (bad autistic behavior, comparisons to less appealing labels, etc.) by drawing the line so low that it would probably exclude the person making the statement. It's a neat little quasi-catch-22 that makes this forum an interesting, if frustrating source of reading material. Maybe we can call it's "Poke's Law"? Autism can only be divorced from psychopathy, personality disorders, school shooters, etc. by drawing "the line" so low that it excludes most of the people on WrongPlanet. Yep, we Aspies are in a dicey situation here, for sure. It seems that almost any move we make will cause us to be hoisted by our own petard.

The frantic scrambling to dismiss the shooter's having Asperger's is sad. I see we've moved on to the stage where we all take turns saying things that amount to The DSM criteria for Asperger's doesn't mention school shootings, therefore this event was totally unrelated to this kid's Asperger's, he must have also been a psychopath or something, which naturally is also completely unrelated to his Asperger's.

Is anyone else embarrassed by this thread? The line is SUPER LOW right now, it's being kept at an all-time low in response to this shooting. I would be surprised if more than one or two of the people who've contributed to this thread would be considered autistic by this standard. So, what's it going to be? Accept the truth, or be thrown out into a diagnostic sea that's much more threatening than the beach you've been occupying? Oops...it appears that the folks at the DSM may have made that decision for you.

I would like to end this post by referencing a poll I made a while back: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postx172789-15-0.html

The poll question: Have you ever, while reading various diagnostic criteria for Asperger's, thought (even fleetingly) something like, "I feel like this stuff is meant to describe individuals who are more severely impaired than I am"?

As I write this post, the results of the poll are 31 "yes" and 23 "no".

Think about that for a minute.



PS) I'll bet the gap in that poll narrows now...watch for it.

Last edited by Poke on 17 Dec 2012, 7:30 am, edited 1 time in total.