Elliot Rodger

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I have been watching the Youtube videos of Elliot Rodger, the 22 year old Santa Barbara killer who killed 6 people over a year ago, and I can't help but feel sorry for him. I do not condone what he did at all, but I can relate to him to an extent.

I heard that he was never officially diagnosed as having Asperger's, but his family and people who knew him suspected him of having it. From watching his Youtube videos, you can tell that he has some autistic traits. I can relate to him with his social awkwardness and feeling rejected by society. I have also felt hatred toward the world at times as he mentioned in his videos. I can also relate to him in wanting to go back to the days of my childhood.
The days of my childhood were the happiest days of my life and I always wish that I could go back as Elliot mentions in his video. Elliot and I also have the same taste in music because I listen to a lot of songs from the 80's as he did.

The only difference between us is that I am not a narcissist like he was and I do not dream of killing others. The whole thing is just sad for everyone who was involved. I don't normally feel bad for mass killers, but in this case I do feel bad. I wish Elliot could have gotten the help that he needed and I wish that he could have dealt with his problems in a different way. He was a very good looking guy with a lot of money, his own BMW. He got to travel all over the world and he had easy access to any celebrity that he wanted. Any kid his age would kill to have what he had.

I get the rejection and feeling lonely all the time part, but I don't understand how he could be that troubled when he lived such a luxurious and privileged life. I just turned 22, still a virgin, never dated, but I don't have fantasies of killing other people. I am definitely not rich like Elliot was. It is just sad that he had to give up everything he had and kill innocent people all because he couldn't lose his virginity. I kind of wish he was still alive. Am I crazy for feeling this way?

I feel sorry for his victims and their families, not him, no way. He was receiving professional help. I did read his "manifesto" and IMHO unlike Adam Lanza this person was not on the spectrum. Misogyny is overused at times but perfectly described him.

I find it disturbing that people in the autistic community are willing to sympathise with him. The last thing we need is for people to make associations between autism and mass killings like that. Especially if some irresponsible media already report it that way.

Any discussion of Elliot Rodger should take place after reading this info:

http://www.autismdailynewscast.com/stop ... shanellis/

http://thedailybanter.com/2014/05/repor ... ed-autism/



http://www.sheknows.com/parenting/artic ... ism-or-not

I've watched his videos and skimmed through his 'manifesto'. I don't see many autistic traits really, or not enough to say he had ASD anyway, he seems too socially aware. He came across as incredibly narcissistic whilst at the same time having little confidence or ability to pick up girls (possibly because he was a misogynist). He identified all his strong points and reasons why girls should have been throwing themselves at him, but doesn't recognise it is his arrogance and hideous world views that were probably putting them off.

I'm pretty sure the media link with Asperger's and Elliot Rodger was proven to be incorrect. The guy was clearly screwed up though; maybe some kind of narcissistic / psychopathic personality disorder.

RIP Elliot.

A poor misunderstood and tortured soul.

I read his manifesto (it was actually really interesting). I did feel bad for him because I understood the struggles he went through and can really empathize with them. I don't condone the killings, though.

I heard he was diagnosed with it at age seven but his dad says he knew nothing of the diagnoses and his family says the same too so which is it? Is the mother lying about the diagnoses?

I heard he was awkward as a child and a loner and he was shy. I didn't read any of his stuff.

I can't sympathize with him regardless of his mental state because I believe it requires willful evil intent to murder innocent life.

While there are a few things about autism or AS that may make some autistic at more "high risk" for antisocial behavior, I don't believe they're directly related - the aspects that I see which could translate into it are:

1. Poor "executive function", this seems to relate to poor problem solving skills, and a tendency to use more "primal" methods of dealing with anger, such as aggression or violence.

2. Poorer empathy (this isn't the same as antisocial behavior however, since it doesn't indicate a willful intent to harm others, but it may make it harder to sympathize with others' feelings).

3. A tendency to mentally break things down into "parts", or view the world and other people as 'physical objects'; viewing people more like "machines" than individuals might relate to poorer empathy.

I can't empathise with him. The jury's out on whether he was on the spectrum, and whilst I can understand, say, his feelings of being separate from the rest of society, I can't understand the thought process of blaming society for that fact.

The misogyny is also just too much. He couldn't see the irony in simultaneously stating he is good enough for women, and also planning to kill them? I know what it is to have mental illnesses/developmental disorders; a person's mind is a world unto itself - we can never truly understand another person's mind , and they cannot understand ours. For that reason I'm not judging him, I'm just saying that I don't get it.

He had NO justification for what he did. NONE.

He was a murderer, pure and simple

I would like to second that and in the Autistic community we shouldn't see what Elliot Rodger did as being attributable to his autism as it was actually much else.

Elliot Rodger grew up believing that he was entitled to sex from women seeing them as objects that should be his and it is no surprise that women would reject him for that as a result. It wasn't ASD that drove him into isolation it was his attitude.

But here in wrong planet we should be careful to say we sympathize with him since after all here is a guy who went and shot close to a dozen people. That kind of lack of empathy is awful and I don't believe it is a manifestation of autism in any way or something we can relate to for that matter.

i like to tell anybody that asks, that i'm kinda like the unab*mer but without the b*m. I saw big parts of myself in rodger, but not the violence. but I had a visceral hatred at being a total reject. I just wish, instead of the violence, that he just rejected society back, and retreated to the wilderness like I did.

Again Elliot Rodger is a different case here you are literally talking about someone without a moral compass or empathy. This is a person who after all took out all his anger on innocent people for absolutely no reason whatsoever and had crazy fantasies about torturing women. I simply can't imagine that as being a feature in some Aspie just because they feel alone and rejected. The fact is these people have so much other problems not just Asperger's and to use that as a reason for a mass shooting would be a scapegoat.

If he did have autism, admitting it is possible would be not a bad thing for us.
It will give those of us who also struggle with it recognition for not giving in, and show autism as something one has rather than is. The media is beginning to instill the belief an autistic person is autism like a person with cancer is somehow cancer itself because we do not acknowledge individuality among ourselves.
Denying any possibility he has it only makes room for compassion for people who have autism and learn to deal with it smaller as it paints autistic people as unwilling to see anything wrong whenever a person has autism. As if we are a supremacist group. Like white supremacists who deny a white person could do any wrong.
Schizophrenics can commit terrible acts, but do you see any media argument over schizophrenia? Do you see people using schizophrenia as a slur as often as autistic? Do you see people with as much misunderstanding over schizophrenia as people now have over autism?

As for Elliot Rodger, I saw some traits I used to have in him. He went down a different path than most of us into evil.
I don't feel sympathy for him yet I do not feel burning hatred, all I can think is "this is so terrible 6 people had to die".

He chose to do this and is guilty. Now he is dead and if there is a life after this then leave it to the judges on the other side, but if there is no life after death, then he is gone for good and we can only talk about who he was when he was alive as he has ceased to be living.

Well I see a problem with this I think that if we continue allow associations with mass shootings to be drawn to Asperger's or Autism what you may see is an unhelpful stereotype being brought against us, of the typical aspie being a violent loner. This may be a big thing to think about but I think it is entirely possible so long as these shootings make headlines. When when have an issue of gun control what typically happens is that people try to find a scapegoat other than the weapons themselves and if we allow this association with Autism to be drawn up then, we as people could risk being unfairly stereotyped.

I guess as well as that the whole idea of blaming mass shootings on autism may also encourage people to see traits such as lacking empathy which may manifest in a shooter to also be a manifestation in autistic people as well. This could encourage society to adopt a very negative view towards us and reinforce stereotypes that we are trying to get rid of.

Attributing Elliot Rodger's actions to autism doesn't give us recognition or make autism appear like less of a cancer it may do the opposite in fact. In the past their has been an assumption in the media that if you are High Functioning or have Asperger's you are basically doomed to live a life of isolation. Recognizing Elliot Rodger's actions as being attributable to Autism would strengthen this old idea.

Having read Elliot Rodger's manifesto I would say that even if he did have Autism we shouldn't put the condition as being the cause for his actions. Here is a person who throughout his manifesto never talked about experiencing any kind of love for anyone and spoke of his murder fantasies. You know as well as I do these are not autistic traits in any remote way.