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Jasmine McLendon Instructor: Malcolm Campbell English 1102 10 February 2014 How Societys Pressures Causes One With A Mental Illness to Snap

Does an individual who suffers from a mental illness snap only because of their condition, or is it the inordinate amount of pressure society puts on them that triggers their condition to its highest point causing them to snap? Are these people really evil mass murderers whose only purpose is to kill, or has society shaped them into the murders they became? Lets start off with a bit of background information before we attempt to answer these questions. I know youre probably wondering why in the world this topic interests me. Well, my career goal is to become a Pediatric Psychiatrist/Psychologist. I want to abet children who have mental illnesses by counseling them through issues they face daily by society. These issues can include family problems, school problems, peer problems, and problems within themselves. After several years of seeing mass murders and significant events on the news, I have come to the conclusion that this is a serious topic. People need to be made aware of this topic in order to avoid certain situations that could lead to a person with a mental illness snapping. According to John Fund, an American political journalist, in the National Review, a study by Mother Jones magazine found that at least thirty-eight of the sixty-one mass shooters in the past three decades displayed signs of mental health problems prior to the killings. What is a mass murderer? According to the free dictionary by Farlex, a mass murderer is a person who kills several or numerous victims in a single incident or a serial killer. So in all reality, those who kill

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many at a time are mass murderers but we have to look at why they did this and the pressure that was placed upon the individual such as a mental illness. Wordnet Web defines a mental illness as any disease of the mind, the psychological state of someone who has emotional or behavioral problems serious enough to require psychiatric intervention. The exact cause of a mental illness is unknown, but according to WebMD, it is becoming clear through research that many of these conditions are caused by a combination of biological, psychological, and environmental factors. Although some may be more serious than others, the symptoms that these people undergo are harrowing to them as well as those around them. Over the past few years, mental illnesses have been the determining factors in trials of mass murderers. On July 20, 2012, James Eagan Holmes, dressed in tactical clothing, entered a movie theatre and killed twelve people and injured seventy others using tear gas grenades and multiple firearms. He had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disorder that affects about 1.1% of the U.S. population eighteen and older in a given year. People who suffer from this disease are often paranoid and they hear voices. Also, according to Time Health & Family, people with schizophrenia are nearly twenty times as likely to kill as people unaffected by the disease. He was also diagnosed with dysphoric mania. This mental illness consists of major depression alternating with episodes of hypomania. Dr. Arnold L. Lieber, MD., a psychiatrist who studies the bipolar spectrum of mental illnesses, says that These patients are frequently resistant to standard antidepressant therapies, and sometimes their conditions are worsened by drug treatment with antidepressants. Aurora had been suffering from major stress due to his studies at the University of Colorado. So do we blame Aurora for his actions, or do we blame the conditions he suffered from due to his mental illnesses?

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On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza shot twenty children and six adult staff members in a mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. He had also killed his mother before leaving his home to commit the mass murder. Lanza then killed himself. The twenty year old suffered from Aspergers Syndrome, a high functioning form of autism. This mental illness can lead to difficulty interacting socially, repeated behaviors, and clumsiness. According to his biography, his classmates described him as fidgety and deeply troubled. Could family issues such as his parents divorce years before have caused the disease he suffered with to worsen, or was he just a young kid who allowed stress to cause him to kill? On September 14, 1989, in Louisville, Kentucky, Joseph T. Wesbecker entered his former workplace and killed eight people and injured twelve before committing suicide. Wesbecker suffered from maniac depression, a bipolar disorder in which a person has periods of depression, and periods of being extremely happy or being cross or irritable. The disease is also characterized by pathological mood swings from mania to depression. Wesbecker went through a divorce and bitter battle over custody of his two sons. He had admitted himself to hospitals to seek psychiatric treatment. After his job was sold and the management changed, he complained about stress and undue pressure. He grew hostile towards the new management and complained many times but was declined. He began buying several weapons some of which he used in the mass murder. Do we blame Wesbecker for his actions, or do we blame the family and job issues he faced that may have triggered his mental illness to reach a whole different level? On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho, a senior at Virginia Tech, shot and killed thirty-two people and wounded seventeen others in two separate attacks at the university before committing suicide. Cho suffered from anxiety disorder, a mental health condition in which a person is often worried or anxious about many things and finds it hard to control this anxiety. According to the

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Mental Encyclopedia, stress is caused by an existing stress-causing factor or stressor while anxiety is stress that continues even after the stressor is gone. Cho had received therapy and special education due to his condition. He was also ordered to attend treatment. Even with treatments and therapy, Cho still managed to commit a mass murder. So do we fault him, or the conditions that go along with anxiety? So far, with the research I have done, I argue that we should not fault the mass murderer but the pressure placed upon them that contributes to the mental illness that they are already trying to cope with. We can also blame those who knew that these individuals were on the verge of snapping but did not take major actions that could have avoided the mass murders. If more people in the U.S. are not made aware of this, they will continue to brush off the things that contribute to a person with a mental illness snapping because they think treatment and therapy will solve the problem when from what we have seen so far, is not the case.

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Works Cited "James Eagan Holmes." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2014.

Szalavitz, Maia. "After Aurora, Questions About Mass Murder and Mental Illness." Time. Health & Family, 31 July 2012. Web. 11 Feb. 2014.

Lieber, Arnold L. "BIPOLAR SPECTRUM DISORDER." Symptoms of Bipolar II: More but Technical. Depression Central, 01 Nov. 2008. Web. 13 Feb. 2014.

"WordNet Search - 3.1." WordNet Search - 3.1. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.

"Adam Lanza Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2014.