Topekan: "Has Damien EVER been diagnosed with "antisocial personality disorder in other words a psychopath"? Remember, he had been in treatment, counciling and care prior to this. So if indeed he WAS "antisocial personality disorder in other words a psychopath" then his records would certainly show that diagnosis."OK!
The answer is no. Personality disorders are an Axis II diagnosis; Damien was only ever given Axis I diagnoses. Personality disorders are, as a rule, not given as a diagnosis to anyone under the age of 18. As far as I know, he's never been diagnosed with a personality disorder as an adult.
I believe Damien was (is) Bipolar that presented at times with psychotic features (which explains the "Psychotic Disorder NOS" as well as the "r/o Psychotic Disorder NOS" in the 500, "r/o" meaning "rule out"), which can account for his on-again off-again hallucinations and delusions. IMO I think the psychotic features were sometimes manifesting during both his manic and depressive episodes, and I think being on the wrong kind of medication had a lot to do with triggering these manifestations.
My young 'un was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder about 3 years ago, and I've read everything I could get my hands on about it. Topekan, if you'd like to discuss this further I'd be more than happy to, but maybe we should start a new thread instead of derailing this one. :-D
New thread about mental illnesses!
I had read that Damien had been diagnosed as "Bi-Polar" before 1993, and was under care for it. I don't recall what meds he was taking for it. But back then I am sure that prozac (SSRIs) would have been one of them. But isn't Bi-Polar a mood disorder? And not a personality disorder?
But we know that meds are not a magic bullet for any mental illness.
"Psychotic" can mean a lot of different things, and I believe that on it's own...uh...it can't be 'on its own'. "Sociopath" is also poorly understood. And due to popular media, pop-psyche, and hollywood hype, these terms are usually confused and miss-used or applied by us arm-chair shrinks.
I can't speak with any real authority, but I could probably go google and cut and paste some article that supports my position....but...hmmm...I'm not sure what my position really is?
I think at the core of this discussion was whether or not Damien's mental illnesses could or would contribute to this kind of violent behavior?
I really believe that people do not just go from a stand-still to violently murdering three kids. Making a leap like that is very improbable. I do not think that Damien had any real past violent episodes, or behaviors where he hurt another living thing. There were RUMORS of him killing dogs and cats or whatever, but afaik, those things never actually happened.
Now this verges on derailing this thread already, but I think it is worth mentioning in the context of mental health and behaviors:
People have been slaughtering animals for thousands of years. And raising animals for this specific purpose. This means that there have ALWAYS been "farm-boys" who grew up slaughtering the families animals. Pigs, chickens, goats, cows, whetever. That has just always been a fact of life.
So what changed?
As we became more industrialized, and many more people became urbanized, most of us became "Separated" and "isolated" from the butchering of animals. We buy our meat accross the counter, and more and more, in little plastic trays all presented nicely to the point where we almost do not recognize it as an "animal". For all I know, steaks could grow on trees.
So us urban city folk....maybe WE are the sociopath/psychopaths? We feel NOTHING about the vast quantities of dead animal flesh that we consume. The only emotional tie we have to it is when we have to pay too much for it.
HOWEVER, I think it this industrialized day and age, there IS a certain amount of de-sensitization that happens with people who deal with killing animals.
And there is CERTAINLY a link between people who torture and kill animals OUTSIDE of the necesity of eating them (Or selling them) and those people going on to kill bigger things, including, eventually, humans.
