Mental Health Professionals Are The Last To Know

Each time there's a school massacre, the mental health professionals who could have kept the killer's sorry ass locked up and out of harm's way have the balls to go on camera and tell the country --

"We just can't predict this kind of behavior."

To which I say, how f**king stupid are you people?

The crack mental health professional who was treating Laurie Dann, a deranged young woman who killed or maimed a bunch of little kids at a grade school several years ago, claimed he was as shocked as the rest of us by her behavior. What a retard. She had already tried to kill her sleeping husband with an icepick.

Why is it that everyone else who ever came into contact with these oddballs knew in their gut that they were quite capable of blowing people away? Family and friends, roommates and teachers -- they knew. But people with years of training are always surprised.

After more than a decade of frustration, law enforcement finally got a break when the Unibomber's own brother recognized something familiar in his crazed manifesto, when it was published by the New York Times.

Time after time, these Dr. Freud wannabes, who charge $200 for a 45 minute session, continue to pretend that they had no idea this type of behavior could possibly happen. Somebody should ask for their money back.

In a profession that demands empathy and understanding, too many of these mental midgets, especially adminstrators, seem to think their job description is to slap permanent labels on troubled people, load them up with drugs that make them zombies and warehouse them until their insurance runs out.

Why don't they talk to them? And not just when they're admitted. Why don't they talk to their families and the people who know them best? Even better, why don't they LISTEN to what they're saying?

The FBI has profilers who can predict what kind of a person is a serial killer. Cops can tell you patterns of behavior that have been distilled into a type that is predictable.

I was a battered women's advocate. There is a list of twenty-five characteristics of men who are abusers. The more characteristics they have the more you can predict they will kill their partners. OJ had 23 of the 25 markers. I told a girlfriend that the things her live in boyfriend was saying meant she was in danger. I told her to get out right away, but he had never hit her before. So she stayed. He beat her up the very next night.

I'm not a genius. I just recognized the patterns of predicability. And the shrinks can't?  Come on.

Let me go out on a limb here -- behavior is predictable. Okay, I'll qualify that -- there is a lot of behavior that is predictable.

Most people think they're making choices about their behavior because they like to think they have free will. But if I can predict what you're going to do, you can kiss free will good bye.

We finally learned that pedophiles can't be cured. Talk about predictable behavior. However, since our system of law is based on having the freedom to make our own choices, lack of free will is just a philosophical discussion.

You would think that the mental health pros could at least come up with a list of characteristics -- their own FBI profile -- of someone who could commit a school massacre.

And I don't just mean making a list of jargon filled characteristics that describe the illness a disturbed person might have. A list of particular behaviors that would wave a red flag and help school administrators and clueless therapists keep this person out of the mainsteam for good, if need be.

But then they might have to admit to being accountable for someone's actions. Perhaps a couple of lawsuits could encourage them to feel a greater sense of responsibility to the public when it comes to identifying someone who is a danger to the community.

Well, enough with the whining, I should try to help out. The least I could do is create a list to help people identify a creepy kid who might start shooting up a classroom or dorm someday. Let's see, I have a degree in English and six years as a volunteer talking to battered women, so I think that qualifies me for something.
 
1. Young man [Laurie Dann was a notable exception] 14 to 25
2. Loser according to every girl who even knows who he is
3. Monosyllabic answers to direct questions
3A. Wears black all the time
3B. Lies around all day, sleeps with his pet gun
4. Laughs when there's nothing funny
5. Writes/draws guns/knives and sexual/sadistic images
6. Watches the same violent movie over and over
7. Gives you the creeps
8. History of being bullied or otherwise traumatized [this requires talking to him, which no one wants to do, so we may not learn this until after he has committed his atrocities]
9. History of therapy or time in a mental health facility

And the tenth sign that someone like this will shoot up the campus -- his therapist announces after the massacres that "There was no indication he would be violent."