Schizophrenic Outburst?
No one yet in the media has offered the possibility that Trolley Square shooter Sulejman Talovic might have suffered a schizophrenic outburst of some sort on Monday night.
I’m not trying to be flip or funny. I mean it.
It’s possible that Talovic’s loner personality and brooding countenance could have everything to do with a serious mental illness taking hold in his mind and body. Schizophrenia, for instance, often shows up in victims in their late teens or early 20s. Parents who have known this cruel disease in their children will often say they had no outward signs until the first real behavorial meltdown occurred.
If the Trolley Square massacre doesn’t scream out “mental meltdown,” I don’t know what qualifies.
I’m not any abnormal psychology expert. But I’ve certainly battled depression and anxiety with the help of a doctor’s care, talk therapy, plenty of exercise, and prescription meds. My mother’s side of the family is plumb-full of chronic depression. Some of them have had the good sense to get help; others, well, I’ll just say they’re still struggling.
We will never know what demons spoke to Talovic the night he sprayed Trolley Square with buckshot and took out five good people in the process. I’m just thinking the psychotic epidsode or complete breakdown explanation makes as much sense as any. For me anyway, it seems to explain the random nature of it all, the cold and determined brutality.
It’s also possible that Talovic’s parents — with limited income and with their own challenges as Bosnian refugees of adapting to a whole new culture, finding work, helping their four kids adjust — simply did not see or understand warning signs of mental illness in their oldest child.
My thoughts are just that: Mine. Any mental condition this killer suffered will never fully explain or excuse what happened. But it does give pause. And it does make me think how limited we are in recognizing, understanding, and accepting mental illness.
February 16th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Holly,
Talovic may very well have had some sort of psychotic episode during the shooting. I certainly wouldn’t rule that out. Because schizophrenia is fairly heritable, his family history might provide some clues in that regard.
However, his history as a forlorn loner also points to the possibility that the violent outburst was caused by social exclusion, per se.
Judith Twenge and Roy Baumeister have compiled a fairly compelling body of evidence that the experience of being excluded is a strong trigger for violent and a whole host of other self-defeating behavior. In laboratory studies for example, seemingly trivial social rejection is a surprisingly powerful predictor of violent thoughts and behaviors among young people who are by-and-large very well adjusted.
Adding the experience of isolation and rejection to the unimaginably violent atmosphere to which this young boy was exposed in Bosnia would tend to produce a particularly toxic brew of violent thoughts, tendencies, and emotions in the most dispositionally stable of us.
Of course, the psychosis and social isolation explanations for the boy’s behavior are not in the least bit mutually exclusive. A turbulent, violent, lonely existence can only exacerbate schizophrenic tendencies.
I give my students the-need-to-understand-and-accept mental illness sermon often (it’s the one time that I indulge myself in preaching when I should be lecturing). I should add the need to understand rejection, isolation, and lonliness.
February 16th, 2007 at 9:20 am
You know what? I just read what I wrote and I think it’s Jean Twenge rather than Judith Twenge.
February 16th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Holly,
I agree with your hypothesis of psychosis to explain Talovic’s murderous rampage, based on his age of 18 as a predictable time of emerging mental illness. (How could someone NOT be crazy to do such a thing?!) I also agree with gabespop’s suggestion of social isolation and prior trauma as a cause, with the likely possibility of both being a factor.
Tragedies such as the Trolley Square incident sadly then perpetuate it all through the ripple effect of Posttraumatic stress disorder, based on the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria of “experiencing, witnessing or being confronted with an event that involves the threat of death to self or others.”
Separating cause and effect is complicated as we are all subject to multiple factors of influence. It’s true that mental illness can run in families and also true traumatic events perpetuate problems. It’s a puzzle to me why more people don’t have mental illness running through their “family of origin!” Maybe we all do in one form or another.
February 16th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Actually, Yesterday I wrote a very detailed posting on PTSD or Schizophrenia as the most likely explanations for the incident on my blog Spy The News! located at www.o-be-wise.blogspot.com. I focus on copmarisons netween Talovic’s childhood traumas and US Military veterans who develop mental illness due to their experiences.
I hope you find it informative.
February 16th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Why is it okay to postulate a mental disorder, but not cool to suggest that a tragedy might be related to terrorism? It’s not PC to suggest that as a Muslim Bosnian, that he might have had other, anti-American, influences.
Well, the other shoe has dropped. KSL has interviewed Talovic’s father who thinks that his son may have been ‘trained’, and told to kill people. If it isn’t out-of-bounds for Sulejman’s family to suggest other influences, then it shouldn’t be for the media.
And, let’s not continue to hobble our thinking by writing off Sulejman’s father as grief-stricken.
February 16th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
If we based assumptions on a person’s religious beliefs, there are very few who would escape condemnation. There are Christian terrorists and Christians have a murderous past, for example (the Inquisition, the Crusades) and one could even claim the current war in Iraq as a Christian War as the president who dragged us into the war believes that God speaks to him, and his most ardent supporters also claim to be Christian as well. Determining possible terrorist ties by religion alone is therefore faulty.
There have been a rash of shooting incidents around the country similar to the one at Trolley Square in the past 10 years, and I’m willing to bet the majority of gunmen weren’t Muslim.
I think as the story solidifies, we’ll find that the PTSD and possibly even isolation as suggested above are far more relevant in determining motive.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
greenjenni,
You say any argument based on religion is faulty, but the same can be said of a psychological argument.
Both speak to a persons ’state of mind’.
Both speak to motive.
However, what concerns me is not the motive of Sulejman Talovic, but the ties of Talovic. Motives are useful when someone is going to trial. If there are ties, and others are involved, we should be concerned.
Concerned, at least enough to ask a question. I see no bigotry in asking the question about Talovic’s background.
His father says he thinks that someone trained him, and told him to kill people. His parents pulled him out of school when Sulejman was found to be looking up information on AK-47’s.
Writing this off to PTSD is pointless if Talovic was aided in committing this atrocity.
February 17th, 2007 at 9:42 am
Unstable, socially isolated folks are also those likely to be attracted to terrorist groups (they provide both an outlet for their hostility and social support - perhaps even an “explanation” for paranoid delusions).
In any event, it appears that this kid has been prone to violence for a long time - long, long before the “terrorists” could have reasonably been suspected to have “trained” him.
I provided the social isolation explanation because this kid’s life history was consistent with it and because it has a fairly impressive body of empirical support (the schizophrenia and PTSD explanations are not logically inconsistent with it, by the way. Both are very plausible explanations and I wouldn’t discount either).
That said, none of us is in a position to say what the “most likely” explanation for the shooting was (and that sadly may be the case forever).
And we need a hell of a lot more evidence than a grief- stricken father’s desperate attempt to explain the horrifying behavior and death of his son before we start fanning the flames of terrorist hysteria.
I think I speak for most Utahns when I say we’ve had enough tragedy and don’t need to incite more.
February 19th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Gabespop,
“That said, none of us is in a position to say what the “most likely” explanation for the shooting was (and that sadly may be the case forever).”
That’s true, which is why I made the point, in the first place, that it is as valid to talk about Talovic’s religion as his possible mental state. I don’t see why we would want to posthumously diagnose this guy any. Nobody is qualified to do that.
“And we need a hell of a lot more evidence than a grief- stricken father’s desperate attempt to explain the horrifying behavior and death of his son before we start fanning the flames of terrorist hysteria.”
I’d hardly say what I’ve said is “fanning the flames”. I haven’t identified any target, or proposed any violence.
I’m merely saying that we should stick to what we know.
February 20th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Good for you, Tyler. Stick to what you know:-).
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