Rampage killer Chris Harper-Mercer was an Aspie

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The article that states the mother has Aspergers...

http://time.com/4062209/oregon-shooter-mother-guns/

There is a quote from her stating she has Aspergers. Now whether she pulled that out of her ass because her kid was diagnosed, or it was truly diagnosed. I don't know.

People are already raging about drumming up charges on her crazy ass. I flip between hating her and feeling absolutely sorry for her, because she has no sense.

ETA: It was almost a blessing that Nancy Lanza died. I remember how people absolutely hated her, and had she lived it was going to get ugly really fast. Laurel Harper better let her lawyer do a the talking, and keep a very low profile. She is getting the blame for this whole mess via social media and now in the press. (right or wrong)

When someone says they have aspergers, many people now wonder if they were diagnosed and really have it or if they are just saying they have it without diagnosis. This is one of the reasons I am against self diagnosis and making claims of having autism without diagnosis. In this case, I don't know if the mother and son have autism diagnosis.

I'm guessing the son did. He was at a behavioral school, which teaches children on the spectrum. No one has came out and said, "Oh he had ADHD, or Bipolar..." Usually family is pretty quick to correct you.

The mom...Who knows. It's not the gun thing that stuck out, but the refusal to get her ID picture taken. That is a HUGE deal, and to say you'll know me because I'm wearing a stethoscope? WTH? There must be a huge shortage of LPNs up in Oregon, because my worked place would have broomed her right then. I can't tell you how weird that comes across. We couldn't even flip our ID badges around so the picture wouldn't show. My hospital would write you up because everyone needs to be quickly IDed by patients, doctor...whoever.

Maybe in the 1980s, you could have raised a little hell, and dodged a picture. Not today. The mom sounds like she has bolts loose, but having bolts loose doesn't make you dangerous. And bolts loose doesn't mean ASD, but I wouldn't be surprised from what has been presented in the papers about her if she was on the spectrum.

I'd hate to be an ASD parent, if the mother is I've read of ASD people losing their kids to CPS for questionable reasons (and even Attwood isn't great on that subject) and this could make that worse.

You...

...win the internets today.

+1

Lol, bet ya weren't expecting that in an in-depth tense political discussion-- I thought the thread could use a little levity, glad you liked it.

People wonder because people lie about all sorts of things all the time for all sorts of reasons. That's why it's (ostensibly) the reporter's job to verify what is and isn't true and why court room proceedings are (ostensibly) methodical. I would half expect the mother to lie by omission about any psych diagnoses.

People lie, exaggerate, minimize, spin & obfuscate. This is not some thing that's been newly created by self dxers. If a neighbor lied and said the kid had schizophrenia ('cuz a lot of people are ignorant about sz) would that be caused by the sz self-dxers?

NY Times piece on gunman

It was just the opposite, for me..... I've gotten the idea that she isn't American Black, for a couple of reasons..... One, being that there are a few cultures where the people won't allow you to take a picture of them; and 2, I thought she might've come from a war-torn country and always feared for her life, but was powerless to do anything about it; when she came to America, and was finally able to defend herself, she became obsessed with it.

Yeah, I haven't read anywhere that someone said he was Bipolar, either----but, I'm thinking he was (in ADDITION to the Asperger's), as, as-far-as-I-know, there's no medication for Asperger's, and his mother said the problem was when he didn't take his medicine; and, one of his screen-names had the word Lithium in it.







EDIT: I forgot to put the second quote, and a period.

Last edited by Campin_Cat on 06 Oct 2015, 6:07 am, edited 3 times in total.

From the above article ...

"She also opened up about her difficulties raising a son who used to bang his head against the wall, and said that both she and her son struggled with Asperger’s syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder'

I would doubt the New York Times would use any online posts claiming to be Ms. Harper without rigorous fact checking that it was in fact Ms. Harper making those posts. Not impossible, the paper has had plagiarizing scandals but not likely.

The descriptions of Ms. Harper as odd and edgy dovetail with Aspergers. That does not mean they are. We do not know how Ms. Harper came to the conclusion she is an Aspie. As far as the perpetrator it seems unlikely he could get into a special needs school without a professional diagnosis.

Based on her advocacy and familiarity with autism I wonder if Ms. Harper and maybe her son is a member here.

Deleted. Link for nytimes.com article higher up in thread.

Last edited by Tawaki on 06 Oct 2015, 8:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

Late to the party....

I laughed so hard, I enhanced my coffee seeing Link!

Thanks for the uplift.

The mother keeps mentioning aspergers, does she think that is why the son shot people?

usually if someone says they have xyz disorder, I wouldn't question that they have it.
But with many people saying they have aspergers without diagnosis, I couldn't automatically believe that the mom does when she said she does.
That's one of the negative effects of self diagnosis that applies not only in this case, but can be in general when someone says that they have asd, they may not be believed as they should be, this has happened to people I know, others thinking they are self diagnosed when they are diagnosed and do have asd.

UGH! The media drives me crazy!! They never provide sources. How do we know that TweetyBird is Ms. Harper? What are the sources for her claiming Aspergers for herself or her son? How did they know it was her? Did she use her own name or an anonymous handle? Were either of them officially diagnosed? Did they get screened for other issues like schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder, or bipolar disorder? Gone are the days of verifying with two or three sources, who are NOT anonymous. Journalism, even for big outfits like the NY Times, has gone into the toilet. They can print a bunch of rumors and we'll never know any different.

As far as I know she has not said anything since the massacre. She discussed autism often online prior.