Blog post on the epidemic of forced celibacy in males

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I'm sorry, @Auntblabby, I didn't mean to ignore your point. It's just that the percentage of the population that truly can't be helped is very, very small (yet it does exist).




@Auntblabby, I respectfully disagree. It could not have just as easily been you. EVERYONE has felt urges to do profound evil at one time or another in their lives. EVERYONE. My God, I don't believe most people get out of middle school without experiencing that kind of anger - and I'm not kidding. (Why do you think people are FINALLY taking bullying seriously.) You didn't give into the rage. I'm sorry, I can't believe the only reason for that is poor planning skills (it doesn't take an awful lot of skill to buy a gun, load it, point and shoot).



Again, I respectfully disagree - totally. You have documented your progress in this very post. You're no longer in the grip of the, "I'm ok, the WORLD is messed up," perspective. That's a huge change. Are you NT? No, that's not an achievable goal. Are you a paranoid nut who refuses to believe he is disabled? No. Do you have the maturity and self-awareness to be grateful that you never made the choice to vent your rage by taking someone's life? YES. (I could give you more examples, but I'm typing this on my blackberry, and it's a b!tch.) Suffice it to say that you're not perfect - but you're one hell of a lot better than you once were.



So, if you truly can't learn, to what do you attribute your great awakening (the realization that you did have a problem)?





Sorry, I misunderstood your point, and I don't have an explanation (beyond doing the right thing takes effort, and being an a$$hole is easy).





Not surprisingly, I disagree. The objective of healing is progress, not perfection. Wounds heal, but they usually leave a scar. It's not that people don't deserve perfection...it just doesn't work that way. But progress - that is a very achievable goal - to those willing to make the effort.

Yes, @billsmithglendale, I think it's always better to have someone in your corner. I've been that person, and I've been lucky enough to have others willing to be that person for me. I guess I've got two points: even if you have someone in your corner, it won't matter if you're not willing to get help; even if you don't have someone in your corner, you have to refuse to settle for having less of a life because of a disability or illness or dysfunctional childhood or whatever. I don't mean to sound trite, or to minimize the effort it takes to be your own advocate - particularly if you suffer from something like AvPD. But what's the alternative?

to paraphrase from shakespeare, my plans went awry and lost the name of action. anytime in my life i was seriously about to veer off the rails, something [God via my higher spiritual self] rescued me, or allowed my natural befuddlement to take the reins. it took me decades to understand this, but now let's just say i let go and let god. i will kvetch about things but god is still in control no matter what.



profound loneliness and total lack of self-esteem. weeping jags. a more or less constant wishing that i'd just fade to black. recurring nightmares which usually mean an important message is trying to get through to conscious thought. recurring message dreams in which [i believe] my higher spiritual self communicated through various avatars tailored to my rudimentary psychological, mental and spiritual level of development so that i would better digest the messages. often one has to hit bottom before one is forced to change direction. i can't say i am going in an upwards direction but at least i am no longer digging a deeper hole. i am warped and nothing will precisely unwarp me, but i have bent the warp curve [so to speak] back outwards so that it is not getting more severe. but to make it short, vigorous physical exercise and god have been my saviors, along with finding a book in the psych self-help section about AS which is what i wish i could have read 20 years earlier but better late than never in this case.

Not really sure, we never know I suppose, so better to be safe than sorry though?

I think if someone had given aunt blabby a gun..with ammo, and a user manual he might well have gone and done something under the wrong circumstances. Me I always thought about an RPG, kaboom. Hopegrows, you're clinging to the concept that there was something fundamentally wrong or different or evil about george sodini because you want it to hold true, but i don't see that at all.
As an aside hopegrows what's your story, why are you on this board? I'm honestly just interested.

so what i'm reading is that people identify with what george sodini has done. therefore, to those people, he cannot be a monster because THEY are not monsters right? for those people to accept that Sodini is irredeemable means that they would be placing such a label on themselves, and not very many people could truly think that. but the people on here are NOT Sodini. they didn't shoot up a gym full of women - they took responsibility for themselves and moved on from the anger.

@Auntblabby is a veteran, @Nostromo. He has weapons training - firing a gun is not an abstract idea or fantasy to him. If he wanted to use a weapon on anyone, he had all the skill and experience to do so. But that's not s choice he was willing to make.

However, you do make a compelling argument for gun control....many people might give in to an impulse if a weapon was readily available.


I'm going by the information Sodini himself documented. Every woman he met over a span of decades knew there was something wrong with him. HE knew there was something wrong with him, and he said so. I'm sorry, but you seem to be clinging to the idea that he was completely normal - even though the facts available disprove that theory. Why is that?

Sodini didn't commit a crime of passion. He methodically planned and carried out the execution of innocent women. And you maintain there was nothing wrong with him? Why?



Apparently I'm just another voice of reason.

Hi Hope,

I hear ya, and I agree. That being said, sometimes the person just really can't get themselves to do it without some massive crisis/breaking point -- in the case of this dude, I think he reached the breaking point and went the wrong direction.

I say this as someone who meets a lot of the diagnostic criteria for AVPD (I think after our exchange in the Napoleon complex thread, Hyperlexian would definitely agree with my self-diagnosis :

1. persistent and pervasive feelings of tension and apprehension; -- Yep, that's me
2. belief that one is socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior to others; - Check
3. excessive preoccupation with being criticized or rejected in social situations; -- Check
4. unwillingness to become involved with people unless certain of being liked; -- Check
5. restrictions in lifestyle because of need to have physical security; -- Check
6. avoidance of social or occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact because of fear of criticism, disapproval, or rejection. -- Got around this one, but it does take effort.

I'm definitely not a basket case or shut-in, and I have a pretty happy life now, with a long-term wife, kid on the way, and a good career, but it was rocky for a while during my teens, even into the middle college years. It got to the point where I was semi-seriously considering suicide (until a friend of mine died in accident, and I reconsidered the weight of my actions). It's really a feeling of incompetence, low self-esteem, that you want out but can't figure out a way to get there, and advice from other people often doesn't seem to help (even when it eventually does).

It's a very pessimistic, hostile, fearful life outlook, and you never really completely get out from under it -- I now have better self-esteem, but it's fragile, and when it's threatened, I lash out -- Think Aspie meltdown combined with suicidal berserker rage. A lot of people get frightened when confronted with it, and I'm sure any women that smell any bit of that when they are considering a guy like that run the other way immediately. It takes a very understanding woman to put up with the issues.

In my case, I reached a breaking point where I literally came home from college in tears. My peers were rejecting me, I was eating all of my meals alone, and I was living a pretty lonely, friendless existence. I made a vow to myself to do anything it took to get out of that spiral, including group therapy. I never had to call my own bluff -- that same weekend I met the person I am married to now (and I've had other flings since then, per other threads here). It was like the universe could smell when I was ready for a relationship again.

Side note for single, lonely people here who say they are ready for a relationship -- Are you? If someone fell into your lap today, are you mentally ready to change your schedule, your life, and your comfort level for someone else's needs? My guess is that a lot of people here who aren't in relationships aren't ready to do what it takes, or are way too picky with expectations that are out of sync with reality (e.g. Playboy bunny or nothing).

Anyways, I think this guy was stuck, and kept looking in the wrong direction for help. He probably was thinking they would just fall into his lap, and that he wouldn't have to actually put himself out there in a meaningful way. Yeah, I know he said he tried, but he obviously didn't try the right way. So I'm agreeing with you, but just giving you some insight into the mindset of someone like this.

I think you're probably right about the motives that they are projecting. What they are missing is that this guy crossed the line at some point from neurotic to psychotic, and it is the psychotic Sodini who went over the edge and did what he did.

When I thought about it all, I was thinking nukes instead of guns/RPGs

I'm not saying there was nothing wrong with him at all.
But the 'thing that was wrong with him' and the thing he did are two seperate things to me. You seem to be implying that there was some evil waiting to burst out that people could sense, which is why they avoided him.
I feel he had an inability to connect with people and make friendships, and perhaps some other issues. Year upon year it built into anger to the final act, which was a statement, an exorcism and a finish to things, and I can understand that. These are seperate.
Have you seen the comments on youtube inregards to the various videos on there about/of him?

Yep, who hasn't wanted to do that?

Your story is compelling, @billsmithglendale. I wish everyone reading this forum would take to heart the story of your "breaking point," as well as the story of @Auntblabbly's "great awakening." They are both important stories about people who didn't give up. It may have been that one really bad weekend, or that one serendipitous visit to the bookstore that served as the catalyst, but neither of you gave up. That's powerful.

And I agree, btw, that people will typically only take that step when confronted by a crisis (true for NTs as well as Aspies). How one reacts to that crisis is often a life-defining moment.

i was/am a reluctant vet. i was just a virtual civilian barely disguised in military dress. i never liked handling weapons or the concept of killing anyplace but in the abstract. killing another sentient being for real, is a hell of a thing. even just pretending to kill somebody else is distasteful. but everybody has their own point where their sanity takes a hike. i don' t know if i am capable of anything or nothing. blowing people up WAS/IS a fantasy to me, though.



a PPR topic. guns and loving make a bad combo. but aside from this point, i will say that i had guns available but i was just too effed-up in the head to do anything. i still am. i am too cowardly to even do myself in. i semi-voluntarily have removed my genes from the pool. humanity should be appreciative of this, at least in the abstract.

This is why I left this thread. Tried to, anyway. The women responding here are incapable of understanding that the guy was a human being, and that walking in his shoes (or some of ours) would have driven them to exactly the same aspirations, if not the act itself. I believe nothing on this earth can make them understand that.

there have been a few female posters who understood this point, but they are overwhelmed by the misandrist majority. one more reason for reincarnation in multiple lifetimes, as man or woman, all the better to understand life from both sides of the gender divide.