I don't see what else it could be but severe mental illness

[cali]

I don't believe in possession, so I don't think James Holmes is possessed by a demon. I don't believe he's some sort of genius bad seed who's been torturing animals since he was 3- and anyways that profile generally is more apt when applied to serial killers. I don't think he's a serial killer. I see no evidence that he was motivated by political or racial or religious hate like Anders Breivik.

I'm not saying he's legally insane, but it sure looks like psychosis to me.

[steve2470]

1. I was thinking high-functioning paranoid schizophrenic....

but then again I'm no expert on that diagnosis in forensic settings.

[Trillo]

2. Seems odd that he waited peacefully for the police,

and then shut up (according to news items I've read, but no longer have the links handy) once he was in police custody.

[Confusious]

3. late teens to mid 20s

is prime age for mental illness in males.

women it's 5 years later. What a difference 5 years makes.

[ananda]

4. It's a fantasy/identity psychosis.

He actually thought he was the Joker, maybe still does.

[cali]

6. that sounds reasonable-

I don't get the people who think he's faking being crazy.

[flamingdem]

7. A theory is being floated about a genetic psychosis that can cause

long term impact and fits with this idea -- we'll be hearing various versions since how else can this be explained..

[sasha031]

8. Yes I read that too

just said on CNN, while spitting at police & guards, his eyes were rolling in the back of his head.
No doubt he is mentally ill.

[soccer1]

20. We don't yet know if he had drugs in his system, prescribed or otherwise.....

that would cause him to act as he did.

[progressivebydesign]

15. That's my take. He was also abusing prescription drugs... n/t

[flamingdem]

5. He seems to be a Vicodin user/addict, and that can cause hallucinations

Looks like drugs play a role, but will not be the explanation.

[russspeakeasy]

9. Here is my non-professional diagnosis; he is a mean, vindictive,

loser who wanted revenge on anyone who appeared to have a decent life. Fuck him.

[cali]

11. you know you can still be angry at him and say fuck him even

if he's in a totally psychotic state and was when he murdered those poor people.

Most people who suffer psychosis no matter how violent and terrible don't act on it.

[WolverineDG]

10. He's at the age where many mental issues

first appear. My friend's foster daughter seemed to be ok but once she hit 24, the mental issues started cropping up.

Regardless, the guy obviously is mentally ill. Normal people just don't do what he did. He should be locked away & given treatment.

[cbdo2007]

12. Should be locked up forever regardless.

No sense in questioning it forever.

[cali]

13. of course.

it's not like he should get any kind of release ever.

[1-Old-Man]

14. Do you remember the shooter in Texas back in the '60s?

The first mass murder that I recall was the guy down in Austin Texas that started shooting people from a tower. If my memory serves me well an autopsy of the shooter, who was killed by police, found that he had a brain tumor, about the size of a peanut, and it was suggested as the cause of the insanity that drove him to shoot total strangers.

Who can say what caused the fellow to go totally nuts? And if we knew that it was that drove this guy past the edge of sanity it still wouldn't tell us a thing about the next person to go berserk.

[Nevernose]

17. You sound a little like a Kinky Friedman song

He was sitting up there for more than an hour
Way up there on the Texas Tower
Shooting from the twenty-seventh floor, yahoo

He didn’t choke or slash or slit them
Not our Charles Joseph Whitman
He won’t be an architect no more

Got up that morning calm and cool
He picked up his guns and walked to school
All the while he smiled so sweetly
And it blew their minds completely
They’d never seen an Eagle Scout so cruel

Now won’t you think for the shame and degradation
For the school’s administration?

He put on such a bold and brassy show
The Chancellor cried, "It’s adolescent
And of course it’s most unpleasant
But I got to admit it was a lovely way to go"

There was a rumor about a tumor
Nestled at the base of his brain
He was sitting up there with his .36 Magnum
Laughing wildly as he bagged ’em
Who are we to say the boy’s insane?

Now Charlie was awful disappointed
Else he thought he was anointed
To do a deed so lowdown and so mean

The students looked up from their classes
Had to stop and rub their glasses
Who’d believe he’d once been a Marine

Now Charlie made the honor roll with ease
Most all of his grades was A’s and B’s
A real rip snorting, trigger squeezer
Charlie proved a big crowd pleaser
Though he had been known to make a couple C’s

Some were dying, some were weeping
Some were studying, some were sleeping
Some were shouting, “Texas number one”
Some were running, some were falling
Some were screaming, some were bawling
Some thought the revolution had begun

The doctors tore his poor brain down
But not a snitch of illness could be found
Most folks couldn’t figure just-a why he did it
And them that could would not admit it
There’s still a lot of Eagle Scouts around

There was a rumor about a tumor
Nestled at the base of his brain
He was sitting up there with his .36 Magnum
Laughing wildly as he bagged ’em

Who are we to say the boy’s in?
Who are we to say the boy’s in?
Who are we to say the boy’s insane?

[Johonny]

16. Impossible to know until real doctors look at him

He could be on drugs, some experts in violent crime suggest most violent criminals are not legally insane. However even if the average violent criminal isn't legally insane it doesn't tell you this one isn't. He is alive and no doubt he will be examined by experts so it is likely we will have a definitive answer to the question.

[cbdo2007]

18. I don't think that applies to violent criminals....

who plan for months their attack of firing point blank into a crowd of innocent people including children. This isn't your typical "violent crime". The act, in an of itself, is clinically insane.

[Johonny]

21. This is not what the talking heads are saying

Read several things written by professors of clinical psychiatry that specialize in this the past few days and their general conclusions are mass murderers harder to profile that serial murderers and most not clinically insane. Most mass murderers have psychopathic--not psychotic--tendencies. Since some however are psychotic, you can't rule it out in this case and since he is alive it will be much easier determining this.

[Odin2005]

19. He is in the right age range for the onset of Schizophrenia.

That cannot be ruled out.

[japa beads jamie]

22. Programmed psychosis.

I am tired of this idea that a typically mentally ill person would do such a thing. It's really insulting to people who struggle with it. And in any case, if you have ever talked to someone with disassociative traits, they either are so out of it that they can't even converse in a linear fashion or else their delusions are merely all talk. I have spoken to people who had delusions of grandeur and it was never anything they took to the next level.

Serial killers are different because there is a specific purpose to their killings. Gacy and Dahmer didn't kill multiple people at one time or in one day. That is a gradual murderous streak.