Responding to the question from T. Lin

.... My response to the question from T. Lin (and the question asked) is below as it exceeded the word count to go in the comments 'response' box:

T. LinAugust 26, 2014 at 8:47 AM

What is your opinion Victoria when drugs and alcohol are a non-issue? Is it their up bringing? Is it their parent's fault? Is it society in general that causes these people to whack out? Is it the lack of medication for mental health issues? I know you have interviewed so many of these people. I'm curious what you have learned is the main cause of these killer's skewed thinking?

Well in my opinion T. Lin (and I stress this is only my opinion), I would say that if drugs and alcohol were not in the picture when a person commits a heinous crime, then it can be any caused by any of the following reasons:

1.  When parents of young children are not 'hands on' with them:
 IE:  they let them play video games and watch television on a continual basis.
When parents don't connect and bond with their children and/or watch their behaviour, then this can lead to isolation in a child which only gets worse as they get older.  

With lonely/shy types of children, this can encourage these kids to also detach from their piers and other children which ultimately causes that child to feel alienated from society as they grow.  I believe that this all starts with the parents.

Sometimes it's not the parents fault and a child can just alienate themselves from other school mates, however, parents need to be more aware of this and encourage them to connect with other kids and their elders too.  

We should be encouraging our children to go out and play ball games in the street after school (when homework is done) with their friends, sit around a table for dinner with the rest of the family.  There should be continual communication amongst the family as we always have in Western European countries.

When I lived in Spain (and worked as a nanny) there wasn't a day when we didn't all sit around the table for the evening meal.  The kids played with other kids in the road and also inside the house.  Children asked more questions to adults, way more than they do now?  Nowadays, at least here in the US, people and children are so 'fear based' and this leads to alienation and isolation.   This can cause children to grow up and want to just explode and therefore can commit horrific atrocities such as mass murder.

2.  As for mental issues, well this is something I have never come across until I moved to America.   The parallel I make is this:

When I moved to Los Angeles, I was shocked to see how many people are on medication, especially mind altering medication, like anti-depressants, pain killers, anti bi-polar, (anti this and anti that) etc.  This has always been quite shocking to me.

Therefore I attribute a lot of children today, who have been a product of a parent taking medication, were therefore born with these chemicals in their system.  This is quite possibly a reason for them growing up with different forms of 'mental disease'.

I personally don't understand what depression is, but I know it is said to be a chemical imbalance in the brain and this disease seems rampant in America.  For those people I feel extremely sorry, however if they must take medication for this, then don't get pregnant or procreate until it is fully out of your system.   The likelihood of your child being born with something fundamentally wrong, will be very high.

If this 'feeling of depression' that people get is really just that you're having a bad week, then get a 'stiff upper lip' and wait for the problem to pass and get back to being motivated about all you are doing in your life.  And if you're not motivated about anything, then find something... it's as simple as that!

I feel a lot of people  here in the US want to turn straight to medication without addressing the issue.  Basically they are using medication to dull the pain when it can be sorted out if you sort out what the problem is until it is over.

I personally am very against medication of all kinds especially ones that alter the mind.  (The last time I was prescribed medication was an antibiotic (10 years ago) when I had a spider bite).

I think that so many of these types of medication have dangerous side affects, therefore, to bring children in to this world born from a parent using mind altering medication is grounds for a potential (huge) problem with your child.  

Again, this is only my opinion and some mental disease may have come from other reasons like being hereditary or even a bang on the head.  So this is all said with the greatest respect to those that suffer from mental disease which never stemmed from ingested chemicals.

Bottom line is what I live by:  Connection and communication is the key to life.  Let's stay connected to each other as a society, let's smile and/or nod at people we meet on a daily basis.  Modern technology doesn't help matters, but communication doesn't have to be conversation, it can just be a gesture on the road to let someone in front or a compliment to an old lady in the grocery store etc.. or a smile to some isolated adolescent that hasn't had anyone give them the time of day for a long time.  It's really quite simple if we do our part... and I truly believe.. that this will help in not creating 'monsters' out in our world today.