“Police: Woman Shot 3 Victims at YouTube’s San Bruno HQ, Then Killed Self” reads the headline.
It’s still a developing story, of course. Regardless, it’s obviously tragic. But already people are asking why someone would do this — kill themselves along with innocent others? If you’re determined to end your own life, then there’s no need to take others with you. Right?
To answer the question, you have to understand how anger is part of suicide, in many cases. A person contemplates killing himself not only out of despair, but out of anger. One theory of depression is “anger turned inward”. The ultimate expression of anger turned inward is obviously suicide.
The point here is that suicide includes anger.
Someone who decides to go into an office building or a school and murder others is obviously angry. Such a person feels like a victim. It probably started out with an unearned sense of entitlement that festered and grew, like a mental-emotional cancer, into active hostility.
Thinking like a victim does not advance the interests of the person who thinks that way. Thinking like a victim means adopting the view that you’re helpless, hopeless, and that existence itself is futile — at least for you. Some people who feel like existence is futile believe it’s that way for everyone. People like this are more prone to indulge in alcohol or drug abuse.
Yet some people personalize their victim status. They feel like others are happy and that they have somehow been denied their slice of happiness pie. It angers them and ultimately enrages them. It leads them to fantasize about harming others. What did these innocent others — often strangers — ever do to them? That’s not the point, from the suicidal-homicidal point-of-view. The point is, “Others have their entitled happiness, but I’m not getting mine. I will bring some of them down with me.”
The victim and entitlement mentality so prevalent in our culture is toxic and self-defeating. In some cases, it turns deadly. You can be sure that unhealthy mindset is part of the psychological mix in whatever led up to this latest shooting.
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