Mark.. Mark Manes? Or which Mark do you mean? I didn’t even know someone associated with Columbine had moved to Boston so eh.. if you need current-day information on anybody, I’m not your girl!
Month: August 2016
get to know the blogger
anonymously (or not) ask me any question you’d like to know about me
DO IT
Is it just me finding it extremely adorable that he had a yorkshire terrier I don’t know it’s just something about it, having him sort of goof around with a tiny cute dog
Haha, that’s not just you! I can just picture him with a tiny Yorkie – they’re spitfire type of dogs that do make their presence known, so in a way the dog weirdly suited Eric. I think Eric may have doted on Sparky to the point where it’s like “dude with a very hairy child"-phenomenon, lol.. I wonder if he ever babytalked good ol’ Sparky the way I did my dog! I’m also reminded of the fact that my ex’s mom took their Yorkie to the trimming salon every so often, haha, and now I’m wondering if Eric dragged him to the salon too.. XD
What kind of dog was sparky? This has probably been asked a million times I’m sorry
A Yorkshire terrier! Tiny barking little critters who think they’re big dogs, haha.
My mind is a terrible blur so forgive me if I’ve said this before but you and TheDragonRampant are easily my favorite Columbine blogs. Keep up the amazing good work the two of you provide <3
Thank you so much for stopping with such a lovely compliment.
I’m feeling under the weather today but this brightened the day a bit more. ❤ Lovely you feel that way about us R and V bookends blogs. 🙂
Thank you, @ancestorsxvirtues! That’s lovely to hear indeed. 😊
isthosonetaken replied to your post “[1/?] So, I’m not really the type of person who particularly likes to…”
Bearing in mind, he was 18 when he died, and obviously he’s now dead, is there not a time limit on when they could be released? Or are med documents still sealed and private even long after a death?
The fact that he was 18 and legally considered an adult only really means that his parents wouldn’t have a say over the eventual release of the documentation. Without Eric’s own written consent, his therapist would not even be allowed to release any information that was acquired after Eric turned 18 to Eric’s own family.
This all falls square in line with the therapist-client confidentiality agreement, though. His therapist cited this rightfully as the reason why he would not speak with law enforcement about Eric. The counseling relationship between client and therapist doesn’t end upon death and its confidentiality therefore continues to be upheld. There are a few exceptions in which the therapist is allowed to breach that, but the death of their client isn’t one of them!
[1/?] So, I’m not really the type of person who particularly likes to diagnose people. But Eric, to me (as a person who deals with this illness), seemed to have had Borderline Personality Disorder.
He lacked emotional permanence, had a fear of abandonment (in the sense
of abandoning friends and environments), poor impulse control, a lack of
emotional regulation, and lacked a solid sense of self (etc).I was just curious if you’ve had any inkling as to whether or not this
may have been the illness he was dealing with? I wonder how his life may
have turned out if he had a better psychiatrist, a proper diagnosis,
and treatment fit to suit him.It’s possible. It’s one of a few diagnoses that makes some degree of sense when applied to his life. I can see how it would fit him believably and think that he certainly exhibited some of its hallmarks. Given my past fierce rebuttals of attempts to diagnose the boys (especially Eric) post-mortem, however, I won’t go beyond a “maybe”. I don’t want to skew the narrative into a diagnosis direction, as it may not be the correct diagnosis and it may lead to a more close-minded view to employ one in this case. I think it does more harm than good to focus on that – it may lead one to overlook some aspects of a person in favour of the diagnosis or not be as open to alternative explanations for a certain aspect of someone’s personality. We’ve seen the damage a wrongful diagnosis can do in Eric’s case.. I have no desire to add to that with another alternative in diagnosis-land, not even one that sounds quite accurate.
We don’t know the first thing about his psychiatrist, so it’s hard to tell what kind of things they discussed and what the real focus of Eric’s therapy was. Eric gives some hints in his journal, but we have no way of knowing if that was really the main line or something that Eric focused on in particular. We have no idea what kind of diagnosis he was given, though we can make a very educated guess based off the medications he was prescribed, nor do we know how that diagnosis was reached. It’s too short-sighted to me to say “oh he must’ve had a crap therapist and a diagnosis that didn’t fit”. What if his therapist ticked all the boxes and did most things right? What if the diagnosis really was correct or close to correct? We don’t know how all of that went, so we can’t make a value judgment about it.
We don’t know how well Eric took to treatment, either. My experience has been that any treatment you start is going to fail if you’re not 100% committed to seeing it through. Any treatment stands or falls with your own willingness to help yourself and face yourself. As is often the case in healing, it’s likely that the treatment will make you feel worse before you feel better and some people don’t want to see that worse period through. Sometimes, the treatment itself is the wrong one to begin with and you’d be better suited for another treatment. Given Eric’s dedication to NBK and his relentless pursuit of his own end, it’s also entirely likely that he paid lip service to therapy and didn’t dive deeper than the surface of his issues. That responsibility is as much on his therapist as it is on him personally, in my opinion.
this is like the closest diagnosis i think makes sense. i should know…i have BPD but yeah i agree with dragon, this is a great and logical answer. i really, really wish we could see his therapy sessions and papers! lol but i am guessing you want that too dragon. XD
Hell yes, @protecthewitch, at this point my desire to see all of the paperwork surrounding his therapy sessions may even surpass my desire to see the basement tapes! I think that they would hopefully help dispel some of the myths about Eric while giving us a much closer and more accurate view of his psyche as it was back in 1998. It might also hint at or even confirm how things were within his family, given the fact that a lot of therapists do ask about that sort of thing. I understand why the files weren’t released to anyone including law enforcement, but there’s a part of me that wishes his therapist would confirm or deny some things at the very least..
[1/?] So, I’m not really the type of person who particularly likes to diagnose people. But Eric, to me (as a person who deals with this illness), seemed to have had Borderline Personality Disorder.
He lacked emotional permanence, had a fear of abandonment (in the sense
of abandoning friends and environments), poor impulse control, a lack of
emotional regulation, and lacked a solid sense of self (etc).I was just curious if you’ve had any inkling as to whether or not this
may have been the illness he was dealing with? I wonder how his life may
have turned out if he had a better psychiatrist, a proper diagnosis,
and treatment fit to suit him.
It’s possible. It’s one of a few diagnoses that makes some degree of sense when applied to his life. I can see how it would fit him believably and think that he certainly exhibited some of its hallmarks. Given my past fierce rebuttals of attempts to diagnose the boys (especially Eric) post-mortem, however, I won’t go beyond a “maybe”. I don’t want to skew the narrative into a diagnosis direction, as it may not be the correct diagnosis and it may lead to a more close-minded view to employ one in this case. I think it does more harm than good to focus on that – it may lead one to overlook some aspects of a person in favour of the diagnosis or not be as open to alternative explanations for a certain aspect of someone’s personality. We’ve seen the damage a wrongful diagnosis can do in Eric’s case.. I have no desire to add to that with another alternative in diagnosis-land, not even one that sounds quite accurate.
We don’t know the first thing about his psychiatrist, so it’s hard to tell what kind of things they discussed and what the real focus of Eric’s therapy was. Eric gives some hints in his journal, but we have no way of knowing if that was really the main line or something that Eric focused on in particular. We have no idea what kind of diagnosis he was given, though we can make a very educated guess based off the medications he was prescribed, nor do we know how that diagnosis was reached. It’s too short-sighted to me to say “oh he must’ve had a crap therapist and a diagnosis that didn’t fit”. What if his therapist ticked all the boxes and did most things right? What if the diagnosis really was correct or close to correct? We don’t know how all of that went, so we can’t make a value judgment about it.
We don’t know how well Eric took to treatment, either. My experience has been that any treatment you start is going to fail if you’re not 100% committed to seeing it through. Any treatment stands or falls with your own willingness to help yourself and face yourself. As is often the case in healing, it’s likely that the treatment will make you feel worse before you feel better and some people don’t want to see that worse period through. Sometimes, the treatment itself is the wrong one to begin with and you’d be better suited for another treatment. Given Eric’s dedication to NBK and his relentless pursuit of his own end, it’s also entirely likely that he paid lip service to therapy and didn’t dive deeper than the surface of his issues. That responsibility is as much on his therapist as it is on him personally, in my opinion.
we’ve only had one other new picture of Eric and ur not feeling this one? lol
That other new picture was an immediate “yes!”, given the fact that the original post in which it was included featured an excerpt of the yearbook it was taken from and included the name of his teacher from that grade whose identity is independently confirmed by a well-researched newspaper article about Eric’s background. There was no mistaking that particular photograph of him as being the genuine article.
I’m not feeling this one yet because I have yet to see it sourced and confirmed as genuinely being a picture of him. Surely you can trust a blogger’s need for caution, lol.
Research, sources, and speculation
I’ve been meaning to post something along these lines for a while now, but never quite seemed to find the time or the tone for it. It’s perhaps a little unfortunate to write this now that we’re dealing with a new as-yet-unsourced might-be-real photograph in the case, or perhaps it’s exactly what the community needs to read. I’ll let you all be the judge of what you make of it. I actually just want to talk for a little while about research shenanigans and how to work with a blog like mine in which so much hinges on fact-based stuff and getting stories straight.
One of the most important things I ever learned in history class was how to distinguish between primary and secondary sources. (I love learning history, so it’s no wonder that this stuck with me, but it’s something that is absolutely vital in other areas of life as well.) Primary sources are accounts of an event given by people who experienced and/or witnessed the event in question. They can also include published pieces that were written shortly after the fact, or photographs and videos of the event in question. The function of secondary sources is to interpret all of these primary sources and speculate or draw conclusions based on those. They can occur in the form of a published book about the event or appear as a documentary on TV. An additional rule of thumb is usually that primary sources appear in a certain timeframe, while secondary sources can and do sometimes appear years after the fact.
In terms of Columbine, we can say that we’re dealing with both of these things simultaneously. We’ve got primary sources in the form of journal entries, website print-outs, interviews with witnesses, reports from first responders on scene, and most of the rest of the evidence. Some newspaper articles, particularly the ones written in May 1999, may also apply here. Then, we’ve got all the secondary sources in the world because everybody wants to pitch their two pennies into the mass murder pot. My blog is one such secondary source, as I frequently speculate about things and form my own working opinions based off the evidence that may or may not hold water. Books like Dave Cullen’s are also a secondary source, though they are intended to be a factual retelling of events.
Perhaps you see the problem arise already: how on earth do you decide which source is trustworthy? I don’t wanna hack on good ol’ Dave again (who am I kidding, I will always throw him under the bus when given an excuse to do so), but it goes almost without saying that his book is less trustworthy than my blog. Similarly, there are quotes making the rounds here on Tumblr that were never really said by the individuals involved or other opinions floating around here that have little to no basis in factual reality. To each their right and to each their own, but it’d help a shitload if people stopped jumping the emotional gun every so often.
Three questions to ask: how does the author of the piece know these details, where does this information come from, and are the author’s conclusions based on a single piece of evidence or on multiple pieces of evidence? Once you’ve figured out the source of the information and ascertained the trustworthiness of the information, you can conclude something much more efficiently and believably. I’ve found it’s a good thing when stories from witnesses begin to overlap and when they can be traced back to other pieces of evidence such as journal entries, diversion notes, and other things. Columbine’s case is built upon a mountain of evidence that can be harrowing and daunting to navigate, but can also be the backbone of a speculation that withstands any kind of scrutiny or simply forms the most likely story. Bloggers like myself have a whole lot of back-up sources they trust in case someone asks about the origin of the information. I’ve dug myself so deeply into the evidence that I usually know where to find what and who may have stated what. You can always ask me about the sources I’ve used and I’ve linked some of my most-referred documents in my sidebar for this reason as well. There are no secrets between us: I’m not privy to anything more than you all are, and I’m just making do with what we’ve been given.
Sometimes, I’m asked questions that give way to a more unfounded form of speculation. They’re not my favourites to answer and I sometimes ask “how the fuck should I know?” out loud when reading them, though I will often still entertain them for the speculative value they can have. At times, those things provide different angles and vantage points that don’t have much of a basis in fact but may inspire to view known facts from a different kind of angle all the same. It also becomes difficult when something new finally does arrive, be it a book or a photograph or something else entirely, and I’m asked for my opinion when I’m personally not really sure of anything yet. I’ve found it helps to just simply say I’m not sure, to take readers of this blog through my own thought processes around it, and to keep an open mind until something is definitively proven or disproven. Possible, probable, could-be-true, and not-100%-but-benefit-of-the-doubt are not such bad things to say!
When dealing with Columbine or any other case like this, ask and search for sources. Back yourself up with sources. Get to know the material that has a strong basis in the evidence. Learn to distinguish between a “maybe” and a “definitely” – even within the witness accounts, there is a fair bit of hearsay going on every so often. It’s complicated by the fact that many witnesses saw media interpretations of events prior to being questioned by police: it may have affected the credibility of their witness statements. Look at the dates on the evidence: the further away from 4/20/99 a statement takes you, the more skeptical you should be of it. Don’t be blindsided by claims of psychiatrists or investigators or whatever the hell else, either, because these people can and do get it wrong too and it would be a damn pity to base your own opinion entirely on theirs. Get yourself to the point where you reflexively go “where does this come from?” when seeing something about the case that you don’t quite remember or is brand new. Dare to give something the benefit of the doubt and leave it at that when nothing else happens that helps confirm it further.
Research, for me, is a work of love and care. It’s not something that’s done in a day or a week or even a month. It’s something that changes over the course of time. When you think you know it all, go back to step one and try again. You never know it all. Reassess things from the ground up. Take one piece of evidence and just think it over for a while, look at it from different angles, take it out of your comfort zone and into new perspectives, unleash something new upon it if you dare. Read and review material that coincides with some parts of the evidence, even when you’re considered slightly batshit for having twenty different books about forensic evidence and death investigation and everyone’s tired of you watching shows on TV about SWAT teams. A lot of what I say on here about their psyches is rooted in my past studies of childcare and psychology, for instance, and it gives me a great deal of satisfaction to be able to connect that past learning experience to the research in a way that may benefit others. Learn what feels good, know what is right, and play to your own strengths!
What do you think of the new leaked picture of Eric?
Oh man, when I woke up to it this morning my bleary-eyed self first went “bwuh?!” and then “really?!” at that picture. It looked really weird on my phone screen and I initially thought someone had photoshopped their heart out, lol. I’m still not entirely convinced of it because, uh, it looks just as odd on a bigger screen haha. I’d love to see it properly sourced as to its origins, though I know the blogger who posted it generally has sound information in this respect.
It could definitely be him, though, because if it’s not him then it’s officially the best Eric lookalike I’ve ever seen in my life. *laughs* The picture is standard crappy quality in true 90s-style, haha, so it’s hard to be 100% certain. For some reason, I’m not as tickled by this one as I tend to be by new photographs of the dudes and I’m feeling kinda meh about it but that’s nobody’s fault really..
I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things. And no don’t fucking say, “well thats your fault” because it isnt, you people had my phone #, and I asked and all, but no. no no no dont let the weird looking Eric KID come along, ohh fucking nooo. When Eric says this. who is he referring to? he did hang out with his Friends… who else did he want to hang out with?
He doesn’t specify who he’s referring to, as you probably know, so it’s quite difficult to say. I think that there were people he wanted to hang out with or at least get to know a little bit better who may have ignored him or rejected him somewhat. A prime example of that would be Brandi from the Eric In Columbine video. Given the fact that he mentions them having his phone number, it’s quite likely to me that they were people he knew reasonably well.
What strikes me of late is that this could very well have been about some of his friends/acquaintances. He did hang out with them, sure, but I think that anyone with friends knows that sometimes things aren’t done with a full group or some people aren’t invited for a change. I know that my friends sometimes hang out without me and that sometimes there are groups within our groups. I associate with a lot of people that don’t always associate with one another and some of my friends have never even met each other, so I could imagine that the dynamics within Eric’s group of people were kinda like that and maybe he wasn’t invited to everything either. It’s not really something personal all the time, but I think he could have perceived that differently given the state he was already in.
I was also vividly reminded of Dylan snubbing Eric over the phone, though. That “internal shorthand” Sue mentioned where Dylan’d essentially use Sue as an excuse as to why he couldn’t hang out with Eric is fucking transparent, in my opinion, and I’m sure Eric could sense that about it too. If something like this happened more often with other friends and people Eric wanted to hang out with, then it would explain that journal entry straight off the bat.
So he didn’t like the idea of kissing? I’m honestly confused just like the other anon 😂
I think that Eric never gained any experience in the kissing field, or was just never kissed by anyone in a meaningful way. His inexperience led him to believe that there was no difference between a casual kiss done for the sake of kissing itself and a meaningful kiss with depth of feeling and spiritual connection attached to it. As many of us know, the thrill of the latter hardly compares to the indifference of the former. I think that Eric was not really aware of how amazing kissing can be and shrugged his shoulders at it for that reason.
I always thought it was one of his more straightforward texts, lol, so colour me puzzled at the collective confusion!
What did Eric mean when he wrote “personally I think both actions are the same” in Spit vs Kiss. That whole thing I sort of don’t get it lol
He didn’t believe there was any difference between affectionate kissing and “swapping spit”/casual kissing. Though he detailed the difference between the two in his writing, he personally thought that both actions were the same. It’s kind of like he intellectually knew that other people would perhaps see a different between the two because one action is emotional/spiritual and the other is not, but that he didn’t have any kind of personal experience to prove to him that there was a difference between those actions. (I’ve always treated it as a neon sign saying “never been kissed”, to be quite honest with you.. or, at least, never been kissed properly. ;))
What would have happened to Eric if before the Jan 1998 arrest(I feel like that brought them closer and made them a team of two against the world) if Dylan and Eric would have a fallout and not be on speaking terms. It seems that their mutual friends of guys were better friends with Dylan than Eric (correct me if i am wrong) so that is why I am asking what you think would happen to Eric and how would he cope with losing his truest best friend?
I agree that it’s very likely that the arrest in January 1998 brought them closer together in terms of being that NBK-team. Many researchers treat it as one of the key events that made NBK possible at all, especially given the huge fallout from it that both boys referred to every so often and the subsequent diversion track they were both put through. It was a rather fateful thing that the two were together on the night of the van break-in at all: Dylan’s initial plans had been with Zach, but Zach and Devon had had a quarrel and the original plans fell through because of that.
What I found really interesting in Sue’s book is that she spoke with Eric’s mom about the possibility of separating the two boys after their arrest. They agreed to keep them apart for a little while, but Eric’s mom advocated for her son to keep the central friendship in his life during that time of crisis. It feels like such an awareness on her part that Eric didn’t have many close and strong friendships at that time, which made her reluctant to have all contact with Dylan cease entirely. It’s very true that Dylan’s friends were mostly only mutually befriended with Eric due to Dylan’s connection with him, so any kind of falling out between those two would likely lead to radio silence from those friends as well.
It’s hard to tell exactly how Eric’d cope with something like that. The arrest is what got him to a therapist in the first place, so if Dylan and he had fallen out before that time it’s quite likely that he would not have received any degree of help for the issues that were already threatening to overwhelm him. I feel like a lot of it would also depend on the severity of the fight, because minor fights between friends have a chance to heal and likely wouldn’t separate them forever. Eric already felt isolated, unwanted, and worthless.. losing Dylan permanently would send him into a tailspin. I feel almost as though he would’ve acted out sooner, given his tendency to lash out when hurt, with far less devastating long-term effects than NBK. Eric was so used to having to leave people or having them leave him that losing Dylan would be another confirmation that nobody in his life was a permanent factor. It’s a very psychologically damaging position to be put in, which is made more worrisome by Eric’s inability to deal with his emotions healthily. I don’t think I’d want to witness his potential spiral following a permanent break between those two. Dylan would likely recover from that and maybe even flourish from it, but I think Eric would take it very hard indeed.
In the Eric in Columbine vid, is there a time frame for when that was filmed, and at that point did he have access to a gun, or Arlene? I notice that he’s picking the inside of his right hand , when he’s sitting at the table, and wondered if they were healing ‘ nicks’ from playing with weapons.
Beginning of September 1998, so a few months prior to his gun access. I previously thought he was picking at scabs or something from a possible gun kickback, too, but that doesn’t match the timeline for the video. (I reblogged an erroneous post about that back in the day that I rectified fairly quickly in another post, but that initial post gained a lot more traction within the community than the rectification ever did..)
That moment when your grasp of English firmly downhills to rookie mistakes and you’re suddenly reminded that it’s definitely not your first language.. *eyerolls at self*
What mbti types do you think they boys were?
I’ve answered that one before here. I remain quite certain of Dylan’s type, but I cannot type Eric for the life of me and have an outstanding concern that he may end up being the same type as me. =)
That anon that was asking how Eric could have such a big ego and simultaneously be super insecure.. It actually makes a lot of sense to me, but maybe it’s because I have a tendency to do the same things. If you think everyone is below you, you aren’t going to feel as badly about yourself because you think you’re better than them and they aren’t worth your time anyway. It’s a defense mechanism, and a pretty good one too, considering even now a lot of people still can’t see past the ego he had.
Exactly what I said in reply to that question, yup. It’s always made sense to me because I used to do the same thing and still do sometimes. Defense mechanism, coping strategy, whatever you call it.. it’s something that helps in the moment and keeps the worst of your feelings at bay.
There was a brief time in my research when I found it difficult to see past his ego, too, but that was the beginning stage of it and I figured out relatively quickly that there was more going on than just that ego. It’s always puzzled me how the so-called professionals aren’t able to tell that Eric used that ego for this purpose. It seems crystal clear to me the more you learn about him, so why can’t people see it? Is it because it manifested as aggressive and angry in comparison to Dylan’s sad longing? Why is it that one shooter is understood and the other isn’t?
How was Eric wearing two different sets of pants in “Eric in Columbine” when it was filmed the same day? It looks like at first he was wearing black pants but then while sitting with Brandi it was jean shorts?
I’ve actually always assumed it was filmed on different days? The editing for it is quite choppy and it doesn’t seem to flow right story-wise if you assume it’s all filmed on the same day. It’d explain the pants-mystery, lol!
Columbine 