Hello! I’m a newbie when it comes to columbine and it seems that the whole community is against the widely accepted view that Eric was a psychopath. So correct me if I’m wrong but as far as I know he was never diagnosed, so we cannot really know for sure what kind of mental health problems he had. What’s the reason the community is so strictly against the assumption of Eric being a psychopath? Thanks for your patience with new members of this community😊

Hi! Sorry, this is a very belated welcome from my end to you. I was on an indefinite hiatus/break for quite some time, so I hope you’re still around to read my reply!

I don’t know if the whole community is against the view of Eric having been a psychopath, but I do know that folks here on Tumblr tend to be the most vocal when it comes to disagreeing with the official status quo. I’ve seen some amateur researchers and other people who’re interested in the case say that they do believe Eric was one, but they’re few and far between in the crowd that actually knows their shit. And then, of course, we’ve got loudmouths like Dave Cullen who’re singlehandedly trying to drown the general public in a view of Eric that is damaging, incomplete, and offensive.

We know for sure that Eric received a form of therapy and medication that is classified under SSRIs from early 1998 until the time of his death. However, the details of this are not known to us because Eric’s psychologist cited patient confidentiality and did not release any of his files to law enforcement or anyone else. The fact that he was put on medication tells me that it is very likely that there was some kind of diagnosis for Eric that we’ve never been made privy to, although I suspect from the type of medication prescribed that we’re talking about depression/anxiety-related issues here. If we’re going to theorise about a possible diagnosis for him at all, I think we really need to take a closer look at mood disorders coupled with potential anxiety issues/OCD. I find that a much more educated guess/assumption than “Eric’s a psychopath”, at least!

Because, well, you really said it all: there is an assumption that Eric was a psychopath. Assumptions aren’t hard facts, and therefore they can and should be disputed and discussed within our community as much as possible. Psychopathy is not an officially recognised clinical disorder (yet) and debate within the psychiatric community about the nature of this terminology and its impact/significance is still ongoing. It’s a concept that hasn’t yet taken definite form, though it has been recognised as a symptom of Antisocial Personality Disorder. ASPD and its ICD-10 counterpart DPD (Dissocial Personality Disorder) are the clinically recognised diagnoses that come closest to what we mean when we say ‘psychopath’. Both of these diagnoses are intended to be designated to adults, although children and teenagers can be diagnosed with conduct disorder and that could potentially grow out into ASPD/DPD in their adulthood.

Aside from the actual diagnostic issues, I have yet to find the first person who can successfully provide me with a counterargument against two of my most vehement arguments as to why Eric is not a psychopath:

• Eric was barely 18 when he died. Almost all of the material he left behind (journal, videos, etc) was produced by him when he was younger than 18. There is a concern that what he left behind may not even be the most truthful, as it is suspected Eric wrote a lot of this with an audience in mind. The van break-in, the rebel missions, diversion, you name it, they all happened before he reached age 18. People at Eric’s age are in that long transitional phase toward adulthood. Their brains are continuously changing and adapting and restructuring themselves. At this point in their brain-and-personality health, they’re very much about impulsive and rash decisions, about lying and stretching truths and finding their way in deception and honesty, about peer pressure and individuality, about conforming to social norms versus rejecting social norms, and so on and so forth.
  Now, let’s take a second look at the traits for psychopathy. Doesn’t that sound familiar? 😉 Doesn’t half of that list sound very much like what’s going on in a teenager’s brain? There’s a reason why the teenage brain has been cited to show ‘inherently psychopathic traits’, and a reason why psychiatrists differentiate between conduct disorder and ASPD/DPD.
  Given Eric’s age, it would stand to reason that a lot of his personality traits that people love to cite as reasons why he’s a psychopath could also be explained by the fact that his brain simply had not fully matured yet and was still smack in the middle of that restructuring process at the time he died.
• I wrote an introduction piece to Eric that I believe stands as the direct counterweight to the psychopath-theory. It’s too long to quote in its entirety here, hence the link, but I would invite anyone interested to settle in and read it. If you still believe Eric’s a psychopath afterward, then by all means write to me and tell me I’m full of shit (please include your reasons why because random “you’re full of shit”-messages go on my eyeroll-and-delete pile). If you doubt the psychopath view of Eric afterward, then I’ll have done my job!

Finally, as a close-out to this message that I hope is a good overview of why I personally take up issue with people saying Eric’s a psychopath, you could always look through my search-tag and read my past posts on psychopathy. There’s a lot of them, because I can’t shut up about Eric and I’ve apparently made it my life’s mission to yell people down when they call him a psychopath. *laughs* Happy reading!

reb-thejuvey replied to your post “do you have a masterpost or know where I can find one of all of eric…”

To that anon, not a masterpost, but in my blog I got a page called ‘videos’ where I linked a lot of Columbine related footage (including the ones you asked for) 🙂

Very awesome page, @reb-thejuvey, thanks for letting us know about it! There’s some great stuff on there. Check it out, people!

do you have a masterpost or know where I can find one of all of eric and dylan’s recorded videos? like hitmen for hire and the breakfast run

No masterpost, but I’ve got Google. I think these are the main ones you might be interested in?

Eric Inside Columbine

Breakfast Run

Hitmen For Hire

Radioactive Clothing

Rampart Range

Morning Ride with Nate

Car Wax Commercial

It seemed like Eric knew he had problems he couldn’t handle himself , but why didn’t he just go ask for help himself :(

Yeah, Eric was absolutely aware of the fact that his problems were growing way over his head and that he’d need help to be able to deal with them properly. The tragic thing about this is that he did ask for help. Eric was referred to psychologist Kevin Alpert after the van break-in and continued to see this psychologist regularly in the year prior to the massacre. In addition to these therapy sessions, Eric was put on a type of medication (first Zoloft, then Luvox)

that falls under the umbrella term SSRIs and is commonly referred to as an anti-depressant that can also be used to combat anxiety disorders. Eric had therapeutic levels of Luvox in his blood at the time of the massacre, so we know he continued to take it until his death.

Some years ago, I wrote the piece Building ‘Reb’ that goes into some detail about the medication and Eric’s state of mind in that final year before the massacre. We don’t have access to Eric’s therapy files, so it’s difficult to uncover any sorts of details about the precise nature of the issues he received medication and therapy for, but I’ve pieced enough together to hopefully give you a little more insight. He asked for help and received it, but it wasn’t enough.

did eric seem like what he did was what he wanted? like it seemed like he wasn’t enjoying shooting people and walking around aimlessly later shows that he was disappointed about something?? I just wish he didn’t do it.

Eesh, see, this is what happens when I’m horribly behind on answering my asks and lose track of what’s in my inbox.. I answered one question about this last night and come to find this slightly older ask sitting here this morning. *shakes head* I would recommend you read last night’s reply for the full overview of my thoughts on this, but I don’t want to let your ask go by just referring you to something else.

I wish he didn’t do it, either. There are days on which that thought just grabs me by the throat, especially because I know there’s nothing any of us can do to change that anymore. It’s a hard thought to have. Changing just one thing about Columbine could save so many people and could make us all get to the point where we wouldn’t even associate that name with anything but the pretty flowers. It’s hard to know that we can’t do anything to stop what has already happened. I hope that most of us are fighting to make sure it doesn’t happen somewhere else to other people again. My thoughts in this aren’t only with the victims of these crimes, but also with the perpetrators. Especially with the perpetrators, even, which might not make sense to everyone but needs to start making sense to everyone because by helping and understanding (potential) perpetrators of these crimes we can ensure that there are fewer people we can call victims.

Eric, to me, never seemed like he truly enjoyed doing what he claimed he wanted. I think a huge part of that lies in the fact that the bombs he had invested so much in didn’t detonate. It was supposed to have been his life’s work and it was supposed to have been successful. Instead, it was another abject failure. Another illustration of his idea that he could never do anything right and that he wasn’t worth much of anything. Another proof of the notion that he wasn’t the man he aspired to be, and another disappointment for him to swallow. Eric’s focus throughout the massacre was on those bombs. Most of his focus beforehand was on the destruction and havoc those bombs would create. He’d daydreamed about it for so long, but would never see that become reality.

I’ve often seen people say that they don’t understand why Eric killed himself. Those same people have no problems understanding why Dylan committed suicide. It still baffles me to realise that some have no idea about Eric’s thought processes and the feelings that led him to put that gun in his mouth and squeeze the trigger. For Eric, these were valid reasons. For Eric, things grew over his head and crowded him to the point where he felt like this was the only escape left. I cannot judge that, though I often wish I could reach back through time and space and stay his hand. I’ve spent so much time getting into that head of his that to me the suicide becomes a logical thing for Eric to have done, even when I still hope that others who’re standing on that knife’s edge right now will come to realise that life does get better and that we deserve to stay alive and have good things come to us. I’ve attempted to explain every aspect of Eric’s inner world in the hopes that people will come to understand him without judging him, the way that people already understand Dylan so willingly, but there are more than enough days in talking about Eric on which I simply wish he was alive to tell you all about it himself.

Eric has said a lot of times that he wanted to kill and he couldn’t wait till he did but on NBK, it seemed like he didn’t enjoy it ?? Like when in the school, he looked tired? Or seemed “out of it” but why? Isn’t that what he always wanted to do

To be fair, Eric may have seemed a little “out of it” during the shooting because he had suffered an injury that disoriented him and likely caused him discomfort/pain. His shotgun’s recoil hit him square in the face, after all, and it’s assumed that he suffered a broken nose because of it. His injuries were severe enough for him to look as though he’d been drinking blood, so that also explains why he took the time out to drink something in the cafeteria. Some of the witnesses stated he seemed a little loopy and spaced-out to them, as though he wasn’t fully focused on the goings-on. 

I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced this, but I have had moments in my life in which I’d built up my idea/expectations of something in a huge way (like the anticipation of this thing was killing me and I couldn’t wait to get to it and it’d be everything I ever hoped it would be) only to find that this thing wasn’t at all like how I’d imagined it to be and all I wanted was for it to go away again. That kind of build-up followed by a letdown is what I think happened for Eric here as well. He’d made NBK so huge in that head of his and had really poured his heart and soul into making it reality. But when the time came and he was actually doing it, I don’t think it was anything like what he’d expected it to be. I think that he felt disappointed to the point where it caused him to deflate. Eric never sounded euphoric during the massacre, though I think he tried to convince himself that he was enjoying himself for a while before reality really kicked in.

It’s all well and good to talk about the concept of murder, but I think that the reality of such an act is so visceral and in-your-face that nothing can really prepare you for how you might react to that. Dissociation of some kind isn’t uncommon in that type of situation, either, and some murderers reported it was almost an out-of-body experience for them. It’s somewhat hard to know what Eric’s inner world consisted of during the massacre, but I’ve always had the distinct and unshakable impression that he was imploding in on himself and started to run in a self-destructive loop more than he focused outward. Eric’s pre-massacre state of mind is very much characterised by outward focus: he’s accusing the world of being worthless and painful, he hates himself and so he hates everybody else, he’s a misanthropist who wants to kill the fucking system, people should quit their bitching/shut up and die, you name it. It’s therefore a fascinating thing to realise that all of Eric’s feelings and aggression essentially halted and changed direction midway through 4/20. All of those externalised feelings of rage/aggression/etc he had been pushing at the world and all of those racing thoughts that invaded his head and got an outlet in plans for NBK suddenly just changed and made the metaphorical roof over his head cave in on top of him.

If there’s one thing to truly learn about Eric, it’s this: don’t look at what he shouts the hardest, don’t look at what he’s screaming about, don’t look at the alienating hatred and violence that permeates so much of what he left behind. Don’t entertain the idea that he is honest with you about his motives and his convictions. Don’t give the Eric he promoted for himself the time of day. Instead, look at what he doesn’t say. Look at what‘s written between the lines, at the stuff he omits, at the things that he can’t bring himself to talk about. Entertain the notion that Eric was scared and alone and told himself all kinds of stories to make himself feel better and more in control over his life. Think of the idea that maybe, just maybe, one of those stories was NBK. And then, well.. then open yourself to the thought that perhaps Eric found himself again in the reality of that, but couldn’t cope with what he saw in the mirror when he did.

rebdomine-rebismine:

Hi REB

Did E&D know that their bombs wouldn’t explode? Because they had a plan B.

If they knew beforehand that their bombs wouldn’t explode, then why would they have gone through all that trouble of making them?

I honestly can’t see Eric saving up most of his money for something that isn’t going to work, nor can I see him focusing on the bombs so exclusively when he full-well knows they’re never going to detonate. I can’t see either one of them rushing around to put the bombs together that morning when they both know it’s a waste of time.

The original plan was always to bomb the school and then shoot any survivors that escaped the building. Over the course of time, I personally came to refer to this plan as Plan A. This was the main plan that the boys had focused on and prepared for. This was what they envisioned when they thought about the massacre. I call it Plan A for those reasons, and so that I can separate it from the reality of the actual events.

It is my belief that they were improvising when those bombs didn’t detonate, which is why the shooting itself seems chaotic/unstructured and why they walked around the school pretty aimlessly following the events in the library. It also explains why their focus was still on the bombs when they were in the cafeteria and it partially explains why they never really made an attempt to enter one of the classrooms. Eric and Dylan never created a Plan B. They were convinced that those bombs were going to work and that Plan A would be a reality. But when the bombs failed, I think they devised a rather haphazard Plan B on the spot. I think they didn’t entertain a Plan B until they were standing in front of that school and found out that their ideas didn’t translate into reality. They didn’t have a Plan B beforehand, but I keep calling the actual massacre Plan B on this blog because that’s what it was in the end. 

Since both boys put bombs in their cars, did their cars explode??

No, the car bombs did not explode as Eric and Dylan had intended them to. I believe law enforcement cited faulty wiring as the reason why none of the bigger bombs detonated, although obviously they did not expand on the technicalities of that claim. Some say the timers were set wrong, others say Eric and Dylan didn’t understand the scientific principles of their bombs, you name it.. I’m inclined to think that they understood most but not enough of it, and that the fact that they didn’t test-drive the bombs beforehand directly impeded the effectiveness of the bombs.

If the bombs had exploded as planned, it is likely that the chaos and confusion that already ran rampant would have increased even further. Some of the first responders were located in close proximity to their cars, so it could have been disastrous if the bombs had detonated. More so, I think that it would give Eric and Dylan even more free reign of the school if the car bombs served as a distraction.

The only thing that gave investigators a good scare is that one of the strike matches that was attached to a pipe bomb ignited when it came in contact with the wall of the trailer they were putting the bombs in. That pipe bomb and some other devices exploded in the confines of the trailer late in the evening at 10:40pm. Nobody was hurt in that explosion.

I think Eric was throwing something like a bomb, and that’s why Dylan turns his head and looks. You see a flash in that direction after

Maybe, yes, but there was already a small fire going on in that location so it’s hard to say for sure. It’s as good a guess as any, and I can see the merit in that! You do see a flash there, but whether that’s because one of the boys threw anything in that direction or because of something else is hard to determine. The start of that segment of the footage is located on one of those pesky split screens before it goes full-sized, which makes it difficult to see if Eric or Dylan threw anything.

I’ll tell you what, though, if that was a throw from Eric then I suddenly fully believe all the reports about him throwing his bowling ball in a weird manner. *laughs*

everlasting-contrast:

This is Sue Klebold and Coni Sanders (daughter of Dave Sanders.) The January magazine of National Geographic had this small section of her in their article “The Science of Good & Evil.” Not sure if you were aware of this or have seen the picture but if you have I apologize for repeating the information.

——————————

Thank you for letting me know about this utterly heartwrenching photo/article.
It truly brought tears to my eyes!   The totality of this image is painful yet beautiful, all in one. It’s such a true representation of Healing in the purest sense of the word. Here huddled together are two victims, once on seemingly opposing sides, now joined together in empathy, understanding, and compassion.  Their loss is the same; they are connected and bound by this tragedy.   Now, two years on since Sue’s book released, everything has come full circle and is now in the process of imperfect mending thru the passage of time. 

“Bad things become good” ..again.

The full excerpt from the National Geographic article entitled “The Science of Good and Evil” reads:

SUE KLEBOLD AND CONI SANDERS
Sharing sorrow: Klebold (at left) is the mother of Dylan Klebold, one of two teenagers who carried out the 1999 shooting at Colorado’s Columbine High School. Klebold wrote about her experience in A Mother’s Reckoning and donates any profits to mental health charities. She has become a mother figure to Sanders (at right), whose father was killed in the massacre. For years Sanders was angry with Klebold for raising a son who became a killer. But her struggle to raise her own teenagers helped her understand Klebold. “If anyone’s pain is greater than my own, it’s hers,” she says. The women, here at a memorial for the victims in Olinger Chapel Hill Cemetery, now share a strong bond.  

High res image

At 11:57, in the cafeteria tape, do you know what Eric was pointing at?

the-trenchcoat-diaries:

thedragonrampant:

I’ve always taken it as this gesturing-while-talking thing, as though he was talking to Dylan and gesturing in the general direction of the bombs at the same time. Kind of like “the bombs are just sitting over there, dude” or “we set them down over there, right? why don’t we throw shit at them now? they’ve gotta go off sometime”. I’ve always read exasperation in the gesture somehow, but also definitely think of it as conversational at the same time.

If he was pointing at something, it’s likely to have been the bombs. If it wasn’t the bombs, it’s likely to have been the huge presence of first responders outside that drew Eric’s attention and made him point into that direction. 

I wondered if he was using some of the signals they created ….. @thedragonrampant

That’s quite likely, actually, and a great connection to make here! Thanks, the-trenchcoat-diaries!

At 11:57, in the cafeteria tape, do you know what Eric was pointing at?

I’ve always taken it as this gesturing-while-talking thing, as though he was talking to Dylan and gesturing in the general direction of the bombs at the same time. Kind of like “the bombs are just sitting over there, dude” or “we set them down over there, right? why don’t we throw shit at them now? they’ve gotta go off sometime”. I’ve always read exasperation in the gesture somehow, but also definitely think of it as conversational at the same time.

If he was pointing at something, it’s likely to have been the bombs. If it wasn’t the bombs, it’s likely to have been the huge presence of first responders outside that drew Eric’s attention and made him point into that direction. 

Hi!! Hope your having a great day 😇❤️

Hi! Today’s been pretty decent, yeah, which I think is because it’s a Sunday and barely anything ever happens on a Sunday. *laughs* Hope you’re having a good one too!

Eric said he was embarrassed when he got arrested for the van break in. Then why the fudge would he even steal in first place

Because the idiot thought he could steal all that shit and get away with it, haha. I also think the van break-in was a rather impulsive act brought on by boredom. We might be able to consider it an escalation of their rebel missions, which were rather innocent in comparison but still already held certain elements of vandalism/theft/etc.

I’m sure they both regretted it when they suddenly found themselves in the company of a police officer that night, though! The embarrassment was always over getting caught and never about the theft itself, in my opinion.

I cannot tell you how happy I am you are posting again!! <3

I’m glad to hear it! ❤ I’ve been trying to be lowkey about it, because I’m sure y’all are used to me returning and then going away again and I don’t wanna get any hopes up this time, but I’m feeling okay about posting and dipping my toes back into the Columbine waters..

Hi, I was wondering if we have definite information from Eric’s Marine screening. What I’m really looking for are the test scores. I believe it was in Jeff Kass’ book where it’s stated Eric did well above average. I just can’t figure where he got that information. I’m a bit urked, because I could’ve sworn that I’ve read in at least two separate articles that Eric didn’t do all that great on the testing. I’m at a stalemate. Do you have any solid sourcing I could see? Thanks!

Hi! Yeah, we do have some information about that. Pages 10085-10092 of the 11k are about the Marines application, because the staff sergeant who’d initially interviewed Eric for it contacted police in the massacre’s aftermath and gave his statement to them. His statement says that Eric took the screening test given to all recruits and scored a 46, which is in the ballpark of ‘average’.

I did a little digging and think we might be talking about the ASVAB/AFQT test here, which for the Marines demands a minimum score of 32 to make one eligible for enlistment. Eric’s score was good enough for enlistment, but from what I understand it wasn’t showstoppingly stellar or anything like that.

My resources-page has links to the 11k on it that are sorted by page numbers, so if you want to check out the full details of the Marine Corps application then that’s a good place to start. Use the page numbers I gave you and dive into the PDF-link that includes those numbers – you can find the page numbers on the bottom right of the scanned pages, so that should be relatively easy to navigate.

*whiny voice* Eric would’ve done the massacre no matter what, Eric was beyond help, Eric is to blame, Eric manipulated Dylan, Eric was barely even human, Eric was a psychopathic mastermind, Eric got lots and lots of chicks, Eric Eric Eric blablabla

*headdesks*

So I found out about columbine about 4 years ago and then around last year I stopped the interest since I already know a lot about it and I basically took a long break from it cause I was like in a columbine hole and I was getting sad all the time bcuz of it. And now I started again a week ago and am reading more information from where I left off and relooking at stuff and i shouldn’t have done this cause am basically being sad again over it when I shouldn’t and it’s the past.. Is that weird idk

Nope, not weird at all.

I started my Columbine research some six years ago, now, but I haven’t spent every waking day of those years on the case. I’ve had small breaks and extended breaks from it over the course of time, and really relate to what you said about being ‘in a Columbine hole’.

For you, and all others who may relate to us this way, I wrote “when it gets to be ‘too much’”.  The most important thing? Give yourself space. Give yourself a break. Give yourself time. The case ain’t going anywhere, as you’ve discovered, and it’s important for you to allow your sadness to exist but not allow it to consume you.

How did the gun hit Eric’s nose so bad that cause him to bleed lol

Guns have a recoil when you fire ’em, so they essentially move backward when they’re discharged. When Eric shot Cassie at very close range, he apparently held the gun in such a way that the gun’s backward movement hit him square in the nose. The recoil on sawed-offs tends to be even worse, from what I understand, so it’s not surprising that Eric somehow managed to injure himself. (And, honestly, I think people may have gotten lucky that he did? I sometimes wonder how the massacre would’ve gone if Eric had not suffered that injury.)