Posted on 04/21/2007 10:11:41 AM PDT by Cinnamon
Though it's unclear if he told anyone about his plans to stage a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, from childhood, Seung-Hui Cho showed an appetite for brutality, according to a new report.
The Washington Post reports that while Cho was unusually quiet as a child — according to relatives, he refused to respond to greetings and didn't want to be hugged — when he fought with his older sister, Sun-Kyung Cho, his actions spoke volumes. Relatives say he punched her with shocking force.
Despite signs of trouble, Cho's mother didn't seek treatment for him because he did well in school, the Washington Post reports.
But in their first public statement since the massacre, on Friday, Cho's family said that their son "has made the world weep" and that they are now "living a nightmare."
The statement, released to the Associated Press by Sun-Kyung Cho, says the family feels "hopeless, helpless and lost," after the 23-year old Va. Tech senior took the lives of 32 people.
"We are humbled by this darkness," wrote 25-year old Sun Kyung Cho. "This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn't know this person … My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence."
I know two kids with asperger’s syndrome, and they are not violent at all. Very nice kids, not withdrawn.
I agree VS. I don't think that the group-think, blame mentality is ever helpful. It is an individual case with its own specific facts. Analyzing what went wrong in this case may be helpful to some, but extrapolating it to other Koreans or other autism sufferers is obviously not wise or fair.
I feel first for the victims' friends and relatives, then for the victims, but also for this family. You'd want to crawl into a hole and die.
So true. Can you imagine how awful they feel about this? And the law wouldn't even permit the university to notify them that their son was succumbing to mental illness.
Imagine if some member of your family went off the deep end and murdered dozens of people like this. This family's members are victims as well.
This is true, too. Most autistic folks don’t act nearly like that...His condition certainly had paranoid overtones.
Once a person turns 18, the law doesn’t let the family help, if a person doesn’t want it. Pretty much privacy rules have put a wall between any adult child and his family if the adult child wants it to be that way.
I was thinking the same thing. I’m not thrilled about anyone besides my husband or kids hugging me. What is shocking? My sisters and I got into some really bad fights when we were younger. I’m not excusing this killer but just pointing out that the media is throwing out stuff that is normal.
Well that’s not normal.
“Despite signs of trouble, Cho’s mother didn’t seek treatment for him because he did well in school, the Washington Post reports.”
I think some of this is a cultural problem, as far as I know with Chinese and Koreans (in a general and stereotypical sense, but from experience as well) but maybe with some other Asian groups too.
Psychology, psychiatry and “mental health” psychological analysis and treatment, in the general sense (as opposed to the sense they are applied by the totalitarians in China) are still a predominately “western” feature of family life in the personal opinions of many Asians.
For many, most such “attitude” problems of children and young adults are handled in the family or not at all, and no one wants to bring “outsiders”, even western “professionals”, into it. Many Asian families do not “reach out” with these problems, particularly the more “traditional” and “conservative” (culturally) they are.
That is not to say that many westerners do not feel the same way. Many do.
I just think there is a larger level of aversion to “reaching out” with “mental health” issues among more Asians than among westerners.
Like some on this thread, nothing can diminish my anguish for the victims and their families, nor my belief that they will be foremost in our prayers, and they should be.
But, I too, today, must pray for Cho’s family, because in the end everything was a choice that he and he alone made, not them.
And yet the public focus on them, as Cho’s family is unavoidable and it must be nearly as heart wrenching for them as it is for the families of the victims, for there is not a thing they can say or do to alter their son’s guilt, a guilt that it is now being emotionally absorbed by them.
I think that should be “may have shown.”
100% correct.
It sounds like Cho had schizophrenia. His video rant reveals the psychosis - the delusions of persecution. The withdrawn nature and odd behavior is as much a part of schizophrenia as is the psychosis. The withdrawal, lack of emotion, etc. are called negative symptoms and often show up in early childhood.
Exactly. People with autistic disorders tend to be quite indifferent towards society at large. I can't imagine a child with autism or Asperger's holding the hatred for society that Cho did. Cho was anything but indifferent.
Yeah that is typical. Male or introverted behavior is being defined as aberrant when most introverts are the nicest people you could meet till they get bullied and made fun of without end. All they want is to be left alone and go out of their way not to bring attention to themselves but that doesn’t work. More aggressive males who have never been taught any manners target them. So the shy kid who was probably the most nonviolent stores the anger the hate and feels even more isolated from the world until something sets him off.
What I believe set Cho off was probably the deal with the girls. He was trying to get a girlfriend and didn’t know how to approach it and then he writes plays and is sent away to be mentally evaluated when he wrote nothing different than a Tarantino. I don’t excuse anything he did. He made a choice to be a murderer. I don’t however feel comfortable automatically classifying someone as “crazy” when I’m sure he knew and made a clear decision to do what he did. He was “getting even”.
Hey, hotshot . . . knee jerk responses can be hazardous to your charitable personna . . . if you had/have one.
As Dr Murray Banks used to say . . .
“What is it that the insane do that you don’t do?”
“Not a blessed thing! It’s only a question of degree.”
Well put.
You are correct!
More to the point, what kind of headline is “may have”? Either he did, or he didn’t!
ne common thread in many violent killers is that they were violent to animals growing up. I’m not talking about going hunting and shooting Bambi. I’m talking about finding stray cats, dogs, etc. and killing them in painful, torturous ways to watch them suffer and die. The boy gets pleasure out of watching the animal’s obvious fear and pain. They also get a sense of power knowing they can look the animal in the eye and decide whether and how much it will suffer.
= = =
INDEED. Right you are.
That is what I think too. People say he was too organized to be schizophrenic, in the way he planned the killing, but in his video and plays there is very little organization at all - new elements are introduced at random; there’s some repetition and parallel sentences, and an escalation of violence, and a disjointed end.
His plan didn’t involve all that much organization. Buy guns, make video, chain doors, kill people.
I do recognize elements of autism in Cho, and I’m sure there are a lot of families of schizophrenics recognizing his schizophrenia and thinking rightly, my child is not full of hate and rage like that; the only one he hurts is himself.
Mrs VS
True.
Many schizophrenics do not have badly disorganized thinking. Paranoid schizophrenics often do not have hallucinations or difficulty organizing thoughts. Their main problem is delusional thinking; in Cho's case, delusions of persecution. And it can be tough to get them to admit to it, because the smart ones learn very quickly that expressing your opinion about things can get you sent to the psych hospital.
There is some overlap between the symptoms of autism and the negative symptoms of schizophrenia, but I don't see that he had any of the three cardinal symptoms of autism.
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