Adam Lanza’s ‘separateness’ exposed
Written musings and other documents by Adam Lanza – who slaughtered 20 first-graders and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 2012 – have been reported by the Hartford Courant.
Adam Lanza was challenged by speech and sensory issues as a child but had a keen intellect. That potential was eclipsed in his teenage years by paranoia, disdain for relationships, and contempt for others, the documents show. Family, teachers, and counselors were aware of his isolation. And, with time, his obsessions and mental/physical deterioration grew. But the documents make clear that no one really had a full grasp of the person he was becoming.
“As a teenager, his sensory condition made him exceedingly sensitive to textures, sound, light, and movement. He shunned his classmates, bothered by their choice of clothes and the noises they made. He cultivated a set of ground rules that fed his separateness,” write reporters Josh Kovner and Dave Altimari. The critical addition to this toxic brew was an absence of empathy and social compassion, according to Harold I. Schwartz, MD, a psychiatrist and former member of the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, which studied the shootings.
“In this mental state, known as solipsism, only the solipsist is real. Everyone else in the world is a cardboard cutout, placed there for your benefit and otherwise devoid of meaning or value. It is the most extreme end of one form of malignant narcissism. If the victims have no value, then there is nothing to constrain you from shooting them,” Dr. Schwartz says.
In a note accompanying the article, the editors write: “Understanding what a mass killer was thinking not only paints a clearer picture of the individual, it helps us identify and understand red flags that could be part of a prevention formula for future mass shootings.”