It is often the actions of others that spur the precipitation of evil in a person.

When the term school shooter comes to mind, many think of mental illness in its ugliest form. Indeed, many school shooters, and other mass-killers, are proven to be mentally ill. Conversely, many of these same shooters diagnosed with mental illness were remembered before their rampage as just regular, everyday kids.

This begs the question: how did these killers that were otherwise regarded as normal kids differ from the rest of us that are considered normal in everyday life, and why did they act out by killing? One likely answer is alienation, rejection, exclusion and consequently the lack of access to mental health care. All of these factors contribute to the dehumanization of someone, and all of these factors are caused by other humans; consequences of our social nature.

People are quick to label school shooters as evil, but fail to recognize the problem behind it all. I invite you to consider the following quote by Fyodor Dostoyevsky: “Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.” While school shooters should not be victimized, they ought to be studied without bias so that accurate, clinical data may be acquired. With this data, we may better understand the circumstances that may have led to their decline in mental health and subsequently better prevent the mental and social degeneration that many of these school shooters undergo before snapping.

In order to fully understand the build up before a shooter’s rampage, we must understand dehumanization. The textbook definition is as follows, “the process of depriving a person or group of positive human qualities.” One of those positive human qualities is acceptance, a main theme in this research paper. When someone is “deprived” of acceptance, they are dehumanized. This process of dehumanization is what leads many to act out in violence either on themselves, or others.

Another pertinent idea is that there is no pattern to school shootings. Each shooter and outcome is different. However, finding the similarities between them can be helpful in understanding why and preventing other rampages. The shooter in no way should be victimized, however for most, there is the factor of dehumanization that led them to do what they did.

REJECTION

Turns out a broken arm might not be that different from the pain of rejection. Why does rejection affect us so much though? Humans rely on social groups for survival. Our need for acceptance emerged as a survival mechanism years and years ago. For many years, psychologists did not understand the depth of how rejection affects people.

However, the deeper researchers dig, the more they uncover shocking truths about rejection. The pain of being rejected is not so different from physical pain; because not only does rejection cause pain, but it also deeply influences emotion. These emotional and painful blows can lead to outbursts of violence. Most brief encounters with rejection are painful, but what varies person to person is how long it takes to recover, and how one deals with the recovery.

A bad break-up or being fired might sting at first, but most people heal in time. However, long term exclusion and ostracization can lead to more dangerous outcomes. It’s the pain of being excluded over and over again that makes people act out. Being excluded, along with poor mental health, can join together in a destructive loop. An analysis of 15 school shooters found that all but two had been socially rejected. If repeated rejection and alienation can lead to violent, psychotic outbursts, perhaps we can identify troubled individuals before they snap and give them the proper treatment, if not care, required.

MENTAL

The technical definition of “mental illness” includes any condition in the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the classification system of mental disorders created and used by mental health professionals. Indeed, many school shooters, and other mass-killers, are proven to be mentally ill. Those who have been proven to be mentally ill usually suffer from depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder. It is known that in the United States, mental health care is exceptionally hard to acquire. 56% of U.S adults who are suffering from a mental illness do not receive proper treatment. Even after the Affordable Care Act required medical insurers to provide coverage for behavioral and mental health care, the cost of treatment still limits access to mental health services. Lack of affordable access is depriving someone of the healthcare they deserve and further dehumanizing them. 64.1% of youth with major depression do not receive any mental health treatment. That means that 6 out of 10 young people who have depression and who are most at risk of suicidal thoughts and thoughts of harming others do not get the treatment needed to support. The lack of care for mental health can snowball into a more rapid deterioration of mental health, sometimes leading to violent outbursts after too much time alone and without proper recognition and treatment.

While it’s easy to identify issues and speculate solutions, it’s much harder to transfer the plans from paper to reality. The reality is, prolonged isolation and rejection is a painful thought for any of us to truly consider, and so empathizing in that regard is not difficult. However, keeping that empathy in mind during day to day life until the point it’s trained into unconscious habit takes daily, consistent practice, and that is much harder than reading an insightful article and simply agreeing. Moreover, once an individual snaps and lashes out with terrible violence, the opportunity to develop empathy shatters. Therefore, it’s important that we as a society strive to be better to each other. This means recognizing faults in others and forgiving them, or including someone that you may notice is a little lonely and inviting them to join you and your friends. A practical way of developing these positive, empathetic habits is by truly ingraining them in our school systems. An intelligently designed, well-crafted program that develops empathy in our young elementary school aged students may plant the seeds that grow into trees whose shade all are welcome to play under. With practice, and hope, a focused social program that is pushed by the federal government could put a dent in the growing rate of depression and isolation in today’s kids. Mental health awareness has come a long way since its intense stigmatization, but we have a long way to go until accessible, affordable healthcare catches up with its proliferation. However, it’s never too late to be kind. It’s easy to hold the door open for someone struggling with crutches because that is visually obvious; it’s challenging to recognize someone who is struggling with loneliness and perhaps mental health, but we can do it. It just takes practice.