Post: #1

Anyone with any knowledge of psychology have any ideas on what causes people to "snap" and lose all contact with reality? (Reading the Elliot Roger thread and his disturbing ravings made me wonder about it).

(Today it's popular to just attribute all mental illnesses to "genes" only treatable by drugs, but I think this is bullshit for the most part and just fits in with the "I'm a victim" mindset of this day and age).

From what I've read, negative thoughts and stress are the precursors to most types of mental illness, but that doesn't give a lot to work with.

Others believe that demonic possession may even play a role in it (the symptoms some psychotic or schizophrenic people have such as "hearing voices" in some ways conjur up images of demonic possession described in religious texts).

I have a layman's issue in psychology and evolutionary biology so here are some of my theories, but feel free to take them with a grain of salt:

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Mental association - If a person experiences or sees something traumatic, it can associate it with seemingly everyday or unrelated events.

(My theory here is that if a person somehow associated a very painful experiences with unavoidable everyday events such as simply making conversation, it could lead to their mind being in a constant state of trauma).

Language association - Language itself is actually quite an interesting phenominon - I would have to read more about philosophy of language, but:

*A theory I have is that some types of language sounds have innate meanings, as they may tie into prehistoric forms of human communication which predate spoken languages.

(The "S" sound for example resembles a hiss of a snake, and the "R" sound resembles a growl).

In an abnormal state of mind, one might associate "threatening" sounds like these in everyday reading or conversation with threatening situations, such as being attacked by a lion or a snake as our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have felt if they had heard a tiger making a "grrrrr" or a snake making a "hisss".

The result might mean that simply reading a book or being in every day conversations could cause the mind to believe they are surrounded by growling, hissing predators upon hearing sounds like these.

(There is a disorder known as "misophonia" for example in which people experience abnormal rage upon hearing certain types of sounds).


Fight or Flight - Since our brains have basic evolutionary instincts programmed into them, if under intense stress it may put us in a constant state of "flight or fight", which may contribute to the symptoms of paranoia.

Disgust association

Also a very complicated topic, but apparently one of the basic human emotions is "digust"; this emotion is both associated with things like germs or rotten food as well as things perceived as morally evil or dangerous.

In a state of extreme "black/white" thinking due to stress, one's mind might make a literal association between mildy disgusting phenominon which are encountered daily (ex. germs on a dirty plate) and disgusting things of an extreme nature (ex. murder), causing them to be in a constant state of terror and delusion (ex. the mind feeling that it's witnessed a murder every time it hears the sound of a bodily function).

Sexual repression:

According to this psychologist if men are sexually repressed this energy can channel itself into rage, which may lead to violent behavior, such as in the case of Islamic terrorists. This may have likely been a factor in Rogers' behavior.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sex...the-remedy