Mental Illness: The Increase In Serial Killers

Mental illness is infiltrating our society as shown by the increase in serial killers. Most often it begins with small crimes, such as, petty crimes, animal cruelty, and then escalates to extreme horrific crimes. The start of this unthinkable behavior begins in the blink of an eye. Mental illnesses are increasingly becoming more prevalent around the world everyday. Schizophrenia, narcissistic/borderline/antisocial personality disorder, and psychosis are just a few of the different types of mental illnesses as diagnosed in the DSM VI. In most of today’s cases of brutal mass murders the perpetrator suffers from a mental illness. The inability for a stable reality, inability to feel remorse, and the increase of violent behavior make one wonder …show more content…
Psychopaths are often those who suffer from personality disorders. Along with antisocial personality disorder, there is borderline personality disorder as well. Borderline personality disorders deals with more of the stability of those afflicted. They could suffer with anxiety and emotional instability. These along with the right settings can cause paranoia. “Becoming very paranoid or suspicious of others, having no empathy for anyone, and perhaps being subject to impulsive aggression, means that should an individual with BPD display with all of these traits at once, there could be an assault that results in the loss of life”(Pemment). Jeffrey Dahmer a serial killer from the early 1960s was recognized to have borderline personality disorder. Dahmer was seen to have aggression issues as well as experiencing fantasies or hallucinations. These on top of his deranged sexual desired all added up to him becoming the type of a serial killer he was. “He did not had any moral sense to block him or it was too weak to inhibit his desire, the victims were therefore lived as inanimate objects or inferior and he did not proved remorse”(Giannetakis). These lack of feelings and corrupted thoughts are the result of his borderline personality disorder. The minds of those diagnosed with borderline personality disorder are still being studied because it is less understood compared to antisocial personality disorder. Comparative to both, narcissistic personality …show more content…
However, it is not per say a single diagnosis. Psychosis comes with in many different disorders. “Everyone's experience of psychosis is different and attaching a specific name or label to the psychotic illness is not always useful” (Early). Delusional disorder, brief reactive psychosis, Schizophrenaform, or schizoaffective disorders are each diagnoses that include psychosis. Psychotic behavior is often mistaken or compared with psychopathic behavior. Psychotic behavior is caused by psychosis. Psychosis often includes hallucinations along with deranged delusions and thoughts. “Psychosis is a complete loss of one's sense of reality” (Brogaard). Because psychosis is so diverse it is found to be a prominent trait in serial killers. While Psychosis is a treatable chronic disease some don’t even realize they have it. They have always had their own reality and feel as if their perception is valid. Because of this they do not feel as if anything is wrong and therefore aren’t diagnosed. Some cases of psychosis are more dramatic than others. Psychosis disorder is often followed with the psychotic episodes that can be violent and even harmful if severe enough. Psychosis is most commonly referenced with dangerous harmful reactions and outbreaks. If diagnosed with psychosis your chance of violent harmful behavior increases because of these psychotic outbreaks that will occur. Because there are so many forms of