My observations of Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold

Ok, so I'm new to the forum and I have to admit, I haven't visited the entire situation of Columbine in over ten years. In re-visiting the Columbine massacre again, I read and re-read and re-read Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris's journals and writings and watched video footage of them (repeatedly). I mean I read them and re-read them and re-read them and watched and re-watched them and I came to this conclusion about both young men. Now I should say before I begin, I'm not making a psychiatric evaluation because they're dead and I'm not able to have them sit in front of me so I can mentally and verbally evaluate them, but from a psychologist's POV (because that's what I am. I am a child psychologist, I went to school for it), here's what I've taken from Dylan and Eric and Eric and Dylan.

When people say that Eric and Dylan had mental illness, (Sue Klebold has said this as well), from what I've seen of them and read from them, no they didn't.

Dylan, let's start with him. Dylan had a brain on him, he had one heck of a brain. For Dylan to have been in the "Challenging High Intellectual Potential Students" program for gifted and talented children, Dylan was gifted from birth. I mean this kid was intellectually intelligent with a very high IQ. He reminds me of my younger sister, as far as with his smarts is concerned. Dylan also is comparable to the character "Franklin" from the television series "My Wife & Kids" and also - mildly, the character "Shaun Murphy" of the television series "The Good Doctor". So in general, this was a very intellectual child and in my opinion, he was much smarter than Byron, sorry to say but it's true. Dylan was Sue and Tom's "gifted child". I mean I could absolutely see Dylan being the next Bill Gates or even Steve Jobs. He was just that gifted and that intelligent.

Ok, now before we come to the conclusion with Dylan, let's go to Eric. Eric was also a very smart young man. Now he wasn't as smart as Dylan (because Dylan was gifted) but Eric was smart, smart indeed. For Eric to have created levels of a video game and to do it in the way that he did, this kid was darn smart. (I want to say the other "d" word but I'm not sure if profanity is allowed on this forum). Even Eric's teachers said that Eric was quote:

"Articulate, intelligent and preferring to express himself with the written word, he excelled in writing class."

So Eric was very smart, but like I said, he wasn't gifted but he was smart, smarter than most kids his age and I could see him - if he were alive today, being Carlos 'Ocelote' Rodriguez (who is one of the richest gamers in the United States) or even being another Robert Kirkman because as I stated, his mind was just "there" for that type of creativeness. He was smart.

Ok so all of that being said, what's the conclusion of observing all of that of those two? Well, it's this. As I stated, I do not believe whatsoever that Eric or Dylan had any mental illness. I believe the environment that they were in caused them to have the emotions and feelings that they felt and those emotions and feelings eventually erupted into violence.

The reason I also believe that neither had mental illness is because this - I have a nephew who has a mental illness. He started out with severe depression at nine, ten years old and then when he got into his teens, he was diagnosed as being a psychopath and his mental illness grew extremely worse. My sister dealt with it for four years until she couldn't anymore. So my sister (not my younger sister, my middle sister) doesn't have him (my nephew) living with her anymore and now he's in a group home where he stays up under a psychiatrist 24/7, because like I said, my sister just couldn't deal with it anymore. It became too much for her. Also, as a child psychologist, I've dealt with mentally ill children before.

So with that being said, I know exactly what mental illness is and Eric and Dylan did not have it. In fact, the problems with Eric and Dylan didn't begin until they began attending Columbine High as there are no reports of Eric being violent at the age of two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve or thirteen years of age. There are no reports of him being violent, there are reports however of him being a good, decent kid during those ages, a kid who between the ages of seven and thirteen, would call those who dressed and acted like he did during his junior year at Columbine - "devil kids".

Dylan, there are no reports of him at the age of two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve and thirteen being severely depressed (and please do not talk about how he was shy at that age. Being shy doesn't mean you're severely depressed because my younger sister was extremely shy when she was young, but I'll talk about her later). There are no reports of him being severely depressed at all at those ages.

However, it wasn't until both of them began attending Columbine, that their problems began, because it was reported that in their sophomore year, the bullying of them began, as did their problems. So let's look at each of them individually from there.


So here's what was Dylan's problems - Dylan needed people to accept him, he needed friends who were on the same intellectual IQ level that he was (and I'm sorry but Brooks and his other friends were not). That's what was lacking with Dylan, and then there are reports that he wanted to find love. Well, yes, he did want to find love, at his age, what teen doesn't? But he would never, ever find it among the female students at Columbine, because the female students at Columbine couldn't relate to him in conversation - mentally and intellectually, so that's why the female students at Columbine didn't go for Dylan and he never found love there; Because think of how a conversation would go between Dylan and a female student at Columbine on a date:

Dylan: So I was thinking, if I get a list of motherboards compatible with my CPU, then the board's size is the next consideration. However the decision will be largely dictated by how big of a motherboard my computer case can accept.

Female Student At Columbine: (Looks at Dylan like he's nuts) Uh - yeah, ok. So how do you think you did on that Science test Monday? I know I like totally must have gotten a "D".

Dylan: (looks shyly hesitant as to whether he should respond or not) Um - I got an A, in fact, Mr. (whatever the teacher's name was) entered me into the STEM science fair.

(The female student at Columbine looks at Dylan with disdain. Like what the hell, he's so much smarter than her, it's such a turn-off, as if).

So, see? There would be nothing for Dylan and the female to relate to.

Now during the court hearing when Dylan stood in front of the judge, the judge asked Dylan what kind of grades he got in school. Dylan said - "C's and D's" (I believe he said or D-) . The judge then asked him, what grades was he capable of getting and Dylan said - A's and B's. So why wasn't Dylan getting A's and B's?

Well because you see, Dylan was at the wrong type of school. By Dylan being a prodigy mind, he should have been at a school where the students were intellectually on his level and in going to that type of school, he would've been accepted and not bullied. Just like you wouldn't send a child who is severely autistic to a regular school, because if you do, the kid will be severely bullied because there aren't kids like him there. However you put that child in a school where the other children are like him and the bullying will end because all the children there are children who are on the same level as he and he can relate to them and them to him.

So the same with Dylan. Columbine was not a school for gifted and intellectual children, so Dylan was subjected to bullying and non-acceptance. Furthermore, at a school like Columbine, being intelligent, (as intelligent as Dylan was) - that's what can get a child bullied, because the intelligent children are highly disliked often times by the jocks and the popular children because they're so smart and intelligent. (I mean look at fictional portrayals of this with films like Revenge Of The Nerds and television shows like Family Matters and Saved By The Bell. Despite those being works of fiction, they accurately portray how "brains" are treated at non-intellectual schools - they're treated as losers, dorks and are often times bullied.)

So what better way to fit in with the other children at your high school? Dumb yourself down because if you dumb yourself down, you won't be bullied as much, but if you use your intelligence and smarts to the fullest of your capabilities, you'll be a target for bullies. This is what Dylan did, he dumbed himself down (by only getting C's and D's), so he wouldn't be bullied as much and could relate as much as he could to his peers (although it didn't work because no matter what Dylan did, anyone could tell he was intelligent, all he had to do was start talking. So he wasn't able to fool his school peers and as a result, they still bullied him), and the fact that he dumbed himself down - it severely depressed him.  

Had Dylan attended a specifically gifted and talented school, such as SAGE Center For The Gifted (and they have a location in Colorado), he would have not been bullied and he would have been accepted by his peers (and probably more than likely, would have found love), because his school peers would have been those who are like him. So his depression would have disappeared.

Now Eric. Eric would have been fine at Columbine, had he just been accepted and liked, because that's all Eric wanted. I think the reason why Eric wasn't accepted was because of Eric's talent and intellect, (although Eric's intellect and IQ wasn't as high as Dylan's). However, Eric wanted simple things period - to not be bullied and to be accepted. He wasn't, so he rebelled and he rebelled violently towards everything and everyone - just so he could get people's attention. In fact, I think Eric once mentioned that, he mentioned that being violent and angry was the only way he could get people's attention. Furthermore, I remember there being reported a incident where Dylan lost a sporting game and Eric yelled at him to no end regarding it, while Dylan remained silent.

I feel like Eric's father treated Eric more like a cadet in the service, rather than a son who needed love. I feel like Eric's father drilled it in his head, "you be the best, you be better than everyone and act like it, because to act any other way means you're a loser." So with Wayne (Eric's father) drilling that in his head, that's why Eric yelled at Dylan during that time that Dylan lost the sporting game. Because it's what Wayne would do to Eric, any time Eric gave anything that was less than the absolute best. This is also why I believe Eric was so arrogant at times in his writings and actions, because again, I feel like Wayne drilled it in Eric's head to be the best, better than everyone and all the rest." So a lot of Eric's problems, I feel came from Wayne. Whereas Sue and Tom gave Dylan love, Wayne and Kathy gave Eric a military styled raising, not love and comfort.

Neither Eric nor Dylan got what they wanted, so they rebelled. I'm not excusing their actions but those, I believe are the causes of their actions. Not mental illness. Dylan's depression came from him being at a school where his peers weren't on his intellectual IQ level. So he (Dylan) couldn't relate to anyone. He could only lightly relate to Eric - but only a little but still that wasn't enough to fully stimulate Dylan intellectually, so - enter Dylan's severe depression.

Now why I believe these theories about Eric and Dylan is because as I stated above, I have a younger sister, who is the same way as Dylan. My younger sister was (and still is) a prodigy mind with a high level IQ and the elementary school she went to - boy, she was bullied beyond severity, had no friends - all of that and she went into depression - just like Dylan.

My mother took my younger sister out of that elementary school and put her into Sidwell Friends, which is a very intellectual school for smart children, her depression cleared, she gained friends and was well liked and today - she's finishing her second year of medical school. See? No mental illness.

So I just thought I'd share that, like I said. it's not a mental evaluation because I feel like there's no way anyone (including Dave Cullen) could give a mental evaluation of Eric and Dylan, unless Eric and Dylan were in front of me or any other mental specialist to be evaluated. However this is just merely my observation from carefully going over everything regarding Eric and Dylan - including journals, video footage and etc.

Interesting evaluation.

Most psychopaths NEVER kill anyone and function well in society.

And, I believe, not ALL shooters are mentally ill.

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sororityalpha wrote:

Interesting evaluation.

Most psychopaths NEVER kill anyone and function well in society.

And, I believe, not ALL shooters are mentally ill.

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Define "function well".

By "function well" you mean ruining the lives of many through manipulation, lies and deceit I assume.

Really man, do you post just to up your count without knowing what you're talking about all the time? And I'm not talking about an article or two.

Ivan wrote:

sororityalpha wrote:

Interesting evaluation.

Most psychopaths NEVER kill anyone and function well in society.

And, I believe, not ALL shooters are mentally ill.

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Define "function well".

By "function well" you mean ruining the lives of many through manipulation, lies and deceit I assume.

Really man, do you post just to up your count without knowing what you're talking about all the time? And I'm not talking about an article or two.

No psychopaths do NOT function well in society, as the poster after you replied, there would be some signs of their psychopathy showing in their life, either through lies, deceit or manipulation. However the traits of psychopathy (which do not show in Eric and Dylan - no matter what Dave Cullen says, the ludicrous young man)  does not just show up when a child gets to high school. It has to show up when the child is very, very young, (one such trait is the killing and mutilating of animals - something that is a very high trait of psychopathy, an illness of which my nephew was diagnosed with, as I stated and he would kill cats and skin them and remove their eyes), and despite what lies Sue Klebold says to try to further the government's brainwashing on the public to believe that the Columbine High shooting happened as a result of mental illness, Dylan was NOT mentally ill and you know, let's push even further ok?

Sue says she hopes to see Dylan in the afterlife, well when she does, I would love to hear her explain how she further ridiculed her son to the world by calling him mentally ill and being a champion of mental illness, instead of being a champion for BULLYING because that IS what was the issue here. Kids bullying other kids because they're more intelligent than they are and they (the bullies) can't understand the intelligent kids. That was what was happening with Dylan and that was what was happening with Eric as well. The kids at Columbine couldn't understand nor relate to them, so it caused Dylan and Eric and Eric and Dylan - both of them, to be bullied. No matter how many teachers claim that "oh Eric and Dylan weren't bullied." Bull, there are reports from student(S) that both were, but Eric more than Dylan, but both were.


So how will Sue be able to explain to Dylan that she responded to his death by calling it a mental illness, when she knows what it was? She's no better than the bullies, further bullying her child by saying that he committed this horrendous crime because he was sick in the head. This boy wasn't sick in the head, he was GIFTED in the head, it's just that Sue and Tom had no idea - apparently, what to do or how to deal with a GIFTED in the head child, because if they did, they would have known you don't take a child who's gifted to a regular little school like Columbine High. (The same with Eric's parents - Wayne and Kathy Harris)

So I would seriously love to be a watcher in existence when Sue meets Dylan in the afterlife and he asks her, "mom like why? You know I wasn't mentally ill. There was nothing wrong with me except that they wouldn't accept me, they treated me horrible." I'd love to see her explain that away.

In any aspect, Eric and Dylan were not psychos nor were they psychopaths nor did they have a mental illness, because if that's the case, then I suppose every person who's homeless is mentally ill, because they too are severely depressed, but not because they have a mental illness, they are severely depressed because of the environment and circumstances around them. You change their environment and circumstances, you end the depression - the same thing with Dylan and Eric.....Case closed.

[quote="Miss_Reynolds"][quote="Ivan"]

sororityalpha wrote:

Interesting evaluation.

In any aspect, Eric and Dylan were not psychos nor were they psychopaths nor did they have a mental illness, because if that's the case, then I suppose every person who's homeless is mentally ill, because they too are severely depressed, but not because they have a mental illness, they are severely depressed because of the environment and circumstances around them. You change their environment and circumstances, you end the depression - the same thing with Dylan and Eric.....Case closed.

Now if you’d only gone and solved the case like that 10 years ago when you last looked over it you’d have saved us all a lot of time.

Most CEO's are psychopaths and live with no remorse or regret for what they are doing or have done.

I don't agree with it but what can you do.

Also, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] if you don't have anything good to say then don't say anything at all, okay?

I have to respectfully disagree with this post. I believe at the minimum, Dylan suffered from depression. I don't think we can use anecdotal experiences and evidence to rule out illnesses.

Littlelo wrote:

I have to respectfully disagree with this post. I believe at the minimum, Dylan suffered from depression. I don't think we can use anecdotal experiences and evidence to rule out illnesses.

I disagree as well. To say that bullying was pretty much the ONLY cause/reason behind Columbine is just absurd.

It was a combination of things and the dynamic between Eric and Dylan.

Without eachother there would have been no massacre. I don't believe IMHO either of them would have even done a shooting had they not met.

Screamingophelia wrote:

It was a combination of things and the dynamic between Eric and Dylan.

Without eachother there would have been no massacre. I don't believe IMHO either of them would have even done a shooting had they not met.

I agree. You can't simplify it to one root cause. Who knows if either one of them would have gotten into legal trouble separately had they not met, who knows if either of them would have committed suicide. But I agree that Columbine the way things happened on 4/20/99 would not have occurred if they had not met.

Miss_Reynolds wrote:

Well because you see, Dylan was at the wrong type of school. By Dylan being a prodigy mind, he should have been at a school where the students were intellectually on his level and in going to that type of school, he would've been accepted and not bullied. Just like you wouldn't send a child who is severely autistic to a regular school, because if you do, the kid will be severely bullied because there aren't kids like him there. However you put that child in a school where the other children are like him and the bullying will end because all the children there are children who are on the same level as he and he can relate to them and them to him.

So the same with Dylan. Columbine was not a school for gifted and intellectual children, so Dylan was subjected to bullying and non-acceptance. Furthermore, at a school like Columbine, being intelligent, (as intelligent as Dylan was) - that's what can get a child bullied, because the intelligent children are highly disliked often times by the jocks and the popular children because they're so smart and intelligent. (I mean look at fictional portrayals of this with films like Revenge Of The Nerds and television shows like Family Matters and Saved By The Bell. Despite those being works of fiction, they accurately portray how "brains" are treated at non-intellectual schools - they're treated as losers, dorks and are often times bullied.)

So what better way to fit in with the other children at your high school? Dumb yourself down because if you dumb yourself down, you won't be bullied as much, but if you use your intelligence and smarts to the fullest of your capabilities, you'll be a target for bullies. This is what Dylan did, he dumbed himself down (by only getting C's and D's), so he wouldn't be bullied as much and could relate as much as he could to his peers (although it didn't work because no matter what Dylan did, anyone could tell he was intelligent, all he had to do was start talking. So he wasn't able to fool his school peers and as a result, they still bullied him), and the fact that he dumbed himself down - it severely depressed him.  

Had Dylan attended a specifically gifted and talented school, such as SAGE Center For The Gifted (and they have a location in Colorado), he would have not been bullied and he would have been accepted by his peers (and probably more than likely, would have found love), because his school peers would have been those who are like him. So his depression would have disappeared.

Columbine was supposed to be a very good school academically, in spite of its utter obsession with sports and trophies and winning. Unless Ralph Larkin was wrong about everything. It's been said that lots of people moved out there specifically to send their kids to Columbine. It was no small-town dump like the school I attended. It's possible that the school cared more about athletics anyway but little has come out to claim the school was poor intellectually.

I mean, you're partially correct: the average high school in Middle America is probably little more than a day care center for athletes. Mine sure as hell was--lots of people took part in "activities," but they were crappy activities, and trying to start an intellectual discussion in class would inevitably fail ("shut up! We don't have time to talk about that!"). High schools in America, it seems, do very little to actually prepare people for real life or stimulate real learning or intellectual growth or discussion. This is partially due to conservatism, partially due to Political Correctness (don't say anything offensive!) and partially due to most people taking intellectualism as either for granted or as something they'd really have little to no use for in terms of being able to get a job or serve society. Public high schools are the best example I can think of of freedom being wasted on the free.

If you try to pull a Dave Cullen and ignore the bullying at Columbine, you're stuck ignoring the gajillion stories of cruelty and bullying at the school that came out after the massacre. I don't really think one can do that. I mean, what, are you going to say Brooks Brown was making all that crap up too?
If you try to act like bullying was the primary or sole reason, you have to explain why bullying is everywhere in this country but there aren't school shootings everywhere, and you'll also have to come up with enough GOOD stories about E&D being bullied to cite.
On the other hand, Cullen tried to claim that E&D never mentioned bullies in their exhaustive list of grievances, and that E & D were perpetrators of bullying more than they were recipients of it, and that "why didn't they blow up a football game," etc. etc. but I think you can grow sour of a generally cruel environment even if not that much of the cruelty is directly inflicted on you.

Columbine was supposed to be a very good school academically, in spite of its utter obsession with sports and trophies and winning. Unless Ralph Larkin was wrong about everything. It's been said that lots of people moved out there specifically to send their kids to Columbine. It was no small-town dump like the school I attended. It's possible that the school cared more about athletics anyway but little has come out to claim the school was poor intellectually. wrote:

Well Columbine may have been a good school academically but it wasn't a school for the gifted, which is what Dylan was. Even with Dylan's SAT scores, if Dylan were to have taken the SAT's again and had dropped the "dumbed down" act, I bet he would've gotten an 1800 or 1900. I mean that's how smart I truly believe this kid was. I mean just reading his journals, he comes off as this philosophical, smart kid. So while Dylan was at a academically good school, he wasn't at a school for the gifted.

And like I said I keep stressing that Dylan was not your regular kid. He was like a mix of Cody from the 90's series "Step By Step" (and Cody was unbelievably intelligent) and the TV series character, Steve Urkel. So him being that smart and intelligent, doesn't mix at a school where it's all about sports and trophies, it just doesn't.

The same goes with Eric. While Eric wasn't as smart as Dylan, Eric was more creative intelligent. Eric was into computers too but more so video games (video game technology), that's a creative skill he had, that doesn't mix well at a school where it's all about sports and trophies. So that's why both Eric and Dylan didn't belong there. It's like if Steve Urkel had been a real person - putting him at a school like Columbine, he would've been squashed, destroyed because with his intellect, he would be at the wrong school.

If you try to pull a Dave Cullen and ignore the bullying at Columbine, you're stuck ignoring the gajillion stories of cruelty and bullying at the school that came out after the massacre. I don't really think one can do that. I mean, what, are you going to say Brooks Brown was making all that crap up too? If you try to act like bullying was the primary or sole reason, you have to explain why bullying is everywhere in this country but there aren't school shootings everywhere, and you'll also have to come up with enough GOOD stories about E&D being bullied to cite. wrote:

I agree, Dave Cullen is just someone obsessed with thinking Dylan was an angel, because in his writing, he even makes Dylan out to be a perfect angel and Eric is just a demon from hell, when that's far from truth. Dylan cursed, smoked, drunk alcohol and did the same things Eric did. While Dylan was indeed IQ intelligent, he was no angel.

So no, the bullying of Eric - and Dylan (and I say it that way, because I believe Eric went through hell at Columbine, whereas Dylan was bullied. To me, there's a difference.)

However, I've also been thinking, Eric and Dylan's favorite film - I heard anyway, was Natural Born Killers. So I believe they (specifically Eric) wanted to be a psychopath, he wanted to be one so bad, so that whenever he did bad and cruel things towards the ones who hurt him, he wouldn't feel remorse for it afterward - but he did feel remorse for it afterward - because he wasn't a psychopath.

With Dylan - well I don't have to say he wasn't a psychopath, because no one has ever said that he was. Nooo, people love to stick that lovely label on Eric....the one whom they seem to think is the equivalent of Charles Manson - when he wasn't. Charlie Manson was a psychopath. Charlie even said once "you let me out and I'll kill again."


No, I think that with what Eric was writing in his journals, with all his rage and anger and violence, he wanted to have people believe that he was a psychopath because from what he saw in and from the film Natural Born Killers, being a psychopath meant being a bad ass, and that's what Eric wanted because as a bad ass, he could have power and strength (specifically over his bullies), whereas as Eric Harris, he was just that - Eric Harris, the short, slender young teen who would get his ass kicked in five seconds from bullies and who would get emotionally hurt from the things his bullies did to him (and the rejections that he received from girls).

So I think Eric's whole journal was a mask of who he wanted to be - a merciless psychopath, and why did he want to be a psychopath? Because of the problems he was having at school and at home (and yes I wholeheartedly believe he was having problems at home, especially with his hard ass, military father and "subservient to her husband" mother, and I'm not saying that to insult them, I'm saying that because I truly get a feeling that, that's who they were and how they were.)

So I think Eric's problems were this:

* Every day, almost all day that Eric went to school, he was called "f***t", "p***y" "b***h ass" and other cruel names - in the hallways, during class, in the commons.


* Having paper clips with a rubber band in the middle being thrown at him in the hallways, during class and in the commons.


* Being pushed into trash cans and in lockers in the hallways and in locker rooms.

* Being hit in the face with gym balls, just because he won a game against the jocks at Columbine.

* Jocks making fun of Eric's Pectus Excavatum so much and so bad that it made Eric not want to take off his shirt anymore for gym.

* Having bottled glasses thrown at his feet while he was outside.

* having urine and feces thrown at him during the commons.

* Being doused with ketchup and having ketchup covered tampons thrown at him while in the commons and while being called a p***y - now imagine that in your head. You're sitting in the commons with your best friend. The commons is crowded with not only students but teachers and the jocks come up to you and douse you with ketchup and then throw ketchup covered tampons at you while yelling - "How you like that you f*****g p***y?!" and then you look around and ALL the students in the commons are laughing and chuckling it up, some teachers are staring and snickering but NONE of the teachers are stopping what's happening and then you have to go throughout the entire day in ketchup covered clothes.

*Being falsely accused of having drugs in your locker and so you have to be pulled out of class while police and school staff search your locker and other Columbine students stand back and watch.

* Then you go home and you want to tell your father and mother about it, but you know what your military-minded father would say, "you what Eric?! How could you allow yourself to be so weak and allow those bastards at school to treat you that way! I'm ashamed! Being weak is NOT an option!" So you feel like you can't tell your father and you don't have a mother like Sue, where if you went to her and told her what was happening, she would take you in her arms and hug you and tell you it's going to be ok and then go to school and find out just what in heck was going on. No, you have the type of mother who goes by the motto of "whatever the father says goes." So you keep all of your hurt bottled inside, bottled inside, bottled inside, until finally you explode.

Now for some, they explode by just ending their lives, like Rosalie Avila did a few days ago, over severe school bullying, but for Eric, he wanted to hurt and put an end to the ones hurting him, so he went on a school rampage.

Dylan experienced some of the same bullying problems that Eric did, but Dylan's issues was that he wasn't being accepted and liked, none of the girls were really into him (and that stems from him being at the wrong school). So because of him experiencing that, he became severely depressed and suicidal (but his depression and suicide could have disappeared had he been removed from that mismatched environment known as Columbine).

So Dylan wanted to kill himself, but when Eric explained his feelings and desires of wanting to hurt and put an end to those who hurt him (via a school shooting) and then after hurting the ones who hurt him, killing his own self, Dylan was all for that - because Dylan too was having issues of being bullied - in the form of him not being accepted and liked and so Dylan too wanted to get back at those who failed to accept and like him. So they both decided to go into the school shooting plan together because in going in it together, both would get what they wanted out of it - Eric would get to hurt and put an end to those who hurt him and Dylan would too, but more so, Dylan would get to finally end his life and then the rest is history.


And the reason why Dylan never told his mother and father about him not being accepted and liked? Well I have no idea on that why he didn't. I believe if he had, I believe Sue might have been the one who would hold Dylan in her arms and say it will be ok and then go to the school and get to the bottom of what was going on, but then again, maybe she wouldn't have, but for whatever reason, Dylan chose not to tell his parents that he was unaccepted and disliked at Columbine.

So in any resort however, yeah, I think for Eric, the one and only motive was that he was pushed to commit the shootings via bullying and yes the shooting was wrong. Those thirteen kids should not have been killed. I find that it's best to let karma deal with bullies, not YOU deal with them with a gun, so what Eric did was wrong, wrong, wrong, but you have to look at it like this:

You're standing next to a person who keeps punching you in the face, over and over and over and over and over and over again and they're punching you in the face for no reason and each time they do it, you're telling them to stop, you're even asking why they're doing this and they tell you, "because I can b***h", and they keep punching you and punching you and punching you and punching you. After a while, you're like "f this! I'm sick of this s**t!" and you finally snap and fight back and you don't care how you hurt this person, or even if you kill this person, because you've been pushed to your breaking point. That's what happened to Eric specifically. People at that school kept pushing him and pushing him and pushing him. He would go tell the teachers and the staff and they wouldn't do anything about his pleas for them to stop the bullying. He couldn't talk to his parents; And I get the feeling that Sue and Tom didn't like him much, so who was Eric going to go to? No one, so he finally snapped.

April 20, 1999 and the planning months leading up to April 20, 1999 was Eric's snapping point. No mental illness, no psychopathy, he just snapped and I wish (I'm two years younger than Eric) I had been at Columbine when Eric was there, because he needed someone to tell what was happening to him to (other than Dylan) and then he needed someone to fight on his behalf (and I'm a black belt and I'm trained in Capoeira, so I would've kicked those bullies' asses), but he had no one, so it remained bottled up until it overflowed - violently. I'll never, ever believe that Eric (or Dylan) were mentally ill or that Eric was a psychopath.

Now with Dylan, Dylan handled his with situational depression (which is the type of depression Dylan suffered from, more than likely, based on his journal writings and the traits of his depression. Situational depression is when your depression is caused from the circumstances around you - such as life changes or problems) with the thought of suicide but that doesn't mean he was mentally ill. Again, had his mother and father snatched him out of Columbine and put him in a specifically gifted school, I bet a million bucks, he would have been a lot better. He would have had the friends, the acceptance, the girlfriends, etc., but all the kids there would have been like him.

So those are just my viewpoints. What these two young teens went through could have easily been fixed or helped, before they began planning NBK, but neither Sue nor Tom, nor Kathy nor Wayne, nor Principal DeAngelis nor any of the Columbine staff helped them and so - 4/20/99 happened.

Miss_Reynolds wrote:

However, I've also been thinking, Eric and Dylan's favorite film - I heard anyway, was Natural Born Killers. So I believe they (specifically Eric) wanted to be a psychopath, he wanted to be one so bad, so that whenever he did bad and cruel things towards the ones who hurt him, he wouldn't feel remorse for it afterward - but he did feel remorse for it afterward - because he wasn't a psychopath.

No, I think that with what Eric was writing in his journals, with all his rage and anger and violence, he wanted to have people believe that he was a psychopath because from what he saw in and from the film Natural Born Killers, being a psychopath meant being a bad ass, and that's what Eric wanted because as a bad ass, he could have power and strength (specifically over his bullies), whereas as Eric Harris, he was just that - Eric Harris, the short, slender young teen who would get his ass kicked in five seconds from bullies and who would get emotionally hurt from the things his bullies did to him (and the rejections that he received from girls).

In The Basement Tapes Eric said he wished he was a sociopath so that he didn't feel bad about what he was going to do. If he wanted people to think he was that deranged and if he was putting on the psychopath persona because he thought he looked tough, I don't think he would have admitted that.

True....but that also goes on further to prove that he wasn't a psychopath. I do think though that he wanted to be a psychopath but he couldn't be, because it wasn't in him. I also think that his angry, violent journal writings though, was nothing but a mask of the person that he wanted to be (so he could fight back against his bullies) but wasn't.

Miss_Reynolds wrote:

True....but that also goes on further to prove that he wasn't a psychopath. I do think though that he wanted to be a psychopath but he couldn't be, because it wasn't in him. I also think that his angry, violent journal writings though, was nothing but a mask of the person that he wanted to be (so he could fight back against his bullies) but wasn't.

I don't really subscribe to the psychopath theory either. But I do think they both had severe psychological problems.

Littlelo wrote:

Miss_Reynolds wrote:

True....but that also goes on further to prove that he wasn't a psychopath. I do think though that he wanted to be a psychopath but he couldn't be, because it wasn't in him. I also think that his angry, violent journal writings though, was nothing but a mask of the person that he wanted to be (so he could fight back against his bullies) but wasn't.

I don't really subscribe to the psychopath theory either. But I do think they both had severe psychological problems.

Well I do not, I don't believe they had severe psychological problems, psychological problems means they had a mental illness and I don't believe they were mentally ill. They had situational, circumstantial problems....Had they been taken out of their situation and circumstances, I wholeheartedly believe they would have been a-okay.

I had doubts from the first post but after reading everything that you've written, I don't believe that you're a child psychologist. When you say that Sue telling the world that Dylan was depressed is "ridiculing" and "bullying" him, you are promoting the dehumanization of people who are dealing with mental illness. What kind of negative view of mental illness do you have? It sounds like you believe that a diagnosis is an insult. That certainly doesn't seem like something that a person who has been trained in the profession would ever suggest.

I am not sure how I feel about all of the mental illness talk in the world these days and I'm very skeptical of the mental health industry but I also believe that your characterization of mental illness as something that devalues a person or makes their suffering something less real is just adding to stigma that already exists.

I agree that part of their problem was situational but you seem to feel that calling Eric and Dylan mentally ill would invalidate the reality of their experiences in life. That's not true.

I also think that your estimation of Dylan's intelligence is overblown. He was a smart kid but I don't see genius in anything that he wrote.

Aside from that, any professional would agree that a person can be extremely intelligent but have a mental illness anyway. Feeling alienated is often the norm for people who think differently but a lifetime of feeling alienated or isolated can change people in ways that might be described as illness. This would likely be true when a person decides that he is so superior to others that he has the right to murder them. This is dysfunctional thinking because it inevitably results in death or imprisonment.

sscc wrote:

I had doubts from the first post but after reading everything that you've written, I don't believe that you're a child psychologist.

Well frankly, I could not care less what you believe. I don't have to prove anything to you.


And YES calling Dylan mentally ill, when he was NOT is an insult. Dylan was NOT mentally ill, he was mentally gifted but to throw the blame off of her, Sue Klebold decides to say, "oh he was mentally ill." I am not in any way criticizing Sue. I feel like she probably was a good mother, but where Sue went wrong was that she did not know how to handle a gifted child, because again a gifted child does not belong at a school like COLUMBINE.

And no, having a mental illness does NOT devalue a person but to call someone who was as intelligent as Dylan mentally ill IS an insult. However those who do have mental illness, it's not saying they're bad people or wrong people. They are people who need help but this is NOT who Dylan was.

And no, Dylan and Eric are not mentally ill because you don't get a mental illness when you start high school. You have it from early childhood on up. Again, are people missing the story here? They were fine until they started Columbine - bingo, there it is. That was the problem - Columbine High.

No I wouldn't use genius, I would use gifted. This kid had a high IQ, a higher IQ than the kids going with him to Columbine.

Aside from that, any professional would agree that a person can be extremely intelligent but have a mental illness anyway. wrote:

So what signs did YOU see in Eric and Dylan that resembled them having a mental illness? Please, by all means, state the many or numerous signs that they showed that let you know that they were mentally ill.



So Dylan, felt alienated from the time he was born until his very last breath? Hmm, that's not what I heard. I heard AT all. However, fine, Eric and Dylan were mentally ill, Dylan was clinically depressed and Eric was a sociopath or psychopath. Ok because instead of dealing with bullies and bullying in schools head-on, we like to  label the victims of bullying as being mentally ill.

As I stated before, the young girl who ended her life this week from school bullying, I'm sure she only did so, not because of school bullying, but because she was mentally ill too. Mmmhmm.

sscc wrote:

I had doubts from the first post but after reading everything that you've written, I don't believe that you're a child psychologist. When you say that Sue telling the world that Dylan was depressed is "ridiculing" and "bullying" him, you are promoting the dehumanization of people who are dealing with mental illness. What kind of negative view of mental illness do you have? It sounds like you believe that a diagnosis is an insult. That certainly doesn't seem like something that a person who has been trained in the profession would ever suggest.

I am not sure how I feel about all of the mental illness talk in the world these days and I'm very skeptical of the mental health industry but I also believe that your characterization of mental illness as something that devalues a person or makes their suffering something less real is just adding to stigma that already exists.

I agree that part of their problem was situational but you seem to feel that calling Eric and Dylan mentally ill would invalidate the reality of their experiences in life. That's not true.

I also think that your estimation of Dylan's intelligence is overblown. He was a smart kid but I don't see genius in anything that he wrote.

Aside from that, any professional would agree that a person can be extremely intelligent but have a mental illness anyway. Feeling alienated is often the norm for people who think differently but a lifetime of feeling alienated or isolated can change people in ways that might be described as illness. This would likely be true when a person decides that he is so superior to others that he has the right to murder them. This is dysfunctional thinking because it inevitably results in death or imprisonment.

Very well said.

Whatever, I will say this. This is why children are killing themselves in droves, because everyone wants to blame everything else but school bullying for what children do, and the sad thing is that these two, young men died because no one were listening to them and people still aren't listening to them. They would rather throw labels on kids who are hurting instead of looking at why kids are hurting. As long as you have children throwing other kids into lockers, kids throwing feces and urine on other kids, as long as you have school bullying, you will always have kids getting so fed up of not being listened to, that they'll shoot up their schools (which is wrong but it's what they'll do to get their message out that they're hurting) or they'll kill themselves. Sad....Yeah, kids who commit suicide because of what they SAY is school bullying and kids who shoot up schools because of what they SAY is school bullying, they all do those things because they're all mentally ill. Perhaps they need to be locked up in a mental institution or put on psychiatric drugs...Yes, that will definitely help them.

Interesting observations.  I do agree with a fair amount of what you've said and that the bullying was a significant contributing factor.  

I do think Dylan as a gifted kid not only had situational depression but also existential depression, most especially as a high intellect kid as evinced in a fair amount of his philosophical writings. He seems quite certain that he's led many other lives (and that he would continue to do so after this one was over with) but in this particular "existence" he feels he is in 'eternal suffering, in infinite directions in infinite realities.'  It's as if Dylan not only doesn't feel like he can fit in with his other 'ignorance is bliss' classmates, and sometimes even got ostracized and bullied for it (hence the situational depression) but also that he also couldn't integrate with humanity in his existentially depressed perceptive state.

Also, Dylan didn't become depressed only after attending Columbine HS.  There is evidence from Dylan himself that depression had already had a grip on him while attending Ken Caryl Jr. High.

"Ever since 7th grade, I’ve felt lonely ... when came around, I finally felt happiness
(sometimes) we did cigars, drinking, sabotage to houses, EVERYTHING for the first
time together & now that he’s “moved on” I feel so lonely, without a friend. Oh well, maybe
he’ll come around → ... I hope."

A redacted classmate mentioned: (Redacted) [19,648] years ago DK made fun of because he didn’t fit in and was very odd.

Though we can't be sure of how far back they are referring to.

I would also suspect that since he had some personal significance for the number 5 as being a very 'influential number' because he might have had some epiphany by age 5, or perhaps in the 5th grade, just how vastly different the chasm was between himself and others.   This gap of difference is probably what was the early seeds of his depression because he felt alone and lonely and a stranger in a strange land where he couldn't connect with others. He was sussed out by the 'normal' peers and deemed odd and weird.

I also agree with your assessment of Eric and especially the dysfunction going on within his home.

I do, however, believe that over time regarding their circumstances and eaches own brand of personal suffering exacerbated by the toxic school environment, they gradually digressed into some amount of mental illness.

Lavitax wrote:

Interesting observations.  I do agree with a fair amount of what you've said and that the bullying was a significant contributing factor.  

I do think Dylan as a gifted kid not only had situational depression but also existential depression, most especially as a high intellect kid as evinced in a fair amount of his philosophical writings. He seems quite certain that he's led many other lives (and that he would continue to do so after this one was over with) but in this particular "existence" he feels he is in 'eternal suffering, in infinite directions in infinite realities.'  It's as if Dylan not only doesn't feel like he can fit in with his other 'ignorance is bliss' classmates, and sometimes even got ostracized and bullied for it (hence the situational depression) but also that he also couldn't integrate with humanity in his existentially depressed perceptive state.

Also, Dylan didn't become depressed only after attending Columbine HS.  There is evidence from Dylan himself that depression had already had a grip on him while attending Ken Caryl Jr. High.

"Ever since 7th grade, I’ve felt lonely ... when came around, I finally felt happiness
(sometimes) we did cigars, drinking, sabotage to houses, EVERYTHING for the first
time together & now that he’s “moved on” I feel so lonely, without a friend. Oh well, maybe
he’ll come around → ... I hope."

A redacted classmate mentioned: (Redacted) [19,648] years ago DK made fun of because he didn’t fit in and was very odd.

Though we can't be sure of how far back they are referring to.

I would also suspect that since he had some personal significance for the number 5 as being a very 'influential number' because he might have had some epiphany by age 5, or perhaps in the 5th grade, just how vastly different the chasm was between himself and others.   This gap of difference is probably what was the early seeds of his depression because he felt alone and lonely and a stranger in a strange land where he couldn't connect with others. He was sussed out by the 'normal' peers and deemed odd and weird.

I also agree with your assessment of Eric and especially the dysfunction going on within his home.

I do, however, believe that over time regarding their circumstances and eaches own brand of personal suffering exacerbated by the toxic school environment, they gradually digressed into some amount of mentally illness.

Well...All I'm saying and all I was ever saying was, what Dylan was suffering with in his life, and what Eric was suffering with, I do not believe it was mental illness. Maybe there were other factors that Dylan was dealing with. I personally believe in reincarnation, that I and everyone else have lived numerous past lives. Maybe Dylan's depression over his current existence was an issue going back from one of his past lives, but even that does not equate to mental illness, that equates to a spiritual problem (not a christian problem as I am not a christian, I'm a misotheist).

Eric, wholeheartedly, I don't care what anyone says, did not have a mental illness from birth, Eric, I believe was under DELTA programming. I 5000% believe that with Eric, especially after researching even further into Eric's childhood background. Dylan, I'm not so sure about - yet.

All interesting points, however, let us not forget that regardless of what we think happened with Eric/Dylan, they wanted INFAMY as well.

One of their big motivations for the shootings was TO BE KNOWN or INFAMOUS.

being intelligent doesn't mean you are not mentally ill

True....yeah, both of them were severely mentally ill and should have been on Ritalin, Prozac or one of those other mind controlling drugs, because they were so incredibly mentally ill. In fact every person who has ever committed suicide or who has done a school shooting is mentally ill. Oswald was mentally ill, so was the Aurora shooter and the Charleston, South Carolina shooter. Yes, all of these Alpha-Delta MK Ultra mind controlled patsies were mentally ill. Mental illness is why these people do these things.

Miss_Reynolds wrote:

This is why children are killing themselves in droves, because everyone wants to blame everything else but school bullying for what children do

Now I don't know this case inside and out, but when Columbine happened didn't the media run with the bullying narrative for literal months? Now I don't know how many people were later misled, but considering the fact that most Americans' understanding of the shooting came from these initial reports, I'd say most people still firmly believe Columbine happened due to school bullying (and pop culture reflects this, with a number of films about school shootings using revenge over bullying as the killer's motivation).

QuestionMark wrote:

Miss_Reynolds wrote:

This is why children are killing themselves in droves, because everyone wants to blame everything else but school bullying for what children do

Now I don't know this case inside and out, but when Columbine happened didn't the media run with the bullying narrative for literal months? Now I don't know how many people were later misled, but considering the fact that most Americans' understanding of the shooting came from these initial reports, I'd say most people still firmly believe Columbine happened due to school bullying (and pop culture reflects this, with a number of films about school shootings using revenge over bullying as the killer's motivation).

Exactly. I think the major struggle for years has actually been to get people to look at the other factors besides bullying when talking about prevention. Most people only focus on bullying, while mental health (or brain health as SK calls it) is also extremely important.

They had urine and feces thrown at them in the commons? Where's that in the 11k?

I tried to attach the links to where it was reported but since I'm new, I can't but in the links to the website, it was reported that they had fecal matter thrown on them. On Reddit, I heard it was urine as well, but the poster of that has since removed their post.