New picture of Eric after he shot himself (?)

NOTE: I will not be posting the actual picture on the board.

I posted this in another thread but it deserves its own topic:

Earlier I saw a picture I hadn't seen before. It shows a relatively close-up view of Eric's head after he shot himself. Dylan is in the picture but the angle is such that you can only see his chin.

The picture is not *that* clear but it shows more detail than anything else I've seen. It's hard to say exactly but it looks like Eric's face "separated" from the rest of his head. I think I can identify the remnants of his eyes and his nose.

Staring closely at what I believe used to be his eyes, I see streaks of blood streaming down the sides of his nose. It almost looks as if he's crying blood.

Jesus Christ, Eric. You shouldn't have done that. There were people who loved you, people who cared about you, people who believed in you. Maybe you didn't love yourself but you shouldn't have done what you did. You owed it to yourself to find a better way.

This whole thing is just totally fucking *wrong*.

If you want more information, PM me.

Done, send me it

REBELVODKA wrote:

Done, send me it

Your lack of politeness has been noted.

This is strong but it needs to be said:

Looking at the picture, you see what all of this BS about the killers' grievances and their mentality and the social factors at the school boils down to. Ultimately NBK is the story of two boys who chose to blow holes in people's heads, turning living, breathing human beings into putrefying corpses. And then they did it to themselves.

Nothing that happened or did not happen to them can come close to justifying what they did.

If I wrote a book about Columbine, I would put the picture of Eric's ruined head on the cover. It's disgusting but, in the end, Eric and Dylan's actions on 4/20 were supremely disgusting.

Peaked my Interest. Send me it.

Seriously, I think this is the turning point for me. This is the end of my Columbine journey.

I fought for you, Eric. I never met you and I doubt you would have liked me if you’d known me but I fought for you for many years. I argued in favor of your humanity.

But now I see you lying there and I see the remnants of your ruined face and I have absolutely no interest in making any more excuses for you. Seeing what you did to yourself and knowing that you did the same thing to so many other people just takes the fight right out of me. Others will fight for you; I wish them well. I mourn you and I pray that even now you are not burning in Hell but I cannot continue to advocate on your behalf.

So maybe this is the end of LPorter.

LPorter was born on April 20, 1999, when a fat kid with bad acne walked into his middle-school library and saw a TV news report about a school shooting in Colorado. That kid was fascinated by the crime. He wanted to know everything he could about it.

Ten years later that kid - now a young man - read Dave Cullen’s book. He hated the book. He felt that Cullen totally screwed Eric over. Eric did bad things but Eric was still human. He laughed and he cried. LPorter wanted to defend that boy from the tedious hackery of Cullen.

Now thirteen years later that young man - now on the verge of middle age - has come to realize that there is no real point in asking “Why?” It seems obvious that some people are just really screwed up to the point that they do things that are completely incomprehensible. We can argue as to whether Eric was born bad or something happened to make him bad but either way he became bad and he came to a bad end. And there is nothing in my experience that can allow me to justify or even understand his actions in any way, shape, or form.

I said recently that I find it harder to forgive the boys but in a way it’s easier for me to do so now that I’ve seen the picture. Because I find myself not caring anymore why they did what they did. I just want to wash my hands of them and walk away.

It’s like the real horror of it never sunk in until now. You know how sometimes you chew over some puzzle in your mind and then something just clicks and you see the solution and you marvel at how obvious it was all the time and you wonder how you could have missed it? That’s kind of how I feel right now.

NBK is teenage boys blowing holes in other people’s brains and then crouching down on the floor in the ruined library and blowing holes in their own brains so the contents of their skulls can leak out onto the carpet. All of these big noisy debates - bullying vs. psychopathology and so on - are beside the point. NBK is just a total fucking waste of humanity. There is no point in trying to justify it. There’s really no point in trying to make sense of it. It’s just … wrong. The whole thing is wrong.

Maybe I’ll feel differently in a few days but right now I feel like I’m walking out of that school for the last time and I don’t think I’ll ever feel any need to return. Eric and Dylan are dead and so is my interest in their crime. I hope and pray that they found peace somehow.

If this is the end then I want to thank everyone here for their understanding and support over the years. I leave with no bitterness and no regrets. I met a lot of amazing people and I wish you all the very best.

To Jenn, thank you for creating this board and continuing the legacy started by Danny and others.

To Dave Cullen, I know I was an asshole to you but I really needed to fight your BS. I think in the end we reached a kind of stalemate. There are lots of people who swallow your conclusions without question but there are lots of people who will never believe a word you say. At any rate you were a worthy opponent. I hope you find happiness and fulfillment. That’s as much as I wish for anyone.

To Eric and Dylan, I will always mourn the men you might have been. I hope and pray that others will learn from your example - that they will choose a better path. May God have mercy on your souls.

To Rachel and Isaiah and Cassie and Daniel and all the other victims, I know I haven’t given you nearly enough of my time and attention over the years. I spent way too much time focusing on Eric and Dylan. May all of you rest in peace.

To the survivors, all of my compassion. Best wishes for the future.

To anyone who is contemplating an attack - don’t. There is always a better way. Sometimes you can’t see beyond the pain and the rage and the agony. I’ve been there myself. But there is always something to live for.

I am still haunted by the fact that I was a member of the same board as Adam Lanza. I still wonder whether there was anything I could have said or done that could have made a difference. Probably not but I’ll always wonder.

This may or may not be the end of my Columbine journey, but right now it certainly feels like it. I won’t say goodbye. I will leave you with a song:



Take care, everyone.

I do not get it LP Porter how is this picture any different than the other picture.

I'm not sure where it could have come from either... I checked out reddit too and they did not have it, I assume they would..

We always knew that Eric blew his face off, the pictures that were released were pretty graphic and we have seen the pictures of the victims in their coffins... it was horrible, awful, disgusting and I do not know why anyone would want to see any of the crime scene photos (unless it was for specific educational purposes...) so I am not sure what is going on with LPorter?

Can anyone please give to me?

Also goodbye man. Your off topic threads were fun to look at

Screamingophelia wrote:

I'm not sure where it could have come from either... I checked out reddit too and they did not have it, I assume they would..

It is a close up from one of the suicide pictures released by June 4 2002/October 2013 edition of The National Enquirer.

is it a close up that was taken that day and released or is it a zoomed in shot of the one we have already

I am morbidly curious... I am not sure I want to look at it though

LPorter101 wrote:

Seriously, I think this is the turning point for me. This is the end of my Columbine journey.

I fought for you, Eric. I never met you and I doubt you would have liked me if you’d known me but I fought for you for many years. I argued in favor of your humanity.

But now I see you lying there and I see the remnants of your ruined face and I have absolutely no interest in making any more excuses for you. Seeing what you did to yourself and knowing that you did the same thing to so many other people just takes the fight right out of me. Others will fight for you; I wish them well. I mourn you and I pray that even now you are not burning in Hell but I cannot continue to advocate on your behalf.

So maybe this is the end of LPorter.

If it's time to come to an end with a fascination with a historical crime, it's probably because you've run out of things to read or talk about, right? Can't fault anyone for that. Every year someone comes up with some excuse for me to be re-interested in Zodiac or Manson, two crimes that happened 53 years ago. And usually it's a crap reason, like yet another movie about Manson, or that new suspect Gary F Poste who probably wasn't the Zodiac killer.

If one is religious they are not supposed to WANT anyone to burn in hell but I guess you have to try to save those souls while they're alive? Eric and Dylan should have tried to talk to someone and get their souls saved in some way or another, but the dumb little teenage boy fantasy world they built up around themselves became too powerful for their minds and they took it too seriously and drowned in it.

Everything about E&D and what they did and their personalities and problems and activities are all one hundred percent teenage boy. There they are, frozen in time, before they could become adults in any sense, dead at the end of the 90s, a decade that was probably too fascinated with youth. (And to think, we, and youth, have only gotten "worse." Well, maybe.) And every ARTIFACT about E&D, too, is adolescent. Hanging out in the woods playing with guns. Writing rants on the Internet. Making explosives. Playing video games. Teenage boy, teenage boy, teenage boy. No one really entirely wants to grow up. Being young is too addicting.

That's the core of the Columbine event and the fascination with it for me: adolescence, particularly *boy* adolescence and its awkwardness. People who have long since left high school behind are drug right back into it when they read about Columbine. If that is you LPorter then perhaps you are making the right choice by walking away.

That being said Dave Cullen is NOT reading your post and it is definitely for the best that you quit thinking about *him*.

Screamingophelia wrote:

is it a close up that was taken that day and released or is it a zoomed in shot of the one we have already

I am morbidly curious... I am not sure I want to look at it though

It is the same death picture we have seen already. Just zoomed in and rotated on Eric's head.

Lunkhead McGrath wrote:

And every ARTIFACT about E&D, too, is adolescent.  Hanging out in the woods playing with guns.  Writing rants on the Internet.  Making explosives.  Playing video games.  Teenage boy, teenage boy, teenage boy.  No one really entirely wants to grow up.  Being young is too addicting.

IDK, I'm happier having grown up and largely moved on from childhood and adolescence. Maybe it's a result of differing life experiences but I tend to think of people who look back fondly on their childhood or wishing they could go back and relive their youth to be immature in their outlook. Just my two cents.

Quote :

That's the core of the Columbine event and the fascination with it for me: adolescence, particularly *boy* adolescence and its awkwardness. People who have long since left high school behind are drug right back into it when they read about Columbine. If that is you LPorter then perhaps you are making the right choice by walking away.

Who else would it be? I don't have multiple-personality disorder.

I was in a really bad mood when I made that post the other day. At the time I was thinking how pathetic it is that a 37-year-old man who should have a wife and a family and a career (and who doesn't) is spending tons of time thinking about the actions of 17-year-old kids who had a lot going for them but who really just pissed it all away in a blaze of bullshit.

Yes, there is no one road to success in life. There are many paths up the mountaintop - many different avenues leading to the ultimate goal of happiness and peace and fulfillment. But the bottom line is that I'm not happy with my life. I haven't been happy with my life since before I startred high school. The unhappiness has only grown over time.

And now I'm less than a month away from my 37th birthday and only three years away from my 40th birthday and I feel like I need to do something soon before I am completely totally royally screwed for life. I'm working on resolving my various issues and getting in shape but I feel like I need to change my mentality somewhat. So even if I don't quit the board completely I feel like I need to start putting all of this adolescent bullshit behind me.

Eric and Dylan were both supremely fucked in the head. Each boy had his own individual issues but the bottom line is that they were both royally screwed up mentally. We can argue as to whether one of them was worse than the other or whether one or both of them could have been saved but ultimately they were both really out of whack.

And there is nothing that can begin to justify their actions. Nothing at all. Yes, the boys were suffering ... but haven't many of us suffered just as badly? I've suffered terrible pain and emotional anguish and loneliness and despair and there have been many times when I've sat up all night long fighting the urge to bolt out the door, walk over to the expressway overpass near my house, and jump over the edge. And I've never come close to killing anyone.

Actually, that's not true - I came close to killing my mother once. Years ago. Not with a gun but with my bare hands. I tried to strangle her. I was tempted to beat her face to a bloody pulp but I settled for dislocating her shoulder.

So I get it.

I think what really revolts me is knowing that I *do* identify with Eric (more so than Dylan). And I know that I *do* have it in me to commit terrible acts of violence. I *don't* want to end up like the boys. I've lived a lot longer than they have but I haven't accomplished much more in life than they did. (I'm not counting NBK as an "accomplishment.")

The only reason I am still alive is that my grandfather was rich. He left us enough money so that I never had to get a real job. Not a fortune but enough to get by for a couple of decades. That money is mostly gone now but we're still coasting on the fumes.

Still, money is not a factor for me. I have all of the material things I really want.

And sex is not really a major factor, either. I'm a virgin but the lack of sex is not what gets to me.

Feeling like a loser is what gets to me. Knowing that I've *failed* in life is what gets to me. And people say "Oh, it's not that important" and "Don't be so hard on yourself" and they have a point, but it's really, really hard for me not to feel like a total failure.

But I know lots of people who are married who do have kids who do have careers who are just as fucked as I am. Sometimes my cousin gets really drunk and calls me and tells me how much she hates her husband. She tells me that getting married was the worst mistake she ever made. She's been married for 13 years and she has two kids but she still obsesses over this guy she dated in 2005.

My parents' marriage was a nightmare. And my mother admitted once that she really didn't want me. She got pregnant when the marriage was already breaking up (due to my father's mental-health issues) and when she found out she considered having an abortion. My grandmother talked her out of it. She wanted a grandson and she told my mother my grandparents would help her out if she had me.

My mother has told me many times that having me was the worst mistake she ever made. And I agree - she should never have had a kid.

And we all know that having to get up before dawn every morning to sit in traffic for an hour or two hours to sit at a desk for eight or nine hours to sit in traffic for another hour or two hours to get home to listen to your wife and kids bitch and moan about everything is a real drag. And that's one of the "better" scenarios. There are lots of people who work their asses off who never get anywhere at all.

So I really don't know if I should feel *that* bad about how my life has turned out. I don't have nearly as much baggage as some people have. But at the same time I really don't like to feel like I've failed. So I'm just screwed up and confused about a lot of things.

I've always been prone to talking way too much about myself, but as I said my feelings about Columbine are so mixed up with my own adolescent issues that I don't know where one ends and the other begins.

At the very least I think I need to take a break from the board for a while.

When I was in high school I was fat and had horrible acne. And after going through a bunch of my old photographs I see that the turning point was eighth grade. I was never skinny as a kid but in eighth grade my weight just really exploded to an alarming degree.

I blame the SSRIs. My poor diet and lack of physical activity didn't help but Jesus Christ I got really fat really fast.

My mother took me to a psychiatrist and told him that I was out of control. She told him that we had terrible arguments almost every day. She was telling the truth about the arguments but she was lying when she said I was the one who started them - I wasn't. She was also lying when she told him that she was I was the only one who was acting crazy - I never shouted at her until long after she started screaming at me. Something would set her off and she would just start screaming at the top of her lungs for hours on end. I could never figure out what the fuck was wrong with her.

I was afraid of that woman. I lived in fear of her all my life until one day I realized that was a lot bigger than her and I didn't have to take it anymore.

At various times I was on Prozac, Risperdal, Luvox, and Zoloft. (My official diagnosis was obsessive-compulsive disorder - just like Eric.)

As soon as I started taking the pills I started gaining weight.

Can you assign a 13-year-old kid *all* of the blame for getting that fat that fast? Thirteen-year-old kids are old enough to make many of their own decisions but don't you have to wonder whether my mother and my grandmother might have been able to do something to help me? So that's another reason I resent them, I guess.

Ultimately it was my responsibility to stay in shape and I didn't. I can add that item to my list of failures, I guess.

April 1996 (fifth grade):

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December 1997 (seventh grade):

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January 1998 (the week before the van break-in):

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February 1999 (a few days before the Rampart Range video was filmed):

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You will note that I am wearing tons of makeup on my face to hide my acne. My mother forced me to wear that stuff - I didn't want to. She insisted on applying it herself.

People used to tell me that I shouldn't wear the makeup because it made me look like a freak but my mother would tell me that my face was so ugly and horrible that I had to do something. She had horrendous acne as a teenager and in college she underwent a botched chemical peel that left her with bad facial scars. So in a way she was inflicting the traumas of her own adolescence on me.

December 1999 (a few weeks after the Time cover story on the basement tapes):

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In that picture I am a freshman in high school. But with that gut and those glasses I could pass for someone in middle age. I wasn't getting shoved into lockers but I felt like the ugliest kid (by far) in the school.

This was taken the day before Halloween during my sophomore year of high school. I am completely unrecognizable from the person I was a couple of years earlier:

October 2000:

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Then my mother took me to a dermatologist who prescribed Accutane. Accutane has fucked up lots of people but it was a Godsend for me.

December 2001:
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But even after my face cleared up I was still fat.

June 2003 (week before high-school graduation):

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When I turned 18 (in August 2003) I stopped taking the SSRIs. Almost immediately I started losing weight. I gained it all back (and more) but for a while I was slimming down.

December 2004 (halfway through sophomore year of college):

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May 2007 (college graduation):

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April 2009 (the week after Dave Cullen's book came out):

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Since then my weight has gone up and down but I've never really been truly happy with my physical appearance.

I'm still working on it. Maybe one of these days I'll get it right but I have my doubts.

But, yeah, we all have our issues.

What's your biggest regret?

Wanderer wrote:

What's your biggest regret?

Not standing up to my mother more. She had me on a tight leash for so many years. I was terrified of her and I didn't have the balls to tell her to fuck off.

Allowing myself to become so fat is one of my biggest regrets. I was lazy and I had bad dietary habits but my family didn't help. My obese mother was a "food pusher" - at every meal she practically forced me to lick the plate clean. My grandmother used to complain about my weight all the time but she never made any efforts to help me control my diet or exercise more.

(Hint: Fat people know they are fat. Telling fat people over and over again that they are fat is not particularly helpful. I know people who are constantly talking about my weight and I'm too polite to tell them to shut up. So I just sit there and smile while thinking about all of the things I could say about *their* personal flaws.)

I wish I'd never had a drop of Coca-Cola in my life. I used to sit and guzzle that shit like water. It's one of the reasons I gained so much weight.

Neglecting my teeth is another big regret. I never had my wisdom teeth fixed. My dental-hygiene habits have never been wonderful but they're better now than they used to be. I went through a long period (several years at least) where I brushed maybe once or twice a month. I would take a paper towel and wipe them clean. I would scrape the plaque off with a straw and some of the accumulated plaque would get stuck in my throat. Every now and then I would sneeze and a "plaque ball" would come flying out of my mouth. (Yes, it was nasty.)

I regret not losing my virginity, but not as much as you might think. I have so many issues with sexuality (both physical and psychological) that it really is easier to be alone. My orientation is a little ambiguous. I'm probably more gay than straight but if I were sexually active I'd pursue relationships with both sexes. (So I'm ... bi, I guess.) I can't imagine being married to a man. I would like to have kids.

I've always had a relatively low libido. I'm not an incel in the Elliot Rodger sense - I don't obsess over women and then go online and talk about how much I hate them. (Growing up in a family full of crazy females has not endeared women to me. Every day I thank God that I'm not married to a woman like my cousin.)

I've never had a drink of alcohol in my life. I've never smoked a cigarette. I've never taken any drugs. Sometimes I regret not trying any of those things. But I have an addictive personality and my family is full of drunks. So I'm not about to tempt fate.

I used to wonder if I'd be better off if I had been more "responsible" (pursuing a career, etc.). Perhaps in the end I will kick myself for never developing a work ethic but at the moment I really don't regret not having to work my ass off like so many other people have to do. I guess I should be more grateful for having had so much free time for so many years.

I have all of the material things I could ever want. I don't have a car but I never wanted one - I'm perfectly content to ride the bus. So I don't regret not making a big pile of money.

It sounds like the difference between viewing the columbine massacre as a teenager and as an adult. I’m slightly younger than Eric and Dylan but could kind of relate somehow to rage and awesome music everyone else doesn’t understand even though I always thought what they did was utterly terrible. However now I am an adult I can understand better how scary that it would have been, to envision your child terrified for their life is beyond upsetting. I still listen to great music and have a full range of emotions but nothing about them seems at all cool any more, if they ever were to me, I’m not sure.
It sounds like you are going through some maturation at the moment and have been reflecting on your life and choices up until now. It’s never too late to make changes especially about day to day things and I suggest you get on with it and be the best version of you that you can be or else you’ll be kicking yourself in ten years that you didn’t start trying to make things better. Best of luck!

LPorter101 wrote:

Wanderer wrote:

What's your biggest regret?

Not standing up to my mother more. She had me on a tight leash for so many years. I was terrified of her and I didn't have the balls to tell her to fuck off.

Allowing myself to become so fat is one of my biggest regrets. I was lazy and I had bad dietary habits but my family didn't help. My obese mother was a "food pusher" - at every meal she practically forced me to lick the plate clean. My grandmother used to complain about my weight all the time but she never made any efforts to help me control my diet or exercise more.

(Hint: Fat people know they are fat. Telling fat people over and over again that they are fat is not particularly helpful. I know people who are constantly talking about my weight and I'm too polite to tell them to shut up. So I just sit there and smile while thinking about all of the things I could say about *their* personal flaws.)

I wish I'd never had a drop of Coca-Cola in my life. I used to sit and guzzle that shit like water. It's one of the reasons I gained so much weight.

Neglecting my teeth is another big regret. I never had my wisdom teeth fixed. My dental-hygiene habits have never been wonderful but they're better now than they used to be. I went through a long period (several years at least) where I brushed maybe once or twice a month. I would take a paper towel and wipe them clean. I would scrape the plaque off with a straw and some of the accumulated plaque would get stuck in my throat. Every now and then I would sneeze and a "plaque ball" would come flying out of my mouth. (Yes, it was nasty.)

I regret not losing my virginity, but not as much as you might think. I have so many issues with sexuality (both physical and psychological) that it really is easier to be alone. My orientation is a little ambiguous. I'm probably more gay than straight but if I were sexually active I'd pursue relationships with both sexes. (So I'm ... bi, I guess.) I can't imagine being married to a man. I would like to have kids.

I've always had a relatively low libido. I'm not an incel in the Elliot Rodger sense - I don't obsess over women and then go online and talk about how much I hate them. (Growing up in a family full of crazy females has not endeared women to me. Every day I thank God that I'm not married to a woman like my cousin.)

I've never had a drink of alcohol in my life. I've never smoked a cigarette. I've never taken any drugs. Sometimes I regret not trying any of those things. But I have an addictive personality and my family is full of drunks. So I'm not about to tempt fate.

I used to wonder if I'd be better off if I had been more "responsible" (pursuing a career, etc.). Perhaps in the end I will kick myself for never developing a work ethic but at the moment I really don't regret not having to work my ass off like so many other people have to do. I guess I should be more grateful for having had so much free time for so many years.

I have all of the material things I could ever want. I don't have a car but I never wanted one - I'm perfectly content to ride the bus. So I don't regret not making a big pile of money.

Any advice you can give to people in similar situation but slightly younger.

“Any advice you can give to people in similar situation but slightly younger.”

Grow a spine, I guess. Stand up for yourself. Don’t let people push you around or manipulate you. Keep your mind and body active.

Count your blessings. Realize that things are never as bad as they seem and know that lots of other people are even worse off than you are.

Try to develop an internal locus of control.

I mean, those are all cliches but they’re good cliches.

How do you think your life would turn out if you grew up in different circumstances?

Hi man. Can you send it to me please? Thanks.

Wanderer wrote:

How do you think your life would turn out if you grew up in different circumstances?

I can't answer for LPorter but questions like these are too open ended to be answered accurately. Having studied history autistically I can say that changing one thing about the past can produce results that are completely unexpected.

LPorter101 wrote:

“Any advice you can give to people in similar situation but slightly younger.”

Grow a spine, I guess. Stand up for yourself. Don’t let people push you around or manipulate you. Keep your mind and body active.

Count your blessings. Realize that things are never as bad as they seem and know that lots of other people are even worse off than you are.

Try to develop an internal locus of control.

I mean, those are all cliches but they’re good cliches.

Internal locus of control is so important. I think having self agency is so important in life and its something I have struggled
with I think I sometimes blamed outside power for my misfortunes but you got to focus on what YOU can do.

I think I know what picture you are talking about... you can more clearly make out his face separated from the rest of his head. Personally, I think it just confirms what we already knew.

It is indeed a brutal situation all around. Ann Rule said something similar at the end of her book on Ted Bundy.

PM?

Me too pls

LPorter101 wrote:

Quote :

That's the core of the Columbine event and the fascination with it for me: adolescence, particularly *boy* adolescence and its awkwardness. People who have long since left high school behind are drug right back into it when they read about Columbine. If that is you LPorter then perhaps you are making the right choice by walking away.

Who else would it be? I don't have multiple-personality disorder.

I was in a really bad mood when I made that post the other day. At the time I was thinking how pathetic it is that a 37-year-old man who should have a wife and a family and a career (and who doesn't) is spending tons of time thinking about the actions of 17-year-old kids who had a lot going for them but who really just pissed it all away in a blaze of bullshit.

Yes, there is no one road to success in life. There are many paths up the mountaintop - many different avenues leading to the ultimate goal of happiness and peace and fulfillment. But the bottom line is that I'm not happy with my life. I haven't been happy with my life since before I startred high school. The unhappiness has only grown over time.

And now I'm less than a month away from my 37th birthday and only three years away from my 40th birthday and I feel like I need to do something soon before I am completely totally royally screwed for life. I'm working on resolving my various issues and getting in shape but I feel like I need to change my mentality somewhat. So even if I don't quit the board completely I feel like I need to start putting all of this adolescent bullshit behind me.

Eric and Dylan were both supremely fucked in the head. Each boy had his own individual issues but the bottom line is that they were both royally screwed up mentally. We can argue as to whether one of them was worse than the other or whether one or both of them could have been saved but ultimately they were both really out of whack.

And there is nothing that can begin to justify their actions. Nothing at all. Yes, the boys were suffering ... but haven't many of us suffered just as badly? I've suffered terrible pain and emotional anguish and loneliness and despair and there have been many times when I've sat up all night long fighting the urge to bolt out the door, walk over to the expressway overpass near my house, and jump over the edge. And I've never come close to killing anyone.

Actually, that's not true - I came close to killing my mother once. Years ago. Not with a gun but with my bare hands. I tried to strangle her. I was tempted to beat her face to a bloody pulp but I settled for dislocating her shoulder.

So I get it.

I think what really revolts me is knowing that I *do* identify with Eric (more so than Dylan). And I know that I *do* have it in me to commit terrible acts of violence. I *don't* want to end up like the boys. I've lived a lot longer than they have but I haven't accomplished much more in life than they did. (I'm not counting NBK as an "accomplishment.")

The only reason I am still alive is that my grandfather was rich. He left us enough money so that I never had to get a real job. Not a fortune but enough to get by for a couple of decades. That money is mostly gone now but we're still coasting on the fumes.

Still, money is not a factor for me. I have all of the material things I really want.

And sex is not really a major factor, either. I'm a virgin but the lack of sex is not what gets to me.

Feeling like a loser is what gets to me. Knowing that I've *failed* in life is what gets to me. And people say "Oh, it's not that important" and "Don't be so hard on yourself" and they have a point, but it's really, really hard for me not to feel like a total failure.

But I know lots of people who are married who do have kids who do have careers who are just as fucked as I am. Sometimes my cousin gets really drunk and calls me and tells me how much she hates her husband. She tells me that getting married was the worst mistake she ever made. She's been married for 13 years and she has two kids but she still obsesses over this guy she dated in 2005.

My parents' marriage was a nightmare. And my mother admitted once that she really didn't want me. She got pregnant when the marriage was already breaking up (due to my father's mental-health issues) and when she found out she considered having an abortion. My grandmother talked her out of it. She wanted a grandson and she told my mother my grandparents would help her out if she had me.

My mother has told me many times that having me was the worst mistake she ever made. And I agree - she should never have had a kid.

And we all know that having to get up before dawn every morning to sit in traffic for an hour or two hours to sit at a desk for eight or nine hours to sit in traffic for another hour or two hours to get home to listen to your wife and kids bitch and moan about everything is a real drag. And that's one of the "better" scenarios. There are lots of people who work their asses off who never get anywhere at all.

So I really don't know if I should feel *that* bad about how my life has turned out. I don't have nearly as much baggage as some people have. But at the same time I really don't like to feel like I've failed. So I'm just screwed up and confused about a lot of things.

I've always been prone to talking way too much about myself, but as I said my feelings about Columbine are so mixed up with my own adolescent issues that I don't know where one ends and the other begins.

At the very least I think I need to take a break from the board for a while.

When I was in high school I was fat and had horrible acne. And after going through a bunch of my old photographs I see that the turning point was eighth grade. I was never skinny as a kid but in eighth grade my weight just really exploded to an alarming degree.

I blame the SSRIs. My poor diet and lack of physical activity didn't help but Jesus Christ I got really fat really fast.

My mother took me to a psychiatrist and told him that I was out of control. She told him that we had terrible arguments almost every day. She was telling the truth about the arguments but she was lying when she said I was the one who started them - I wasn't. She was also lying when she told him that she was I was the only one who was acting crazy - I never shouted at her until long after she started screaming at me. Something would set her off and she would just start screaming at the top of her lungs for hours on end. I could never figure out what the fuck was wrong with her.

I was afraid of that woman. I lived in fear of her all my life until one day I realized that was a lot bigger than her and I didn't have to take it anymore.

At various times I was on Prozac, Risperdal, Luvox, and Zoloft. (My official diagnosis was obsessive-compulsive disorder - just like Eric.)

As soon as I started taking the pills I started gaining weight.

Can you assign a 13-year-old kid *all* of the blame for getting that fat that fast? Thirteen-year-old kids are old enough to make many of their own decisions but don't you have to wonder whether my mother and my grandmother might have been able to do something to help me? So that's another reason I resent them, I guess.

Ultimately it was my responsibility to stay in shape and I didn't. I can add that item to my list of failures, I guess.

April 1996 (fifth grade):

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December 1997 (seventh grade):

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January 1998 (the week before the van break-in):

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February 1999 (a few days before the Rampart Range video was filmed):

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You will note that I am wearing tons of makeup on my face to hide my acne. My mother forced me to wear that stuff - I didn't want to. She insisted on applying it herself.

People used to tell me that I shouldn't wear the makeup because it made me look like a freak but my mother would tell me that my face was so ugly and horrible that I had to do something. She had horrendous acne as a teenager and in college she underwent a botched chemical peel that left her with bad facial scars. So in a way she was inflicting the traumas of her own adolescence on me.

December 1999 (a few weeks after the Time cover story on the basement tapes):

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In that picture I am a freshman in high school. But with that gut and those glasses I could pass for someone in middle age. I wasn't getting shoved into lockers but I felt like the ugliest kid (by far) in the school.

This was taken the day before Halloween during my sophomore year of high school. I am completely unrecognizable from the person I was a couple of years earlier:

October 2000:

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Then my mother took me to a dermatologist who prescribed Accutane. Accutane has fucked up lots of people but it was a Godsend for me.

December 2001:
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But even after my face cleared up I was still fat.

June 2003 (week before high-school graduation):

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When I turned 18 (in August 2003) I stopped taking the SSRIs. Almost immediately I started losing weight. I gained it all back (and more) but for a while I was slimming down.

December 2004 (halfway through sophomore year of college):

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May 2007 (college graduation):

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April 2009 (the week after Dave Cullen's book came out):

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Since then my weight has gone up and down but I've never really been truly happy with my physical appearance.

I'm still working on it. Maybe one of these days I'll get it right but I have my doubts.

But, yeah, we all have our issues.

Wow, I've been a lurker off and on for the columbine case for about 6 years now. I always saw your posts and profile picture, you were one of the most active members on this forum. Always had something interesting to say or some "rare" find. This post here spoke to me immensely. The fact you were so willing to put yourself out there to an anonymous forum about a school shooting is honestly impressive, respectful, and brave. If you ever need a friend to talk to you can always hit me up.