In the wake of the horrible murders in Newtown, CT, I've been reading up a little on Asperger's Syndrome (AS).
It dawned on me that, perhaps, our unidentified suicide victim may have suffered from AS. Here is one snippet from his suicide note:
"I was born with a definite pervasive melancholy . . .what frustrated me most in the last year was that I had built no ties to family or friends. There was nothing of lasting worth and value. I led a detached existence and I was a parody of a person - literally and figuratively. I didn't tell jokes - I was a joke".
That might indicate he had AS - social awkwardness and an inability to connect with people.
Also, sometimes people with AS become obsessed over something. Perhaps this John Doe was obsessed over finding out why he was "different". That might explain his interest in the writings of Emile Durkheim, a philosopher and psychologist.
People with AS often have high intelligence, which could explain how someone so young (16 or 17 years old) was able to write such a philosophical suicide note.
I'd be interested in reading your comments on this topic.
This case makes me incredibly sad and I can only hope this man was eventually identified (or maybe not, as he wished). He reminds me so much of a friend who committed suicide a couple summers ago. It sounds exactly like something my friend would've written.
This friend struggled with mental illness and addiction. He often told people he was bipolar, although I'm not 100% sure if it was true or not. I do know that toward the end he was diagnosed with a touch of Aspberger's, although I honestly don't think anyone really knew what was wrong with him. A mutual friend says he was a sociopath. I can definitely see both.
He told me how he was ALWAYS different from the other kids at school, even as a small child, always the odd one. I can't remember exactly what the example was he used but it had something to do with the bathroom at school, like being the only kid to walk out of the bathroom at school with his pants down maybe. He "was the joke." Yet, he couldn't explain why he did it.
He was well liked but the few of us who knew him well, knew it was mostly a show and he HATED himself for it but he couldn't change it. He disappeared on several occasions for a few months at a time in the years before his death, worrying his parents to death, although when I read his mother's posts on his Facebook page now they absolutely break my heart and sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't be better for him to be missing than dead. Oddly enough, Belle Chasse is only an hour or so away from his home and I know that general area (the New Orleans area) was one of the places he disappeared to.
While I never saw him get extremely violent, I do think he was capable of it and I did see him get so angry at times I thought he was going to get violent.
He was incredibly intelligent. He was definitely NOT gay, although I do think he often felt guilty about certain sex acts/fantasies. He was 24 when he passed away and was 19 when I met him. His problems seemed to get worse the older he got, the more people he took advantage of and the more guilt he carried.
I truly believe that most mental illness can be dealt with through counseling, medication, etc. However, his death was inevitable. I was not surprised at all when I heard about it. He came from a well-to-do family and his parents sent him to some of the best doctors/institutions in the country but nothing helped, even though i think he would've done just about anything to make the pain go away and I guess he ultimately did. I just don't think this was a case of someone not wanting to realize he had a problem and deal with it. He KNEW very well he had some problems and tried to work them out, but there was no escaping it. There was no hope and as much as I hate to say it, I find solace in the fact that he's no longer tormented by the demons in his head.
I swear he could've written just about every word in the note, except for maybe the Durkeim stuff although I'm sure he knew who he was. I tend to see the UID in this case as being a little older too.