We will never know what creates this aberration in a human being. I have often thought about the fact that when Ted Bundy was on his killing spree, I fit his victim profile, long-haired, white girl student, happy to help a stranger in need. He would have killed me if he had met me. Many of my friends fit the same profile. We will never understand what goes wrong.
Have you read FBI profiler John Douglas "The Cases That Haunt Us"?
Wow, yes! He's a genius. I've read several of his books. Him and Park Deetz. Actually, I am looking at a copy of
Obsession, by Douglas and Mark Olshaker as I type. The work down at Quantico is amazing. Of course, I binge-watch Criminal Minds. Most people perceive other humans as fellow humans and recognize that one is not the other, but many do not and perceive the rest of the world basically as cardboard cut-out figures who must be the same person because they physically look the same. It's taking stereotyping to the pit of Dante's inferno. The twists that the human mind can take!
I grew up on the Jersey side of the Hudson from Manhattan, but went to college in DC, coming home on the trains to NY, Hoboken, and on up to the village station, or on the bus through NY Port Authority. My mother had fits when I would tell her about some nice person whom I talked to in Port Authority. But at 18, a stranger is a friend you haven't met yet, and in northern Jersey, there are no ghouls. Had Bundy been operating on the east coast, . . .
This is TMI, but I have a relative who has schizo-effective disorder. A brilliant man, but his mind is lost (I had to take his guns away from him and give them to the police), and I'll always wonder what he could have been. We talk about current affairs on the phone often and see each other every few years or so. He is very literal and there is no such thing as Tolkien or Bradbury. He always cautions me to dismiss peoples' religious beliefs and what-not because they aren't true. He doesn't realize that we don't have take these beliefs and ideas as true, but just understand them as a predictor of what the person who holds them will do next and just sit there and wait it out. You don't have to buy into somebody's idea that blowing up the planet will lead us all home to Valhalla, just know that what he will do next is something that he thinks will do it.
We are each imprinted with what we see everyday growing up.
My upbringing was different and more bizarre in many ways. My Mom was extremely what you'd call overprotective of us when we were growing up. With a few notable exceptions, we weren't allowed to go into a neighbor home unaccompanied. Instead, our home was basically Party central. We had an above ground pool for summers and Mom always had food and refreshments out. Last week my Mother told me that the reason she was so overprotective was that 2 of our neighbors were pedophiles.
I've met people who I am absolutely convinced have killed people and are responsible for people on milk cartons. I have no proof besides the hairs on my neck and the look in their eyes.
I've been the victim of such child predator. One was a teacher and myself and another classmate ratted him out to people we trusted. It was actually him that brought it up to me one day after school. Said it casually as we were headed home after class. It was very weird looking back now how it all came about, he was a close friend through sports.
I agreed that we would go together and tell what we knew. It was almost quietly known among others that it was going on, but we were all so young, in grade 4, just kids. I had never felt so frightened, and it upset my parents that I hadn't told them, but, did tell some we trusted who were in positions of authority.
Suddenly other students came out and said it happened to them too, this was after my dad personally called their homes and rallied them. I was a kid, it was tough, I was scared, he was replaced while on suspension and we did mock trials in class by his replacement teacher (still remember her name, I loved that woman, she supported us all and had us prepared, not for a minute doubting us). His replacement teacher was an angel.
I felt so much better hearing other kids tell their stories to all of us in class. I wonder now, years later, if she hadn't been recording that "trial" without us knowing (she even had us sitting with a jury) as evidence to show to our principal or the police. A sort of "here is what the kids are saying, they will say the same to a judge". If she did that, it was brilliant. I know my friend and I felt so much better knowing we weren't going to face this alone.
The problem was, this teacher was very popular. Other older kids in school went after me and my friend in particular, "you're lying" etc (had some of them been in through his class and experienced the same?) My friend and I stood our ground.
In the end, he plead guilty to the charges and was not allowed to teach in Ontario again, but, he left for another province and did continue to teach. Yes, this is Canada and our creepy kakistocracy. He was a brother of a cop from what I understand.
I won't ever forget my dad calling one father, and this guy downplaying the events to my dad, "it was just sex-ed for these kids". My dad lost it on this guy. I heard him yelling on the phone to him and using words I've never used. He came into my room and asked me "who is this Timmy ______ kid in your class?" After a short conversation he said, "stay away from that kid".
I never knew until after what their conversation was about. Gives me the creeps thinking that there are people like this,
and makes me wonder just what his dad was doing in his life.
Your parents were right to be concerned and to protect you. There are cretins in this world who abuse the vulnerable.
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