Malignant Abandonment Rage Strikes at Virginia Tech

It wouldn’t be the first time abandonment rage caused someone to go on the murderous rampage and intentionally cause pain, loss, and horror.

Seething for years, trapped inside himself, unable to interact with others, Sueng-Hui Cho seemed isolated, on the outside looking in, feeling abandoned by the human race.

“You brats… you snobs… you had everything… You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience.  You thought it was one pathetic boy’s life you were extinguishing.” 
 
His advances were rejected by women he tried to pursue.  They would feel “stalked” due to his bizarre social behaviors and report him. 

Frothing in abandonment rage, unable to break out of his psychological (self-imposed) prison of isolation, and abjectly lonely, he watched people go happily about their business, enjoying their own normal social relations, seemingly oblivious to his torment. 

An event like this is extremely threatening.  We have an overwhelming need to know more.  It is not curiosity.  It is a counter phobic defense against feeling the rug being pulled out from under us.  We want the information so we can restore the illusion that this will never happen to us or to our loved ones.  We need to believe that it was predictable, that it could have been prevented, that we still are in “control.” 

We feel threatened because we know we are all built of the same basic emotional hardware.  We want hard data that will reassure us that this person had a unique, rare mental illness, that he was truly different from us and from those who dislike us.  Otherwise, how can we feel safe? 

After catching a glimpse of the video, we were shaken by the depth of Sueng-Hui Cho’s rage, bitterness, and hatred.  It calls to mind some of our own excessive reactions– times when our emotions brimmed over the edge, albeit not to the brink of mass murder.  We are quick to remind ourselves that we have the strength to keep a hold of ourselves during time of emotional duress – and we hope the same is true for our enemies. 

As we learn more about Sueng-Hui Cho’s delusional (fantasy?) ideas, we shudder at his destructiveness, but we know what most of the feelings are about – those corrosive feelings that hit us in the gut.  The universal abandonment wound festers beneath the surface, were it can interfere in our relationships and undermine our sense of self from within.  When this wound is aggravated, it can unleash powerful primal emotions, causing the most self-controlled among us to want to act out in revenge and to have fleeting homicidal and suicidal thoughts – thoughts we have learned not to act on. 

Was Sueng’s burning hatred a grossly exaggerated response to universal abandonment feelings – feeling invisible, ignored, slighted, insignificant, powerless, excluded, dishonored, dismissed, rejected?  

We cringe at the premeditation of his murderous rampage – his OBSESSION in wanting to destroy.  He took the time to communicate with us, mailing his stuff to the largest media outlet – after committing two murders, but before committing 30 more. 

After not being able/willing to speak in class or sign his name, he sure did want to communicate with us! He was not being a loner then – he was showing extreme self-consciousness within the world.  He told what he was going through, how much he hated us, why we deserve his punishment and more…. 

What could have been going on at the neuro-chemical level?  We know that primal abandonment rage is fueled by powerful stress hormones which are responsible for our fight response.  ADRENALINE is a short-acting endogenous drug that courses through our bodies to prepare us for a powerful course of action like running from a predator or attacking an opponent.  Then there are the GLUCOCORTICOIDS (i.e. CORTISOL) which are longer-acting and stay in the blood stream long enough to fuel a more sustained course of action.

Imagine the sustained agitation and rage that motivated Sueng-Hui Cho to premeditate his attack i.e. purchase his arsenal including chains, go to target practice, compile the written and photographic materials, and carry out the murders according to plan. 

And while I am speculating, why not consider the possibility that he was OPIOID-deprived?  Our attachments to people are facilitated through our body’s OPIOID system – Heroin-like substances that flow through our bodies, rewarding us for our close social connections by infusing us with sensations of wellbeing, human warmth, and tranquility.  (One class of OPIOIDS we are familiar with is the ENDORPHINS – responsible for “runner’s high.”).

When we go through a break-up or loss, we go into withdrawal from our body’s own internal opiates – withdrawal that works on the same brain pathways as Heroin withdrawal, except instead of craving the drug, we crave a love-fix. 

I can’t help but wonder: If Sueng-Hui Cho was as isolated and lonely as he has been depicted, did he lack the social connections necessary to promote the production of OPIOIDS?  If he were OPIOID depleted, could it be that his own natural pharmacological cornucopia of endogenous self-soothing “drugs” were not functioning? 

We await to hear more about Sueng-Hui Cho, but not out of morbid curiosity; rather with the need to understand the depths of human vulnerability and how to prevent it from running amuck.