Analysis – Page 3 – Jeffrey Dahmer Memorial

wrong place, wrong time

jeff is such a case of wrong place, wrong time. an outlier, tossed into a timeline that was just wrong for him and those around him, but just right for those who wish to study him. a sacrificial lamb of a soul, showing the world the worst-case scenario of what could go wrong when someone’s neurodivergences are left ignored and suppressed.

metaphysically, it’s not even his fault that he existed as he was. he was stuck that way, and there was no undoing it, no deviating from that life path he had to take on. it really does seem fated in a sense. if all the world’s a stage, then someone had to play the role of the tortured criminal, and it just had to be him.

i wonder.. if reincarnation is real [which i believe it is — matter can neither be created nor destroyed, and i’m sure consciousness exists eternally in the same way]. did he know that he had to incarnate in that way? taking one for the team, so to speak? or was he ultimately just some selfish horny fuck and there’s nothing deeper to it than that?

i mean, when i see his eyes in photos, i SEE an ultimately good soul there. a good soul that’s been ravaged and broken by its own incarnation. but of course, we don’t really have the tools to measure such a thing scientifically. so it’s all just up in the air for now. doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, though. it’s that sort of thing that keeps me wondering.

i do wonder how much self-awareness really does for a person in the end, though. jeff was as self-aware as he could be — on his own, with no outside help that matched his level cognitively — but he still killed 17 people. it’s just waking up to find you’re in hell. the existential horror of being jeffrey dahmer.

he experienced the bystander effect within himself. just a passive “i know i have to stop..” but an inability to INITIATE that action. it’s almost like executive dysfunction, but drawn out over a long period of time. and just like how all humans are biologically programmed to take the easier route, as it conserves energy, jeff acted on his impulses time after time. a sort of paralysis while still in motion. in many ways, he was paralyzed mentally.

same kind of thing with any addiction that grabs hold of you and doesn’t let go. people seem to think that if you can act at all, then you have a choice to stop whatever you’re doing. well, brain chemicals don’t work that way. he was able to stop for 9 years, yes, but that took all of his strength. eventually the muscles grew tired and he collapsed under the weight of his obsessions. and after that, he just gave in. he was tired of fighting it. he resigned himself to his fate.

just the same as with any addict relapsing. anything can trigger it. even something as small as a dirty note given to you in a library.

and back to the incarnating thing.. i wonder if maybe his “soul” or whatever knew someone had to live that life. someone had to be the bad guy, the poster child for the result of our stubborn refusal to understand mental health, our unrelenting desire to equate accountability with rage and punishment instead of understanding and compassion.

just like how someone had to betray jesus in order to get the ball rolling for his death and resurrection, i guess. someone had to play that role, and judas was the one who drew the short straw. maybe jeff had to be a sort of judas figure for the mental health field, causing the chaos that will set the much-needed transformation in motion. a devastating yet necessary catalyst.

¡ guess i just don’t want to blame him for being human. there was a lot going on in his mind, in his body, and he had no actual help for it that resonated with him. nothing that stuck. no one who truly GOT him.

i just wonder how strong any of us would’ve been against a biochemical cocktail like what he was stewing in for his whole life. especially when communicating it and being understood was impossible.

yes, people did try to help him, but it was in all the wrong ways.

the man was truly fighting himself all on his own.

[ • dahmers-ashes • ]

Jeff and STPD

Jeff Dahmer, was according to the Psych Reports, diagnosed with Schizotypal Personality Disorder.

A little background info:
This type of personality disorder falls under the cluster A of personality disorders. The STPD diagnostic criteria for DSM-5 consist of:

ideas of reference
odd beliefs of magical thinking
unusual perceptual experiences and bodily illusions
odd thinking and speech
suspiciousness or paranoid ideation
inappropriate or constricted affect
behavior or appearance that is odd, eccentric or peculiar
lack of close friends of confidants, other than first degree relatives
excessive social anxiety that doesn’t diminish with familiarity and tends to be associated with paranoid beliefs.

Five of nine criteria are required for a diagnosis of STPD.

STPD remained significantly associated with bipolar I and II disorder, PTSD, BPD and NPD. Twin studies have provided evidence that STPD is determined by both familial-genetic and unique environmental factors. A number of forms of psychological trauma and chronic stress have been associated with STPD. Over half of patients with STPD have had > 1 episode of major depressive disorder and 30 to 50% of them have major depressive disorder when schizotypal personality disorder is diagnosed. These patients often also have a substance use disorder.

People with STPD often come across as aloof, flat or emotionally distant, and are preoccupied with fantasy and daydreaming. People with this disorder may ignore ordinary social conventions (for example, not make eye contact), and because they do not understand usual social cues, they may interact with others inappropriately or stiffly. They are very uncomfortable relating to people. They interact with people if they have to but prefer not to because they feel like they are different and do not belong. However, they may say their lack of relationships makes them unhappy. Signs and symptoms of schizotypal personality disorder, such as increased interest in solitary activities or a high level of social anxiety, may be seen in the teen years. The child may be an underperformer in school or appear socially out of step with peers, which may result in teasing or bullying.

Now let’s look at Jeff and some of his behavior that could be related to his STPD:

If we look at his childhood there are obvious signs he kept to himself. He didn’t have many friends, he didn’t interact a lot with other kids at a young age. There were two incidents that are mentioned in The Shrine that could have “started” his STPD. The incident with the tadpoles, where the teacher gave Jeff’s present to her, to another kid he thought of as a friend. He killed the tadpoles with motor oil when he found out. This could have been a trigger for him to be suspicious of people who are kind to him. The other incident is with a choking game he played with the other kids. When it was Jeff’s turn to choke a kid, the kid ran to the teacher to tattle on him. Another betrayal in his early life that could have started his paranoid and suspicious beliefs.
In his teens we can see some of the behavior that is odd and peculiar. The things he did that were seen as Doing a Dahmer. I know this was also a way to hide his true self, his dark thoughts he was already having but it could also be related to early signs of STPD if you think about it.
He obviously never had any close relationships besides his parents and grandmother. Not that he was particularly close to his parents but yeah.
His paranoid beliefs also can be seen in his alarm system he bought but never fully installed. He might have thought just to look of it might scare people away if they wanted to break in.
Examples of his odd thinking of beliefs can be seen in him thinking the yellow eye contacts could give him the same power as The Emperor in Star Wars. Jeff seemed to be obsessed with obtaining a certain power or control over people.
His idea of creating a Shrine. The Shrine he was building was for remembering the physical appearance of his victims but also another way for him to get some sort of power.
Jeff mentioned often it was like he was possessed by an evil force that gave him these compulsions he could not get rid of. He truly thought he was Evil.
Another odd or magical belief could be him thinking that wearing a victim’s face or eating their body parts would make them one with him. That they would continue to live on inside of him
Some people mistake Jeff for being a psychopath because of his lack of expressing or showing emotion. But this is also a typical sign of STPD. Dr. Norman Goldfrab mentioned: His voice was devoid of emotional shading of life and that Jeff was “suspicious of the motives of others, a classic schizoid trait.” Dr Evelyn Rosen’s has said that Jeff had a “schizoid personality disorder with paranoid features.” And added a dire prognostication: “Jeff is not psychotic, but not much is needed to push him and alcohol serves this purpose.”
Schizoid personality disorder is also a personality disorder often mentioned in The Shrine but Jeff was never officially diagnosed with it according to the Pscyh Reports. The symptoms between STPD and Schizoid Personality Disorder do show similarities
While people with schizotypal personality disorder may experience brief psychotic episodes with delusions or hallucinations, the episodes are not as frequent, prolonged or intense as in schizophrenia. It is possible, if we believe Tracy Edwards story, that Jeff might have experienced at that time a brief psychotic episode.
Jeff’s crimes were based on his bizarre fantasies. His whole life was focused on chasing the ultimate fantasy he had of the perfect orgasm and control.

A study has shown that people with Stpd have more chances of having olfactory identification impairment which can explain how it was possible that Jeff lived in a small apartment with rotting bodies and cutting open to viscera without getting sick of the smell himself.

These are the first few signs of his STPD that I came up with. I am open to feedback and things you might know about him that could relate to his STPD. Just to be clear, I am not an expert on personality disorders. During my study I had only one short term on mental health conditions, so my own knowledge is limited. The things I mentioned with Jeff’s behavior related to STPD is how I see it. I just found it weird how little this disorder is mentioned in Jeff’s case.

the tragic teacher

jeff never thought his life could be helpful to anyone, but he really has helped me a ton. he’s helped me think more deeply about people, about psychology, about the different ways in which the system fails us all, and about the complex nature of morality and human nature in general.

jeff is a teacher and subject both, perhaps inadvertently so. he didn’t recognize his own power. but i’m always going to be grateful to him for that. his actions were horrific, but his existence has somehow still helped us all here in this community. those who’ve wished to study him deeply have uncovered a lot of profound truths along the way.

like a retrograde planet, jeff’s existence bungled things up quite a bit, but it also taught us a lot in the process. and there are always going to be retrogrades. on a grand scale, we need them.

and i hate even saying that because it seems like an insult to his victims. they certainly didn’t deserve to die or be violated in all those horrible disgusting ways. it’s sort of making me squirm to even have this thought at all right now. but i guess death gets us all at some point; it’s just a matter of how it happens and what — or who — brings it. and sometimes society as a whole needs a shock to it in order to recognize that the current setup is absolutely fucked and needs to change. it’s just how the huge complex rube-goldberg contraption called “the world” is set up.

unfortunately, someone has to play the bad guy. like how judas had to betray jesus in order to get the ball rolling for his death and resurrection. without judas, the whole thing would never have happened. he hated himself for what he did, too, and he hung himself because of it.

i see jeff very similarly. he’s a catalyst for change.

and now somehow i’m linking this with the trolley problem. a few casualties for the good of the whole later on down the line? it’s cruel. it’s brutal. it’s a horrible reality. but the only way we can improve things as they are, i guess, is by fighting fire with fire at some point.

i don’t know. this might all be bullshit and i might regret saying it in about 5 minutes. i feel like i’m being insulting to jeff’s victims by saying it. but i’m also not married to these thoughts, either — they’re just swimming through my head, and i might read over them again in an hour and hate them. but maybe there’s a similarity there in that i’m thinking brutal thoughts and am self-aware at the same time, just as jeff was self-aware and yet couldn’t stop causing destruction.

i think his fame was necessary. he had to slam into our collective consciousness like a meteor and leave a huge crater so we can later fill it with new lessons and knowledge.

it makes sense that he came to light during the early 90s, with all that harsh outer-planet shit that was going on right then. capricorn and scorpio, saturn and pluto dominance. saturn is the grim reaper swinging his scythe; pluto destroys and rebuilds. jeff was absolutely a harbinger of all this outer-planet energy.

maybe in his next life, jeff will go on to be an even greater force for helping people than he was for harming them. maybe he’s already doing that right now. he just needed to go through a really nasty incarnation first.

maybe he needed to experience firsthand what horrors one human is capable of before he could help change this in the next life. i do wonder how many of us have at least one past life where we were a murderer or a rapist or some other awful person, and that’s what’s made us wiser in the end and we just aren’t aware of it.

the difference with jeff is that he seemed to retain some awareness that this was wrong. he’s bridged the gap so we can peer into the other side. he’s relatable because we need to be able to recognize these traits in ourselves.

only then can we take the first step toward righting our wrongs.

[ • dahmers-ashes • ]

a vision through his eyes

on august 7, 2019, i had a vision that i could not control. it came to me out of the blue — no drugs or anything else mind-altering involved — and as the imagery flashed through my mind’s eye automatically, i did my best to record it. i have never experienced anything like it before or since.

this is the raw, 99.9% unedited recording of what i saw. i only edited two words in one sentence for clarity later on.

❖ ❖ ❖

for a split second, i was him.. i was there

“but if you knew any more, it would break your brain.”

you’re channelling the wrong part of the collective consciousness. it’s causing a system malfunction. somebody is chasing someone, somewhere.. you know you have knowledge you’re not supposed to and that’s why you’re scared. our flesh hardware isn’t meant to support that operating system.

we’re meant to be blind little single-celled organisms, moving slowly on this space rock.. and yet we have such interesting and complex lives. you suddenly become aware of how limited your vision is and that is existential horror. do you feel claustrophobic? that’s a lot of consciousness to squeeze into such a tiny little cell.

we’re all in solitary confinement.

i’m him again, and i’m in solitary confinement. i feel how tall i am, how broad and muscular my shoulders are, and it’s strange.. but i accept it. i can see the last bit of the outside world through the bars. light streaming in, dust particles dancing in the beams between the iron columns. everything is cold and hard and it smells musty, like grandmother’s basement. i’m subtly afraid for the life i’m not supposed to have.

it’s evening now, i assume. we line up for our meal and i don’t want to eat it. but i have no choice. i just want to go back to sleep.

all i want to do is sleep. i read to keep myself distracted. i’m always looking for new distractions. having a sense of humor helps but i can’t quite get myself to laugh all the time. i’m hollow and the grey surroundings fill me. i’m grey inside.

i am TV static. neptune in the first, blurring the lines. i was a man possessed, or was i? will the blood of christ be enough to drown out the sins of my past? he died even for me. there’s room in heaven for me too. i really want to be baptized.

i really want to be baptized. to get right with god.

the trance is fading now.. i still have snippets of a past i never lived. i stare at the images of birds on the glossy paper. goldfinches, woodpeckers, chickadees incubating their eggs. it’s all the nature i get to see now, that and my little window. i smile when i see my chipmunk friend outside in the grass. i haven’t named him in my head but maybe i should. he can be like my pet.

i should have just gotten an aquarium. i could be watching the fish in my apartment the same way. but if i were to go free, i’d be even more enslaved than i am now. enslaved by my weakness, my selfishness, my alcoholism, my compulsions. ironically, i am more free here.

i know i deserve death.

i have memorized every crack in the wall. i hear someone screaming down the hall somewhere, and banging noises. the wall has faces, i imagine. like seeing shapes in the clouds. i have learned to appreciate every small change that comes my way. it’s a simple life. it’s still more than i deserve.

how long will i be here, lingering inside another man’s body and mind? carrying the heaviness in my chest of crimes i never committed? except that in this moment.. i have memories of them. shampoo running down from my head and another man’s blood spiralling at my feet. i don’t smell it anymore but i know they have complained. i don’t want to be like this. i need another beer, and another, and another, all to drown the shame. i need to drink so much now for it to have any effect.

his stillness as i lay with him in our bed. he was freshly dead; i intertwined my legs with his to take advantage of all the warmth he still had left. i ran my fingers through his hair, talked to him, whispered sweet nothings in his deaf ear. he was mine now, and he always would be. he was mine.

he was mine.

he would never leave me now.

i could still smell the cologne he put on, the body wash he used in his last shower, the scent of laundry detergent on his clothes. there was something musty underneath it now, something bleak. he was starting to feel cool to the touch, so i held him tighter. my love. i will give him all the warmth i have.

why did he have to be so impermanent even in this state?

even his body would soon be taken over by nature’s course. i would perform my ritual to circumvent this slightly. dear lord, we break the bread, in memory.

one last rush from a failed experiment. his head leaks caustic substance and it stings my skin as i smooth back his soft dark hair. look into his vacated eyes, staring at nothing. i’m so sorry.

i just couldn’t let you go.

those times are faded now. my regret serves nothing and yet it still hovers in the background. i put it all into the arms of the lord jesus christ. he will carry away even my sins. i am in his embrace.

in his arms, i am safe from myself.

i am safe from abandonment.

i am safe.. even though all of them are destroyed.

i’m so sorry.

💔

[ • dahmers-ashes • ]

the same star stuff

everyone has a little bit of jeff dahmer within us.

that’s the point.

ultimately, it’s why we keep coming back to him.

maybe his attractiveness or the shocking nature of his crimes are what grab our attention at first, but it’s his undeniable, discomfiting relatability that makes us stay.

he is the dorian gray painting we hide in our attic, the scapegoat we use when we want to look Good and Righteous. as if we don’t all have some kind of depravity within ourselves. it might not be as bad or as obvious as his, not even close. but it’s there. to some degree, it is there.

we’re all made of the same star stuff. and jeff was fully, completely human, in the most shocking and grotesque and strangely beautiful way possible. he was just as human as anyone else, and that’s plain to see. anyone who worked with him closely could see his humanity clear as crystal. so to reconcile that with the monstrous actions he’s known for — that’s a huge challenge for most. and i get why.

nobody wants to be associated with that type of thing.

but neither did jeff.

he hated what he was, hated his urges, hated himself for finding pleasure in the most fucked-up shit imaginable. and yet he had that other side to him that craved it and would do anything to get it. he had a demon inside of him, and that demon WAS him. it was and it wasn’t. he was a true gemini, a personality split down the middle.

perhaps that’s what he was brought to earth to teach us.

it’s easy for us to separate ourselves from people like john wayne gacy and ted bundy. though they were human too, they were obvious psychopathic sadists who loved to hurt people. the vast majority of us can easily make a distinction between Us and Them.

but you can’t do that nearly so easily with dahmer. and people most certainly try. oh yes, they do. they’ll find any reason possible to deny that he had a likable, relatable side to him, all because they want a clean and simple answer.

a clean and simple answer isn’t possible, though. not when it comes to jeff.

he forces us to think outside the box.

and he forces us all to face ourselves.

[ • dahmers-ashes • ]