A Pyschology Question

Happy thanksgiving to you too, Writer X. Let me brush off my nearly-useless psych degree... whew, that's a lotta dust.

Not much use. I'd need to know a lot more about the guy to guess at his motivations in talking about this. Certainly intimidation might be one of them. Sick self-promotion would be one. He might be the kind of person that no one would believe (is he the crazy guy at the bus stop I met in Boston once?) and feels like he can say any outrageous thing just for attention. There are a multitude of reasons he could be talking like this.

As to why he committed the acts to begin with, abnormal psych is not my field. But best guess? He's whacko. (That's the technical term, I think.)

Can you tell us more about how he appears and why he's so important? You might get more direction that way.

Good luck with this!

Cross post with Derek, who is more creative but infinitely more disturbing than me.

WriterX said:

I'm interested in the pyschological reasons behind why this man would tell another man (bragging) that he emasculated enemy soldiers during the war. And I take that to mean literally.

Click to expand...

I'm not saying such stuff doesn't happen, because, of course, it does. Ears were the souvenr of choice, I think, back in the Vietnam era. So if you've got somebody with the appropriate military history and a set of grisly soft-tissue souvenirs, then the story he tells may well be true.

Absent icky trophies, however, I'd be inclined to call this a tall tale.

Simple, garden-variety lying is so very common.


(God, I sound like House. 'Everybody lies.')

Possibly he was emasculated in an accident in the war and can't stand the idea that another guy should have what he doesn't.

Intimidate the other guy, or the flipside, to build himself up. It would help if we knew the circumstances of this disclosure. I gather from your post that they're both at war. Maybe he wants to intimidate the other guy, maybe he wants to encourage him. "They're not so tough, this is what I've done." Maybe he wants to build up his own nerve, or his own image. (Weird, yes, but some guys would think this is cool and macho, like getting into fights with the police. Or at least imagine that others would think it's cool and macho)

frimble3 said:

Intimidate the other guy, or the flipside, to build himself up. It would help if we knew the circumstances of this disclosure. I gather from your post that they're both at war. Maybe he wants to intimidate the other guy, maybe he wants to encourage him. "They're not so tough, this is what I've done." Maybe he wants to build up his own nerve, or his own image. (Weird, yes, but some guys would think this is cool and macho, like getting into fights with the police. Or at least imagine that others would think it's cool and macho)

Click to expand...

I would agree most with this interpretation.

Obviously 99.999999% of military men and women are honorable, decent human beings and I have nothing but respect for them.

But we're speculating on what a potential abberant might do.

Consider that some soldiers, like Rangers and sharpshooters, are highly trained in killing people silently, or from long distances. If they are good at their job, they demonstrate it by killing more people. This soldier might take that one (irrational) step further and believe that torturing people means he's Super Soldier. He would honestly think that people would respect him more for doing this.

The military is pretty good about screening out people who are sadistic or sociopathic, but they still miss some. If you are, to use the colloquialism, "one sick puppy", you might enlist in the military to have a "respectable" outlet for the violent behavior that you want to engage in, anyway. Maybe this is someone who gets a sexual thrill from killing and torturing. He would be a mass murderer if he was a civilian, but in the military he can pretend that he's normal, and stay out of jail.

A sadist would do this because he enjoys causing other people pain, and it turns him on sexually. A sociopath might do this simply because he can, because he doesn't see other people as human beings but as cardboard cutouts put on earth for his amusement.

As far as other "whys"... well, we do live in a culture that glorifies violence in video games and movies. Inevitably, there are going to be a few people who think if it's cool on screen, it will be cooler in real life.


Maybe he was emotionally, sexually or physically abused as a young child. Most survivors of abuse grow up to be strong, decent people but there are some exceptions. Maybe this soldier is just acting out his repressed rage at being abused by a male in the past.

Or, maybe he's scared sh**less and torturing the enemy is a way of dominating them and overcoming that fear, at least for a short time. This may be rooted in his own insecurity about his abilities as a solder. Maybe this is what he is afraid the enemy soldiers will do to him, if they catch him.

Or, maybe he's still a virgin (or impotent) and this behavior is rooted in his insecurities about his masculinity. Maybe his unmarried mother was always sleeping with different guys, and he is acting out that anger (and jealousy.)

It is important that he castrates males. (Raping women would be a much more common response. Not an honorable one, just a more common one.) This would indicate rage towards a male figure of some sort. It could be a particular man (his father or an abuser), men in general ( ex. if he's homosexual and doesn't accept his sexuality) or his own sexuality.


As far as why he would tell someone about it... I can see basically two motives (besides intimidation. Which I think is unlikely.) The first would be, he is reliving his "glory days" with someone he believes will be impressed by this behavior. ("I was so tough that I...") That would more likely apply to a sadist or sociopath. Or, he is haunted by the violent acts he committed during the war, and is trying to find some solace by confessing them to one of the few people he believes will understand. (This would be more likely if he did it out of fear, or because he was abused.)

I'm not a professional therapist, but I've had some experience with men who act this way. It's rarely the truth or it is blown way out of proportion.

In every case they did it to look tough or to intimidate someone else. They had little to no self esteem and wanted people to listen to them or find them interesting.

The reactions they get are mostly to be shunned. Those who would be drawn to such a person are even scarier than they are.

Dunno if that helps but I have an ex who was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and he spoke about things like this.

Note, I call him an EX.

sounds like a fascinating guy. I think Jonibgoode summed it all up. There are mulitple personality profiles that could account for such behavior. I think it would be important to know if he initiated the snipping or if someone else did. You might get a totally different profile if he did it himself, alone, in private (more consistent with sexual sadist) than if he was part of a group who were torturing and the acts escalated through a group-think mentality....

I think the fact that he was seeking out your other guy one year after the war is probably important. He could have PTSD from the war and by contacting the other guy he was looking for a way to process this.

I agree with Jonibgoode that intimidation was probably not his reason for telling. it was more likely either bragging about the glory days, or trying to process a traumatic event, and even more likely that it was a combination of the two. Even if he was lying or exaggerating his motivation could still be a combo of bragging and processing.

It is certainly not impossible that the guy was a sadist or sociopath and did exactly what he said he did. That would surely make a more interesting character. But I think it is more likely that there is more to the stroy than that.

They both disappeared?! WriterX, you've got me intrigued.

BTW, multiples are rare (extremely, to the point that many noted psychologists/psychiatrists believe that the disorder does not exist at all). Also, it is now called Dissociative Identity Disorder.

PTSD is a good thought here...

And what if this guy that he chose to help either relive his glory days or process his pain, responded badly. The war is over, the other, presumably 'normal' guy, got on with his life and his response to the emasculation stories is either "You're B.S.ing me" or "You're a sicko". Might be the last straw for an already fragile guy. Or, maybe we're accusing the wrong guy of the 'disappearances'. Maybe Mr. Wierd either accuses Mr. Normal of doing the same or worse, or indicates he'd like to come home and meet Mrs. Normal and the kids. And Mr. Normal decides to eliminate that possibility, either through fear of what might come out, or just not wanting Mr. Wierd anywhere near the little Normals. If Mr. Wierd has indicated that he's a lonely drifter with no close ties, and they were both trained to kill, it might seem like a quick, easy solution.

JoniBGoode said:

The military is pretty good about screening out people who are sadistic or sociopathic, but they still miss some. If you are, to use the colloquialism, "one sick puppy", you might enlist in the military to have a "respectable" outlet for the violent behavior that you want to engage in, anyway. Maybe this is someone who gets a sexual thrill from killing and torturing. He would be a mass murderer if he was a civilian, but in the military he can pretend that he's normal, and stay out of jail.

A sadist would do this because he enjoys causing other people pain, and it turns him on sexually. A sociopath might do this simply because he can, because he doesn't see other people as human beings but as cardboard cutouts put on earth for his amusement.

Maybe he was emotionally, sexually or physically abused as a young child... Or, maybe ...this behavior is rooted in his insecurities about his masculinity.
It is important that he castrates males. (Raping women would be a much more common response. Not an honorable one, just a more common one.) This would indicate rage towards a male figure of some sort. ... if he's homosexual and doesn't accept his sexuality or his own sexuality... As far as why he would tell someone about it... I can see basically two motives (besides intimidation. Which I think is unlikely.) The first would be, he is reliving his "glory days" with someone he believes will be impressed by this behavior. ("I was so tough that I...") That would more likely apply to a sadist or sociopath. Or, he is haunted by the violent acts he committed during the war, and is trying to find some solace by confessing them to one of the few people he believes will understand. (This would be more likely if he did it out of fear, or because he was abused.)

Click to expand...

I agree with many of the ideas expressed above. I once interviewed in depth a sociopath (now in jail) with a self-confessed history of terrorist activities, drug dealing, hit man, etc., whose behaviour I attribute to a combination of innate untreatable sociopathy, untreated hyperactivity (nowadays called ADHD), and insecurity, problems with his own sexuality/manliness. At times he 'justified' his actions, saying he had just 'obeyed orders' (both in the military and in terrorist organisations), but at times it was clear that he obviously relished the feeling of power it gave him over others. There was sometimes an element of peer pressure, when acting with others and not being seen as 'chicken'; but this does not explain why he often acted alone in senseless acts of violence. However, there was also a big element of bravado, so I really don't know how much of what he told me was true. Some was definitely true (I saw some of the police files, etc.) but some events struck me as imaginative recreations of things he'd read or seen on TV.

Makes my work with neglected, physically and sexually abused kids look like cake.

Although I'm a civilian, I did my psychiatry rotations as a medical student in a military hospital during the first Gulf War.

So did he do the castration before or after the enemy were killed? Did he release them alive after castration? What did he do with the testicles? (keep them as some bizarre fetish? fry them up with onions? stomp on them while making the victim watch? stuff them into the mouth of the corpse?) Did the "Mr Normal" know or participate?

If the guy is "bragging" I doubt he is looking for solace or processing PTSD (I agree it's possible, but wouldn't be my first suspicion). He's probably looking for something more sinister. Without knowing the details my guess would be a severely repressed homosexual sociopath with messianic delusions. His dad was a preacher and whipped him regularly as a kid as prophylactic punishments for the things the dad didn't catch him at yet. Mr Normal saw what happened during the war, did not participate, but did not rebuke or report him, probably out of fear for his own safety. Mr Nutjob (pun intended) sounds like a serial killer in the making and wants to recruit his old buddy for something.

Who Went to Chicago?

Jeanette Sliwinski, convicted last month in the deaths of three musicians killed during herZ failed suicide attempt, has been sentenced to eight years in prison. Updated coverage on the <A href="http://chicagotribune.com"