March 20th 2021: 3:45am.
Can’t shut this tragedy off, can’t sleep or shut off this ruminating brain. Time to write.
Surveillance footage on Tuesday March 16th 2021 showed the suspect, Robert Aaron Long, arriving at Young’s Asian Massage, a massage parlor near Acworth, and sitting for an hour in the parking lot before entering the building at about 3:38 p.m. EDT for a period of one hour and 12 minutes. Another customer who went to Young’s that day said in an interview with The Washington Post that everything was still normal when he arrived at around 4:40 p.m. Long left Young’s at 4:50 p.m., and the first 9-1-1 calls reporting the shooting to the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office were made at 4:54 p.m. that is the exact moment in time Robert went from feeling like a victim to being a perpetrator of a mass killing.
Examining his own words given after his arrest, I make up his internal sense of powerlessness examined through the lenses of his reptilian brain with an under-developed frontal lobe [all humans before age 27-28] led him to see himself as saving others from his plight and despair flipping his script from victim to hero in a nano second with the pull of a trigger.
So on the day before he was to become a forever mass murderer who could have helped him?
What label would a mental health professional had given him on March 15th?
Overwhelmed by the recent perceived abandonment from his parents that left him homeless and recently being disqualified from the privilege of being his love interest’s boyfriend what would the treatment plan have looked like? Maybe a five-day waiting period for the handgun might of helped, just a thought, I digress.
Would an anti-depressant or psychotropic drug have been given?
How about non-religious treatment for either mental health or his sex addiction issues? One of the points that Dr. Carnes makes in his four core beliefs of a sex addict from his seminal 1983 book “Out of The Shadows” is that rules and laws are made for loveable people, unlovable people [sex addicts feeling a profound sense of worthlessness] live by other means.
In case you are interested, Dr. Carnes four core beliefs are:
- Self-Image – I am basically a bad, unworthy person
- Relationships – No one would love me as I am
- Needs – My needs are never going to be met if I have to depend upon others
- Sexuality – Sex is my most important need
Going back to Mr. Long, I conclude that his insatiable porn use coupled with is inability to stop his visiting massage parlors produced in him an untenable level of guilt, self-hatred, remorse, emptiness, and pain. He was driven ever inwards, away from reality, away from love, lost inside himself. He felt inadequate, alone, unworthy, and afraid. Flooded by these overwhelming feelings, they metastasized into a uncontrollable cancer that would be turned outwards leading to the carnage and infamy. With no real sustainable faith nor adequate professional help his fate sealed. For Robert there would be no “happy ending” nor for any of the people destroyed in his wake, call it by any name you want and I will always believe that this could have been avoided. Don’t tell me this disease isn’t fatal!
It’s just all very heavy and I’ve got a headache. Now it’s time for me to try to let it go, at least for a little while. Thoughts and prayers just doesn’t seem to cut it.
Give me a call if you need help. Remember, if this illness is left untreated it WILL get worse.
NO MORE SECRETS 