"They just 'snapped'." But WHY?

[Seymore]

Sometimes I’ll read in the news about someone who lost their job or something equally stressful, and they’ll go off and kill their family or do something extreme of that nature. It always seems that when they interview friends, neighbors, family of the person, nobody had any idea they were that way - they just “snapped”.

 

How does this work? I have always been curious. Is it like a glow stick, where chemicals react with one another? Is it something that was always in the person’s nature to do, something that developed over time? Is it possibly something the person never had an intention of doing and they just blacked out or what?

 

If it's something that "just happens" to people, I think I'd live a life of worry. I'd never want to hurt anyone close to me. I'd live in fear not knowing if I was just going to lose it without any control over myself. It's a scary thing to read about, and I wonder how much control these people really have?

[ghost69]

nobody usually paid attention to those people and realized they had issues to begin with.

[agent1607307371]

They "just snapped" because it appears so. In reality I'd imagine it built up over a period of time until it all just became too much for them and were snapped.

 

If they had a release valve - or a healthy way of relieving stress, I'd imagine that they wouldn't snap.

[shes2smart]

The really frightening thought (and the one that fascinates me on this topic) is this: How many people do you encounter on a day to day basis that are one stressor away from "snapping"?

[fiona77]

I'm happy to say that I personally do not understand this phenomenon either. I have been at points in my life where I felt like I was losing control or about to have a nervous breakdown, but have never thought of setting fire to my job or killing someone. We were just talking about this at work the other day. Some of the girls were talking about that show "snapped" on T.V. I can understand how someone would be so mad, or just finally come to that breaking point if say they were being abused for years or if someone hurt one of their children. I have seen shows about serial killers and people who are sociopaths and MRI's of their brains do show that parts of their brains are smaller or larger (I can't remember which) and it's the part of their brain which controls reasoning and emotions (again can't remember the part), so I think some people are genetically predisposed to these sorts of behavior.

[Portage]

I'm working on a 10 percent pay decrease...i'm soon to snap too.

 

I'll keep you posted.

[sarey]

They probably have built it up, and it exploded. Stress can do a lot to you. But there may be an underlying cause such as a mental health illness and such.

[Jetta]

It really depends on the person. Some people are born killers, others black out, some get so angry they kill (I know people who say they could get that angry but never have). I snapped and ran away from my life is what happened to me. Killing people wasn't on the agenda.

[sarey]

I don't think they choose to kill, ^^

 

If they are that unstable.