Like all of America and civilized people around the world, I am heartbroken and sickened by the 49 people slaughtered and 53 injured in an Orlando nightclub early Sunday morning.
The shooter was Omar Mateen, an American born in New York of Afghan parents. In a 911 call to police as the dead lay around him, Mateen swore allegiance to ISIS.
But as authorities try to figure out how Mateen became radicalized, I’m not so sure that he shot up a gay nightclub for Allah. To me, it looks like Mateen was simply an evil sociopath, and pursuing Islamic jihad was a convenient excuse to get a gun.
Ex-wife Sitora Yusufiy
The first clue comes from how Mateen’s ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, described him. In an interview with reporters, she said:
“In the beginning he was a normal being that cared about family, loved to joke, loved to have fun, but then a few months after we were married I saw his instability. I saw that he was bipolar and would get mad out of nowhere.”
“After a few months he started abusing me, physically, very often, not allowing me to speak to my family, keeping me hostage from them.”
“He was mentally unstable and mentally ill ”¦ Obviously disturbed, deeply traumatized.”
“When he would get in his tempers, he would express hate towards everything.”
“My family literally rescued me. The night that they were there, they had to pull me out of his arms and buy an emergency flight. I left all my belongings.”
Many, many Lovefraud readers will recognize these behaviors. Sociopaths are typically fun in the beginning, while they are seducing their targets. Once the target is committed to the relationship, the sociopath stops pretending. Then the target sees sudden rage, isolation, physical abuse and hateful statements.
Sitora called Mateen “bipolar,” but that have been a misinterpretation of the symptoms. Or, maybe he was bipolar, because some sociopaths are also bipolar.
Watch the interview: Orlando gunman’s ex-wife: ‘He would get mad out of nowhere’
Frequenting gay clubs
Mateen targeted a gay nightclub, the Pulse. At first, experts thought it was because the Koran says homosexuality is a sin, and the prophet Muhammad said homosexuals should be killed.
Islam and homosexuality: What does the Koran say? on Haaretz.com.
Then multiple witnesses said that Mateen had frequented the Pulse for years. And he wasn’t casing the joint for an assault, he was getting drunk and belligerent.
Plus, he used gay dating apps and asked at least one man for a date.
Orlando shooter Omar Mateen was gay, former classmate says, on PalmBeachPost.com.
Mateen was also married twice. So was he confused about his sexuality?
I don’t think so. Having sex with both men and women is normal for a sociopath. Sometimes they’re looking for sexual variety. Other times they view sex as a tactic for controlling people. Many sociopaths are neither straight nor gay they’ll have sex with anyone.
Plus, Lovefraud’s research shows that sociopaths who are sexually deceptive are more likely to threaten violence and engage in physical abuse than sociopaths who are not sexually deceptive.
It seems to me that Omar Mateen took the next step to mass murder.
Bullying and intolerance
When he was in the fifth grade, Omar Mateen bullied classmates, threw chairs and threatened to shoot up his school.
Orlando shooter Omar Mateen ‘threatened to bring a gun and kill students at his elementary school’, former classmates reveal, on DailyMail.uk.co
In 2001, Mateen was a sophomore at Spectrum Alternative School, which was for students with poor grades or behavior problems. He cheered during the 9/11 attacks and claimed Osama bin Laden was his uncle.
As an adult, Mateen worked as a security guard for G4S Security. Daniel Gilroy, a former co-worker and a former police officer, said Mateen frequently made homophobic and racial comments.
It was so bad that Gilroy complained to the company. Then Mateen started stalking him via phone 13 to 15 voice messages, and 20 to 30 texts a day. Lovefraud readers who have tried to get rid of a sociopath know what that’s like.
Gilroy finally quit the job. “I quit because everything he said was toxic,” Gilroy said Sunday, “and the company wouldn’t do anything. This guy was unhinged and unstable. He talked of killing people.”
Co-worker: Omar Mateen homophobic, ‘unhinged’, on FloridaToday.com
Confused about jihadist organizations
Mateen did attend a mosque in Fort Pierce, Florida, although the imam, Syed Shafeeq Rahman, said, “He would come in at the last minute, and he would leave the first minute, and he would not talk to anyone,” according to the New York Post. It doesn’t sound like he was devout.
Mateen was not clearly affiliated with any jihadist movement. As a child he claimed Osama bin Laden, head of al-Qaeda, was his uncle. Al-Qaeda is a Sunni organization. In 2013 he claimed to be a member of Hezbollah, which is a Shiite militia. The next year he had contacts with a man who fought with Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. Then, in the middle of his rampage, he called 911 and swore allegiance to ISIS. These Islamist groups are not allies. In fact, they are often fighting each other.
Omar Mateen may not have understood the difference between ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, on WashingtonPost.com.
Authorities did report that Mateen watched jihadist propaganda online, and searched for videos of beheadings. But that may be more because he was fascinated by violence than spurred by religious fervor.
Orlando gunman Omar Mateen ‘searched for videos of ISIS beheadings,‘ on Independent.co.uk
Omar Mateen didn’t kill 49 people because they were non-believers. He killed them because he wanted to kill.
Cool and calm
After his initial barrage of gunfire, Omar Mateen called 911 and talked to police on the phone. According to the New York Times, the shooter was “cool and calm,” while he talked about more killing, swore allegiance to ISIS and praised the Boston Marathon bombers.
This is key. Omar Mateen had no empathy and no remorse hallmarks of a sociopath.
Former FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole said, “He’s extremely callous. It shows an extreme lack of empathy for the victims, a lack of guilt, a lack of compassion, and those traits did not just occur the day before the shooting no, those were personality traits that preexisted the shooting,” O’Toole said.
O’Toole says the personality traits were entrenched long before Mateen started shooting again, the definition of a sociopath.
Watch the video: Orlando gunman’s alleged sexual confusion betrays ISIS loyalty, on CBSNews.com.
Mateen was not radicalized
The bottom line is that Omar Mateen was not a pious Muslim who was radicalized into becoming a terrorist. Omar Mateen wasn’t a lone wolf, following the call of jihad. He was more like Eric Harris, the Columbine High School killer later diagnosed as personality disordered, who considered the people he killed to be “morons.” Mateen was a bullying, sexually deceptive sociopath, who used ISIS and Islamic jihad as an excuse to do what he really wanted to do kill a lot of people.
Unfortunately, that mean none of the steps law enforcement or government officials could ever take to fight Islamic jihadist terrorism would have made a difference. I believe Mateen was a ticking time bomb who would have exploded one way or another.
How to recover from a sociopathic partner
Bingo.
SPs are capable of just this type of horrible event.
You are on point!!!!! Thank You for sayin it as it IS!!!!!
Am SO glad to see this timely article. When I listened to all the people trying to describe this man’s motives, I thought of the blind trying to describe and elephant, when all they had to do was take off their blinders and see the animal for what he was, A sociopath/psychopath.
The ONLY person that I have found so far that he submitted to, at least face to face, was his dominating abusive cruel Illogical father. The apple did not fall far from that rotted tree. His father taught him how to be a bully, a thug, a smug little gob beating up women, abandoning his child, no loyalty to ANYTHING or ANYONE, contempt for others which fed his sense of entitlement to take the lives of others who allowed him entry into their world. (contempt is a biggie, imho, it signifies more than hatred or bigotry, it signifies an attitude that another is an object to be eliminated at will.)
And like all S/P’s, it wasn’t a matter of conscience to NOT kill, it was a matter of choosing, which he did, with planning and weaponry practice. And while he was shooting, he was driven to duping delight, to sharing his carnage, his superior control over the very lives of others. He HAD to… SHARE… revel… in his ultimate power… I bet he orgasmed over it. Yep, I said it. His thrill (temporarily) filled his bottomless need to dominating power.
How do I know? I’ve LIVED it, when I was married to my ex…whose family is a nest of S/P’s, all of whom have guns and entitlement to murder those they identified as “deserving contempt and death”. The only reason they haven’t murdered so far (that I know of) is that they have other goals… what happens when those goals are no longer obstacles that keep them from chosing to murder? No surprise. When there is no reason to not kill, they will b/c a conscience will NOT stop them.
b/c they don’t have a conscience to stop them…
Psychopath’s and those with severe mental illness (hallucinations, paranoia, etc)are the only people that would be capable of this. In this case, his history shows his patterns of behavior, as you detailed, Donna. I believe the only reason he included the radical jihadist statements of affiliation was for EGO, and to confuse. What really aggravates me is that he was investigated and interviewed at least twice. Of all people, the FBI should be trained in spotting anti-social behaviors… and they passed him off. Why? And the father… clearly displaying narcissistic traits. This horrific event by this individual has harmed so many and created widespread dialogue that has nothing to do with the reality. A psychopath intent on inflicting pain and destruction (winning)– exactly what psychopaths aim to do.
Thank you Donna for this post. As aways another excellent post.
I was thinking this every thought the other day. There are two types of people that would follow the ideology of ISIS. One a psychopath that has found others that are as evil as he is i.e. birds of a feather flock together and someone that is brain washed & mind controlled into the ISIS cult unknowingly.
No doubt he & his manipulative father are both psychopaths.
As for this psychopath’s ex wife & current wife I believe they are both victims of living with a extremely violent psychopath who love bombed them into a marriage & then quickly dropped his mask once married. I believe his current wife was forced out of fear of being killed herself to “case” the very spots like Disney that he planned to attack. I think she was brain washed and like so many victims that are in extreme domestic abusive marriages with a psychopath she stepped over the line of law abiding citizens because she was brain washed & feared that he would killer her too.
The Grand Jury is right now in court deciding whether she will face a trail as an accomplish. Obviously if she would have spoken up i.e. called the police, told a friend, called the FBI she would not be in this situation. But we all know how chaotic mentally it is to live with a psychopath/sociopath you are just literally trying to survive yourself every second of the day that you cant even think your way out of the relationship or marriage or to call a friend for help out.
I know for me I did things to just keep my ex’s chaos to minus even when I did not want to i.e. not going out on a girls night out because then I could open up to friends or having to go out to dinner with he & friends when I was simply exhausted from all his chaos to want to go out because he wanted fully control over me.
My ex constantly told me that he could “kill someone and hide the body in the woods and no one would ever know”…I often wondered if he has killed a person or people or was it just to make sure that I would stay in line. I know now he would have killed me had I stayed. He knew that I am honest law abiding person and knew that if he pushed me to do something illegal or pushed me to do certain things in the bedroom I would leave him. But for this psychopath wife there was another aspect that I was not dealing with = a “religion” (really a brain washing cult ideology) that makes woman submissive to their husband even more so then most victims of a psychopath.
I dont want to get to much into politics but it’s very interesting to watch the news & politicians twist and turn this horrific attack on American soil of innocent people into just a “hate” crime. I personally dont think it was just a “hate crime”…I think he was pure evil and found other pure evil people in ISIS even if he was not in communication with ISIS directly. The mosque that he was a member of also has ties to a bomber that killed himself & others in the middle east. So there is some connect with this mosque, ISIS & these two killers.
As for our news & politicians…On the one hand you have Trump saying we need to protect Americas and know who is entering America which is a normal reasonable response and on the other hand you have Obama/Hillary spinning this into just a “hate crime” & keeping the doors wide open to people we dont know to enter into American soil. It reminds me of me when I left & told our friends that I was in a extremely emotional, mental, verbally, financial & physically abusive marriage but my ex had already told them lies about me and spun things to make him look like the victim and I was the crazy one even though I was telling the truth no one wanted to hear the truth. These politicians if you watch them very cunning & manipulative with their words & how they spin things into their favor… no matter how you are registered to vote they are spinning the truth into manipulative lies. Very sociopathic behavior!!
RIP to all the innocent victims. Prays to their families.
Sad day for America & the World.
Donna,
Once again you see the truth with X-ray vision. You have an amazing ability to hear the story, but read the subtext. You can see what is really going on. That is why you are helping us all see the truth, the subtext of what is really going on. Thank you!
Thank you everyone. Here’s more confirmation that Omar Mateen is a complete sociopath:
Orlando shooter’s early school records show he “lacked remorse”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/orlando-shooters-omar-mateen-early-school-records-note-he-lacked-remorse/
Behavior issues going back to third grade – suspended for 48 days from high school. This is not about jihad.
Found this article. I think it’s important to realize that just because someone is not “radicalized” into ISIS does not mean that some people are not drawn to such an evil group because they are evil themselves. I think we all agree that he was a evil psychopath there are many reports coming out that he was connected to a radical group the question is was it ISIS directly or just a home grown group here in the US that who believed in terror attacks ideology against the US. Here is the article:
“The Orlando Attack ‘Lone Wolf’ Theory Just Went Up In Flames
So much for the “lone wolf” theory being peddled by the media and the administration. A recent ABC News interview with Robert Abell, owner of Lotus Gunworks in Jensen Beach, Florida where terrorist Omar Mateen attempted unsuccessfully to purchase body armor, strongly suggests that the radical Islamist was working with at least one other individual.
“About five or six weeks ago, Omar Mateen came into the store and he was requesting body armor,” Abell told reporters. After being informed that the store did not carry the type of body armor he was looking for, Abell claims he immediately made a phone call.
“At this time, he pulled away and got on his cell phone. When he was on the cell phone he had a conversation in a foreign language. That was more concerning. Then he came back and he was requesting ammo. He wanted bulk ammo only. At that time we declined any business and he left the store.”
The whole incident was so suspicious to Abell, that the gun store owner contacted the FBI to warn them of the strange customer. Unfortunately, Abell didn’t have much information to give them, as he Mateen never purchased anything.
So, just who did Mateen call after he was told he couldn’t get the body armor he was looking for? The FBI should have Mateen’s phone records. The information provided by Abell should provide a lead to for law enforcement to find out who the terrorist’s associates were.”
________article ends.
This guy did not want to die how do we know this because he was trying to buy body armer.. meaning he might not have been a radicalized follower but he wanted to kill in the name of it. The news media have been leaking stories that he had other locations that he wanted to murder innocent people. Like many psychopath that dont want to die but they want to kill & get away with their killings. This is the type of radical person that joins a group or believes in the radical ideology simply because they have evil thoughts.
Keep in mind it’s an election year and the politicians are manipulating the citizens. Obama has manipulative citizens by limiting the release of information on the terror attacks in Boston, Fort Hood, California and this attack in Orlando. This murder called 911 three times!! YES 3 times he called 911.
Yet these tapes have not been released. It reminds me of my ex sociopath h spoon feeding me info over time especially after he finally admitted to having a two year affair & begged me to stay. He spoon feed me info about their affair…why? because he could control me and my thought process with spoon feeding me info he could make me feel insecure like it was my fault he had to have the affair. I wanted to leave him and he manipulated me with the spoon feeding info…This is what our government is doing now. With the fort hood attack Obama came out and said it was work place violence yet all reports show it was a islamic minded attack. Same with California attack…those people not only had guns to kill but they had pipe bombs and used them not only to kill people in the buildings but also used them against the police when they were in case on the freeway.
There are reports now that another witness has come forward stating that his guy meet with other middle eastern men at a bar 2 hours south of his home every week. The FBI is looking into this witness accounts.
Just because someone is not “radicalized” does not mean they dont want to join ISIS…psychopaths & sociopaths want to act on their evil thoughts!!
This was in the Daily mail today. Once you have been in hell with a sociopath their gas lighting abuse, manipulation, pathological lying and every thing else and you then educate yourself you can see these manipulation tactics everywhere even our government under the direction of Obama who is gas lighting the American & World Citizens! This is why it is so important not to weaver from your gut instinct ever! Sociopaths are everywhere blending into our society especially in politics both sides!
“…The FBI initially released partial transcripts of Mateen’s conversations with members of law enforcement during the brutal attack, starting with the 911 call he made at 2:35am, a little over 30 minutes after the first report of shots being fired at the Pulse nightclub.
Much of what Mateen said was redacted, with the FBI making the decision to leave out all references to Islam, 9/11 and any of the groups that the shooter pledged his allegiance to during the attack, which left 49 dead. References to ‘Allah’ were also replaced with ‘God’ throughout…”
This is exactly what sociopaths do they limit info, omit info, change their story over and over to control you & your thoughts!
This is not about politics this is about witnessing someone in this case our government attempting to gas light a whole nation!!
Sick to my stomach for the victims, the injured & their families that the truth is not coming out. They deserve the whole truth!!
They need to Release the full Audio 911 tapes!
(I just want to let everyone know that this is not a political statement it’s just a post about spotting sociopath manipulation especially gas lighting abuse & why it is so important to educate yourself at Lovefraud & read Donna’s books, take her online classes and chat with others on this wonderful site).
Here is a brief description of Gas Lighting abuse. Donna had written countless articles on Gas lighting abuse.
Gas Lighting Abuse:
“A form of intimidation or psychological abuse, sometimes called Ambient Abuse where false information is presented to the victim, making them doubt their own memory, perception and quite often, their sanity. The classic example of gaslighting is to switch something around on someone that you know they’re sure to notice, but then deny knowing anything about it, and to explain that they “must be imagining things” when they challenge these changes.
A more psychological definition of gaslighting is “an increasing frequency of systematically withholding factual information from, and/or providing false information to, the victim – having the gradual effect of making them anxious, confused, and less able to trust their own memory and perception.”
Jan7
Well noted and my added observation:
It bothered me that when questioned about the redaction and the news media being complicit by following the order to edit the audio, they excused themselves as ‘acting in the publics best interests’. AN EXCUSE. I thought I was the only one who felt instantly angry at how blatant manipulation was explained away as…. MORAL??? ARGH!! BACKWARDS THINKING!!!
That was SO like my ex, who would do cruel things like omit the one piece of info that CHANGED EVERYTHING, and was contemptuous of me, saying he did it b/c he HAD to, watching out for me, since I was not smart enough to handle the truth.
NotWhatHeSaidofMe,
I’m with you Not…I am furious that we are being manipulated by not only Obama’s administration but where are all the Republican & Democratic Congressman & Senators? Why are they not demanding that the audio be released for all of Americans & the World to hear? Silent they are allowing this gas lighting of America’s citizens to happen.
I just can not imagine the emotional pain the injured, the families & friends of the victims & injured are going thru….and on top of losing their loved ones in such a evil act then not to get the truth from our government is just salt on their wounds.
Mine too Not…the daily mind games not only exhausted me you get to a point you just dont care what they do. It’s just constant craziness. Look at the new book coming out about sociopath Bill Clinton and his womanizing in the white house being detailed by a secret service officer who worked direct with the Clintons…even he said he did not know who Bill Clinton ever got any work done because he was having sex with countless woman in the WH.
Add all the other politicians both sides manipulative behavior to put millions of dollars in their own pocket a the tax payers expense it like watching Sociopaths con other sociopaths! CRAZINESS in DC…avoid at all cost = lots & lots & lots of sociopaths in DC!!!
Jan7 – I also saw more news. Apparently Mateen gave his house to his sister and brother-in-law for $10 weeks before this happened. Mateen’s wife was a witness to the quit claim deed.
The brother-in-law is from Afghanistan and is the director of a pro-taliban nonprofit group.
http://www.wnd.com/2016/06/did-mateens-family-know-shooter-sold-home-to-brother-in-law-for-100/#!
I agree with you – Omar Mateen was not radicalized – even if he wasn’t alone in the plot, he was a willing participant because he wanted to kill people. This guy did not want to be a martyr.
Hi Donna, I read about his home also. Makes you wonder about his motives regarding the transaction. Was he planning to flee the US to Saudi he had made two secret trips there or he did not want his wife to get the home if he caught or if he died. This is a RED flag for sure. If he was fleeing to say ISIS in Saudi would he be given a higher ranking in the group for his mass murders?
Here is what I was talking about that our government spoon feeds us info just like sociopaths do to control the situation & their victims. They are not releasing the audio tapes just a transcript that is heavy censored!
“In an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd, Attorney General Loretta Lynch says that on Monday, the FBI will release edited transcripts of the 911 calls made by the Orlando nightclub shooter to the police during his rampage.
“What we’re not going to do is further proclaim this man’s pledges of allegiance to terrorist groups, and further his propaganda,” Lynch said. “We are not going to hear him make his assertions of allegiance [to the Islamic State].”
______
I think the victims, the injured, all of their family members & friends and the America Citizens & world Citizens deserve to hear those 911 tapes. Once again the government is manipulating the truth..they are omitting info = lying to the american citizens.
This is exactly what my ex h a sociopath did to me and everyone. He would limit info & omit info to control me & everyone.
I also read a little about his wife. She went to a “special education” classes so she might have been a very easy target for him to suck her into his psychopathic world of abuse.
absolutely this was my gut response when i first heard the news. sadly the tragedy will probably be politicized rather than recognized for the real threat it presents (sociopaths among us).
“…Lovefraud’s research shows that sociopaths who are sexually deceptive are more likely to threaten violence and engage in physical abuse than sociopaths who are not sexually deceptive.”
very interesting. as a point of interest, my ex-S would cruise gay bars when he was homeless to get free drinks and a place to spend the night. he was also extremely violent and abusive to me (not gay). aside from what he did to me, he had a record of violent crimes dating back to his teenage years.
he said he never had sex with any of the men, that he wasn’t bisexual, and (to me) obviously enjoyed that he “fooled” them to get what he wanted, but i have no idea what really happened. since sex with me was always about manipulation, it was clearly just one of his toolset. i don’t actually care about his real orientation, but unlike true LGBT people i don’t think it was linked to his identity in any way; it was just a means to an end either way. i think this guy is cut from the same cloth.
i think this guy just capitalized on the fact that he was born moslem, that he could simply mention terrorist groups and get everyone in an uproar. and probably when that wasn’t enough to satisfy his narcissistic needs, he took it to the next level of murder. terribly sick, but no–not a jihad.
also i feel bad for his wife if he is truly an S/P. Crazy Guy had me so hooked, then so worn out, so shell shocked, so much my head spinning, and so afraid, i could no longer make rational decisions from very early on, and it just got worse. i’m not trying to absolve her of any responsibility if she truly has it, but nobody is going to understand the enormous pressure and stress she was under and how compromised she really was, if that is the case.
Yes – I am waiting to see what comes out about the current wife. My guess is that she was brainwashed – much like the woman who helped those 2 prisoners escape in New York last year.
There’s an article about Charlie Sheen who was sexually deceptive in that he didn’t tell all his partners that he was HIV positive… but he says he was excused b/c he had a good reason. That he had several options was a fact that he seems to completely overlook. Typical of a S/P, just as my ex was unable to see options either, and of course, it was my fault.
Their logic is mindblowing but predictable once we accept they are S/P and what that actually means.