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Ashley Brooks

Abnormal Psychology Proseminar

Professor Little

2 September 2018

Movie Analysis: My Friend Dahmer

In the movie My Friend Dahmer, which was released in 2017 and directed by Marc

Meyers, we see the story of the teenage boy named Jeffrey Dahmer who eventually turned into a

serial killer that everyone would know about for years to come. Most people know about how

Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer who killed, raped, and ate 17 males, both young and old. The

story the public does not know as much is what helped to turn him into the man he became and

how external and internal factors were evident in his life in his younger years. The point of the

movie is to expose that part of the story to the greater public.

Jeffrey Dahmer had antisocial personality disorder, which is known to have symptoms of

having complete disregard and violation of the rights of others, not conforming to social norms,

and aggressive and destructive qualities. People also are comfortable with breaking rules,

deceiving people, and stealing. People with antisocial personality disorder often have impulsive

and cognitive-attentional deficits, fearless tendencies, and they are emotionally unresponsive due

to the amygdala in the brain not properly functioning. Antisocial personality disorder is known

for having biological factors, because it can be inherited through genetics.

(1) During the movie, we see many characteristics and symptoms displayed by Jeffrey

Dahmer which point to having antisocial personality disorder. A great example were his episodes
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where he would spaz, make flailing arm motions, and would make distressing noises in public.

He could have started this because he felt an inability to properly communicate with people and

society, so he decided to make a scene to have some interaction. During these episodes he didn’t

care about the safety of others or if he was scaring other people. During the final episode he had

in the mall, he was scaring people and knocking objects over not caring about how people in the

mall were terrified of him. He never cared about his own safety either. He would drink and drive

often and he would pick up roadkill off the side of the road without gloves, so he was not

concerned about contracting diseases from the dead animals. He also tended to lie or to

manipulate people and he never felt guilty about it. He manipulated and lied to the girl to get her

to go to prom with him, but then ditched her, not caring about her emotions. He lied to his friend

when he was home alone trying to get him into the house after graduation. He also lied to Steven

Hicks at the end of the movie. He told Steven Hicks he was going to party more and was driving

in the way that Hicks wanted to go, both of which were lies, because instead of going to party,

Dahmer killed him and started on his serial killer streak where he would then kill 16 more men.

He also lied to the doctor he was stalking by saying he was sick to have an appointment, but the

only reason he wanted an appointment was because he wanted to interact with the doctor.

Another characteristic of antisocial personality disorder is that he struggles with handling his

emotions and would become irritable and aggressive quickly. In the movie, he became extremely

upset because the man he was infatuated with did not come by when he was waiting for him on

the edge of the street, so he angrily hit his wooden bat against the tree and snapped his bat. He

then went out and killed and gutted a dog, which makes it seem like his violent actions were

directly correlated with him being either extremely upset or angry. He almost killed a dog after

his mom was fighting at his house, and he was clearly upset about it, but he ended up fighting his
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urge and did not kill the dog. We see this tendency again when he was clearly upset about how

his friend didn’t stay with him but left, so then he went out and went after Steven Hicks. His

violent outbursts were linked to his sadness and irritability. He also went against social norms

because instead of being focused on sports or hanging out with people he was instead focused

and fascinated by the insides of animals and humans. He had a pet cemetery when he was young,

and he would spend his time cutting up animals and dissolving them to learn more about their

insides all through high school. All these symptoms displayed by Jeffrey Dahmer link directly to

antisocial personality disorder. He met full diagnostic criteria for the disorder because he showed

a pattern for five of the symptoms when you need to only show a pattern for three. He showed a

pattern of a failure to conform to social norms, not concerned with safety, deceitfulness,

irritability and aggressiveness, and lack of remorse. He was over 18 when he started on his serial

killings, and he there was evidence of conduct disorder with onset before the age of 15 years

because he had his pet cemetery and a lot of the symptoms started showing up early in childhood

and exasperated early in high school.

(2) During the movie, Jeffrey Dahmer showed other symptoms of mental illness, but they

didn’t completely match the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder. For example, his

obsession with cutting up animals and the insides of animals and humans can relate to antisocial

personality disorder because it goes against social norms, but it also is a symptom of unusual

behavior that links to mental illness in general. He dissolved a dead cat in his lab, he cut a fish up

because he needed to see it’s insides, stared at decomposing animal bodies in his science lab in

class, picked up road kill off road to dissolve at his house, and would kill animals to then see the

insides of them. His fascination also seemly to correlate with death, as seen when a girl asked if

he could draw her, he had her lay down and drew her as a dead corpse crime scene in the
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classroom. He also would become extremely upset, breaking down crying in his house. He also

became upset when he realizes he didn’t have friends, and he would not talk about his feelings

with others. He also talked about wanting to be normal and how others should want to be normal

with his peers. These qualities are seen to point to depression, a mental illness that is often

common in teenagers. Jeffrey Dahmer also had stalker qualities, which is another unusual

behavior that could point to mental illness. He was fascinated with the man running down the

street by his house, and he would wait for him on the side of the road like a predator, and he even

pretended to be sick so he could go to the man who was a doctor for an appointment to get to

interact with him. Other people in the movie showed symptoms of mental illness as well, not just

Jeffrey Dahmer. His mom seemed to struggle with bipolar disorder, because she would go from

being extremely happy to then extremely upset or angry at everyone around her. She has been

hospitalized multiple times for her condition, and she was struggling with it day in and out. She

also may have had an addiction issue, because at one point in the movie we see her become

extremely upset about dropping her pills, and Jeffrey becomes upset, insinuating she has a drug

abuse issue. There was another teenage boy in the movie who had a mental illness as well. He

would cut his hand and drink his own blood, he had drug issues, and he had a gun and was

playing Russian roulette with himself. He clearly did not care about the life that he had, and he

had a severe mental illness, along with Jeffrey Dahmer and Mrs. Dahmer.

(3) The cause of Jeffrey Dahmer’s mental illness a multitude of reasons, but there were

some major ones that popped out in the movie. The first is that genetics play a factor in mental

illness and his mother clearly struggled with a lot of mental illness, which could have easily been

inherited or made him more susceptible to mental illness. His dad said that he had similar issues

when he was little with wanting to spend his time with himself in a lab, so with that and the
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mental illness from his mother, it would make sense for genetics to play a major part in why he

became who he was. He also seemed to have a strict and stressful family life and home, with his

parents constantly fighting. His mom’s mental illness caused her to become angry and she would

fight with her husband, and that eventually led to a split and they got divorced. This aggressive

and stressful family lifestyle he lived in everyday could have also been a cause to his mental

illness. While he was at school, he saw many people get bullied for being homosexual. He was

attracted to males, so seeing this abuse could influence how he went about his homosexuality.

Instead of going about his homosexuality in a normal way, he went about it in a violent and

abusive manner by raping and killing all the men he got involved with. This could have been

influenced by the bullying he saw of the people in high school who were homosexual. He was

also bullied in high school, which could help to lead toward the antisocial personality disorder he

developed. Dahmer was also influenced by his deviant peer group which would instigate his

behavior of doing crazy things in public like his spaz episodes. They would encourage him to do

the bad behavior instead of helping him to be a better person and work through his issues. They

helped to instigate the mental illness symptoms that were becoming more evident. He also saw

other people with mental illness act out in strange ways, such as drinking blood, drinking, and

playing Russian roulette, and so seeing those actions could have led him to increase his deviant

actions that were linked to antisocial personality disorder.

(4) Jeffrey Dahmer’s life was affected because of the symptoms he had from the

antisocial personality disorder. Mainly, him killing 17 people caused him to go to the jail for the

rest of his life, therefore ending meaning and purpose he had to his life. Killing that many people

caused him to lose morality in religious views, because killing is a mortal sin. People were

freaked out and disturbed by him, so he was unable to make friends and build a connection with
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someone, making his life sad and without any love. Not being able to have any connection with

people only helped to make his mental illness worse. He was unable to handle his emotions and

the anger he had due to his mental illness, so he then resorted to drinking to numb all that he was

feeling. In the movie we saw that when he was upset or mad he would drink to help him handle

what was going on or what he was feeling.

(5) His mental illness also affected a ton of other people in many ways. Him killing 17

people caused all those people to lose their lives, and it also caused extreme suffering and

sadness to all the people who loved those people who now had to struggle with the sudden and

horrible loss of a loved one. He would scare and freak out almost everyone he encountered.

People at school didn’t understand him and would try to stay away from him. His friend almost

got fired from his job because Dahmer made a scene at his work. He freaked people out such as

his roommate on the trip, when he asked if his insides were the same color as anyone else’s just

because he was black. He scared people in public when he would make a scene, the biggest

example of this being when he had the huge episode in the mall around a ton of people. He also

affected the family life at home. Even though the family life was rocky without him, he added

stress to the parents, and a lot of the fighting would be over him. He stressed both of his parents

out, especially his father who tried to help as much as he could, but Jeffrey Dahmer never

changed for the better. Every single person who met Jeffrey Dahmer seemed to be affected in a

negative way because of his antisocial personality disorder.

(6) I think that this movie did a good job at representing the mental illness that it was

discussing. Instead of attacking Jeffrey Dahmer for what he did, the movie showed a lot of

external influences which could have influenced him as well. The movie tried to show all aspects

of his disease, and it even showed how he tried to fight against the disease when he almost killed
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the dog but then decided against the dog and let it go. The movie does stigmatize mental illness

in the fact that it shows how Jeffrey was weird and was unable to fit in with people, which can

help to increase stigmas. It increases the stigma that people with mental illness are unable to fit

into society. In reality with Jeffrey and the antisocial personality disorder, he couldn’t fit into

society, so I don’t believe that the movie could have avoided that stigma. I feel like the movie

showed a relatively accurate depiction of the symptoms and everyone that was involved in the

story. The biggest reaction I had to the movie was a question that I don’t think I will ever be able

to know the answer to. I am a religious person, so I believe in Heaven. Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17

people and impacted hundreds of lives in a negative way. At the same time, he had a mental

illness that was a disease that influenced his brain and actions in a way that he couldn’t control.

He had a rough life where he did not have a lot of options to get help, because he was on the

edge of society and his family. If he had a disease that he could not control, then would he still

be able to go to Heaven even if he killed 17 people? Would God forgive him because he had a

disease that wasn’t his fault, and the killings were a side effect of it, or would he be unable to go

into Heaven. Ever since we watched the movie, it has been a question I have been asking friends

and family, getting different opinions on it. I don’t think I will ever be able to know a definite

answer, at least not until I can ask God myself, but I think this question gives us something that

everyone in society needs to consider. Since mental diseases and illnesses are just like biological

ones, we need to take this into consideration and truly think through their actions when we are

judging people for what they are doing or saying. There may be an underlying mental illness that

is influencing them in ways we would not be able to understand without having the disease

ourselves.