If you are anything like me, you've probably sat and wondered what the hell was going through Jodi Arias's head as she sat in court day after day sparring with the prosecutor, Juan Martinez, knowing that his goal was to put her to death. As she stared directly at the jury, who would ultimately determine her fate, she told lie after lie. Contradicting herself unwittingly day after day....in her mind, she was absolutely telling the truth, or at least her version of the truth. Maybe you watched her interrogation videos and thought to yourself 'something has got to be wrong with her'. Or perhaps you just thought she was simply a cold blooded, calculating murder. But let's look at history....no criminal in our history has ever given such a highly publicized interview just moments after such a serious conviction as capital murder. Especially being that she had an unsequestered jury that still had to decide her punishment. The only way to stop Jodi Arias from further speaking out and continuing to drag her victim, Travis Alexander, through the mud was to put a public ban on all media interviews. Jodi was clearly her own worst enemy.
During the guilt phase of the trial we heard one psychologist after another sit on the stand and give us their diagnosis of what was wrong with Jodi. We heard about her PTSD. (Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), once called shell shock or battle fatigue syndrome, is a serious condition that can develop after a person has experienced or witnessed a traumatic or terrifying event in which serious physical harm occurred or was threatened). Jodi claimed she had symptoms of PTSD due to the abuse she suffered at the hands of Travis. We all know that Travis had not abused her. And furthermore, the results of the PTSD were determined based on a lie. When Dr Samulels examined Jodi and administered the PDS (a diagnostic test used to determine PTSD) he was basing the test results on the lie Jodi had told Dr Flores. At first Jodi claimed to know nothing of Travis's murder. Only after being confronted with physical evidence proving that she had been at Travis' home on June 4, 2006, she then claimed that two intruders had attacked her and Travis, killing him and letting her live only after the gun jammed and the perpetrator threatened to kill her family if she revealed what had happened. As Janeen DeMarte (expert forensic psychologist for the state) stated on the stand "if you base the test results on a lie, it renders the test invalid". If Jodi suffered from PTSD, it's clear that this came on as a result of her killing Travis (and that's a big if). Alyce LaViolette also claimed that Jodi suffered from PTSD which resulted from Battered Women's Syndrome. Being that there was no evidence of Travis ever laying a hand on Jodi, we can conclude that she was not a battered woman. While many battered women never expose their abusers publicly, the signs are always there. We all saw Jodi's journals. Page after page of her talking about how great Travis was and how much she loved him. Jodi even moved from Yrica, CA to Mesa, AZ to be closer to Travis. And after she moved back to Yrica, she decided to take a road trip of over 1000 miles, back to visit Travis. A typical battered women would never willingly return to her abuser. In fact, a battered woman will go to great lengths to hide once she has fled from her abuser. And most battered women stay with their abusers because they have no other way out. Many times having children with their abusers and having nowhere else to go. The clearest evidence against her battered woman story was Jodi's behavior. It quickly became very clear that the aggressor in Travis and Jodi's highly dysfunctional relationship was Jodi herself. We all heard about her slashing Travis's tires, sending him and the women he dated threatening emails, sneaking in doggy doors and hiding behind Christmas trees. Jodi was clearly obsessed with Travis. Think fatal attraction...
Dr Janeen DeMarte diagnosed Jodi with Borderline Personality Disorder. (Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a mental health disorder that generates significant emotional instability. This can lead to a variety of other stressful mental and behavioral problems). This was a far more accurate diagnosis then PTSD. Jodi was clearly unstable. However, a person with BPD would have shown a great deal of emotion when she saw herself in the situation that Jodi ultimately ended up In. If someone has issues with emotional instability, you would think that being convicted of such a thing as first degree murder would send them over the edge. Especially with their claim of self defense and innocence. Instead we saw her sit and give an interview 20 minutes after the verdict was read. Below is a link to Jodi's post verdict interview with Troy Hayden of Fox News in AZ.
Jodi is a little emotional in the beginning of the interview. She starts to claim that the 'fog' is starting to return but quickly changes her mind.
Let's dig a little deeper and see what some symptoms of BPD are. A person with BPD has a great deal of difficulty controlling anger and rage. Jodi seems to be quite the opposite of that. She somehow always seems to stay composed, the only signs of anger being her snarky responses and evil looks. Other then that, the general public has never witnessed Jodi having an extreme episode of anger. People with BPD also tend to become addicts to drugs, alcohol or sex. We saw that Jodi was addicted to Travis so that's one check in the BPD category for Jodi. Another characteristic of people with BPD is they often tend to see things as good or bad, with no in-between. To me, Jodi seems to always see the bright side in every situation. This could possibly be a result of her belief in the 'law of attraction'. When her artwork was banned from eBay, Jodi tweeted that "the silver lining to this was that her artwork would be harder to get, therefore increasing its value". Even when facing the death penalty, Jodi seems unswayed. Nothing seems to get to her. This drives me crazy about her. We would expect any normal person faced with such extreme circumstances to be extremely worried or upset. While Jodi seems shaky in the first few minutes of her interview, she regains her composure extremely quickly. Another symptom of BPD is that people who suffer from the disorder often have impaired memory under extreme amounts of stress. We all saw Jodi lie. While she claimed to have a significant amount of memory loss, the general consensus is that her gap in memory is just too coincidental, not remembering stabbing Travis 27 times or slicing his throat from ear to ear nearly decapitating him. This is not consistent with either PTSD or BPD. Instead, this seems to be due to her pathological lying. She seems to have an amazing ability at remembering her lies....until they are taken out of order and dissected as we saw Juan Martinez do. We know from what she did to Travis that she has the ability to go into extreme emotional outbursts and rage and that she did not handle feeling 'abandoned' by him very well. Two more checks in the BPD category. And finally, BPD tends to make sufferers expect negative attitudes from other. Jodi thinks she can charm her way through any situation, so clearly that doesn't describe her.
Maybe she has some of the symptoms of borderline personality disorder but she clearly has other issues as well. Let's remember that I'm not a Dr or a psychological and am writing this strictly for entertainment purposes. I have never met Jodi and hope I never have the pleasure of meeting anyone like her. That being said, she's given us all a glimpse into her personality. One thing no one can argue is that she is a complete narcissist. (
Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder in which the individual is described as being excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity) ...this is clearly evident in her behavior as well as her words. If you listen to Jodi's allocation 'presentation' closely, you hear the word "I" being used a whopping 180 times!!!! Don't believe it? Here's a link so you can see for yourself...
Her narcissistic personality is also clearly evident in her demands for makeup before interviews her demand to not be shown in her prison clothes and shackles. She believes that she is right and anyone that disagrees with her is wrong. In her interrogation videos you can see her trying to manipulate the detective. Jodi seems to have always been able to manipulate men with a flip of her hair and a tilt to the head. She was not used to people battling with her and most definitely not used to male rejection. She even tried to use the excuse that she had 'no experience with police interrogation'. REALLY JODI?!? Most of the population doesn't!!!
Next lets look up the definition of a psychopath. (
Jodi seems to be a combination of a narssasist and a psychopath. She believes the world revolves around her. There are videos captured of she and Travis apparently at a party (social gathering) in which they both were sitting on a couch. Travis is telling a story and she just lays possessively across his lap. At one point, she seems to become bored and sits up, removing his arm from around her. That is antisocial. We all know she is incapable of showing remorse and her behavior is extremely out of the ordinary. So, there you have it.
Wait a minute though...in a text message that Travis sent to Jodi a week before she murdered him, he calls her a sociopath. Just out of curiosity, lets look up sociopath. (Sociopath a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience). Pretty close to the definition for psychopath. So it would seem, sadly, that although Travis realized that he wasn't dealing with a normal person, he underestimated the danger that comes along with these untreated mental disorders. I would highly suggest that if you happen to meet someone that even seems to have the personality traits of a psychopath/sociopath, RUN in the other direction. These people often tend to be very charming and it's often easy to get caught up in their webs.
As always, thanks for reading!!
***Definitions were obtained online and anything with "" is quoted.
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