What was eating Kyle Huff?

Kyle Huff, 28, killed six people and then himself on the morning of Saturday, March 25, in Seattle. Since there were no arguments and thus--in the eyes of the media and police--no apparent motive, nobody knows why he did it. Well, the universe offered me an explanation, and I feel the need to share it.

Kyle Huff was isolated and lonely. For several years he had tried to make connections with people, with varying degrees of success, but usually still felt uncomfortable around them. It wasn't so much that people didn't like him; it was his own perception of himself that led him to have negative feelings. Despite having an identical twin brother, he failed to ever feel truly connected and accepted in this world.

He didn't know what to do with his negative feelings. He couldn't admit to them, let alone talk about them. He was unable to admit--even to himself--that he felt isolated and insecure. To him, admitting those feelings would have been a sign of weakness. Weakness was not an acceptable trait for him to have, in his eyes.

Kyle didn't like the way he felt at all. He needed to get rid of those feelings somehow. He couldn't keep them inside of himself because they were hurting him, slowly eroding his self-worth. He couldn't get them out by talking about them because that would have been an admission of weakness and defeat. But he had to do something. So he decided to lash out at the people who were, without any fault of their own, the cause of his insecurities: his would-be friends.

When Kyle entered the rave scene a couple of months ago, he was already playing with the idea of killing people. But he also still had hope to finally make the connections there he had been seeking for years. He knew how accepting and welcoming the rave scene was, and if he could make friends anywhere, it would be there. And people did welcome and accept him. But he still couldn't shake the feeling that he was different from them, that he didn't fit in. He felt that they accepted him by default and not for who he truly was. He was jealous of all the guys he met there because of how easy-going and outgoing they were, how easily they seemed to navigate the world of dancing, dating and sex. He was also jealous of all the girls because of how comfortable they seemed with their bodies and how nice they were to him in spite of his certainty that none of them could ever truly like him with all of his insecurities and perceived weaknesses.

As Kyle started meeting people at raves, he still felt pretty uncomfortable around them. He despised that people had that kind of power over him, the power to make him feel uncomfortable. He wanted to be like them, light-hearted and loving life, but he didn't see a way for him to reach that point. It was killing him to see that even the nicest and most accepting people couldn't make him feel comfortable with himself. So he decided to kill them. His motive was revenging his own isolation and insecurities.

Cracking down on the rave community is not going to prevent actions like this in the future; neither are stricter gun controls. What we really need to crack down on is isolation. We have to find a way to make sure that people don't feel isolated, and that everybody has a safe and peaceful outlet for their deepest, darkest insecurities. We need to find a way to assure people that they are not alone in their insecurities and weaknesses, so that they don't end up the lone gunperson at a mass killing.

I know all of this because Kyle appeared to me in a dream last night. I am not in any way trying to defend his act; I am just offering an answer to the question everybody is asking right now and nobody seems to know the answer to: Why? This is why.

In the spirit of the Reverend at Williamson's Church who said "Where there once was anger, let there now be peace", rest in peace, Suzanne, Melissa, Jason, Jeremy, Sushi, Deacon, and Kyle.