Aileen Wuornos Borderline Personality Disorder

Aileen Wuornos, also known as Aileen Pittman or Aileen Carol Wuornos was born on February 29th of 1956 in Rochester, Michigan. She was the age of 46 at the time of her death, a white woman with Finnish descend. Although she was briefly married to Lewis Fell, she later fell in love with Tyria Moore, a woman with whom they stayed together for four years which made her a bisexual (Broomfield et al., 2003).
Aileen was a sex worker or prostitute from her childhood at the age of 13 where she used to exchange sex for cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, and food. During the time of her death, Aileen was in Starke, Florida, USA (Theron et al., 2004).
Due to her childhood life, Aileen had a borderline personality disorder which was stemmed from her abandonment

by her mother and the death of her adoptive grandmother. When in school, she was most of the time irritable by small issues and got hot tempered very fast resulting in her friends sidelining her because they feared her (Theron et al., 2004). She also got diagnosed with vision and hearing disabilities which she never went for further evaluation and treatment. She lived like an outcast in the woods at the edge of the street, mostly alone, and confined to her own world of fear which in turn overwhelmed her and triggered her actions of killing. In order to justify herself, Aileen would say that it was an act of self-defense that led to her killings. Apart from her borderline personality disorder, she also suffered from domestic instability and sexual assault which later developed into her hatred for mankind and antisocial behaviors, leading to several other severe psychological disorders (Broomfield et al., 2003).
Aileen grew up in Rochester, Michigan before moving to Florida at the age of 14. Given her Finnish descend, and the lack of a parental figure, she mostly lived outside the cultures and laws of the society in general. She did not identify herself with any ethical group, behaviors, or beliefs (Theron et al., 2004). Her dysfunctional troubled family led her to encounter a troubled childhood and caused her not to complete her elementary schooling. Being hot tempered, she was unable to form any social relationships and through this, she did not have any friends. This resulted into her dropping out after indulging into drugs and got pregnant (Theron et al., 2004). Her performance in school was very poor due to the above stated issues in addition to her hearing and vision disabilities.
The fact that Aileen suffered from antisocial personality disorder made it difficult for her to relate to other people and because of this she had no concerns whatsoever for anyone, not even her aunt whom she believed to be her stepsister (Broomfield et al., 2003).

Her condition led her to threaten the lives of both Keith, her elder brother, as well as her aunt. This is to say that the patient (Aileen) did not associate with other people positively. In addition to that, she was married to Lewis Fell for only nine weeks before the annulment of their marriage by the husband who got a restraining order against her following the fact that she had hit him with his own walking cane (Theron et al., 2004). She later fell in love with a woman named Tyria Moore with whom she stayed with for more than four years. During these periods, Tyria was also violently abused and assaulted by her lover Aileen. Tyria later betrayed Aileen and testified in court against her. Her friendship with her neighborhood friend Dawn Botkins did not suffice these problems and after years of not seeing each other, the only forms of communication they had was through letters they sent to each other and sometimes, Aileen would draft the letters and stash them away (Broomfield et al.,

2003).
Diane Wuornos and Leo Dale Pittman were the biological parents of Aileen, Diane got married to Leo at the age of 14 while Leo was 16 years old (Theron et al., 2004), their elder child was Keith who was one year older than Aileen. This marriage lasted for about two years and a few months before Diane filed for divorce. Leo was later arrested and convicted of sex crimes against minors, and he also suffered from schizophrenia. Eventually, while still in prison he hanged himself (Theron et al., 2004). On the other hand, Diane abandoned her children and left them under the care of her parents and their grandparents Laura and Britta Wuornos who later legally adopted Aileen and her brother.
While under the care of her grandparents, Aileen was sexually assaulted by her grandfather, beaten, and sometimes forced to strip naked in front of him (Theron et al., 2004). She was later raped by her grandfather`s friend which resulted into her pregnancy. The death of her grandmother who suffered from liver failure took her to the edge because it was about the same time when she was pregnant. She was thrown out of the house by her grandfather and that is when she started prostituting to make a living (Broomfield et al., 2003).
Due to the fact that she was thrown out of the house and did not have a way of supporting her unborn child, she gave the baby boy for adoption immediately after giving birth (Broomfield et al., 2003). Her connection with her brother ended as she drifted further away from home to Florida. Given the background of her biological and adoptive parents, it is hard to say what culture the whole family came from apart from the fact that they were of Finnish ancestry.
No any treatment or therapy was given to Aileen due to her frivolous and promiscuous life that she led, and the fact that she never settled down in one place, was always arrested, convicted, and moved from one county to another made it more difficult to seek or even want to be helped. She was so lost into her own world of prostitution (Broomfield et al., 2003), robbery, and dealing with her next victim to have the time to seek medical attention or treatment. Aileen fitted in, not only one dimension of disorder but multi-disorders that ranged from antisocial, to borderline (Theron et al., 2004), to schizotypal personality a disorder which is related to schizophrenia. The fact that these disorders did not get any evaluation or medical attention only aggravated things from a bad situation to the worst case scenario of Aileen, ‘The Florida highway serial killer’ among other names in which she was also known as (Theron et al., 2004). Her case stemmed from the fear of abandonment, being assaulted, gang raped to a need and necessity to self-protection from these actions which turned her into a murderer and serial killer.
Many therapists would argue whether or not she was a victim of abuse and assault or whether it was fair for her to die by lethal injection or she did deserve a place at the mental institution (Broomfield et al., 2003).