There could be a different path for me in life, the one to a different kind of fame. The more I read about serial killers as research for Janna, the more I see the characteristic killer-making patterns that were present in my life and that could push me in that direction but never did. For every badness that came my way there was always some goodness that canceled it. And then I fled. I learned to flee early, first out of my body, then together with my body out of my country, and twice out of my marriages. Maybe that's what kept me sane. My therapist told me that all signs were there for me to turn out bad but that I somehow miraculously avoided it. It other words, I was fucked up but didn't turned out fucked-up in the head. 

I'm reading an excellent book right now on female serial killers by Peter Vronsky, about deadly women who overthrow our conventions and social constructs on who a serial killer is or could be. It's no longer just a white male in his late twenties who stops killing around his 40s, it is also a woman in her thirties who kills up to her 60s and 70s and beyond, getting only better and better at it, until apprehended.

There is no solid body of study on female serial killers so not much can be glimpsed about how one becomes a serial killer. Much of what we know is unclear and not backed up with enough data. Some things seems to stem from the environmental damage, some are congenital. We simply don't know why some battered lonely disadvantaged children grow up to kill, and others don't. Why? What factors contribute to pushing one over the edge?