I completely agree that phrasing matters; that is an apt summary of my last post. What I’m saying is that the guidelines that constrain our phrasing are inadequate in this particular area, and I’m wondering how they could better serve the community.
ETA: I have been trying to word my posts very carefully to maximize understanding, but after rereading them I want to assure everyone I do not have a stick up my ass even if I kinda sound like it!!
I confess to being very confused. She states that “he is videotaping me” so obviously is aware of this, and yet continues to scream about things that are quite obviously not happening, and the video can prove this. And the second video of essentially the same behavior makes me wonder if there are other times she has pulled this and was just not filmed. Does she get off on the attention? Is it a power trip? Or, as we say back home, she just ain’t right. She unquestionably seems to be a very very unpleasant person. I have known people who thrive on and even require chaos and drama in their lives, and without exception they are inherently unhappy folks. I feel badly for her, but would make sure I had no interaction with her that was not recorded.
That is the sad truth right there.
You are far from alone here in feeling compassion for people suffering from mental illness. That’s a good thing to feel.
BUT
For ever person here that decides to diagnose the mental state of a person in a video out of compassion. There are others that do it to punch down or to excuse violent actions such as murder and rape.
Any attempt to narrow the rules to only allow one while not the other is impossible for the moderators to enforce since such a thread just escalates to everyone screaming and name calling in the absence of what is necessary to make a legitimate diagnosis.
Even if they did find a way to enforce such rule. What good would you do that woman to say in this forum that she has condition ________? It won’t cure her. It won’t get her the resources she needs if your diagnosis happened to be correct.
But with all of this said, I would question along these same lines why blog videos like this? It’s not OK to punch down at this person. it’s not OK to diagnose (with or with out compassion). So what exactly is the community supposed to do with this? Other than generate a bunch of clicks and almost always someone gets deleted or banned.
I don’t comment on the content of this type of post for the above reasons. But will comment to try and warn people with good intentions such as yourself to warn them away from the sand traps.
I agree with you on this. It’s usually just sensational, and definitely never Wonderful ™
The point, though, is that you’re not in a position to diagnosis her, even if you were a psychiatrist.
See my comment above.
Can you say that without tying it to mental illness, though? We agitated for this law, because we kept getting comments about people doing racist or sexist things, and people saying that they MUST be mentally ill, when there is literally no connection between mental illness and various isms.
Armchair, public diagnosis of antisocial behavior as an illness is ableism: the believe that “normal” people do not do bad things, so if somebody is doing it is because they are ill or disabled. It discriminates against people with real illnesses and disabilities by associating them with antisocial behavior. It makes “normal” people feel superior to people with disabilities and more afraid of them. There are no “normal” people. We all are part of a continuum, and we all can, at any time acquire a disability, either by disease, accident, or age.
I leave it open that she’s just a shitty person with bad life-coping strategies, and she needs someone to tell her “That’s fucked up. Quit it!”
And then somebody else is offended that you’re stigmatizing mental illness again and the two of you have the same off-topic argument over and over. Isn’t it simpler just not to go there?
This sounds more like a philosophical argument than a medical one
Thanks for your reply Mindysan. I want to clarify that I definitely don’t think the rule should be scrapped, just that it leaves open this other way to stigmatize mental illness, by only allowing behavior to be attributed to character.
I’m just talking about pointing out that someone may be mentally ill, not saying “that person is schizo”.
Again, I think it’s a good rule! The problem, and I don’t think it’s an insignificant one, is that the way it’s worded, it’s okay to watch a video of someone having a psychotic break (I’m saying this hypothetical person IS having the break, not that I think they are) and call that person an asshole but not to say maybe they’re behaving that way because they’re ill.
Actually, the rule says Do not make assumptions as to anyone’s mental state. I guess the problem as I see it is that when you say someone is a jerk or worse, you ARE making an assumption about their mental state; you’re assuming that they are mentally sound and therefore bear the full blame for their action. Any comment attributing behavior to character makes an assumption about mental state.
I genuinely think it’s a problem for e.g. someone with bipolar to watch a video of someone having a full manic episode and then read comments that condemn that behavior as a character issue. At that point it’s already been gone there (for lack of better phrasing).
I guess I worded it poorly. By “acting without will” I meant acting without control of one’s actions.
I understand that side of it; I guess I’m saying that it’s not right to forbid ableism without also forbidding condemnation, that it’s not right for us to stigmatize mental illness by pretending it’s not a possible explanation for a behavior.
This accurately describes every shit-stirring drama llama in my life. I go to great lengths to avoid these energy leeches.
Definitely, people like that are exhausting and can really hurt themselves and others.
It was flagged by someone who felt that
“This behavior is what condition B looks like”
is saying the same thing as
“Person A’s behavior shows she is suffering from condition B”
which would be a violation of the site prohibition on armchair psychiatric diagnosis.
This seems to be right on the arguable line of how far the prohibition extends; when the mod team gets around to it, we’ll find out which side of the line it’s on. Too harsh enforcement of the prohibition could basically shut down all discussion of opinions on mental illness, but too lax enforcement could unnecessarily stigmatize and mislabel people, so the policy can require the mods to make difficult judgement calls.
Well of course they do. Wouldn’t work otherwise. Nor any other type of jet.
But it does drive clicks - look at the numbers of comments in threads like this. Sensationalism sells, and none of us is above falling for it/letting it suck us in.
… my balls.
What about your ba - oh, now I see: There’s three of them? And they are really very small? (About the size of a full stop?)
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