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Oooh, and I get a badge for reading them too.
“benzbanana joined: January '14”… heh, heh, ahem… homer-disappearing-into-green-fence.gif
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Shit, it doesn’t even take a university psych Dept. running an experiment. Just, you know, going to work, or trying to buy a burger can provide all the evidence you need.
The troll in me wants to say that this is a prime example of inbreeding catching up to people, but given the rather brisk discussion on mental illness, I’ll refrain.
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I agree 100% with the goal of minimizing the stigma of mental illness. The only thing that bothers me about this rule is this -
In this video it appears to me that it is possible or even probable that the woman knows she is lying as she’s screaming about being run over, i.e. she’s not delusional but rather acting with ill intent. But at other times we get a video with someone (practically) obviously operating from a state of delusion - times where we cannot imagine any gain from the behavior.
Sometimes the early comments to those videos are of the “Christ, what an asshole” variety, whether or not in so many words. I have sometimes brought up the possibility of mental illness precisely because I think it’d be shitty for someone who has had the same set of issues to read comments describing someone like them (or someone close to them) as mean or as an asshole or what have you.
So in the name of maximizing compassion and empathy how should we approach that situation?
But some sorts of shitty behavior clearly can be attributed to mental illness. That’s why it’s a frequent defence in court.
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It’s a hard call.
I will say this regarding this specific story, though; someone up thread pointed out that this is not the first time the woman in question has been recorded creating a scene where she screamed bloody murder about being a victim.
Again, I won’t speculate as to her potential motivations; but at the very least, she seems to be an energy leech, actively seeking out negative attention.
None of us here is qualified to make such an assessment based upon mere Youtube footage.
And again, if anyone actually is a certified mental health professional then they already know how unethical and ill advised it is to arbitrarily diagnose someone online.
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But that’s the thing here - it’s not against the rules to speculate on motive or intent! The only exception is if you speculate that they HAD no motive or intent, but were acting without will.
But it is, if your speculation includes playing ‘armchair psychiatrist.’ Note that while I personally think something is very wrong with the woman in question, I specifically avoided diagnosing her.
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Right, that’s what I meant about acting without will. Under the current guidellines it appears to be okay to say someone was being an asshole but not okay to say “Well, maybe it’s not their fault.”
I feel like that policy needs to be maybe phrased more narrowly, because again someone who has had a mental illness that caused them to behave similarly wouldn’t read a single compassionate comment but may read several cruel or at least insensitive comments.
The closest to compassionate that I can come up with there is “I can’t imagine what their motive could be” and that seems inadequate, or that it would just become a proxy for “They seem mentally ill to me”
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Phrasing matters.
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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!!
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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.
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That is the sad truth right there.
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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.
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I agree with you on this. It’s usually just sensational, and definitely never Wonderful ™
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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.
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