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I would like closure, but I'll take honesty

freddiedeboer.substack.com

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Re: I would like closure, but I'll take honesty

#81

Post by watwut »

unreal37 wrote: post #75
worik wrote: post #33

> I have asked that people consider that I deserve neither total condemnation nor total exoneration. This. In a lot of circles I move there is a tendency to "total condemnation". We can be better to each other. When we do not deserve it is when we need it the most. Peace, love, respect foster peace, love and respect. "Total condemnation" might make the condemner have some temporary good feelings, but does no good for…

Also, "To those of you who are not people I harmed in my psychotic episode in August 2017… what is it you think I owe you?" There seems to be this tendency that people who only learned about something 5 minutes ago get outrage and demand retribution. Like it's a reflex. The mob has vigilante tendencies. Let's go write an email to someone's employer and demand that they fire them. Millions of people band together and…

The original victim seems to be pissed on author for making himself victim now and for not going away from his life as he promised.

Some of the angry people have been there whole time and are actually the ones having to deal with it.

Re: I would like closure, but I'll take honesty

#82

Post by tptacek »

johncolanduoni wrote: post #66
tptacek wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have to consider that counterfactual, since deBoer himself stated clearly that he knew the accusations he was making were false at the time he made them.

I think you’re woefully uninformed about the nature of psychosis. Schizophrenic people are fully capable of telling intentional lies to combat a perceived threat, even when they are imagining that threat due to psychosis. Even for someone schizophrenic, not all psychosis is so dissociative as to not have a goal-oriented thought process at all.

deBoer isn't schizophrenic. Again: the counterfactual proposed here isn't useful.

Re: I would like closure, but I'll take honesty

#83

Post by unreal37 »

licebmi__at__ wrote: post #41
spadros wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As somebody in a family with bipolar I have to disagree. Someone's schizophrenic episodes should be taken into account in judging their actions, just as one's manic episodes should be as well. This in no way excuses their behavior. Whether or not you want to continue associating with that person is a different matter.

Why should it matter? I mean, if somebody tells me that they are intimate with the president, if they want to con me, or are troubled with mental illness, shouldn’t make a difference on the judgment of how trustable are their statements.

Generally, people are judged based on the "facts of the case". If I stole an iPhone from the Apple Store, you can call me a thief and demand I spend 6 months in jail. But if a single mother stole a loaf of bread from a store because their kids were starving and going to die without food, that same punishment might be considered unjust.

Context matters. The facts matter. Not just, "did you do this or not".

Re: I would like closure, but I'll take honesty

#84

Post by unreal37 »

newbie789 wrote: post #76

This is genuinely hilarious, like truly and deeply funny. I’m not familiar with this guy or the 2017 incident but based off of a cursory Google it looks like he’s kind of famous for having ~ edgy opinions ~ about race and intelligence. It’s entirely likely that people dislike him for this reason and not because of some old tweets. This piece is some amazing performative bullshit that somehow accuses anybody that disl…

You go from being "not familiar" with the guy to having a deep "no possible other explanation" opinion really quick.

Re: I would like closure, but I'll take honesty

#85

Post by LeifCarrotson »

pasabagi wrote: post #13
wayoutthere wrote: post #4

I feel profound empathy here. Having been on both sides of this situation, it’s just really complicated . You can forgive a person but really once you’ve seen them in manic psychosis you will never fully trust them or their judgment ever again. There are a lot of contradictory emotions at work and they’re all valid. It’s kind of a shit lot in life, but you get good at making new friends. Eventually you can get it und…

I don't know if this is true. I've had a couple of friends go through manic episodes, and while I very much did not enjoy it, there's a world of difference between them in normal-mode, and manic-mode, and I don't think I trust them less as a result. Maybe it would be different if violence was involved - but I don't think that's very common.

The critical thing is that you're aware that your friend in normal-mode will do different things than your friend in manic-mode. The default assumption is that people have various levels of predictability and trustworthiness in normal mode; learning that someone made a terrible choice once means that their morality and wisdom is not what you thought it was, or at least the variance is extremely high.

People with bipolar disorders are essentially two very different people. You'd be foolish to trust someone in the middle of a manic episode, but and they can be great friends and very trustworthy when in normal-mode.

The problem is that you have to know which mode they're operating in.

Re: I would like closure, but I'll take honesty

#86

Post by johncolanduoni »

tptacek wrote: post #82
johncolanduoni wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re woefully uninformed about the nature of psychosis. Schizophrenic people are fully capable of telling intentional lies to combat a perceived threat, even when they are imagining that threat due to psychosis. Even for someone schizophrenic, not all psychosis is so dissociative as to not have a goal-oriented thought process at all.

deBoer isn't schizophrenic. Again: the counterfactual proposed here isn't useful.

The psychosis that schizophrenic people experience and that of bipolar people is not treated as two separate “kinds” of psychosis by medical professionals. They are treated with exact same medications. We even have a specific disorder name for people whose mental illness includes the overlapping features of both (schizoaffective). So I don’t think you can move the goalposts away from “schizophrenic people can’t intentionally lie due to psychosis” and pretend the counterfactual is totally irrelevant so easily.

Re: I would like closure, but I'll take honesty

#87

Post by newaccount74 »

tptacek wrote: post #65
scythe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lie is intentional. Regardless of the falsehood, it is not a lie if you believe it when you say it. But it is certainly misleading to make these claims about deBoer's actions without context. If this is intentional, then it is intentionally misleading. I wonder if there's a word for that.

Whatever it is, we should all be able to agree that it's not "unambiguous".

If someone suffers from a psychotic episode, and you accuse him of something he does during that psychotic episode without mentioning anything about the fact that he was suffering from a psychotic episode, then that is unambiguously a lie by omission.

People who suffer from psychosis do not behave in a reasonable manner. A psychosis is a medical emergency. It's like complaining that someone caused a traffic accident without mentioning they had a heart attack.

(Disclaimer: I have never heard of deBoer before, and for the sake of discusion I am going to assume he did in fact suffer from a psychotic episode)

Re: I would like closure, but I'll take honesty

#88

Post by msandford »

tptacek wrote: post #48
spadros wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As somebody in a family with bipolar I have to disagree. Someone's schizophrenic episodes should be taken into account in judging their actions, just as one's manic episodes should be as well. This in no way excuses their behavior. Whether or not you want to continue associating with that person is a different matter.

He's entitled to share his mitigating context. It may well be persuasively exculpatory for a lot of reasonable people. He goes far beyond that in this argument, suggesting that he would find dishonest any description of his misconduct that doesn't capture his full state of mind; for instance, any claim that he attempted to "cancel" Malcolm Harris.

I'm not sure we read the same article. I didn't get a "you have to know the full contents of my mind" vibe, but I definitely did feel like he's making an appeal to know the full truth of what he did before you decide how bad he is. And asking people who would publicly write about / condemn him for what he did to at least tell the entire story.

Re: I would like closure, but I'll take honesty

#89

Post by licebmi__at__ »

chrsig wrote: post #58
licebmi__at__ wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should it matter? I mean, if somebody tells me that they are intimate with the president, if they want to con me, or are troubled with mental illness, shouldn’t make a difference on the judgment of how trustable are their statements.

Because we as a society have determined that intent matters -- which is why we have the concept of manslaughter vs murder. It's a hard thing to accept, but if you're wronged by someone in a state of psychosis, there is no true malice. Does it change everything? Certainly not. Change in trust in particular is a hard thing to determine here. You should trust that they're experiencing what they say they are. You should…

I’m not talking about behavior nor judgment of him as a person, I know morality tends to equate this, but I don’t consider it to be the case. I just mean that I wouldn’t trust somebody who tends to lie because of mental illness, the same way I wouldn’t trust somebody without preparation to talk about theoretical physics.

Re: I would like closure, but I'll take honesty

#90

Post by ditonal »

KittenInABox wrote: post #69
kempbellt wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This. In a lot of circles I move there is a tendency to "total condemnation". Which, ironically feels more like a bipolar approach to resolving a problem. Are they good , or are they bad ? Is it legal , or is it illegal ? Are they right , or are they wrong ? Do we punish , or do we praise ? There seems to be this strange generalized assumption that people are bipolar, and they are the problem. Completely ignoring t…

I don't think this is an accurate depiction of bipolar. This is more accurate to the term "splitting" or black/white thinking which is more common in personality disorders.

Yes, unfortunately the vernacular usage of the word bipolar, and actual bipolar disorder, are significantly different. The vernacular usage of 'bipolar' implies sudden mood swings and black/white thinking, whereas bipolar disorder implies episodes of mania or depression that typically last weeks to months. It also doesn't help that people consistently confuse bipolar disorder with BPD because the acronym could work for either.
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