yeah i guess i did extrapolate that point out further than you meant it. my bad. i think that labeling people isn’t really the point that i find aggravating, though. its applying clinical labels to people who don’t necessarily have those clinical conditions. like, is psychopathy really what’s going on here? can people really know that observing from afar? i don’t think so, and i think its at least a little bit irresponsible to make those sorts of claims about people because they do bad things. there is nothing intrinsically pathological about causing harm to other people. like, the fact that you seem to think you can identify “clear patterns of harmful pathological behavior” is mostly the thrust of my resistance. it certainly is harmful behavior, and it may very well be pathological, but frankly neither you or i are well positioned to make judgements about the mental health of strangers, in the same way we aught not assume people have a specific physical illness.
i think its probably good to point out that people can do bad things because of their mental illness, but we don’t have enough information to just say she has this specific mental illness because she did bad things. its kinda like speculating on the sexuality of public figures, or at least those two ideas feel similar in my brain.
It’s not just that her behavior is harmful, it’s that she’s creating a whole false reality around it and controlling multiple narratives from every possible perspective. She created/co-opted a movement to go along with the Manson allegations, she moved across the country with her son to reinforce her narrative and used that as a way to hurt her ex husband, she used her power in the role of a child’s mother to create a world in which there was a monster they must run away from at all costs to where the kid couldn’t even play outside in Tennessee because of the monster in LA… And whenever she’s confronted with the idea that what she’s done is harmful to anybody she rewrites or reinforces the narrative that she’s doing it for the right reasons and deflects any responsibility or awareness that she’s done anything wrong (for example, when it looked like she was going to lose custody she suddenly decided it was in the child’s best interest to go live with the father in LA, the very city she ran from in order to protect the very child she was taking away from LA).
I’m not saying everybody who hurts somebody is “pathological” or “psychotic”. I’m saying ERW specifically exhibits a lack of capacity for empathy, a total lack of self awareness or awareness of the effects of her behavior, and has no concern or even acceptance of those effects as reality when confronted with them, and what she does and how she is is characteristic of ASPD.
I’m not saying everybody who hurts somebody is “pathological” or “psychotic”. I’m saying ERW specifically exhibits a lack of capacity for empathy, a total lack of self awareness or awareness of the effects of her behavior, and has no concern or even acceptance of those effects as reality when confronted with them, and what she does and how she is is characteristic of ASPD.
the facts of the situation are what they are, i’m not disputing that. i still don’t think you have enough information or expertise to make clinical claims about her from this situation. you probably know more about the situation than i do, but neither of us are close enough to the intimate details of her personal life to make a diagnosis. you have to be making some assumptions here, and those assumptions seem to follow from her doing a number of pretty messed up things, which is not in itself enough to constitute ASPD pathology. like, one of the requirements for diagnosis for ASPD is having evidence of a conduct disorder before 15 years of age, and we just straight up don’t know enough about her childhood to determine that.
i’m not saying you’re saying that everybody who hurts somebody is pathological, i’m saying that pathology cannot be assumed solely from harm caused to others. she could just really fucking hate Manson, and was a relatively well adjusted person before this whole mess happened. she could have a number of other personality disorders which cause harmful social behavior. she could just be an asshole. none of the things she did are the exclusive domain of the mentally ill, let alone the exclusive domain of people with ASPD, and that’s kinda what bothers me. if she has no formal diagnosis for ASPD, why do you feel so confident labeling her with that? if doing bad things is all you feel you need to diagnose her with ASPD, what does that say about your understanding of ASPD as a mental illness? you’ve articulated the things she’s done, and the abuse she inflicted on her child. why must it be attached to a pathology? like, it seems to me a little stigmatizing. you’ve drawn a link between abusive behavior and ASPD tight enough that you seem relatively certain she has the disorder. at the very least, we don’t know that with any large certainty, and we do know that humans have done terrible things to each other since forever, and for a wide array of reasons.
yeah i guess i did extrapolate that point out further than you meant it. my bad. i think that labeling people isn’t really the point that i find aggravating, though. its applying clinical labels to people who don’t necessarily have those clinical conditions. like, is psychopathy really what’s going on here? can people really know that observing from afar? i don’t think so, and i think its at least a little bit irresponsible to make those sorts of claims about people because they do bad things. there is nothing intrinsically pathological about causing harm to other people. like, the fact that you seem to think you can identify “clear patterns of harmful pathological behavior” is mostly the thrust of my resistance. it certainly is harmful behavior, and it may very well be pathological, but frankly neither you or i are well positioned to make judgements about the mental health of strangers, in the same way we aught not assume people have a specific physical illness.
i think its probably good to point out that people can do bad things because of their mental illness, but we don’t have enough information to just say she has this specific mental illness because she did bad things. its kinda like speculating on the sexuality of public figures, or at least those two ideas feel similar in my brain.
It’s not just that her behavior is harmful, it’s that she’s creating a whole false reality around it and controlling multiple narratives from every possible perspective. She created/co-opted a movement to go along with the Manson allegations, she moved across the country with her son to reinforce her narrative and used that as a way to hurt her ex husband, she used her power in the role of a child’s mother to create a world in which there was a monster they must run away from at all costs to where the kid couldn’t even play outside in Tennessee because of the monster in LA… And whenever she’s confronted with the idea that what she’s done is harmful to anybody she rewrites or reinforces the narrative that she’s doing it for the right reasons and deflects any responsibility or awareness that she’s done anything wrong (for example, when it looked like she was going to lose custody she suddenly decided it was in the child’s best interest to go live with the father in LA, the very city she ran from in order to protect the very child she was taking away from LA).
I’m not saying everybody who hurts somebody is “pathological” or “psychotic”. I’m saying ERW specifically exhibits a lack of capacity for empathy, a total lack of self awareness or awareness of the effects of her behavior, and has no concern or even acceptance of those effects as reality when confronted with them, and what she does and how she is is characteristic of ASPD.
the facts of the situation are what they are, i’m not disputing that. i still don’t think you have enough information or expertise to make clinical claims about her from this situation. you probably know more about the situation than i do, but neither of us are close enough to the intimate details of her personal life to make a diagnosis. you have to be making some assumptions here, and those assumptions seem to follow from her doing a number of pretty messed up things, which is not in itself enough to constitute ASPD pathology. like, one of the requirements for diagnosis for ASPD is having evidence of a conduct disorder before 15 years of age, and we just straight up don’t know enough about her childhood to determine that.
i’m not saying you’re saying that everybody who hurts somebody is pathological, i’m saying that pathology cannot be assumed solely from harm caused to others. she could just really fucking hate Manson, and was a relatively well adjusted person before this whole mess happened. she could have a number of other personality disorders which cause harmful social behavior. she could just be an asshole. none of the things she did are the exclusive domain of the mentally ill, let alone the exclusive domain of people with ASPD, and that’s kinda what bothers me. if she has no formal diagnosis for ASPD, why do you feel so confident labeling her with that? if doing bad things is all you feel you need to diagnose her with ASPD, what does that say about your understanding of ASPD as a mental illness? you’ve articulated the things she’s done, and the abuse she inflicted on her child. why must it be attached to a pathology? like, it seems to me a little stigmatizing. you’ve drawn a link between abusive behavior and ASPD tight enough that you seem relatively certain she has the disorder. at the very least, we don’t know that with any large certainty, and we do know that humans have done terrible things to each other since forever, and for a wide array of reasons.