Re: Look!!! He's acting a bit 'weird'!

On 8 Jun, 11:53, nigel <use...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
x-no-archive: yes

of mice and monkfish wrote:

If you wish a poster would clear off, as far as i'm concerned, you
are
entitled to your opinion, and you are entitled to express it - but
that doesn't mean i agree with it, or that your opinion is 'right' or
morally acceptable.

Go back and re-read it for yourself.  It's right there in black and
white.  I don't know how i can state my position any more clearly than
that.

See if I've got this right - you believe in freedom of speech, but if
someone expresses a different opinion to yours, you can challenge them
and call them names?



Calling someone who has put forward an inconsistent, untenable
position a 'hypocrite' is not calling someone names. It is pointing
out the weakness of their position, and drawing attention to the
double standards they subscribe to. Pointing out that someone is a
hyporcite in a discussion about ethics is the same as proving a
mathematical theorem to be false. These are different terms we use
for different arenas of debate.

But, if you want to challenge someone and call someone names, than -
yes - you are entitled to. You are unlikely to be taken very
seriously, though


The thing about 'pitchfork-waving villagers' is a metaphor.

There are other types of violence besides physically killing someone.
Bullying and intimidation are also forms of violence - and when an
individual is suffering like this chap seems to be, the slightest
'knock' is magnified a thousand times.  Which is why i think it is
incumbent upon us to show him respect and consideration of a kind he
won't be able to get elsewhere.  We may not be able to help him, but
that doesn't mean we have to hound him out of here, either.

At last you seem to see some of the weaknesses in your analogy.



I was describing certain trends i saw, and exaggerating them to make
them evident. I didn't mean it literally. In that respect, all
anaolgies are 'weak'.



A better one might be to regard this as a group of dentists. sgates has
come in here with a broken leg and is screaming his head off. I want him
to go to A&E to get help. You want him to stay so you can hug him,
without treating the source of his pain. And all the time, nervous
patients who want help with dental problems are turning away because of
all the screaming.



That's a really poor analogy, for all sorts of reasons. For one
thing, you say this is a group of dentists, then you start talking
about patients. Who are the patients and who are the dentists? Are
you a dentist, or a patient?

How many people are trained psychiatrists/psychotherapists/
counsellors? By my count, we have one. Therefore, anyone who comes
here with a serious, legitimate depressive illness is, strictly
speaking, beyond the professional expertise for the people here to
cope with.

Also, the conclusions you draw from this weak analogy are not even
consistent. Say someone fell over and outside the dentist and twisted
his ankle and is taken into the waiting room so he can sit down and
take some time to recover. Would you say that it would be totally
unacceptable for the dentist to sit the chap down and try to make him
as comfortable as possible, to give him ice for his ankle and a chair
to sit down on? I'm not talking about expertise, i'm talking about
basic human decency. If you were a patient in the waiting room
waiting to see one of these dentist/patient hybrid things, would you
sit there and say, "Well, this chap obviously has no business being
here - they ought to throw him out on the street."

Moreover, lots of other people here have other, non-depression-related
problems. We have people with OCD, we have alcoholics, we have people
with broken hearts, we have hypomanics, we have BPDs, we have
aspergics, in the past we had a regular poster who was a paranoid
schizophrenic, and another chap who was blind, we have someone here at
present with Korsakoff's syndrome, we have people who can't find a bra
that fits, Peter Clark was dying from cancer, we've had people talking
about news servers and computer problems, we've recently had a thread
about ordering coffee at starbucks and using the train. Now,
according to you, none of these subjects should be allowed to be
brought up, either, since they are not depression, and we do not have
the necessary 'expertise' to help these people.

You've got cancer? *** you. See an oncologist.

You're friend/mother/sister/wife/brother died? So what. Go to grief
counselling.

You have OCD? Not my area of expertise, mate. See a clinical
psychologist.

Again, i'm talking about a blatant double standard.

One person can talk about one non-depression topic, and be permitted,
but someone else, because he's a bit different, cannot. That is an
inconsistent, untenable position.


Subscribing to the group, coming here every day, reading the posts,
finding oneself interested in the posters, following their stories,
keeping track of the various in-jokes, the awareness we have of the
group's history . . . all these things constitute some form of group
identity.  Sure, anyone /can/ post here, but not everyone does.  The
ones who do choose to, and choose to keep coming back.  That decision
they make brings the group into being.

So you regard sgates as part of the we?




You mean someone, a human being, suffering from acute mental distress
and not knowing what to do about it? Yes.

I'm talking about the validity of human experience, you're talking
about a label. I say the former outweighs the latter. You say the
opposite.


It's not me that is imposing my standards on the group

But you are trying to.

If I were to impose my standards on this group, I wouldn't ban sgates
but I would stop most of his posts. The ones I would let through would
predominantly be the ones about his problems in getting to see his pdoc
and the ones in which he appears to admit that he isn't taking his meds,
which I notice none of your 'we' have answered.



It goes without saying that he needs help that we cannot give - that
is in fact true for everyone here. Can you heal BTN's broken heart?
No - so why don't you tell him to take is some place else? Can you
help Moondog go into a cafe and order a latté? No? Well, according
to you he has no business bringing it up here. Can you do anything
concrete and realistic to help crissy feel better? Can you give
anyone here a magic pill that will make their lives better? No.

We're trying to help S Gates in the same way that we are trying to
help one another, by respecting him, showing him consideration and
giving him a place to express himself.

Moreover, i'm not so sure that taking his meds will help. I have a
certain amount of distrust in the psychiatric establishment, and do
not presume to say definitively what's best for someone in such a
situation, because i just don't know.

What we're doing for S. Gates is the same that we're doing for
everyone else here - we're keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for
the best.


monkfish



Evil Nigel

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