# Enough with the "mentally ill" insults outside of the pit **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 18, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177 "2011-08-18T15:16:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/41 "2011-08-18T18:25:30Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > “The media told me” > > The “mentally ill” comment was definitely not an insult but a statement of genuine concern, whether accurate or not. That’s honestly how I read it. It wasn’t meant as an insult, so far as I can tell, but as a genuine concern of mental stability. Whoever that person was, she did not seem right in the head. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/42 "2011-08-18T18:47:33Z")
I’m seriously doubting she is mentally ill. I think she is/was just pushing her book. Really now could a mentally ill person make such an awesome video like this? I think not. > **[sannemoore](https://www.youtube.com/user/sannemoore#p/a/u/2/5zrQJ_ZyERU)** > > Share your videos with friends, family, and the world ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/43 "2011-08-18T19:01:39Z")
As the self-proclaimed Smartest People on the Internet, all dopers are fully capable of diagnosing any number of medical and psychological conditions, including, but not limited to, schizophrenia, paranoid delusional psychosis, and the flu. In fact, if I believe there’s something wrong with me, I’d rather talk it over with a doper than a licensed medical professional, because what does he know? Unless, of course, the doctor is a doper. Then it’s all good. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/44 "2011-08-18T19:15:47Z")
Schizophrenia is a disease that can be diagnosed from samples of writing. It’s got a distinctive pattern one picks up on. Jared Lee Loughner’s videos showed this pattern very clearly, as did seethruart on here. On this specific matter, yes, it’s pretty possible. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/45 "2011-08-18T19:55:30Z")
After reading the thread, by the way, she doesn’t sound schizophrenic to me. Or not as obviously so. Reads more like a rich inner fantasy life or some other mental disorder. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/46 "2011-08-18T20:02:18Z")
If she had written a novel, and was doing this as viral marketing, I would completely respect that. But in that case, her dust jacket copy would have been full sentences instead of fragments, and she would know the proper use of commas. ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/47 "2011-08-18T21:56:05Z")
The whole concept of mental illness invites its use as an insult. With some conditions like depression or anxiety, the sufferer himself comes to a doctor for relief. But many mental illnesses are just someone being annoying to others. When most people found homosexuality annoying, it was considered a mental illness. Today, most people find extreme introversion annoying, so it is considered a mental illness. So it’s not much of a stretch to accuse any annoying person of being mentally ill. I’d like to see less of the “sanity” talk not only on the SDMB but in the media. You continually read about “sane” solutions to immigration, health care, the debt, etc., when “sane” really means “what the writer agrees with.” ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/48 "2011-08-18T22:18:34Z")
> [@PlainJain](#): > > ETA: I note that **Colibri** has addressed this somewhat after the thread was closed and while I was composing the OP. Just for the record, I think in cases as clear as this remarks like “you might want to see a mental health professional” are probably OK in GQ. I am somewhat less comfortable with statements like “you are obviously mentally ill” (in GQ). What I find least helpful are remarks like “I think your cheese done slid off your cracker.” If the person is in fact mentally ill, this is just poking fun at them. Also for the record, I do agree that the person was evidently delusional and probably schizophrenic. My father (as well as other friends and relatives) was schizophrenic and the pattern is all too familiar. ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/49 "2011-08-19T02:29:01Z")
Yeesh, that thread was eerie. I have two cousins who are schizophrenic, and one of them has written various screeds detailing the links between her and a pop singer who supposedly was sending her coded messages through album covers, between her and Russian royalty, between her and the man she thinks is her “real” father (our mutual cousin, who would have been two or three when she was born), and how her life was in danger because she kept questioning the truth about her parentage, my brother’s accidental death, my mother’s death by cancer, and so on. She’s highly articulate and writes rather well; many people with the disease are intelligent. But what she’s writing is utter delusion. All this came back again after reading the posts linked in **PlainJane** ’s OP. The woman who believes she’s Kennedy’s love child shares many, many similarities in style and beliefs with my cousin. Coded messages created from what are obviously coincidences, grave dangers to her life from powerful people, the certainty of her own grandiose importance to history… it’s really rather textbook of paranoid schizophrenia. I’m not a doctor, just someone all too aware of the illness. I think the people were trying to be helpful in asking that the thread be closed. Whether they were helpful in suggesting that she get help… well, that’s the horror of schizophrenia. Every time someone makes that suggestion, her brain is warning her that it’s a lie, that it’s just more proof that the world doesn’t understand the _truth_. It really is one of the most frightening illnesses of the mind. Makes me glad that my wing of the family “only” suffers from major depression. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/50 "2011-08-19T02:54:17Z")
The only seriously mentally ill person I have ever known (a friend from high school who went off the deep end in his mid-twenties) was also convinced that various bands were writing songs about him, as well as sending him coded messages in their lyrics—I had no idea that this was apparently a somewhat common (judging from what other have written) delusion… ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/51 "2011-08-19T02:58:16Z")
… of course, I could be wrong. But it felt like someone trying to imitate it to me more than a real case. Either way, though. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/52 "2011-08-19T04:20:04Z")
Oh come ON. It’s completely obvious that that chick is out of her fucking gourd. She’s battier than batshit itself. Wasn’t this actually an episode of _Law & Order_? The accused insisted he was the illegitimate son of JFK? ---
**Author:** ![Toucanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Toucanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toucanna)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/53 "2011-08-19T05:52:48Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Just for the record, I think in cases as clear as this remarks like “you might want to see a mental health professional” are probably OK in GQ. I am somewhat less comfortable with statements like “you are obviously mentally ill” (in GQ). What I find least helpful are remarks like “I think your cheese done slid off your cracker.” If the person is in fact mentally ill, this is just poking fun at them.{snip} **Colibri** says pretty much what I came to post. To say to someone, “These are the dictionary definition of meaningless coincidence. I suggest you get some help” (Post #18) is not insulting. The reply to that, “I think it’s beyond help” (Post #21) is insulting. To describe a person as being “mentally ill”, or as “having a mental illness” is not insulting. To comment on someone’s behavior with, “you need to take your meds” is insensitive and offensive. People with undiagnosed, misdiagnosed or untreated mental illnesses often live lives of hellish agony. Responding to them with sarcasm and mockery makes their pain much worse. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/54 "2011-08-19T10:45:15Z")
It’s a difficult call though isn’t it? In that train wreck, it was a zombie thread resurrected by a new member. Initially, none of us could have any idea if she was serious or not and so there was some banter. Then there were people discussing things between themselves which was not harmful. Anyway, the bottom line is in a similar thread - if after ten or 20 posts and we think the poster is a bit strange are we supposed to report the thread and say to the Mods “I think this person has a problem?” That does seem subjective and a little junior moddish. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/55 "2011-08-19T12:45:46Z")
A “bit” strange? Thinking you’re JFK’s love child is not being a “bit” strange - it’s squirrel food. So no, it doesn’t seem lit a difficult call at all. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/56 "2011-08-19T13:07:05Z")
I think PlainJane is completely off base here. If sannemoore truly is mentally ill, then closing the thread was the kindest thing to do vs. allowing her to continue using the message boards as a platform to advance her delusions. If she was faking mental illness in order to gain publicity for her sad little book, then it is she who should be chastised, not the posters who responded to her out of genuine concern. Personally, I’m leaning toward the latter. Why? Her user name for one. “Sane no more” or “Say no more” is just too clever of a UserName. Secondly, if I believed that the government was targeting Kennedys, I wouldn’t seek to persuade people that I was a “person of interest.” ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/57 "2011-08-19T14:13:53Z")
> [@PlainJain](#): > > People who believe they can find water by dowsing for it are delusional as are people who think they can predict the future. People who believe that God has spoken to them or believe they have seen ghosts are delusional. How about “people unable to distinguish between having a mistaken belief and being delusional are delusional”? I am with the mob here. The poster in question was either quite seriously mentally ill or (less likely) a troll. Those who pointed out the symptoms of mental illness were not being insulting, they were doing their best (under the very limiting conditions of an anonymous message board) to give kindly help. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/58 "2011-08-19T14:23:27Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > Personally, I’m leaning toward the latter. Why? Her user name for one. “Sane no more” or “Say no more” is just too clever of a UserName. Schizophrenics aren’t mentally retarded. They are quite capable of wit and clever wordplay. > [@](#): > > Secondly, if I believed that the government was targeting Kennedys, I wouldn’t seek to persuade people that I was a “person of interest.” Yes, that would be a sane response. However that’s not how delusional people act. Surely you’ve seen a mentally ill homeless person standing on a corner with a placard denouncing his persecution at the hands of the CIA/Vatican/Jews or whatever. (Although I see this less often then I did in the 80s. I wonder if that’s because they’re online now?) Those people are also drawing attention from their powerful persecutors. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/59 "2011-08-19T14:39:20Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > Personally, I’m leaning toward the latter. Why? Her user name for one. “Sane no more” or “Say no more” is just too clever of a UserName. Secondly, if I believed that the government was targeting Kennedys, I wouldn’t seek to persuade people that I was a “person of interest.” Her name is Shirley Anne Moore, or S. Anne Moore. Anyway, she stated that Jackie O. left the hospital so she could die on some date important to Ms. Moore, even though the doctors could have kept her alive. That’s really beyond any sort of trutherism if you ask me. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2011, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177/60 "2011-08-19T14:40:36Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > The whole concept of mental illness invites its use as an insult. With some conditions like depression or anxiety, the sufferer himself comes to a doctor for relief. But many mental illnesses are just someone being annoying to others. When most people found homosexuality annoying, it was considered a mental illness. Today, most people find extreme introversion annoying, so it is considered a mental illness. So it’s not much of a stretch to accuse any annoying person of being mentally ill. > > I’d like to see less of the “sanity” talk not only on the SDMB but in the media. You continually read about “sane” solutions to immigration, health care, the debt, etc., when “sane” really means “what the writer agrees with.” This is all true. Much of **PlainJain** ’s OP is also true, and without the given example I’d have agreed. But _some_ people accused of mental illness really are broken. In general we should err on the side of assuming sanity, and just deal with particular assertions case by case, and refrain from imputing mental illness to people just because we think they’re wrong. Yes. But some people, sadly, are _gone_. Denying that as a _possibility_ is not a kindness. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-mentally-ill-insults-outside-of-the-pit/593177.md?page=4)