Change

and it would be rude to point them out directly

I don't think it's rude! Go ahead, stab me with the truth!

it would be more interesting to analyze what made this type of thinking appear and seem subjectively normal in the first place

I can see why you might think that, but unfortunately, it's actually not very interesting (recovering from stress- and sleep-deprivation-induced nervous breakdown back in Feburary and trauma of subsequent involuntary "hospitalization" (I actually think the word imprisonment is more appropriate), phenomenology and family history suggesting an underlying disposition towards schizophrenia-like problems).

The irony of your comment is that your own lack of understanding (namely your original idea that Zack was "pretending" to misunderstand) is almost as bad a misunderstanding as the one in the post.

in a way that demeans someone not participating in the discussion

How is this relevant? Like, if I have a map that I claim reflects the territory, and you're saying that my map demeans someone who's not here, that doesn't say anything about whether the map predicts features of the territory that, in fact, aren't there.

atypical social understanding, not [...] underlying ambiguity

This is kind of mind-projection-fallacious. Situations that look unambiguous if your expectations are already calibrated to them can be a lot harder to decipher for people with atypical social understanding, like foreigners, children, or (in this case) otherwise-mostly-ordinary adults recovering from a psychotic break.