Comment by brokenbellcurve on Perhaps Try a Little Therapy, As a Treat? · 2024-09-07T18:36:05.386Z · LW · GW

After reading the whole thing, I feel I need additional context from klob around this whole post befoire engaging further. My apologies if this is rather overdefined, I just wish to be thorough.

1. Do you feel that what you have provided in this post and in hyperlinked resources is sufficient for someone unfamiliar with this entire situation to understand your side of things? You make multiple mentions of wishing that people/your friends would allow you the opportunity to provide your side. 
   1. If you do not believe that what you have provided is adequate, please document and provide "your side" such that it is sufficiently adequate accordingly. 
2. If you do believe that this is adequate for a 3rd party to understand your side of things, then can we then agree that any conclusions reached by a 3rd party, regardless of whether you agree with them, were reached with sufficient available information (regardless of the logic/models employed), i.e. you agree that the defense of "they did not get my side" will not be used, and instead any defense provided will be based on addressing the logic and models that act upon the inputs/evidence you have provided?
3. What is your intention/expectation with this post? What do you consider to be a "win-state" for yourself? Is it just for people to believe your claims? Is it to get 3rd party input on this situation? Is it for this Duncan individual to apologize? Is the expectation that you won't be challenged on your claims and that this would just be a de facto blog post? Help me to understand what you're expecting here.
4. Are you willing to engage with the notion that individuals' conclusions can be simultaneously logically reasonable given the available information while being factually incorrect? 
   1. If an individual walks down the street, turns a corner, witnesses a person pull out what appears to be a handgun, point it at someone, a gunshot rings out, blood flies, and the other person falls to the ground screaming, it is very reasonable and even rational for them to immediately flee and call 911, claiming that there has been a murder attempt. If it turns out that they actually stumbled upon a movie set with all cameras and production staff on the roof and actually witnessed the climax of the screenplay, that may mean the individual in question is completely incorrect in their conclusion that there was a murder. However, that does not mean that the individual's logic or mental model was unsound or irrational. 
   2. I am not going to engage on what the absolute truth is because, as you yourself will probably agree, I cannot know what is going on inside your head. For the sake of discussion and within the context of this discussion, I am even willing to take you at your word that "klob has no psychiatric issues". However, you seem to very strongly challenge others' perceptions of your behavior with the defense that their conclusions (which inherently are about your internal mental state and are inherently unable to be known with certainty) are incorrect. Let me preface by saying that the following is a hyperbolic metaphor that is intended to be demonstrative and is not intended to be descriptive of your own behavior - A well-respected lawyer abruptly begins eating small rocks to the extent of having some health issues and negatively affecting their personal and professional relationships. Many people notice this and are concerned. Given this profile, it would be very reasonable to assume that something has caused this individual to develop pica, a mental health disorder characterized by compulsively swallowing non-food items. The truth is, this lawyer does not have pica. They are of sound mind and are actively choosing to do these things. They 100% could absolutely choose to stop at any time, for real. I will not speculate as to their motivation because it's irrelevant to this metaphor. However, one would expect that a lawyer could empathize with any concerned friends or family and say "while I (internally) know that your assessment is incorrect, it is not an unreasonable conclusion to reach given the evidence you have." If it was important to convince them that this lawyer did not have pica, then this lawyer could take steps to support this claim outside of "I don't have pica (eats a rock)" or "I have not been formally diagnosed with pica by a healthcare professional (eats a rock)".
5. Are you ultimately open to having your perceptions challenged or changed by new perspectives or evidence?
   1. If not, I'm not sure if this is the correct forum for your post. 

Comment by brokenbellcurve on Perhaps Try a Little Therapy, As a Treat? · 2024-09-06T20:29:58.559Z · LW · GW

I am examining what you have written. While I would like to take more time to digest everything, something jumped out at me -

Caleb Ditchfield (“kryptoklob” or “klob”) is frequently full-blown manic

You're not my doctor, as far as I know you're not even a doctor, and making this claim is paramount to, or perhaps actually libel.

You need to retract this claim, Duncan.

[I am not manic, Duncan’s never met me in person, and has no basis to make this claim. I have a doctor that I see regularly, who prescribes me medication for the only condition I have, which is adult ADHD. I’m happy to talk about this stuff - I think it’s important that we normalize talking about mental health stuff, so I do it with my friends and I’ll probably make a blog post about it in the future.]

The objection to what he has stated or claimed (that you are manic) seems to be based in your implied understanding that “manic” is equivalent to diagnosing someone with bipolar disorder, and that because you assert you have not been diagnosed with a “mental illness”, this is libelous. I would like to challenge this basis.

“Manic”, or being affected by mania is a symptom of a variety of conditions or circumstances. While commonly associated with bipolar disorder, being manic does not mean that one has bipolar disorder or a psychiatric disorder.

However, out of these other potential causes, I feel the need to point out that mania can be initiated by amphetamine use without any preexisting psychiatric disorder. Given that you follow up your claim that (paraphrasing for brevity) “It is libelous to claim I am manic” (surrounded with language that implies a belief that manic is equivalent with bipolar and that one cannot be manic without being bipolar) with (again paraphrased for brevity) “I am prescribed and am taking ADHD medication” (which one can reasonably assume is Adderall given the other content of your post mentioning taking it, which can absolutely trigger mania in some individuals), a reader may prove skeptical of your claims.

Given the state of a given individual (yourself) recounting “many people are calling me manic,” some (at least seemingly) independently of one another, a vehement denial that this individual is manic, an immediate declaration that they are taking prescription medication that can cause mania, a mention of being involuntarily committed (admittedly with limited details provided by you at all so I cannot assign significant weight to this. Perhaps the medical report/discharge papers would be reasonable evidence from which to operate.), and the context that this individual’s family at one point made a significant effort to separate this individual from this exact medication, we are left with several conclusions to make.

Probabilistically, there is either a conspiracy across your support structure (friends and family), strangers, and medical professionals operating in concert to gaslight you into thinking you’re acting rather unusual OR something is influencing your perceptions that warrants approaching it with a more open mind than you may have previously been operating with.