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> it is super-reddit to diagnose If I see a person with a broken bone protruding from their arm, I don't need an undergrad med-terms class to know "this perso

> it is super-reddit to diagnose If I see a person with a broken bone protruding from their arm, I don't need an undergrad med-terms class to know "this person needs medical attention" even if I am not qualified to render it. Similarly, there are certain thresholds of human behavior that indicate mental illness -- you don't have to be licensed to treat it in order to recognize that there is a serious problem.

pibaker 22d ago
I wonder if GP would change his mind if he had witnessed Matt posting through the lawsuit in this very own website.
- flomo 21d ago
  Just for the record, I did see him posting on HN, and he seemed highly motivated by $$$ (and pride). He certainly seemed rational, other than the fact he shouldn't have been posting here. Businessman makes bad business decision and doubles-down. Not quite insanity.
paimapi 22d ago
actually interpreting the DSM-V and running diagnostics is exclusive to clinically trained psychologists and psychiatrists. even LCSWs are remiss to offer a 'diagnosis' after years of talk therapy with a client. most official diagnoses happen within a matrix describing a cluster of symptoms paired with an eval of severity and impact on life, and a battery of tests that have been empirically and rigorously validated as my wife (who does have an MD and specializes in psychistry) is fond of saying when people ask her to diagnose someone she doesn't know, "Sometimes people are just weird" it could be that the guy here is just very burnt out and stressed and his healthier coping mechanisms aren't working so he's resorting to worse ones you can be empathetic to that without calling someone 'mentally ill'
- pibaker 22d ago
  Why are people so eager to gatekeep who gets to call others mentally ill? I don't understand it. I don't have to be a doctor to say that someone who is constantly coughing and having a fever is sick, nor do I have to be a doctor to call someone with no legs disabled. What's different about mental illness? I don't disagree that there might be more subtle cases that are hard to tell by a lay person. But Matt is not like that. You are free to read his posts from the WP Engine lawsuit, including his post on hacker news, or his prior posts from some tumblr moderation drama. To me, the consistency and degree of his actions crosses the boundary of "bad day at work" and lands firmly in the "crazy guy in the park screaming at squirrels" territory. In fact, I'd argue that if he doesn't have tech wealth and was instead working a more traditional white collar job he might have already ended up just like that.
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  - gregory23 22d ago
    becase most people are not qualified to distinguish mental illness from emotions, stress etc, and obviously you are not either. A broken, protruding bone is obviously broken and protruding; you see it with your eyes and you know that it's broken. Mental illness is much tougher to diagnose because you're looking at symptoms, not the actual brokenness. You said it yourself - you are a layperson, not a doctor, which confirms that you are nowhere near qualified to diagnose mental illness. Your "argument" stinks of ad hominem.
  - mebizzle 22d ago
    Because some people would go insane without having an external authority to appeal to; the extant systems of academia and qualification create an "objective" truth these peoples' psyches can cling to.
    - forshaper 22d ago
      Without the certifying board, one might wonder about the nature of problem described.
- moralestapia 22d ago
  Come on, if you see someone naked on the street, screaming at a wall, eating a pigeon or whatever, are you really going to think: "I don't know if this person is mentally ill or not, I need an expert to come here and apply the DSM-V"? Oh and also, the DSM-V is not even used to diagnose those things ...
  - gregory23 22d ago
    Someone "naked on the street, screaming at a wall, eating a pigeon or whatever" could be having a bad trip on some drugs, not necessarily mentally ill. The drugs will wear off, and they will be a regular neurotypical person again. But by slapping a mental illness label onto that person, you've proven that you have no clue what you're talking about, and you shouldn't be diagnosing anyone. Our brain is designed through evolution to slap labels, aka engage in hasty generalisation. The world is much more complex than that.
    - moralestapia 21d ago
      Addiction is a mental disorder within the mental health spectrum, and it matters. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41449521/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41449521/ But nice try with the throwaway account and everything. 8/10, pal.
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      - kelnos 20d ago
        You can have a bad trip on a drug without being addicted, or without having any mental illness whatsoever. Nice try dismissing something someone said for invalid reasons, "pal".
kelnos 20d ago
Hard disagree. Physical ailments like the one you describe are indeed simple to armchair-diagnose, but psychological problems are not that. Even for physical issues, there's a lot of grey. A bone protruding from an arm is one thing, but how about, say... a rash? Could be lots of things. An ephemeral pain with little or no visual manifestation? Who knows. Why do you think that mental illness is necessarily a protruding bone and not a rash or an ephemeral pain?

pibaker 22d ago

I wonder if GP would change his mind if he had witnessed Matt posting through the lawsuit in this very own website.

flomo 21d ago
Just for the record, I did see him posting on HN, and he seemed highly motivated by $$$ (and pride). He certainly seemed rational, other than the fact he shouldn't have been posting here. Businessman makes bad business decision and doubles-down. Not quite insanity.

paimapi 22d ago

actually interpreting the DSM-V and running diagnostics is exclusive to clinically trained psychologists and psychiatrists. even LCSWs are remiss to offer a 'diagnosis' after years of talk therapy with a client. most official diagnoses happen within a matrix describing a cluster of symptoms paired with an eval of severity and impact on life, and a battery of tests that have been empirically and rigorously validated as my wife (who does have an MD and specializes in psychistry) is fond of saying when people ask her to diagnose someone she doesn't know, "Sometimes people are just weird" it could be that the guy here is just very burnt out and stressed and his healthier coping mechanisms aren't working so he's resorting to worse ones you can be empathetic to that without calling someone 'mentally ill'

pibaker 22d ago
Why are people so eager to gatekeep who gets to call others mentally ill? I don't understand it. I don't have to be a doctor to say that someone who is constantly coughing and having a fever is sick, nor do I have to be a doctor to call someone with no legs disabled. What's different about mental illness? I don't disagree that there might be more subtle cases that are hard to tell by a lay person. But Matt is not like that. You are free to read his posts from the WP Engine lawsuit, including his post on hacker news, or his prior posts from some tumblr moderation drama. To me, the consistency and degree of his actions crosses the boundary of "bad day at work" and lands firmly in the "crazy guy in the park screaming at squirrels" territory. In fact, I'd argue that if he doesn't have tech wealth and was instead working a more traditional white collar job he might have already ended up just like that.
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- gregory23 22d ago
  becase most people are not qualified to distinguish mental illness from emotions, stress etc, and obviously you are not either. A broken, protruding bone is obviously broken and protruding; you see it with your eyes and you know that it's broken. Mental illness is much tougher to diagnose because you're looking at symptoms, not the actual brokenness. You said it yourself - you are a layperson, not a doctor, which confirms that you are nowhere near qualified to diagnose mental illness. Your "argument" stinks of ad hominem.
- mebizzle 22d ago
  Because some people would go insane without having an external authority to appeal to; the extant systems of academia and qualification create an "objective" truth these peoples' psyches can cling to.
  - forshaper 22d ago
    Without the certifying board, one might wonder about the nature of problem described.
moralestapia 22d ago
Come on, if you see someone naked on the street, screaming at a wall, eating a pigeon or whatever, are you really going to think: "I don't know if this person is mentally ill or not, I need an expert to come here and apply the DSM-V"? Oh and also, the DSM-V is not even used to diagnose those things ...
- gregory23 22d ago
  Someone "naked on the street, screaming at a wall, eating a pigeon or whatever" could be having a bad trip on some drugs, not necessarily mentally ill. The drugs will wear off, and they will be a regular neurotypical person again. But by slapping a mental illness label onto that person, you've proven that you have no clue what you're talking about, and you shouldn't be diagnosing anyone. Our brain is designed through evolution to slap labels, aka engage in hasty generalisation. The world is much more complex than that.
  - moralestapia 21d ago
    Addiction is a mental disorder within the mental health spectrum, and it matters. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41449521/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41449521/ But nice try with the throwaway account and everything. 8/10, pal.
    - deleted 21d ago
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    - kelnos 20d ago
      You can have a bad trip on a drug without being addicted, or without having any mental illness whatsoever. Nice try dismissing something someone said for invalid reasons, "pal".

kelnos 20d ago

Hard disagree. Physical ailments like the one you describe are indeed simple to armchair-diagnose, but psychological problems are not that. Even for physical issues, there's a lot of grey. A bone protruding from an arm is one thing, but how about, say... a rash? Could be lots of things. An ephemeral pain with little or no visual manifestation? Who knows. Why do you think that mental illness is necessarily a protruding bone and not a rash or an ephemeral pain?