“in this I find many advocate of social justice quite like many Christians: they are members of a sect whose holy texts demand constant mercy but they hand out none”: 1/10 of Freddie’s posts drive me up a wall but on this important topic, he has a lot to say that no one else seems willing to say. And I am proud to be a paid subscriber.
"I have found comfort in Reddit forums of all places" Noooooooooooo
Seriously though, it's hard to think of a very public outburst of poor celebrity behavior that was more obviously the product of serious diagnosable mental illness than Kanye's whole Nazi thing.
To be that rich and famous and thus that much of a magnet for enablers that care nothing for you, must make it all so much harder. I hope he can find some peace and stability.
My late best friend (who died last died of a congenital heart defect, though his heavy anti-psychotics had caused him to put on a lot of weight, which I wonder put extra pressure on his heart - tough meds, but genuinely necessary for him to function with any degree of wellness) had schizophrenia and was a very sweet-hearted, tender fellow, but - ye gads - if he got started on the topic of the two men and one women who he believed monitored and recorded his thoughts he could be //wildly// jaw-droppingly offensive... because he was really distressed and unwell and genuinely believed they planned to torture him in the most unimaginable ways. Many people found him too troubling or troublesome to keep in contact with and I try not to judge them - he could be very hard work to be the best friend of, but the idea of hm being righteously judged online for things he said when he was deeply frightened and deeply unwell is both obscene and, frankly, stupid.
It should go without saying that Mr. de Boer can write however he likes; but as he points out, this is the internet.
I am always interested to see FdB viewpoints, even when I am diametrically opposed to their substance.
The one thing that I am stumbling on, lately a bit moreso, is the sarcasm. I do not have any stakes in the mental health domain beyond my sympathy, and the content of the article includes nothing I have strong feelings about beyond mild agreement.
Still, the sarcastic "doesn't do that" cadence makes it somewhat more difficult to receive the real meaning of the article's content, and much more difficult to form an emotional connection with it. These costs come with benefits limited solely to the author's personal catharsis, or so it would seem. I wonder if the release was worth it.
I agree. Not just with this article, where I did recognize the sarcasm, but with others where I misunderstood. Sarcasm is tough in speech but tougher in writing for the reader to understand.
Genuinely trying to understand this point: you think the sarcasm makes his point less clear or you think the sarcasm cheapens his point? As a rhetorical tool - it seems obvious why he used it, and the point certainly isn't lost.
This is my favourite crusade of yours, and to me the most important. Helping people with serious mental illness is extremely difficult, precisely because they are extremely difficult people! If it were easy, if mentally ill people were reasonable, they wouldn’t have so many problems and they wouldn’t fit the definition! Goddamn I hate the world sometimes…
I feel terribly sad reading these essays but I always do read every word right to the end because it is the only way I have to accompany you. You are right in what you say and you are kind in resolutely if exhaustedly repeating yourself. I don't know how many people "get it" for the first time with each repeat but there has to be at least one person, maybe many people. Thank you for doing this. I don't know anyone else who is.
Sorry to be a week or so late, but the post about "America", what it is and what it isn't was excellent. But I just read "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, by Omar El Akkad. Ostensibly about the Palestinian massacre, but really about morality, or lack thereof, right now. Short, unique voice, would wholeheartedly agree with deBoer.
Just chiming in to say thank you for harping on this! I was definitely sympathetic to “mental illness doesn’t do that” in the past, and your previous writing on this subject was no small part of changing that.
Early in December I took ill while travelling and was hospitalised for five days. Over the course of my stay, I shared a ward with four other patients. Three of the four, in addition to the physical ailments for which they were being treated, were clearly not entirely well mentally. This caused two of them to speak and behave in ways that were stressful for their fellow patients and the medical staff; with one of them his behaviour significantly hindered the attempts by the medical staff to care for him. I responded patiently and forbearingly when their behaviour was directed towards me, but I was glad to be discharged.
Just to offer my appreciation of this. The simplistic line that people all too often draw between mental health and moral responsibility is infinitely depressing. We don't have to "excuse" Kanye West, but not to recognize that his mental health is a major cause of his behavior shows a willful blindness, and you're the only person I know who consistently points this out.
I am willing to cede him compassion for the awful lengths he went to in order to provoke while his bipolar disorder was raging. That said, I can't trust him. Because the unspoken caveat to forgiveness is "if you never do it again," and this is—what? The third time he's very publicly gone off his meds and spiraled in repugnant ways? He has a pattern of going off his meds & lashing out. His WSJ advertisement sounds like he's back on his meds. But how do I know he's gonna stay on them?
In a way, Kanye West and his public remind me a bit of the United States and its allies. I am hoping very hard this country changes direction, and the horror that is the Trump administration is succeeded by one that understands the importance of cooperation and collaboration both here & abroad. But even if that happens, do I expect our international allies to resume the same relationship with our country as before? Absolutely not. Because there's absolutely no guarantee that four years after _that_, another horror show won't be elected into office.
You do not know he’s never going to do that again. It’s far more likely that he will. If you deny him forgiveness on that basis, you’re denying forgiveness to the vast majority of the mentally ill, the vast majority of addicts, etc. The decision is still yours, but take that into account.
"Nor can anyone say where his conscious behavior ended and his illness began."
For sure, and in some sense, we can't see this line when it comes to anyone's behavior, regardless of if they are diagnosed with a mental illness. I suspect that if we had absolute perfect knowledge of the brain, and we could see scan every single person's brain, we'd be much more humble about what behavior is someone's 'fault,' and even our ability to determine which minds are 'ill' and which ones aren't.
Regardless, we should all likely be much more empathetic towards people who are clearly behaving erratically, and yes, much more humble about our ability to judge any single person's behavior.
Regarding the general theme of this essay: a thousand times yes and thank you for saying it. Again.
Regarding this sentence: "We are asking you to be willing to be uncertain": it (obviously) not only applies to this topic but so much more. And it seems to be very difficult for very many people. I just had a brief, funny vision of a world where everybody had this tattooed on their forehead, so that anyone talking to anyone would be reminded of this. So much divisiveness and cruelty seems to be driven by (or at least accompanied by) unwarranted certainty (<-I'd say I'm sure of that, but I'm not. It does, however, seem to me like a reasonably likely observation)
Coming from a background in the sciences. . ._everything_ is uncertain (except abstractly in math and logic, in axiomatic systems). Some things are so unlikely that they're unlikely to happen within the life of the universe (your coffee cup spontaneously transforming itself into a jelly donut, for example). But in the domains of psychology, sociology, economics, politics, etc. such low uncertainties are far less frequent.
I’ve read you for awhile and I think what I appreciate most is a blunt ownership of your disagreement with conclusions more than people. But you’ll also rub people then box their conclusions much harder. People anecdotal, subjects consistent and often enough persistent. Also I lol at sudden typos slewed in tight logic, but thems the breaks for every writer bc no mistakes is so rare
Strangely my last post touched on this - you always put things more powerfully, on mental illness you are the best writer I know. And this point can’t be made too often, I’m so grateful for it.
“in this I find many advocate of social justice quite like many Christians: they are members of a sect whose holy texts demand constant mercy but they hand out none”: 1/10 of Freddie’s posts drive me up a wall but on this important topic, he has a lot to say that no one else seems willing to say. And I am proud to be a paid subscriber.
"I have found comfort in Reddit forums of all places" Noooooooooooo
Seriously though, it's hard to think of a very public outburst of poor celebrity behavior that was more obviously the product of serious diagnosable mental illness than Kanye's whole Nazi thing.
To be that rich and famous and thus that much of a magnet for enablers that care nothing for you, must make it all so much harder. I hope he can find some peace and stability.
My late best friend (who died last died of a congenital heart defect, though his heavy anti-psychotics had caused him to put on a lot of weight, which I wonder put extra pressure on his heart - tough meds, but genuinely necessary for him to function with any degree of wellness) had schizophrenia and was a very sweet-hearted, tender fellow, but - ye gads - if he got started on the topic of the two men and one women who he believed monitored and recorded his thoughts he could be //wildly// jaw-droppingly offensive... because he was really distressed and unwell and genuinely believed they planned to torture him in the most unimaginable ways. Many people found him too troubling or troublesome to keep in contact with and I try not to judge them - he could be very hard work to be the best friend of, but the idea of hm being righteously judged online for things he said when he was deeply frightened and deeply unwell is both obscene and, frankly, stupid.
It should go without saying that Mr. de Boer can write however he likes; but as he points out, this is the internet.
I am always interested to see FdB viewpoints, even when I am diametrically opposed to their substance.
The one thing that I am stumbling on, lately a bit moreso, is the sarcasm. I do not have any stakes in the mental health domain beyond my sympathy, and the content of the article includes nothing I have strong feelings about beyond mild agreement.
Still, the sarcastic "doesn't do that" cadence makes it somewhat more difficult to receive the real meaning of the article's content, and much more difficult to form an emotional connection with it. These costs come with benefits limited solely to the author's personal catharsis, or so it would seem. I wonder if the release was worth it.
I agree. Not just with this article, where I did recognize the sarcasm, but with others where I misunderstood. Sarcasm is tough in speech but tougher in writing for the reader to understand.
Still this is a good essay.
Genuinely trying to understand this point: you think the sarcasm makes his point less clear or you think the sarcasm cheapens his point? As a rhetorical tool - it seems obvious why he used it, and the point certainly isn't lost.
This is my favourite crusade of yours, and to me the most important. Helping people with serious mental illness is extremely difficult, precisely because they are extremely difficult people! If it were easy, if mentally ill people were reasonable, they wouldn’t have so many problems and they wouldn’t fit the definition! Goddamn I hate the world sometimes…
I feel terribly sad reading these essays but I always do read every word right to the end because it is the only way I have to accompany you. You are right in what you say and you are kind in resolutely if exhaustedly repeating yourself. I don't know how many people "get it" for the first time with each repeat but there has to be at least one person, maybe many people. Thank you for doing this. I don't know anyone else who is.
Sorry to be a week or so late, but the post about "America", what it is and what it isn't was excellent. But I just read "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, by Omar El Akkad. Ostensibly about the Palestinian massacre, but really about morality, or lack thereof, right now. Short, unique voice, would wholeheartedly agree with deBoer.
Just chiming in to say thank you for harping on this! I was definitely sympathetic to “mental illness doesn’t do that” in the past, and your previous writing on this subject was no small part of changing that.
Early in December I took ill while travelling and was hospitalised for five days. Over the course of my stay, I shared a ward with four other patients. Three of the four, in addition to the physical ailments for which they were being treated, were clearly not entirely well mentally. This caused two of them to speak and behave in ways that were stressful for their fellow patients and the medical staff; with one of them his behaviour significantly hindered the attempts by the medical staff to care for him. I responded patiently and forbearingly when their behaviour was directed towards me, but I was glad to be discharged.
Just to offer my appreciation of this. The simplistic line that people all too often draw between mental health and moral responsibility is infinitely depressing. We don't have to "excuse" Kanye West, but not to recognize that his mental health is a major cause of his behavior shows a willful blindness, and you're the only person I know who consistently points this out.
I'm a fan of Ye's music.
I am willing to cede him compassion for the awful lengths he went to in order to provoke while his bipolar disorder was raging. That said, I can't trust him. Because the unspoken caveat to forgiveness is "if you never do it again," and this is—what? The third time he's very publicly gone off his meds and spiraled in repugnant ways? He has a pattern of going off his meds & lashing out. His WSJ advertisement sounds like he's back on his meds. But how do I know he's gonna stay on them?
In a way, Kanye West and his public remind me a bit of the United States and its allies. I am hoping very hard this country changes direction, and the horror that is the Trump administration is succeeded by one that understands the importance of cooperation and collaboration both here & abroad. But even if that happens, do I expect our international allies to resume the same relationship with our country as before? Absolutely not. Because there's absolutely no guarantee that four years after _that_, another horror show won't be elected into office.
You do not know he’s never going to do that again. It’s far more likely that he will. If you deny him forgiveness on that basis, you’re denying forgiveness to the vast majority of the mentally ill, the vast majority of addicts, etc. The decision is still yours, but take that into account.
I get that. It's a self-protection thing for me. I can't unconditionally forgive, but I do feel compassion.
Understandably, and it’s where a lot of family and friends of mental illness sufferers and addicts end up, let alone fans.
It's exhausting for your readers, yes, but we are in a place in the discourse where we cannot say these things too many times.
I usually bitch and moan about re-runs, but these are truths we can't say enough.
I don’t find Freddie’s take on this topic exhausting at all.
Me neither. He writes so well, I'd read his version of the phone book. For $6/mo.
Now I’m so curious what that would look like - no doubt, wild and brilliant.
"Nor can anyone say where his conscious behavior ended and his illness began."
For sure, and in some sense, we can't see this line when it comes to anyone's behavior, regardless of if they are diagnosed with a mental illness. I suspect that if we had absolute perfect knowledge of the brain, and we could see scan every single person's brain, we'd be much more humble about what behavior is someone's 'fault,' and even our ability to determine which minds are 'ill' and which ones aren't.
Regardless, we should all likely be much more empathetic towards people who are clearly behaving erratically, and yes, much more humble about our ability to judge any single person's behavior.
Duh, maybe, but it doesn't seem that way.
Regarding the general theme of this essay: a thousand times yes and thank you for saying it. Again.
Regarding this sentence: "We are asking you to be willing to be uncertain": it (obviously) not only applies to this topic but so much more. And it seems to be very difficult for very many people. I just had a brief, funny vision of a world where everybody had this tattooed on their forehead, so that anyone talking to anyone would be reminded of this. So much divisiveness and cruelty seems to be driven by (or at least accompanied by) unwarranted certainty (<-I'd say I'm sure of that, but I'm not. It does, however, seem to me like a reasonably likely observation)
Coming from a background in the sciences. . ._everything_ is uncertain (except abstractly in math and logic, in axiomatic systems). Some things are so unlikely that they're unlikely to happen within the life of the universe (your coffee cup spontaneously transforming itself into a jelly donut, for example). But in the domains of psychology, sociology, economics, politics, etc. such low uncertainties are far less frequent.
I’ve read you for awhile and I think what I appreciate most is a blunt ownership of your disagreement with conclusions more than people. But you’ll also rub people then box their conclusions much harder. People anecdotal, subjects consistent and often enough persistent. Also I lol at sudden typos slewed in tight logic, but thems the breaks for every writer bc no mistakes is so rare
Strangely my last post touched on this - you always put things more powerfully, on mental illness you are the best writer I know. And this point can’t be made too often, I’m so grateful for it.