Dear Prudence: Conspiracy Theorist = Mentally Ill

reply to post by Xiizhan


According to the DSM, which is the manual used to diagnose mental disorders, political beliefs and religion disqualify someone from the criteria needed to be met for a diagnosis of the subtype paranoid in Dissociative Identity Disorder.

In other words, a doctor cannot diagnose a mental disorder in someone purely due to their political or religious beliefs.

This is totally irresponsible of the writer, the editor and the publisher.
They all deserve shame for letting such complete and total DISinformation be distributed.

There is your answer.

Originally posted by Big Raging Loner
She isn't a qualified health professional on any level from what I can gather. Therefore her deeming someone as mentally ill is about as useful a statement as me commenting on whether or not a lump on your body is benign or not.

Agreed though, this guy needs to move out of his folks house ASAP.

True on the first part.

As for him living with parents? I still do at 27 years old because doing otherwise would not be financially viable. Even before the financial crisis, I've never earned enough money to move into my own place as much as I've wanted to and there's just no way I'm willing to move out and let the taxpayers of this country fund my new home and rent, bills etc.

Besides, I also have a mental illness (clinical depression) so not only is this "advice" pretty defamatory to conspiracy theorists who aren't as close minded as this Prudence woman appears to be, she's also insulting and slandering those with mental illness who are as normal and intelligent as the next person like people do when somebody with a mental illness goes on a killing spree.

Does anyone who visited this website know if there's a way to complain about this moron's "advice"? I'm not sure I'd want to click the link myself if there isn't, it'd give her an extra hit she doesn't deserve for her horrible advice.

If she wants to be so insulting to mentally ill people, lets see what she has to say about Sarah Silverman, Stephen Fry, Van Gogh and various other talented people throughout the centuries who suffered.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by Xiizhan

 

Actually, I think I have to agree with Prudence here. A man of marrying age that still lives with his parents and has never lived on his own, and supposedly looks for someone else to blame in every tragedy sounds mentally ill to me.

It isn't so much the Conspiracy Theory part, as it is the personal responsibility part. She should not marry him, so it was good advice for her to decide why she was considering marrying this loser in the first place.

marrying age can be anywhere from age 16 in some states. never is it said how old this guy is. next we don't know if he lives with his parents for a reason other than "failure to launch" as one person put it in the thread. they may be elderly and he lives with them to help around the house, pretty big assumption to label him as some layabout living in his mom's basement. lastly we only have this woman's viewpoint on the situation. jumping to conclusions based solely on this woman's viewpoint is pretty silly.

also, what crappy advice this columnist gave this woman. "don't marry this guy he's obviously mentally ill" is no real advice. now if she had said " take a look at your relationship and decide if you love him enough to see a therapist with him and work your issues out. if you can't work them out maybe it wasn't meant to be." that would have been good advice. but yeah judge a guy based on a limited perspective on the situation.

reply to post by optimus primal


She said she has worked with the government for 20 years, so that puts her in her 40's at least. Hopefully the guy is of a similar age. She also says he has "never" lived out on his own. It would be different if he moved back in to take care of family members, or moved back in to conserve resources after 2008, but she says "never."

Also, Prudence said she should look into her reasoning for being willing to marry this man. The blame wasn't all on the man, there is some blame on the woman. Why would a woman with a 20 year career be willing to marry this guy?

I agree with other posters though, Prudence should not have used the term "mentally ill" it was inappropriate and probably inaccurate. She should have used "loser" like I did, LOL!

reply to post by getreadyalready


i just think it's silly to judge a guy simply because he's "never"(again we don't know that's true, a lot of people use the word never even when it's not really true) lived on his own. presumably she wants to marry this fellow because she loves him. which begs the question, who is this columnist to then suggest that the guys issues are unresolvable(issues the woman claims , not necessarily factual issues) and that she should run away from a guy she obviously cares about enough to be about to marry him? is she a mental health professional? does she know this guy's medical history? has she been present at any therapy session that may or may not have taken place?

this is the problem with such columnists, they take it upon themselves to make a judgement based on limited information and say "you should do this, or this person is obviously that" in many cases these people they give "advice" to, may take that advice to heart. think of the people who's lives are changed for the negative because some columnist like this proclaimed the person's significant other is mentally ill and not worthy of their love , even though they are not qualified in any way to make such a proclamation. and yet, there are people who champion such behaviour. sad state of affairs.

reply to post by optimus primal


I was listening to the Steve Harvey show on my way to work this morning, and I was thinking the same thing. These columnists and talk-show types routinely just dole out opinions with intentions of being entertaining and witty, instead of helpful.

All press is now "entertainment" and even the highly qualified individuals are susceptible to being enteratainers instead of doctors.

Sanjay Gupta, Dr. Drew, and many others have often let me down when I see them in action.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by Xiizhan

 

Actually, I think I have to agree with Prudence here. A man of marrying age that still lives with his parents and has never lived on his own, and supposedly looks for someone else to blame in every tragedy sounds mentally ill to me.

It isn't so much the Conspiracy Theory part, as it is the personal responsibility part. She should not marry him, so it was good advice for her to decide why she was considering marrying this loser in the first place.

I'd have to agree, despite the fact that I also agree with many of her boyfriends assertions. Personal responsibility is important and not everything bad that happens is a part of the conspiracy. Interesting and sad connection though that in some circles conspiracy theorist=mentally ill

Some people view everything as a conspiracy.

Personally I love a good conspiracy theory but, my I do not think that everything that happens is part of a vast conspiracy.

Why would the US government use HARP to target Japan and Haiti?

If you view everything that happens in the world as a conspiracy perhaps it's time to talk to a professional about it.

I think that prudence was correct... That guy is not marriage material.

reply to post by getreadyalready



no doubt. serious journalism seems to have died out for the most part.

Are his theories conspiracies or is he mentally ill? Neither nor. Like so many others here he has bought into anti-American and anti-Western propaganda that masks as "conspiracy theory".

Originally posted by Xiizhan
I followed a random link and ended up reading a Dear Prudence article. It was in the format of a series of Q&As, as one would expect. One of them seemed like it would be relevant to this site, so here it is. I didn't find this through a search, so I hope this isn't a repeat.

Dear Prudence: Advice on Manners and Morals

Q. Conspiracy Love: My fiance and I are about to be married. We are both very opposite when it comes to our philosophy. I have been involved with the government for over 20 years in one capacity or another. He has always worked for himself and has never really been on his own. (He still lives with his parents.) I see the world as "bad things sometimes happen to good people" or "bad things happen to bad people." He sees the world as if something bad happens, the U.S. government or some ruling family is behind it. For example, he believes that Charlie Sheen wasn't always crazy and that someone targeted him to make him look crazy because he said that 9/11 was an "inside job." He believes that the earthquake in Japan was caused by the U.S. government using a large antenna array, called HAARP, to target the Japanese and cause nuclear power to be vilified or for some other nefarious purpose. He focuses on it so much (every conversation is about subjects such as these), instead of the things he should be focusing on, that it scares me. I've never seen any evidence to support such philosophy, but it is out there on the Internet. I'm not sure what to do anymore. I don't want to wake up one day with him moving us to some other place because he suspec9ts we are being targeted for depopulation. Everything that happens is taken at less than face value and there is always an underlying plot of some kind. Not sure quite what to do.

A: Charlie Sheen is rich and famous, and crazy, but the rich and famous part helps explain why women keep marrying him. Your fiance isn't rich and famous. So you need to call off the wedding and figure out why you were planning to marry someone who is mentally ill.

(Bold added by me)

So, basically, this woman writes the woman's fiance off as mentally ill, and advises this woman to break off the engagement, because he's a conspiracy theorist (which equals mentally ill, although, if he was rich and/or famous, presumably it would be fine...). This seems like some extreme, and unhelpful advice.

Do any of you folks have some (presumably mentally ill) opinions on this?

I think there is something more than you can imagine, the name "illuminati" is just a name for something which could be anything, the religious scripts (and also the MOST conspiracy theroies) are full of perversions, internet is not a really good source for information on these subjects mostley becuase it's written by angry jobless racists.

But there are some truths in some of the story's, to bad most people are to dumb to see (or read) them with clear vision ;P

This thread hits home for me.
I ran into a similar situation with my ex(almost)fiance 2 years ago.
She wanted to work for the gov't, and thought I was anti-gov't.
I am not anti-gov't.
I am anti-liar and anti-corruption. But she didn't see that in our gov't. I did.
She took all my views and made me sound crazy.
Very touchy subject for me and I get angry just talking about it.

My differences from the man in the post, is that I am responsible.
I own land, a house and have a job.
I work hard for what I have and she was born with a silver spoon.
My ex just wanted things I didn't.
Lots of money, unnecessary luxuries, etc...
That's where we split.


Trying to explain to a sheltered person that the consumer driven economy is reason for most people to work and chase the elusive "dollar fame", is impossible. Especially if they are spoiled rotten. She was.
But that's where I screwed up.
She wanted a perfect life.
I knew of no such thing.
And I'm not spending my entire life buying happiness.
That's what she wanted.


But I will say this.
You absolutely must not believe everything you read off the internet.
Some theories are ridiculous.
Some are not so far off.
Either way, I only believe what I research and deem true.

On one hand she is absolutly right. Don't mary a guy that lives at his parents and "wears a tin foil hat". I agree. But on the other hand, don't mary a conspiracy theorist that isn't rich sends out the wrong message. I was raised upper middle class and have friends at both ends of the monetary spectrum. I'll tell you one thing, some of those rich "friends" I have well had were less than upstanding citizens. And if you look at the rich to poor friend ratio, I had a whole lot more poor friends than rich ones and yet I had to let go of more rich ones due to moral issues than the poor ones. So, IMO, due to my experience, The poor are better suited to make friends and life partners than the rich. So dear Abby or what ever that womans name is, to me she makes no sence at all. I rather be poor and happy than rich and miserable.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
Are his theories conspiracies or is he mentally ill? Neither nor. Like so many others here he has bought into anti-American and anti-Western propaganda that masks as "conspiracy theory".

Just hearing the words "conspiracy theory" makes me upchuck in my mouth a bit.
The words have lost their meaning and are now a pejorative.

Sure, there is a LOT of BS when it comes to this area, but that is the entire point.

Canvas the population with loads of stories that pique the interest of the common man, but make them sound believable enough that the government is in on some big secret thing.
That is the entire point to the concept of DIS-information.
It masks the actual valid information under the guise of a conspiracy.

If the population actually believes everything that the gub'ment tells them, then they are more foolish than the people who are labeled as "kooks".
The US Federal Government Inc. has a history of telling lie, after lie, after lie.
Where should I start...

1) Pearl Harbor
2) Lusitania
3) Gulf of Tonkin
4) DDT
5) Agent Orange
6) Iran Contra
7) Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments

And the list goes on ad infinitum...

I didn't even go into any of the "current" lies being told to us by our government.
I only focused on 7 lies that have been blatantly admitted as being lies, but yet somehow NOW people think that our big bad completely F.O.S. government is all of a sudden going to start being honest.

There is a very GOOD reason why the DSM does not use political beliefs as a qualifier for any type of mental illness.
I have just listed SEVEN of them.