I would like to push back on the idea that we should not trust people based on someone claiming they are “mentally unstable”. I’m not even sure what this means? Do they have a mental illness that you are aware of? Regardless, having a mental illness does not mean you cannot experience or testify to having been sexually assaulted. It would be helpful if you could elaborate on exactly what you meant by including that comment.
Anecdotally, I have someone very close to me who has a mental illness. They do have a tendency to make up lies about people who are around them when they are unmedicated, but this doesn’t mean everything they say is a lie, and I would never just simply discredit something they say based on knowing they have a mental illness or that they have lied about things when they are unwell.
For reference from the OP:
“ (As an data point: I’m aware of one person who talked to the TIME reporter who, before any of this happened, I concluded might be mentally unstable and had decided to stop interacting with them.)”
I mean it as a data point, not as an argument on its own. In general, I’ve found that people who commit to strong lies about me online are more likely to have what I perceive to be symptoms of mental illness. For example, in one case I had mutual friends report to me that the person seemed to have a “mental break” and was acting quite unpredictably.
Unfortunately, when people seem to be acting in ways I have grown to associate with some subtypes of mental illness (seeming detached from reality in various ways, often accompanied with paranoia, usually as a shift, where they hadn’t acted like this before), I become more skeptical of claims they make, particularly when those claims are about other people being bad.
I don’t believe that all people with mental illnesses should never be trusted, or that we should discredit what they say simply because they have mental illness! I mean to say—if someone seems to have started behaving in an unstable, erratic manner, and then goes to an organization to make accusations, I feel more skeptical in that case compared to a reality in which the person were very stable, measured, and reasonable.
Thanks for clarifying. Do you have evidence that this behaviour wasn’t caused by the very complaint they were making?
I understand that when you’ve been on the receiving end of someone, or people, such as you have, telling lies about you, it can be difficult to separate between instances of when someone who is showing signs of mental instability is actually lying, or when they are telling the truth (speaking from experience because I have lived with someone with bipolar disorder for most of my life and having to navigate what is truth and what is not can be really difficult).
It is important though that we don’t conflate the two here, especially when I don’t think, from what you have said, that this person’s perceived mental instability bears any weight on the claims they have made. I understand you were just using it as a data point, but it is directly below where you say that you think 80% of what is said in the article isn’t true, so it seems to hold some weight?
I would like to push back on the idea that we should not trust people based on someone claiming they are “mentally unstable”. I’m not even sure what this means? Do they have a mental illness that you are aware of? Regardless, having a mental illness does not mean you cannot experience or testify to having been sexually assaulted. It would be helpful if you could elaborate on exactly what you meant by including that comment.
Anecdotally, I have someone very close to me who has a mental illness. They do have a tendency to make up lies about people who are around them when they are unmedicated, but this doesn’t mean everything they say is a lie, and I would never just simply discredit something they say based on knowing they have a mental illness or that they have lied about things when they are unwell.
For reference from the OP:
“ (As an data point: I’m aware of one person who talked to the TIME reporter who, before any of this happened, I concluded might be mentally unstable and had decided to stop interacting with them.)”
I mean it as a data point, not as an argument on its own. In general, I’ve found that people who commit to strong lies about me online are more likely to have what I perceive to be symptoms of mental illness. For example, in one case I had mutual friends report to me that the person seemed to have a “mental break” and was acting quite unpredictably.
Unfortunately, when people seem to be acting in ways I have grown to associate with some subtypes of mental illness (seeming detached from reality in various ways, often accompanied with paranoia, usually as a shift, where they hadn’t acted like this before), I become more skeptical of claims they make, particularly when those claims are about other people being bad.
I don’t believe that all people with mental illnesses should never be trusted, or that we should discredit what they say simply because they have mental illness! I mean to say—if someone seems to have started behaving in an unstable, erratic manner, and then goes to an organization to make accusations, I feel more skeptical in that case compared to a reality in which the person were very stable, measured, and reasonable.
Thanks for clarifying. Do you have evidence that this behaviour wasn’t caused by the very complaint they were making?
I understand that when you’ve been on the receiving end of someone, or people, such as you have, telling lies about you, it can be difficult to separate between instances of when someone who is showing signs of mental instability is actually lying, or when they are telling the truth (speaking from experience because I have lived with someone with bipolar disorder for most of my life and having to navigate what is truth and what is not can be really difficult).
It is important though that we don’t conflate the two here, especially when I don’t think, from what you have said, that this person’s perceived mental instability bears any weight on the claims they have made. I understand you were just using it as a data point, but it is directly below where you say that you think 80% of what is said in the article isn’t true, so it seems to hold some weight?