This a real thing, mild forms are socially inhibiting, extreme forms can mean social skills are completely crippled.
I feel sorry for these people (although I’m probably in the mild category), but I’m not sure what we could do to help without getting hurt ourselves?
I just hope my kid is normal socially with a good sense of empathy.
But the abusive parts got worse and worse and became intolerable. I’m not sure what could have been done differently. Though as a teenager that was probably not my role to play.
I don't wish any harm on Bryan, but it sounds like the guy is a textbook stalker—unstable, obsessive, and potentially dangerous—so I absolutely understand why things have reached the point where others need to be warned about him.
That's true but what does it have to do with the price of tea in China? The commenter raised a valid point that we may need to decide to compartmentalize for the sake of our own well being. This does not necessarily imply any measure of judgement against the other person.
I hope people wouldn’t tolerate it if I did it to them.
That isn't to say that half didn't need help -- it's that humans who need help can be abusive.
So.. what do we do with them? Ignoring these people is about the same fate as 'compartmentalizing' them into a wood-chipper -- doomed.
My friend was stabbed by a schizophrenic who lived in the flat opposite and believed that my friend was stalking him. Ten years later and my friend still has virtually no feeling in his hand as the nerves did not grow back correctly and he had to give up being a professional musician.
I know the guy didn't choose to be the way he was and I'm sure what was going through his mind was hell. But that doesn't mean that the rest of us should just live with the consequences of harmful actions.
ok, but aside from a time-machine and time-cops, what do we do?
We 'compartmentalize' the ill out of our lives -- they don't just disappear, they roam the streets and poorly interact with societies ..
-OR-
certain professionals sacrifice aspects of their lives in order to facilitate treatment and professional isolation for such individuals in an effort to keep them off the street and out of interactions with regular society.
which one results in less violent crimes towards regular citizens?
It should be obvious to anyone with their eyes open that someone has to interact with these people to provide rehabilitation and growing potential for people in need.
That was literally my dad’s job. In the UK in the 80s they implemented a policy called “care in the community” which was about ensuring that people with serious mental health issues were not institutionalised. For the most part this was a good thing but my dad actually made the decisions over the care and freedom they would receive. Eventually he quit because he felt too many dangerous people were being released - and in the end worked at Rampton, which is a prison hospital, looking after serial killers.
the point that OP made that the negative should be cut from your life, or the greater point that if the entire world cuts the negative from their life then those people -- 'the negative' -- are doomed to roam the world and be negative towards the rest of the world ad nauseum?
I appreciate that you're fundamentally making a plea for empathy, but putdowns/attacks are definitely not the right tool for the job, and are against the site guidelines in any case:
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: looking through your comments, you've been breaking the site guidelines so badly that I've banned your account. Please don't create accounts to do that with. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
this strikes me as similar to the concept of being for life imprisonment over the spending of resources towards rehabilitation.
To throw people to the wayside because YOU have determined them to be 'UN-fixable' IS wrong. It's useful for YOU to compartmentalize them out of your life because they represent a personal burden -- but this doesn't help them improve themselves or their conditions; it may not be your responsibility to help them improve -- but many of these people are hopeless without outsider intervention, they need help, not partitioning. If you can't help them then the next best thing is to make an effort to find them help, not to shut the door in their face.
>It’s more wrong to let them perpetually abuse people
what do you think happens when you make yourself lost contact with these people? Well, having been 'compartmentalized' earlier in life and never receiving any help or social training, they continue to perpetually abuse other people.
Ironically the strategy of isolating them from oneself likely increases or prolongs their time 'out of step' with society -- all it does is protects YOU from the damage the person might do.
All I can say is that i'm glad the entire world doesn't take your advice of 'compartmentalizing harmful people', otherwise this place would be a pretty brutal world to live in.
It's really not his or her job to fix abusers.
most societies believe that each individual must contribute to some degree. It's being lost, but for most societies historically the mentally ill were the burden of the immediate family.
Now we see the effects of the mental illness affecting society-at-large, it stands to reason that the entirety of the affected population is now somewhat responsible for making their own lives better by trying to assess and remediate the problems within their society.
If I walked past litter on the ground in my home-town, I wouldn't say "Hey, not my job." and walk past it, I would pick it up for the betterment of my town.
This isn't a foreign concept for most people.
This is this and that is that. Litter won't stab you, whereas I've had a friend get stabbed by a mentally ill person who asked for their restaurant leftovers, and were given them, only to then do just that. (Which is a bit different than what the OP is talking about, but you mentioned mental illness in society in general, so it seems fair to bring it up.)
If for 3 years I am constantly picking up litter as fast as other residents throw it on the ground, at what point to I just move to as different town where people litter less?
That sounds like tax money to be used for mental health services.
Even societies "without" life imprisonment have legal ways of putting people away for life if they're deemed too incompatible with society. Take Norway; longest sentence is 21 years, but for especially vile crimes, that sentence can be extended at the end of the 21 years if the convict is found to not have been rehabilitated.
I’d sleep on the idea of ostracising people with social issues because it can hasten a downward spiral.
In a lot of cases, people who don’t fit in are looking for love they don’t receive. Speaking from experience, if you can offer them that love in spite of challenging behaviour, you could be the key to them developing positive relationships that serve as models of how they can effectively fit in.
If you can muster the energy, instead of pushing these people away, as hard as it may seem, try drawing them closer - it’s not an exaggeration to say that you might be saving someone’s life.
You need to ban abusive people at the first possible time (after you have established that they are abusive and not, e.g just ESL who learned from an old TV show/book). The more moderation a community has, the better the community will be.
If somebody has Asbergers and can't adjust, ban them too. The why doesn't matter (unless it is easily correctable), the how does.
Forgiveness is one thing, but deliberately putting yourself in position to be victimized again is another.
Ultimately he ended up unemployable and bitter while his family tripled down on him being the victim because of an Asperger’s diagnosis. Moved to central Canada last time I heard.
I think what I learned from the experience is at some point you’ve got to compartmentalize harmful people from your groups and inevitably a growing number of segments of society, even if that feels wrong in some way. It’s more wrong to let them perpetually abuse people.