Comments on: The Copycat

By: Valencia

Valencia — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 04:52:15 +0000

Regardless of the reason why the roommate of the story was behaving the way she was, it must have been a nightmare to put up with. Congratulations on surviving, OP

By: Joel

Joel — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 04:33:34 +0000

Is is me or are a disproportionatly high amount of people on MVWRM/MVWD called ‘K’?

On the mental health debate, I think the real question is whether or not stupidity (IQ or social stupidity) is a mental health issue? Why do we feel sorry for people who are medically retarded when plain stupid people presumably have no more capacity to overcome their affliction?

By: hellcat

hellcat — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 17:50:25 +0000

Sika, I don’t know if this is what you meant, but you made people with anxiety sound like they’re on par with meth addicts or something, like they’d whore out their baby sisters for a “relief” fix. In reality, a lot of people suffer from anxiety – not just an inability to cope with life’s pain and dissappointments, but an inability to cope with things like breakfast-cereal choices and whether to put on socks or underwear first without completely panicking. They would do anything for relief because it’s a shitty way to live, and most would give anything to be able to just chill the eff out and live a normal life. But it’s like anything else – if you’re a decent human being, you try to keep your issues from affecting those around you. If you’re a jackass, you assume your troubles give you an excuse to treat everyone like shit, and you proceed through life as such.

By: Sika

Sika — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 17:03:54 +0000

I have to say that I think most anti-social behavior can be boiled down to anxiety disorders. These people will do anything, even if it is harmful to them, if it relieves even a bit of the anxiety. Relief is an addiction. They cannot cope with life’s pain and disappointments so they supplement with their personal drug, OCD or hording or a silly fantasy about being their roommate and having her boyfriend.

By: hellcat

hellcat — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 14:49:25 +0000

**should have added as a disclaimer – of course there ARE people who use it as an excuse, and those people suck. It’s just really hard – harder than you’d think – to accurately determine who those people are vs who really has a problem.

By: hellcat

hellcat — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 14:46:49 +0000

I mean, it’s not one or the other. You can be mentally ill and ALSO be an asshole. I don’t necessarily agree with the diagnosis that some people are making here – mental illness is really, really complicated and not an all-or- nothing thing, so that someone might be capable of acting totally normal until they can’t anymore, hence Lisa’s “normal a lot of the time” comment. And JoJo, yeah, bipolar disorder CAN be treated with medication and therapy, but it often takes a LOT of tries before they get the dosage right, and even that doesn’t get a person 100% back to normal – it’s not like you wander into a therapist’s office, say “I am bipolar,” and they tell you “Take Medication two times a day” and you say ok, and then holy jeebus! You’re cured!

Sorry for the rant – I just think it does a disservice to people with actual mental illness to say that they “just want attention.”

By: JoJo

JoJo — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 22:04:36 +0000

@Lisa I don’t think most of the people here could be described as having a mental illness. I would imagine many have personality disorders, have had bad childhood experiences, are badly brought up or are just simply unpleasant people. I feel sorry for them in a kind of abstract way, it’s not their fault they’ve ended up with these issues, but unfortunately unlike mental illness problems such as personality disorders are basically permanent. People with genuine mental illness, (depression, bipolar etc) can usually be treated with medication/cognative therapy.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 17:40:21 +0000

That’s the whole problem with the concept of ‘mental illness’– the definition is so vague as to be meaningless, the consensus on what constitutes “illness” varies with as much rhyme & reason as lapel widths & skirt lengths.

By: ali

ali — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 11:32:04 +0000

I think a few people her are confusing mental illness with severe co-dependency issues. This girl isn’t nuts, she just desperately wants someone to love her. Unfortunately, this desire manifests itself in a way guaranteed to push a lot of people away.

By: zomboid

zomboid — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 08:10:54 +0000

Lisa – i wish to subscribe to your newsletter