Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT strips 3676 to 3680 (12th to 16th February 2018)
Is it cold in here?:
--- Quote from: Shjade on 15 Feb 2018, 13:24 ---
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 15 Feb 2018, 06:52 ---Anyone remember the details of Tai going behind the back of one lover? Did that woman think it was monogamous?
--- End quote ---
That happened?
The only big relationship upset I recall with Tai was her asking a lover to go monogamous and the lover kinda blowing up at her for it.
--- End quote ---
Found it. It's complicated.
Is it cold in here?:
--- Quote from: Case ---"Significant distress or impairment", k?
--- End quote ---
Does Emily experience clinically significant distress or impairment?
She's the one to ask of course. Without her input I think we could argue it either way.
Case:
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 16 Feb 2018, 08:50 ---
--- Quote from: Case ---"Significant distress or impairment", k?
--- End quote ---
Does Emily experience clinically significant distress or impairment?
She's the one to ask of course. Without her input I think we could argue it either way.
--- End quote ---
Ok, I was a bit worried about that misunderstanding:
1) I chose OCD as an example, because I have personal experience with it. However, OCD is one of the illnesses where the afflicted themselves have a pretty good idea about "shit being significantly wrong"; intrusive thoughts in OCD are ego-dystonous, they are experienced by the afflicted as being alien to their own personality.
(An OCDer obsessing about hurting others will highly likely never actually hurt others, because even the thought is so distressing to them, to a degree that some choose voluntary social isolation to eliminate any risk of their ever hurting someone. With OCD, you know something is wrong. I obviously can't speak for every afflicted, but for me, there was no question about "significant distress" -> "HELLF***KINGYEAH! Something is definitely wrong here!" is what 16yo Case would have told you. I experienced the thoughts, their topics, their intensity, and their persistent intrusiveness as frightening, alien, inappropriate and bizarre.)
That doesn't mean that everybody experiencing any sort of mental health trouble will notice something is wrong, or be the first to notice. Not all mental illnesses are experienced as ego-dystonous. In fact, the wiki about "pathological jealousy" states that the feelings and thoughts are experienced as ego-syntonous - "it's not me who's acting inappropriate, the others are lying/have no clue". Or the afflicted may lack the capacity to evaluate their behaviour. I've read that many people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder don't seek help before their behaviour has had serious repercussions for them -> Getting fired from jobs, spouses leaving etc.
(There's one prominent psychiatrist who was intimately involved with creating the DSM-IV who objects to labelling Donald Trump as NPD for precisely this reason: Trump has never sought help for his behaviour, he does not seem distressed by it and apparently it works great for him.)
My statement is that I'd translate "(clinically) significant distress or impairment" as implying "Someone, either the afflicted themselves, or somebody in their social/professional circle tends to notice that something is seriously wrong"
Not every moody, obnoxious, self-obsessed female teenager suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder. Teenagers are sociopathic little monsters, what else is new? No, your sorting your record collection according to the Dewey Decimal system is probably not sufficient for a diagnosis with OCD, you're just a geeky librarian and that's one thing I like about you. No, I don't think you might 'have' ADHD, I think you should probably get more sleep.
2) Impairment is probably more of an objective criterion than distress. Even in cases where the afflicted themselves know something is wrong, they can reduce distress by arranging their lives in such a way as to avoid stressors. But that reduction of distress is bought with impairment -> you're giving up pieces of your life.
3) Notice the 'clinical' before the 'significant' - methinks that means: 'Significant in the opinion of a qualified mental health expert'. But getting an opinion from a qualified mental health expert usually implies that either the afflicted, or someone around them has come to the conclusion that "something is seriously wrong here". Shrinks don't usually wander the streets in search of people to diagnose with a mental illness - people come to them, not the other way round.
TL;DR - IICIH, get a copy of the DSM or ICD-10 and just browse through it. I promise you that there' at least one disorder whose symptoms make you go "Wait a minute ...". That could mean ... anything, really. I'd guess that most likely it means that you're a normal, healthy person.
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 16 Feb 2018, 08:50 ---Without her input I think we could argue it either way.
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Ok, I ... think I have made clear my opinion that I have a problem with the "arguing either way", with "pathologizing weirdness". Made it clear several times, in fact.
Beyond that: Even an certified expert with tons of clinical experience - a.k.a. "person who can actually make a diagnosis about head-trouble whose opinion has more weight than that of the guy chewing off your ear in the bar next door" - could only ever diagnose Jeph. Far as I know, jwhouk, being an experienced counsellor, is the only forumite who comes even close to that.
Emily and Marigold are fictional characters. Even if Jeph would think that they are living with a mental health disorder - and I don't see evidence for that - all that anyone could possibly diagnose would be Jeph's idea of that disorder.
themacnut:
Huh, I was expecting this comic to be Marigold going off like a volcano; guess Jeph is still doing the build-up to that point. Poor Dale, he has no idea of the minefield he just stepped into, and is probably unlikely to be able to defuse it before it all goes off.
This seems to be building to their first big-and-possibly-relationship-breaking fight. One possible ending of this is Marigold preemptively dumping Dale for cheating, and Dale being left standing there wondering what just happened.
ckridge:
I, too, had expected Marigold to go right off, and, as often happens, I was wrong.
I think the primary narrative work in this strip is done by the drawing, particularly of Marigold's little anxious face in the first panel. She looks like she feels doomed, and that Dale isn't even to blame because he is making the rational choice. She looks like she is stating his case for him. Of course someone as wonderful as Dale belongs with someone as wonderful as Emily.
I hope that I am wrong again, because if Jeph is really doing this, it is both masterful and just too sad. If this is what he is doing, I might as well go off and read a Coetzee novel and cry myself to sleep.
Lucid despair might get her a long way if she decides to fight with everything in her power even though she is doomed to lose, but I don't want that to happen. I want her to flip her shit completely and throw a tantrum. Lucid determined despair is just too hard. She is only a kid.
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