Capt Awkward Challenges Our Redemption-Narrative Addiction

[jesse_the_k]

Captain Awkward is an advice-and-discussion site where I’ve learned a lot.

A recent post: “Rule Explainer: Why We Don’t Diagnose People Through The Internet,” does an outstanding job of demonstrating why armchair diagnosis is a Bad Idea.

Even if internet stranger diagnosing could be accurate and didn’t cause stigma, it would still be a bad idea. As soon as we distract ourselves from the harm the victim is experiencing and transfer that attention to trying to figure out the psychology of the perpetrator …who we conveniently don’t have access to and can’t question …we start leaving the victim behind. Because as soon as we start talking about a diagnosis, we start talking about a possible patient. This is because diagnoses should serve and help the patient, not everybody around the patient. And people who deliver diagnoses to patients should be people who are trusted and tasked with caring for that patient, with the informed consent and participation of that patient. And even if we, a bunch of internet commenters, actually were all doctors who diagnose such things, our ethics would still prevent us from diagnosing someone we’ve never met. And even if we were doctors who could prove our credentials and we improbably stumbled on the right answer and we decided to bypass the ethics and we could equip the bully’s victim with a bunch of literature about the bully’s conditions…

Why the fuck
did anyone decide
that the most important thing a victim of bullying could do
is to understand
and take care of the mental health of the person who is harming them?

Why is it even a thing we think people should do? Like, at all?

Why are we trying to solve the life problems of the person who didn’t write in?

And why do we think that’s the work of our community, to the point that people know the rule about diagnosing and we still have to remind everyone (including myself!) not to do it?

I have a theory about why (you knew I had a theory):

We are addicted to redemption narratives.

All this, plus the Parable of the Prodigal Son! This is why so many abusers get away with half-ass apologies!

https://captainawkward.com/2018/07/19/rule-explainer-why-we-dont-diagnose-people-through-the-internet/

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

US-Americans more so than other Westerners

Hm, I don't think I see this any less living in the UK than I did in the U.S.

[jesse_the_k]

Darn.

I had hoped that performative religiosity was one cause here in the states.