The most alarming part of that conversation for me was “A few weeks ago I punched a housemate in the face ten times, breaking her nose;”
If I was having the conversation, I would ask him more about this, and talk at least a little bit about how he could stop hurting other people.
I’m not sure what you mean by the bottom of the problem. I will say some things that I think are problems. These are speculations. I don’t have enough information to be confident in these answers.
1) I think it is a problem that, as far as I could tell, no one intervened and taught him not to be abusive after the punching incident. This is a problem with society.
2) I think it is likely that he has a brain injury from a head injury of some sort and/or from taking drugs such as meth. He mentioned both a head injury and meth. I would say to get treatment for brain injury, but doctors are still pretty clueless about how to treat brain injuries, though there are experimental possibilities.
3) I think it’s possible that he’s a sociopath, but there’s not enough info to figure that out. The combination of not finding pleasure in life, and feeling no remorse, and not thinking about the effects of his actions on other people is suggestive. (Although there can be other reasons for that.)
4) I think there’s likely something else wrong with his health. Maybe bipolar, since the bipolar meds are helping a bit, but I’m not convinced that accounts for everything.
5) I would guess that he did not have opportunities in childhood to be self-directed. His sense of not knowing what he enjoys, or what he wants, or how to make a plan, might be from lack of education and training in those areas, not just from physiological problems affecting his judgement.
“A few weeks ago I punched a housemate in the face ten times, breaking her nose”
At the time I considered the value of digging into this and decided against it. I suspect there was more to the story, but figured the details would come out if they were relevant. Given that it was the one example of hurting people, I don’t think it was an ongoing problem. To shake up that specific event wouldn’t have led to all the other possible problems.
“What do you think is the biggest problem here?” is a different question than “What do you think I could have successfully started to address in one conversation?”
First of all, I think the concept of TheProblem is flawed. I don’t think there is necessarily just one problem that is “the bottom of the problem” whatever you mean by that.
You presented a conversation, and asked us to read between the lines. So, I did. If I was actually attempting to figure out what was going wrong, if I was going to take action about it, I’d need way more information than this one conversation. I wouldn’t describe anything I said as conclusions. My procedure for concluding these is “I didn’t conclude them.”
What specifically do you want to know about my thought process or procedure? I already put clues in what I’ve written. For example, some of the reasons I think he may be a sociopath is the combination of not finding pleasure in life, feeling no remorse, and not showing any thought for the effects of his actions on other people in his responses. I already said that. Also, sociopaths are about 4% of the population. It’s plausible. Given that, and given some pattern recognition from having come across some people who turned out to be sociopaths, and given what I’ve read in the several books I’ve read about them, I would at least keep it as a possibility in mind while dealing with this person. It’s also a question “Is this person a sociopath or not?” that affects how you may want to behave going forward and what is likely to work or not.
I can only bring my own knowledge and experiences to this, and there may be stuff I’m missing because I don’t have experiences with it, or stuff that is a projection of what I’ve encountered, and not applicable in this situation.
I don’t understand what you are asking me, or what specifically you want to know. I can go into more detail, but it’s tough to know which details you are interested in or asking for.
If I were to focus on the suicidal ideation I would have missed every other problem that came up. And Z would have shut down, Z was not interested in talking about solving the suicidal ideation so I deliberately left it untouched. Lobbing an accusation about suicidal ideation is not a great idea for getting people to open up about their problems. As it is—I got a lot of information out of Z by not idling on suicide or the punching incident or other incidents.
If he kills himself, he hurts only himself. If he’s violent toward other people, he can end up doing a lot more damage than that. He mentioned that one incident, but given his casual attitude toward it, there are probably more. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was beating his girlfriend. Domestic assault (I call it domestic because it was against someone he lived with, even though housemate is not as usual a target as partner or child) is a huge huge huge warning flag. He had a bad day, and trouble sleeping, and suddenly someone else has to deal with the consequences of having a broken nose for the rest of their lives. The consequences for each of them are disproportionate, asymmetric. If he has another bad day, what next?
I considered this at the time, but I also decided not to dig at it. Z is still around, but I imagine Z would protest when I suggest that the summary of the punching incident was a throw-away line of “I’m too crazy for treatment”.
If the inquirer took the bait, they would end up arguing about a specific incident that may or may not have gone quite like that and may or may not have had motivations that actually make in the bigger picture. (i.e. ongoing arguments, several-directional fights) Setting that down, and not delving into it, was me maintaining composure and actually having the rest of the conversation.
The combination of suicidal thoughts and violence toward others is worse than either alone. There are lots of ways to commit suicide that hurt more people more seriously than one broken nose.
Yes, of course it is. But supposing it is all true and precise, she can still leave. She might have more ways to defend herself from assault than he from jumping urges or freezing in place. I know I would have made a point of having a way to escape.
The most alarming part of that conversation for me was “A few weeks ago I punched a housemate in the face ten times, breaking her nose;”
If I was having the conversation, I would ask him more about this, and talk at least a little bit about how he could stop hurting other people.
I’m not sure what you mean by the bottom of the problem. I will say some things that I think are problems. These are speculations. I don’t have enough information to be confident in these answers.
1) I think it is a problem that, as far as I could tell, no one intervened and taught him not to be abusive after the punching incident. This is a problem with society.
2) I think it is likely that he has a brain injury from a head injury of some sort and/or from taking drugs such as meth. He mentioned both a head injury and meth. I would say to get treatment for brain injury, but doctors are still pretty clueless about how to treat brain injuries, though there are experimental possibilities.
3) I think it’s possible that he’s a sociopath, but there’s not enough info to figure that out. The combination of not finding pleasure in life, and feeling no remorse, and not thinking about the effects of his actions on other people is suggestive. (Although there can be other reasons for that.)
4) I think there’s likely something else wrong with his health. Maybe bipolar, since the bipolar meds are helping a bit, but I’m not convinced that accounts for everything.
5) I would guess that he did not have opportunities in childhood to be self-directed. His sense of not knowing what he enjoys, or what he wants, or how to make a plan, might be from lack of education and training in those areas, not just from physiological problems affecting his judgement.
At the time I considered the value of digging into this and decided against it. I suspect there was more to the story, but figured the details would come out if they were relevant. Given that it was the one example of hurting people, I don’t think it was an ongoing problem. To shake up that specific event wouldn’t have led to all the other possible problems.
(more to come later)
Scott wrote how “tell me more” is a very effective tool in his arsenal. It can be useful to go deep.
You did nothing to check whether that was the only example.
“What do you think is the biggest problem here?” is a different question than “What do you think I could have successfully started to address in one conversation?”
Can you describe how you came to these ideas as TheProblem? Your thought process or your procedure for concluding these?
First of all, I think the concept of TheProblem is flawed. I don’t think there is necessarily just one problem that is “the bottom of the problem” whatever you mean by that.
You presented a conversation, and asked us to read between the lines. So, I did. If I was actually attempting to figure out what was going wrong, if I was going to take action about it, I’d need way more information than this one conversation. I wouldn’t describe anything I said as conclusions. My procedure for concluding these is “I didn’t conclude them.”
What specifically do you want to know about my thought process or procedure? I already put clues in what I’ve written. For example, some of the reasons I think he may be a sociopath is the combination of not finding pleasure in life, feeling no remorse, and not showing any thought for the effects of his actions on other people in his responses. I already said that. Also, sociopaths are about 4% of the population. It’s plausible. Given that, and given some pattern recognition from having come across some people who turned out to be sociopaths, and given what I’ve read in the several books I’ve read about them, I would at least keep it as a possibility in mind while dealing with this person. It’s also a question “Is this person a sociopath or not?” that affects how you may want to behave going forward and what is likely to work or not.
I can only bring my own knowledge and experiences to this, and there may be stuff I’m missing because I don’t have experiences with it, or stuff that is a projection of what I’ve encountered, and not applicable in this situation.
I don’t understand what you are asking me, or what specifically you want to know. I can go into more detail, but it’s tough to know which details you are interested in or asking for.
Is it really the most alarming part? I would think suicide ideation more so.
If I were to focus on the suicidal ideation I would have missed every other problem that came up. And Z would have shut down, Z was not interested in talking about solving the suicidal ideation so I deliberately left it untouched. Lobbing an accusation about suicidal ideation is not a great idea for getting people to open up about their problems. As it is—I got a lot of information out of Z by not idling on suicide or the punching incident or other incidents.
If he kills himself, he hurts only himself. If he’s violent toward other people, he can end up doing a lot more damage than that. He mentioned that one incident, but given his casual attitude toward it, there are probably more. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was beating his girlfriend. Domestic assault (I call it domestic because it was against someone he lived with, even though housemate is not as usual a target as partner or child) is a huge huge huge warning flag. He had a bad day, and trouble sleeping, and suddenly someone else has to deal with the consequences of having a broken nose for the rest of their lives. The consequences for each of them are disproportionate, asymmetric. If he has another bad day, what next?
His girlfriend’s life might be in danger.
I considered this at the time, but I also decided not to dig at it. Z is still around, but I imagine Z would protest when I suggest that the summary of the punching incident was a throw-away line of “I’m too crazy for treatment”.
If the inquirer took the bait, they would end up arguing about a specific incident that may or may not have gone quite like that and may or may not have had motivations that actually make in the bigger picture. (i.e. ongoing arguments, several-directional fights) Setting that down, and not delving into it, was me maintaining composure and actually having the rest of the conversation.
The combination of suicidal thoughts and violence toward others is worse than either alone. There are lots of ways to commit suicide that hurt more people more seriously than one broken nose.
Yes, of course it is. But supposing it is all true and precise, she can still leave. She might have more ways to defend herself from assault than he from jumping urges or freezing in place. I know I would have made a point of having a way to escape.
Upvoted both you and Dagon, because I agree with what you say.
Still thinking that a housmate whose nose was broken and who, to our knowledge, doesn’t have depression, has better chances of survival, though.