#cracked takedown

[scriptshrink]

Critique of a Certain Cracked Article - The Bad

Oh boy.  So we’ve seen the myths about mental illness that Cracked got right, and the ones that were partially correct but mostly wrong. Now we’ve reached the ones that legitimately reduced the Shrink to incoherent screaming.

Lock and load, Shrinky-dinks. I’m taking no prisoners.

[Gif: The Winter Soldier loads a grenade into an attachment on his assault rifle while murderstrutting.]

[Cracked image: The charming psychopath is everywhere // Pictures of Negan, Walter White, Dexter, and Loki // They won’t stay charming for long. So many TV and movie villains are portrayed as charming ladies’ men. Even Walter White’s sex life improves after he starts cooking meth. There’s Negan, The Joker, Dexter, Patrick Bateman, Billy Loomis. The truth is, antisocial personality disorder causes a laundry list of symptoms that make a person impossible to be in a relationship with. // source is from the mayo clinic]

...Why is Loki up there? I am confused.

Anyways, people with antisocial personality disorder are very good at manipulating people. They can be very fucking charming, and very fucking good at it.

And I hate the phrase “laundry list”.  Guess what?  You don’t have to have ALL THOSE SYMPTOMS LISTED to get diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.

You just need three.  Let’s pull three from the list of criteria, shall we?

They lie, manipulate and con others for their own personal gain.

They’re impulsive and don’t plan ahead.

They are consistently irresponsible, don’t fulfill things expected of them, and / or can’t hold down a steady job.

I mean, that certainly describes an asshole, but “a person impossible to be in a relationship with”? Hardly.

[Cracked image - Adrian Monk suffers from OCD. // picture of Adrian Monk hiding behind his turtleneck // Actually, no, he really doesn’t. It’s easier to remember what Monk is not afraid of than what he is. He lists germs, needles, milk, death, snakes, mushrooms, heights, crowds, elevators, public speaking, and airplanes, to name a few. The thing is, that’s not obsessive-compulsive disorder. Those are phobic disorders, which are not related to OCD at all. Actual OCD involves a crippling dependence on repetition and rituals.// source is chicago tribune]

OKAY.  First off. A fear of public speaking IS NOT A PHOBIA. It is a part of Social Anxiety Disorder (Performance Only).

Also, OCD does not fucking REQUIRE compulsions. YOU CAN HAVE ONLY OBSESSIONS AND STILL HAVE OCD. (See my demystifying post here!)

AND GUESS WHAT?  ADRIAN MONK HAS COMPULSIONS.

Performing a ritual because of a fear (such as excessive cleaning / handwashing due to a fear of germs) is a COMPULSION.

Look at literally the first time you see Monk IN THE FUCKING OPENING CREDITS OF THE SHOW.

[Gif - Adrian Monk is walking down a street, and touches a parking meter without looking at it.]

You’d think, because he’s so germophobic, that he would avoid touching those things. NOPE. He has a compulsion to TOUCH ALL THE POLES that he passes when he’s walking.

Sure, he has phobias.  BUT HE HAS OCD TOO.

One last note. 

Those are phobic disorders, which are not related to OCD at all.

Hmm. Yes, that’s correct. Phobias are anxiety disorders, and OCD has its own category. I’m not sure why this is sticking out to me so much. But I’m sure it’ll be important later.

[Cracked picture - In Fight Club, the narrator has a split personality. // image of the narrator and Tyler Durden // That’s not how multiple personalities work. Those with disassociative identity disorder don’t just wake up and realize they’ve been living as another person. They don’t always know about the other personalities, and don’t black out and live as another person. Amnesia and fugue states do happen, but what you see in movies is writers combining them to suit their narrative.// Source is from mayo clinic.]

[Gif of Hades nearly being literally consumed with fiery rage, but calming himself down saying “Okay, fine, fine. I’m cool. I’m fine.]

It’s “dissociative”, not “disassociative”. We’ve had this talk in the last part, Cracked. Do a single goddamn google search so you know how to spell the goddamn names of things.

This part of the takedown comes courtesy of Maxx, one of @dinosaursindisarray’s alters:

DID isn't personalities, multiple or split or anything. That’s not just outdated terminology, it's also an incorrect description, because the alters aren't personalities at all, they're functionally other people.

“Those with DID don't just wake up and realize they've been living as another person.”

k, well, sometimes, they do.

Like, the person might not realize it as it goes on, but then something triggers an 'aha' moment (for some people) that make the symptoms more overt and noticeable, either to the person experiencing them or other people.

There could be a trigger that suddenly floods the person with enough memories to realize what's going on - memories of trauma, or bleedthrough from other alters, memories of that alter being out, etc, and then the person has enough to do research and be like 'something is /wrong/'

[For us], it was like, one day after a lot of stressful shit built up over a couple of weeks, I came out instead of Month and because I was tired and cranky. Her friends noticed and asked about it, I told the truth, and after she came back, her friends were like 'so this thing happened, what the fuck' and Month's blackouts and dissociation started making more sense and she was able to contact a professional to be like 'what the fuck is going on'.

The initial realization did happen sort of at once, which isn't entirely uncommon, especially with psych knowledge more readily available to people. (that can lead to people mistaking shit and thinking they have DID when they don't, cause misinfo, but it's still easier for people who do have it to figure out what the fuck is up and seek help than it was before).

“They always know about the other personalities"

The entire point of DID and OSDD is to keep shit hidden. Keep trauma memories hidden from the everyday life of the kid so they can function and not fucking die. Keep symptoms away from others around the kid so that they aren't abused worse. So this shit is supposed to be kept separate, and if you always know about what's going on, then it’s not happening.

"and don't black out and live as another person"

Yeah. Some people do. Like, full memory blackouts while another alter is out might not happen all the time or with every alter, but it can totally happen with DID. Not OSDD as much, I think, but still.

There are certain alters that Month has NO memory overlap from. Others that she only gets one or two things, others she remembers most of it like watching a movie, others that she remembers it like she was there but really out of it, etc. It's not necessary for every alter every time to be DID, but if there's any amnesia and blackouts between alters (and with trauma memories) then it's DID criteria.

"Amnesia and fugue states do happen"

Yeah, amnesia is that blackout thing you just said didn't happen. Might not be a full blackout but like, amnesia. not remembering. sometimes that means blackouts.

And fugue states are dissociative, but that's a separate thing from DID. Can it happen to someone with DID? Yeah. Does someone have to have DID for it to happen? Nah.

Writers do combine and add shit and dramatize the fuck out of the wrong things (see: m. night) to suit their needs rather than maintaining fact, but yeah. everything else is p much wrong

Thanks again to Maxx from @dinosaursindisarray for taking over for that one. That gave me a nice little respite! Now let’s take a look at the last one, surely it can’t be THAT bad...

[Cracked image - In Black Swan, Nina suffers from a host of conditions. // image of Nina // Real people don’t have them all at once. The film gave Nina the ballerina a cocktail of disorders, including anorexia, bulimia, cutting, and obsessive compulsive disorder, then had her descend into psychosis. The problem is that they’re incompatible conditions. People with psychosis lose touch with reality. Those with anxiety disorders like OCD and anorexia are too in touch with reality. // source is abc news]

[Gif of the only thing that can adequately convey my rage: Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever created, exploding and forming a gigantic mushroom cloud]

Okay okay okAY OKAY OKAY.

The only way I can get through this is to go from minor things to major ones. 

You are right about one single thing here, Cracked. You can’t be diagnosed with anorexia and bulimia at the same time. Congratulations. If someone has symptoms of both disorders, it’s either Anorexia with the Binge Eating / Purging subtype, or OSFED (other specified feeding/eating disorder, formally known as EDNOS - eating disorder not otherwise specified).

Okay. Next up. Unless you’re counting when Nina stabs herself with the glass shard at the very end of the movie, Nina never cuts herself. She scratches herself. But I’ll give you the smallest amount of the smoking ashes left of my benefit of the doubt and say you meant “self-mutilation” here, not cutting.

Those with anxiety disorders like OCD and anorexia

OCD AND ANOREXIA ARE NOT ANXIETY DISORDERS.

Besides, you just fucking said with the Monk one that phobias are completely unrelated to OCD!! PHOBIAS ARE AN ANXIETY DISORDER!!! AT THE VERY LEAST KEEP YOUR FUCKING BULLSHIT LIES CONSISTENT!!!!!!!

On that note, where the fuck did you get OCD from in the first place??? There’s only two things I can think of that even vaguely qualify. 

Nina’s compulsive scratching. But guess what???  THAT’S NOT OCD. THAT’S EXCORIATION (AKA SKIN PICKING) DISORDER.

Nina’s compulsive exercising. HELLO WHY YES THIS IS A SYMPTOM OF ANOREXIA.

People with psychosis lose touch with reality. Those with anxiety disorders like OCD and anorexia are too in touch with reality.

yhghgtfrrghyujuhnukjfgdcghgtfyughyhhjnyh

Sorry about that. I repeatedly smashed my head into the keyboard.

But oh my fucking god.

THE WHOLE GODDAMN PROBLEM WITH OCD AND ANOREXIA IS THAT THEY’RE NOT CONNECTED TO REALITY.

One of the fucking specifiers for OCD is WITH ABSENT INSIGHT OR DELUSIONAL BELIEFS, which means the person in question fully believes that their illogical obsessions are true, you fuckwads!

[[Shrink’s edit - a “specifier” is a possible subcategory of a mental illness. The DSM-5 also two other possible specifiers for OCD: “With good to fair insight”, meaning the individual recognizes that their disordered beliefs are definitely or probably not true; and “With poor insight”, where the individual thinks their disordered beliefs are probably true. It is a grading of severity, not a requirement.]]

Let’s look at a some fucking case studies here. Go ahead. Read them. I’ll wait.

Tell me, Cracked. Do these sound like people who are MORE IN TOUCH with reality?! Will a person really be transported into a mirror dimension if they turn on a light switch??? If they touch something, will their ‘power’ be stolen unless they touch it again multiple times??

Also, is someone with severe anorexia who still thinks they aren’t thin enough even as they’re FUCKING STARVING THEMSELVES TO ACTUAL, LITERAL DEATH “too in touch with reality,” Cracked???

[[Another edit: most people with OCD and anorexia are not at this extreme. But it is far more accurate to say that these disorders involve losing some touch with reality than saying that they are ‘too in touch’ with reality. Seriously though, what the fuck does “too in touch” with reality even mean???]]

Oh, and it’s not like there have been studies that don’t just say that eating disorders and psychosis can co-occur, but that they might be FUCKING LINKED TO EACH OTHER!!!

And now, my esteemed Shrinky-dinks, we come to the most horrendous part of this absolutely atrocious dumpster fire of an article. 

Real people don’t have them all at once.

Real people don’t have them all at once.

Real people don’t have them all at once.

ARE YOU FUCKING SHITTING ME?!?!?!?!? 

Guess what, fuckfaces?  

COMORBIDITY IS EXTREMELY COMMON.  

Let’s look at this one study of almost 2,500 women with severe eating disorders. Guess what they fucking found?

97% had more than one fucking mental illness.

Ninety fucking seven percent.

[Image: “I made a chart since Cracked writers apparently can’t fucking read.” // a pie chart with a very small portion labeled Only ED, and the overwhelming majority labeled More than one mental disorder.]

Schizophrenia and eating disorders may not be a super common combination, BUT IT FUCKING EXISTS.  

PEOPLE CAN FUCKING HAVE MORE THAN ONE MENTAL ILLNESS!! 

BUT I GUESS IT DOESN’T MATTER TO YOU SINCE THEY’RE SO CRAZY THEY’RE NOT REAL PEOPLE, YOU ABLEIST FUCKING SACKS OF FUCKING SHIT.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH

[Gif - The Hulk fucking annihilating Loki by repeatedly smashing him into the ground, which is what I wish I could be doing to the writers.]

Concluding Thoughts

If I seem calmer at this point, it’s because I wrote it before the rest of this article. I have no doubt future Shrink will still be screaming into the void long after the queue finally gets to this post.

Let’s take a look at how Cracked introduced this article.

It's a losing fight, going up against the myths pop culture perpetuates. But, dammit, someone has to do it.

That someone is obviously not you. Your writers are willfully ignorant and unable to do even a simple google search of the names of the things they’re writing about to make sure they got the spelling right. 

You have failed to do the fucking most basic research possible. 

A monkey in a library could do a better job than you, as there’s an actual chance that in randomly throwing pieces of its own shit, a book might be knocked off a shelf and the monkey might fucking glance in its direction.

Because left unchecked, people go around spewing every dumb thing they learn from clickbait articles movies and shows that are really just using mental illnesses to advance a plot and make a buck from pageviews, instead of teach us anything useful.

You made a few typos. I fixed them for you.

So, dig in, because it's time drop a knowledge bomb on your ass.

How fucking dare you. 

You are not “dropping a knowledge bomb” on us. This article is nothing more than a fucking whoopie cushion. We sit down, all excited to see myths about mental illness being exploded, but are instead given a bunch of hot air that sounds like people’s ass cheeks flapping together.

Fuck you, @cracked.

I hope your pageviews tank. I hope you have to take on so many advertisers that your readers can’t even see your content anymore. I hope no one ever submits to your ‘contests’ again, forcing you to have a staff member make up all the entries for you. I hope your heads get so stuck up your own asses that you don’t even notice that your website has been spreading malware to your readers like the cancerous bullshit your content truly is.

Oh. Wait. 

Like my torment and suffering? Support me on Patreon.

[scriptshrink]

Critique of a Certain Cracked Article, Part 2 - The Ugly

Before we get started, I want to say something.  I am very, very snarky in these posts.  This is because Cracked is a very popular website and they promoted this article ostensibly to demolish myths about mental illness in the media.  They did a great job on some of them.  If they had stopped there, I would have been pretty happy.

They did not stop there.

The majority of the things they say are not only inaccurate, but downright wrong.  They promote new myths about mental illness instead of actually addressing and countering existing ones.

Alright, we’ve seen the good, now it’s time for the ugly.  These are the ones that while not totally and completely wrong, there are too many inaccuracies to be considered “Good”. 

From @thingsairafound​:

I've never seen the film, so I may not be fully qualified to comment. However, it is a common misconception that autistic people are unfeeling, disconnected from others, lack empathy, when in fact the opposite is true. Most of us are overly empathetic and sensitive, and avoid social interactions for other reasons (constant rejection or a feeling of being overwhelmed by others' thoughts and feelings). So if a character is portrayed as being a calculated killer because he's autistic, then that's totally messed up.

However, that's not to say that it's impossible for an autistic person to be a psychopath. Every single autistic person is totally different, so there are plenty of crazy assholes in the mix. Assuming the film *doesn't* try to claim that this guy is crazy *because* he's autistic, the thing to be horrified about here isn't so much the suggestion that such a person could exist as it is that in one of the few portrayals of an autistic character in a film, they chose such a negative one, when society's attitudes towards autistic people are already so negative overall.

In case you couldn’t tell, @thingsairafound​ is a much nicer person than me :).  I was on the fence about this one being in the Good or the Ugly posts, so it’s kinda inbetween.

This critique comes from @thingsairafound​:

Yes, the odds of any one person being a savant aren't super high, but that film is based on a real-life actual autistic savant, Kim Peek. He exists and the actor spent a lot of time with him to prepare for the role, so he's even fairly realistically portrayed.

I suspect the point the author was making is that not all autistic people are savants, which is true. Most are not. But a surprisingly high percentage are (estimated about 10% - that's not "incredibly rare", that's one in ten people). Of course, they don't actually define what a savant is here. It generally just means "better than would be expected of the average person" at one or more things. The thing that's actually rare are prodigious savants who are so good at something that their skill would be superhuman even if they weren't otherwise impaired. There aren't too many of these people in the world. My favorite is Daniel Tammet, who can learn a new language in a week and  is able to do incredibly complex mathematical computations almost instantly in his head.

They say about half of savants are autistic and half are the result of things like seizures, brain injuries, etc. So if you're autistic, the odds are fairly good you'll be a savant. If not, the odds are extremely low, unless you hurt your brain somehow. 

Shrink’s taking the helm now.  Buckle in, Shrinky-dinks.  I get fucking MAD in this post.

First.  Why the fuck is Law and Order SVU up there?  They don’t ‘profile’ criminals.  It’s a normal cop procedural show.  They investigate crimes - any profiling they do is incidental.

Yes, profiling has its inaccuracies. However, saying that it’s “nothing more than cold reading” is laughable.

And you know what?  Criminal profiling is a really fucking new practice.  It’s only been around since the 1970′s.  You know what dominated the first 40-ish years of psychology?

Freud.

That doesn’t mean that the entire school of psychology as a whole is worthless. Psychology has evolved and become more accurate over the years, and criminal profiling will do the same.

This particular thing is correct in that psychologists would not classify Norman Bates as a psychopath.

“Psychopath” is not a term used by modern psychologists. It’s dated, unscientific, and inaccurate.

IT IS NOT A FUCKING PERSONALITY DISORDER.

The term you’re looking for is “antisocial personality disorder”.

Okay, yes, movies tend to overemphasize a sudden ‘breakthrough’ from the character’s past that suddenly cures their mental illness.

But what the fuck?  Are you serious?  REVISITING PAINFUL MEMORIES JUSTIFIES AND RATIONALIZES A PERSON’S ANGER, PAIN, AND RESENTMENT, MAKING IT WORSE?!?!??!

Are.  Are you serious.  What.  This is a fucking insult to everyone with PTSD. You can’t treat PTSD without addressing the trauma in some way.

Tell me, are the feelings of someone who is traumatized by the abusive actions of another person something that needs to be “justified”, in your eyes?  Or are they whiny babies who need to move on from their mental illness?

Also, why the fuck are you citing YOUR OWN PODCAST, Cracked?  Are you too afraid someone will actually fact check you?

Uh. Seizures?  THAT’S NOT A THING.

And that last sentence.  What in the actual hell?????

Also, why the fuck is the source from Prezi?  WIKIPEDIA WOULD BE A BETTER SOURCE THAN PREZI.  At least there is SOME kind of peer review process and there’s a chance that an expert could have looked over it.

First, no one says “shock therapy”.  And ECT stands for Electroconvulsive THERAPY, not treatment. Also, there’s no hyphen in the name.

Seriously, did the author even bother googling “ECT”?  THE CORRECT NAME AND SPELLING ARE LITERALLY THE FIRST RESULT.

While ECT is by far less severe and nowhere near as brutal as the movies depict it, it is not without its risks.  For some people, the aftereffects (especially memory loss) are far from mild.  

Also, why wouldn’t you mention that ECT takes place when the person is UNCONSCIOUS?  They literally don’t feel a damn thing while it’s happening. I think that would be worth mentioning, but then again, I write about clinical psychology, not badly-researched “comedy” listicles.

First off, wow.  This is really, really insulting.  Way to completely ignore the fact that people with schizophrenia are more likely to be victims of violence than be violent themselves.  You brought this up in one of the “Good” things!  Is your memory really that short?

Also, what the fuck is with your source for this?  It’s a website where you ask people to refer you to treatment centers.  It’s not a reliable source of information.

There is a grain of truth in this that part of schizophrenia involves “disorganized” symptoms.  But saying that all schizophrenics “definitely wouldn’t be able to stay focused on a week-long murder plot” is like saying that all of your writers are too lazy to perform a simple google search when writing their articles.  I’m sure it’s true for some people, but you can’t say it’s true for ALL of them.

Stay tuned for part 3, where somehow, I get even angrier.

[scriptshrink]

About Cracked's use of John Nash. He did get better without medication. He took some on and off, but only when forced, like while in psych hospitals. He rarely took them outside of that, and stopped before he got better, which gradually happened over time. The movie portrays him at the end as being on meds when in real life he wasn't. Cracked was generally correct, of course; meds are almost always needed. Just their example is odd and kind of wrong since the movie said he was on antipsychotics.

(You don't have to post this part of you don't want) I just want you to know I'm not trying to argue or advocate not taking meds! Just pointing out some interesting facts. :)

Siiiiigh.  Even when Cracked says something good, they illustrate it with the wrong example.

Thanks for the info!