Well, if stories like this aren’t believed, then I guess professionals would prefer this lady (and others in her position) use high-ozone shock treatment on suspected room(s). What alternative did she have? Wait around knowing there’s a stranger in your house? Ask a friend to investigate, possibly putting them in danger?
First of all, what a ridiculous bweet. “Shame on every doctor who won’t believe their patient”? Like, is this person suggesting that the doctors of people with gangstalking delusions should earnestly believe that their patients are being hounded by several different three-letter agencies using experimental mind control technology?
But the story itself is pretty crazy too:
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/man-hiding-loft-kent-phrogging-5HjdWgs_2/
“No one would believe me” she said. “But I dont blame the people in my life then.” Chloe said she was known to mental health services at the time and was dealing with issues such as anxiety and PTSD. “I’m a different person now, but back then then I was a little bit wild,” she admitted. She also explained that she had a condition that made her hear different environments, such as swimming pools or pubs. […] As the problems continued, Chloe said she was scared to go home and ended up frequently staying with friends because she did not want to be there. Despite bringing it up every day, her friends kept shutting her down. “I didn’t blame the people in my life, because I was crazy at this point” After she had gone on about it for so long, her friends intervened and formed an alliance. “It got to point where they thought I was hallucinating or having a pschotic episode.” “They sat me down and told me I need to see a doctor.” “I started thinking in my head, maybe it’s not true, maybe I do need to see a doctor.”
So she already had a history of mental illness and it was her friends, not the doctor, who first convinced her that this was all in her head.
But then it turns out her next door neighbour set up the guy to live in the loft and then lied about it:
It turned out her next-door neighbour knew the man was up there and that it was his homeless friend. Chloe said she feld “gaslit” by the neighbour. “He was talking down everyone, saying he didnt hear anything,” she went on. “But he knew there was someone there. He was helping him, giving him food and letting him use his bathroom.”
The story doesn’t go into much detail about the layout of the building, but the most insane part of it to me is that apparently the building had a loft space connecting every unit with hatches that weren’t locked?
Not a single fucking person is suggesting that if a woman walks into a waiting rooms screaming about ants under her skin who are telling her to put babies in fires everyone needs to stop everything to immediately tell her she’s right and good and not argue even a little bit. Stop trying to act clever by deliberately misunderstanding something and being the dumvest person in the room, it’s embarrassing.
It’s like the fuckheads who think being against car-centric infrastructure means wanting to put a stick of dynamite in every car ever and not knowing that farmers exist. It adds less than nothing to the conversation and just makes you look stupid as hell.
The person in the OP is suggesting that doctors should just believe patients with a history of mental instability and a group of coherent peers all in agreement that they’re likely having a psychotic break that a person is living in the attic above their home (which is a common delusion for, say, schizophrenics). The patient self-describes herself as “crazy at the time”. If anyone dropped the ball here, it’s the police or her friends for not looking in to it; a psychiatric doctor who investigates every semi plausible claim that comes their way will be quite busy indeed.
Personal rant:
Yes, fuck doctors that dismiss their patients regardless of why. I complained about ever-increasing headaches as a child and teenager, in so much pain that I’d regularly consider offing myself (and I wasn’t even depressed yet!). Literal years of explaining, they’d shrug, write me a stronger script for pain meds, and push me aside. Same at the school nurses, they’d even argue with me that I’m faking it or some bullshit.
One night back when I was 21, I was in excruciating pain, but that wasn’t uncommon for me - most days of the week I was at a 7 or higher out of 10. But that particular night, I suffered a hemorrhagic stroke which I wasn’t supposed to survive. What do you know, I had extremely high blood pressure that nobody bothered to check (I was told reading at the ER were above 200/140 or something like that, fucking bonkers). Because doing you’re fucking job and properly assessing the patient, including fucking listening to them, is too much work apparently, so just push then aside and let someone else deal with the fallout, right?
Fuck me, the EMTs that arrived argued with myself and my parents - one in med school at the time - that I must be on some drugs, people my age don’t have strokes. Essential, critical time, was wasted because another case of some fucker not doing their job but wanting to play doctor. I’m permanently disabled and partially blind, in part because of those fucks.
Since the stroke and on proper medication, the debilitating headaches are gone. And before some quips ‘why didn’t you see a different doctor/clinic’: when you’re a child, you rely on your parents to make good decisions regardless your well-being. Thus ‘mom and dad know best’ therefore ‘I guess they are all shitty like this’. It would take years post-stroke for me to trust anyone in the medical field, because that was rooted deep in my expectation of them all.
So yeah, if you are a doc (or adjacent) and you don’t take your patients seriously, go jump out of a plane without a parachute. You are doing vastly more damage by being useless at best and malicious at worst.
An ex-professor of mine who had some “interesting” scientific theories about what NASA doesn’t want you to know was similar.
They later DEMANDED the police investigate the people breaking into their literally nailed-shut home, the people stalking them, and the implant the Jews inserted in their head.
News stories don’t get written about the 1/100 who are actually right, though. Her neighbor is a gaslighting shithead who belongs in chains.
Mental illness is a hell of a drug.
Loft perhaps means attic. It’s not uncommon for older apartment buildings to have unfinished attic space without any dividers between units and access via a panel in a closet or some such.
i lived in a building like this in the 90s in updtate new york.
But then everyone screams “innocent until proven guilty”
The two aren’t mutually exclusive. “Believe Women,” in this case is more about not brushing women off and actually looking into what they’re saying.
Although this specific instance is a poor example because she herself admits that her mental health was in a state where it being in her head was more likely than a homeless man living in her loft.
It’s never meant, “implicitly believe everything a woman says without evidence.”
Without any evidence, it is more likely for someone claiming they’ve been raped to be saying the truth, rather than to be humiliating themselves for a fake accusation.
You should believe rape victims (and not just women) whether there is evidence or not, because the way the world is right now makes it very unlikely for someone to make a fake accusation, while making it extremely hard for someone to legally prove that they’ve been raped. If someone is saying that they’ve been raped, in all likelihood they have been.
Everytime you decide to “first look at the evidence”, you pick the side of an unfair system. You should implicitly believe a rape victim, and then you can think about the evidence at your leisure.
Also, your strawman of changing “believe rape victims” into “believe everything a woman says without evidence” is a bit of a red flag. Might not have been intentional, so I’m telling you just in case.
What terrible friends this woman has. According to the article, none of them bothered to go and look with her or stay over there for a few nights? The article makes clear she was experiencing hallucinations, but still, I feel like a persistent thing as described warrants some kind of follow up, at least for peace of mind. Maybe help her set up a nanny cam at the very least. And then none of them even apologized?
I’m also surprised there were no charges brought against her neighbor for aiding, but I have no idea how that works in the uk.
Yeah honestly even if I thought my friend was completely batshit I’d still probably have taken a peak. Outcomes are confirmation they need more help or confirmation they were right, plus getting to spend a few minutes exploring somewhere you shouldn’t be which is fun. Just hang out with your friend for an evening playing games or whatever and take a moment to wander up there
