PTSD: Joss Whedon, Charisma Carpenter, Sarah Michelle Gellar.

if someone tells you that they have
post-traumatic stress disorder and that this was caused by their husband or this was caused by their wife and that in fact precisely the topic on which their eyewitness testimony is completely unreliable inadmissible in a court of law is this trauma that's the source of their complex ptsd how then do we cope with what they're telling us buffy the vampire slayer and angel actress charisma carpenter claimed joss whedon's behavior on the set of those series triggered a chronic physical condition from which i still suffer fellow buffy actress michelle trackenberg wrote a post that said in part i am brave enough now as a 35 year old woman to repost this trackenberg later edited the post by adding the last comment i will make on this was there was a rule saying he's not allowed in a room alone with michelle again i think we're all suitably cynical when one person accuses another of being insane i think we all know what to do i think we all know how to skeptically weigh in the balance the claim of a divorced angry woman that her ex-husband is insane or vice versa boyfriends girlfriends gay couples doesn't matter when people are angry at one another when they feel betrayed when they want revenge one of the first insults one of the most common insults is to say this person is crazy that person is insane and i think we all know i think we all know how to regard those claims with skepticism we have to cross-examine our own friends and co-workers this isn't just something to do with celebrities and social media it's something that comes up in daily life but how do we cope when somebody describes themselves as insane if someone tells you that they have post-traumatic stress disorder and that this was caused by their husband or this was caused by their wife and that in fact precisely the topic on which their eyewitness testimony is completely unreliable inadmissible in a court of law is this trauma that's the source of their complex ptsd how then do we cope with what they're telling us right if you take a moment to look up what the symptoms are for ptsd definitionally if ptsd is a real thing and if someone really has ptsd then we can't trust what they're telling us about the source or cause of the ptsd and the extent to which they may be an unreliable witness on any topic whatsoever really deserves to be asked insanity is serious it has become trivialized in popular culture in the 21st century because there are so many false and shallow and insincere claims of insanity i'm not talking about one person accusing the other i'm talking about people accusing or recusing themselves as insane i had a friend who was married to a completely normal rational able-bodied woman they ran a small business together they lived in several different cities around the world together i never met her but i saw photographs of them together like they came up when this guy was showing me photos of of his life i think they were together for ten years say i forget how many years was a long marriage she went insane she was given the same legal status as someone who was catatonic it's not a mental disability we're not talking about retardation here we're we're not talking about a learning disability this is someone who completed her high school and college education had a job led an active life right and she descended into insanity to a point where she couldn't brush her own teeth she couldn't cook her own meals she couldn't answer a question she couldn't read and sign a legal document she could not be responsible for anything in her own life she lived in a care home with helpers who helped her feed herself clothe herself etc okay this is insanity we're talking about this is the type of person who in a court of law would not be found to be responsible for their actions and a whole series of experts had to come into court and testify yes this woman is so genuinely insane that she has the same status as someone who is catatonic we can't even present her with a legal document and talk to her and get her to accept a lawyer to represent her nothing is possible this woman cannot speak on her own behalf that's how sounds anxious do you know why she went insane jealousy she was infertile formally diagnosed as such didn't just have difficulty she went and had all the tests done and the doctor said nope you are 100 incapable of conceiving and having a child and her identical twin sister was fertile got pregnant and had a healthy baby she was insanely jealous of her own twin sister and she descended to that point where she couldn't do her own laundry brush her own teeth insanity is real okay people being incapable of testifying in court or their testimony being discarded or people getting away with murder because they're this insane if this woman is in this totally disassociated state state and grabs a knife and stabs someone right she will not be responsible for murder this is real insanity the problem is today people try again and again and again to get away with murder or to at least get their sentence reduced through insincere claims of ptsd post-traumatic stressor this is a lawyer i did quite a bit of research on him for a chapter of my forthcoming book no more manifestos very interesting case he brushed his teeth this morning right he did his hair he was claiming that he had ptsd and that he should not be punished no not for murder not anything like that he happy murder just transpires in a few moments on one particular day most of the time no no nothing like that he was trying to get away with making a series of mean comments anonymously on the internet over several months and as it happens those anonymous comments had a disastrous effect on an ongoing court case ptsd the allegations currently circling around joss whedon began with a statement from his ex-wife his ex-wife doesn't just claim to be suffering from complex ptsd she claims that the cause of her ptsd is her husband's infidelity the cause according to her is that he lied to her over many years about many love affairs with many women some of whom may or may not have been actresses on the tv shows and movies he directed it gets real vague at that point if this diagnosis of complex ptsd is valid if it's real inasmuch as ptsd is a real condition with the list of symptoms that's agreed upon that would mean by definition her testimony about what her husband did and did not do is not admissible in a court of law charisma carpenter also has claimed vaguely painfully vaguely to have some kind of ongoing physically real painful condition as a result of the psychological damage done to her by joss whedon's bad behavior on set i think quite intentionally we in the audience are being led to imagine that it is something like ptsd that still haunts her we're living through a very dangerous period of time where people are accusing themselves of being crazy people are boasting of being debilitated with this really serious disorder ptsd a disorder that you can use in court to get away with murder they're boasting of it to make themselves seem like victims on the internet and basically to get the audience to credulously uncritically accept whatever allegations or complaints they present well at the same time we in the audience don't know how to respond with skepticism not when the accusation is of one person against another claiming that they're insane but instead when it's someone claiming to be insane themselves in order to destroy and discredit another person who is named in a cause and effect manner as the reason for their own present and ongoing insanity i do not sympathize with joss whedon i utterly despise joss whedon what i'm concerned about is the future of the concept of ptsd i'm concerned about the future of the concept of legal responsibility and in a sense i'm concerned about the future of sanity as ridiculous as the claims of insanity presented by lawyer sal perricone may be let's just consider that he was able to list off dozens and dozens of incredibly violent and traumatizing events in his life he was able to list off events involving guns and knives and law enforcement he was able to basically point to a personal history littered with events any one of which could be sufficient to cause lifelong complex ptsd the problem is we never can in this way have an objective domino-like cause and effect between an objective experience and someone's subjective breakdown i do not think that joss whedon's ex-wife is the only woman in hollywood to marry a multi-millionaire and later discover that he had been sleeping with other women i just don't think it's all that uncommon an experience i'm not saying it's good i'm not justifying it but isn't it a remarkable thing for one person to claim that they went insane that they lost their minds that they now have complex ptsd and it's your fault it's your fault because you had a love affair with someone else how many women are there who are identical twins who couldn't have a baby and their twin did have a baby and they just cope they just get over it or maybe they're even happy for their twin and they participate in raising their kid they can be a good aunt even though they can't be a good mother maybe it's the most wonderful thing in their lives they think hey i couldn't get pregnant you could i'm so happy for you let's all have a better life together there is no way you can blame that other person as the cause for that effect the way we have to measure sanity and insanity the way we have to measure a claim that somebody's husband cheating on them cause them ptsd right is gonna have to be through objectively real verifiable criteria ultimately i don't believe that sao para kone is insane because i've read the mean comments he made on the internet just the level of cognitive function he would have needed to have to be reading these articles and following the court case and making the mean comments i don't believe it because i can see he managed to put that suit and tie on this morning that he's really got his whole life together there's just no evidence here whereby i could say that his claims of having ptsd are real even though he's able to point you numerous trauma in his life that could have for someone else resulted in debilitating lifelong insanity how can it be that social media has become a competition to see who can be morally superior to whom in which the ultimate weapon in which the nuclear option is for people to declare themselves the victim suffering from ptsd and why because it's your fault [Music] maybe we can we can practice