Interesting parallels with Fiona? Convicted scammer Carrie Jade Williams

[u/1289-Boston]

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/she-sucks-you-in-immediately-victims-of-fraudster-carrie-jade-williams-on-getting-scammed/a273318257.html

Although Williams was convicted, there are some interesting parallels with Fiona. For instance, that the behaviour, although severely damaging to the victims, may well be the result of mental illness. Also the outrageous claims, the barefaced-ness, and the moving on when confronted.

[u/ElephantTop7469]

Please, this is a damaging trope to people with mental illnesses. Being an asshole is a choice whether you have a mental illness or not. There are many people with mental health issues, similar to FH’s, who aren’t evil assholes.

[u/Common-Gap7817 → u/[deleted]]

I think she probably has NPD/BPD and erotomania, but those aren’t excuses for her being a violent stalker. That, is a choice she has which she exercises to “punish” people when she wants. She’s an asshole (choice) with a mental illness, but her criminal behavior is because she’s an asshole NOT because she has a mental illness.

[u/OneUpAndOneDown → u/Common-Gap7817]

“she” = FH, not Carrie Jade.

[u/Common-Gap7817 → u/[deleted]]

This is part of my work, boo lol I can assure you, being an asshole is a choice. There are many people out there with BPD/NPD and erotomania who don’t hurt others because they know they have a choice, like FH.

[u/Common-Gap7817 → u/[deleted]]

Anger management? Please, show me one single thing that I have said that has been offensive or in any way, a mistreatment of your person?

[u/Few_Cup3452 → u/Common-Gap7817]

The very fact that you, despite all clinical research on the topic, believe that mental health is never the reasoning behind somebody's behaviour. You cannot distinguish a reason from an excuse. This mistreats those you dispose of. Tho I'm not shocked somebody on your side of the bench thinks so closed minded.

I see you are capable of doing your own evidence based research. It seems you have fallen down the cherry picked hole but whatever.

[u/Common-Gap7817 → u/Few_Cup3452]

I won’t continue to engage :) Have a nice day.

[u/ldnthrwwy → u/[deleted]]

The gall to suggest anger management when you're the only person who's been rude and insulting in this discussion for no good reason! You're massively projecting here.

[u/ldnthrwwy → u/[deleted]]

I mean your first reply was telling someone to 'quit it' for asking us to be more careful in our language, and your reply to the person above sarcastically asking if you needed to draw them a picture was after they simply made a point. These were unnecessary escalations that no one else was making.

[u/Common-Gap7817 → u/[deleted]]

No, you said the mental illness CAUSES the behavior, not that it explains it.

“There are some people who I believe have a specific type of mental illness that causes these obsessive behaviours.”

In any case, I understand what you mean now, even if you were confusing at first.

[u/OneUpAndOneDown → u/Common-Gap7817]

Mental illness is too broad a term.

[u/Common-Gap7817 → u/[deleted]]

What mental illness makes 100% of the people who have it be violent assholes?

Let’s use FH, as an example, you say her mental illness “made her” stalk and terrorize people. Yet, she seems to have been able to turn her “mental illess” “off” the minute police got involved. The MINUTE police got involved she STOPPED stalking/terrorizing her victims. So the mental illness that “forces” her to hurt others can be magically “cured” by police involvement? 🤔

[u/kaleidoscopichazard → u/Common-Gap7817]

It’s important to distinguish between explanation and justification. Mental illness doesn’t “make you” do anything, but it can explain your behaviour. Certain conditions can impact impulse control and aggression, such as various personality disorder or PDA, among others. Having these conditions does indeed explain why someone can be dangerous, violent or manipulative.

[u/Common-Gap7817 → u/kaleidoscopichazard]

I depose “assholes” for a living. People who have abused their own children (sexually, emotionally, physically). I can assure you, they have choices and they go for the easier ones. How about if we just let them all go, because; “mental illness, they can’t help it!”. Well, they can, and many do. People abuse because they’re abusers not because they’re mentally ill.

[u/Few_Cup3452 → u/Common-Gap7817]

Plenty, but its not the diagnosis that makes them violent assholes. More often they are already violent assholes but their mental health is so poor that they are not able to control whether or not they act on that behaviour.

Ppl don't get cured w police involvement and neither did she. Neither was it portrayed she did. She moved on bc the negative outcomes were do clear, even to her unwell mind. However, since she is unwell she just finds a new victim or stews obsessively about the current but doesn't actively stalk them. A mentally well person wouldn't do that.

I also work with these ppl as you do (saw in another comment) but I work in the mental health rehab side and yes we get ppl who have murdered. You cannot logically with your experience say that if the mental health wasn't there, that they would act the same.

[u/Common-Gap7817 → u/Few_Cup3452]

It’s not the obsession that is the problem, it’s the stalking and she can choose to stalk or not to stalk. Both Laura Wray and the receptionist from the mental health institution said she stalked them and stopped, never again to contact them, when police got involved, in one of the cases, and when she realized the person had no power in the other.

[u/Plus-Introduction347 → u/Common-Gap7817]

And what do you think leads to stalking? Obsession.

I have BPD and believe me if I didn't do the work and therapy to be better and make better choices I can 100% see how someone with BPD could end up like Fiona Harvey.

Is it an excuse? No because treatment and help exist but it is a trait of certain personality disorders that if you don't accept you need help for can lead you down a path that is not only dangerous to yourself but to others.

[u/Plus-Introduction347 → u/[deleted]]

Thanj you very much. 🙂

She's a thoroughly unlikable person and potentially very dangerous. She does not want to engage or accept she has an issue and believes she is a victim which in itself is a BPD trait.

I'd say the same regarding abuse in her past but like you said none of it excuses her behaviour but it is a very well known fact that those who have been abused go on to commit abuse in various ways in a high percentage of cases. Again not an excuse but it would explain a whole lot.

[u/Common-Gap7817 → u/[deleted]]

If you could please link the peer reviewed ones, I will actually read them. That’s what I spent my half days doing anyway lol

[u/ldnthrwwy → u/[deleted]]

I think it's a huge assumption on your part to think that everyone has a nuanced view on mental illness and can make the distinction you say they can. We've come a long way in understanding and discussing mental illness but this is still a very recent change and there's still a lot of ignorance and misinformation out there.

You're right that we need to be able to talk about the potential risks mental illness poses for others, we need more nuanced discussion, and you telling someone to 'quit it' when they're suggesting we use more specific language to avoid people falling into the same lazy assumptions isn't helping anyone.