u/sno4wy

I’m asking this partly because of something that happened to me, and I want to understand the broader ethical issue.

For context, I’ve been the target of a long-running online harassment and smear campaign. As part of that, someone without any psychological or psychiatric training wrote a detailed “psychoanalysis” of me and my behavior based on limited exposure to my online interactions. They included this in a large public callout document. That analysis is treated as “evidence” that I am unstable, dangerous, and manipulative.

To be clear, I know that someone without training should not do that. It's the same sort of thing as someone with no formal training in law, medicine, or engineering presenting themselves as qualified to make expert conclusions. It is especially harmful when the “analysis” is used to isolate or discredit someone.

I also know that trained mental health professionals generally should not do this either. I’m not saying bad apples don’t exist, but the actual professionals I’ve spoken to have all agreed that publicly diagnosing or analyzing a person they have not evaluated, especially without consent, raises serious ethical concerns.

Where I get confused is in the gray area.

For example, I’ve seen online controversies where someone with a degree in a mental health-related field breaks down a public callout document. They discuss how a certain mental health condition can lead to specific behaviors or beliefs reflected in the document. They may not explicitly say, “This person has X disorder,” but it can still feel like they are psychoanalyzing that person or implying something clinical about them.

So my question is: When, if ever, is it appropriate to psychoanalyze someone publicly without their consent?

Is this mostly a black-and-white issue? Should someone who feels tempted to psychoanalyze another person publicly keep those thoughts to themselves?

Or are there situations where it can be ethical, such as:

• Discussing public behavior without diagnosing
• Talking generally about patterns without assigning a condition to a specific person
• Analyzing a public figure’s statements or writings
• Discussing how certain mental health conditions can affect behavior, without claiming a specific person has that condition?

Where is the actual line?

I’m especially interested in hearing from mental health professionals, therapists, counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists, or anyone familiar with professional ethics. I’m not asking anyone to diagnose anyone involved in my situation. I want to understand what is considered ethical when people use mental health language to explain, discredit, or warn others about someone online.

From my perspective, having a layperson’s detailed psychoanalysis of me published and treated as proof that I’m dangerous has been very damaging. I’m trying to determine whether my instinct is right in believing this should be considered completely inappropriate or if there are legitimate gray areas I’m overlooking.

Hi all, I posted this question in the discordbots reddit and only got one relevant answer. Because any particular person won't know everything, I wanted to get more input on this issue.

I’m trying to understand whether a claimed Discord bot/account-compromise explanation is technically plausible.

Here's the situation: A Discord user’s account sent unsolicited DMs to multiple members of one specific server (let's call it "A"), inviting them to another specific server (let's call it "B").

The things that my server members and I found weird were:

• The invites appeared to go only to members of one shared server, A.
• The invite was only for one specific destination server, B.
• Some recipients were not friends with the sender and had apparently never spoken to them before.
• At least one person who is friends with the sender did not receive an invite.
• The sender is in other servers too, but as far as we know, people from those other servers did not receive similar invites to B.
• The “it was a bot” explanation only came up after people called attention to the DMs, which was about 7 hours after the messages were received. The account that sent out those messages is, from what I know, active on a daily basis.

I know Discord account compromises, malicious authorized apps, selfbots, and DM invite spam happen. However, in my experience, those kinds of scams tend to be more indiscriminate and widespread. The goal is usually to compromise or bait as many accounts as possible so those accounts can be used to spread the scam further, like the common fake Mr. Beast/Nitro-style scams.

This situation seems different because the destination server, B, is very small, around 200 members, and the outreach seemed narrowly aimed at members of another specific small server, A. There is also prior tension between the two servers, which is why the pattern feels less random to the people involved.

Both servers are centered around a pretty niche cozy game.

What I’m trying to understand is whether this specific pattern sounds like normal hacked-account/bot behavior, or whether it sounds more like selective manual outreach.

If this were caused by a malicious authorized app, compromised account, selfbot, or invite-spam bot, what evidence would usually exist? For example, would it normally DM friends first, recent DMs, random mutual-server members, everyone in a server, or only people from one selected server?

Also, are there any known bots, scams, authorized-app exploits, or account-compromise patterns that would behave this way specifically: sending one particular server invite only to selected members of one other server?

If so, how exactly would that work? For example, would the mods/admins of Server B be able to set something up so that accounts belonging to Server B members could automatically DM people they are connected to and recruit them to Server B? Would that require the account owner to opt in, authorize an app, add a bot, scan a QR code, or have their token/session compromised?

Sorry if these are basic questions — I’m just trying to understand the mechanics and I'm not very tech-savvy. I’d really like to believe that the person who sent the invites was compromised by a bot like they claim, but I’ve never heard of a bot/scam pattern that works this selectively before.

Thanks in advance for your time and insight.

I’m trying to understand whether a claimed Discord bot/account-compromise explanation is technically plausible.

Scenario:

A Discord user’s account sent unsolicited DMs to multiple members of one specific server (let's call it "A"), inviting them to another specific server (let's call it "B").

The odd parts are:

• The invites appeared to go only to members of one shared server, A.
• The invite was only for one specific destination server, B.
• Some recipients were not friends with the sender and had apparently never spoken to them before.
• At least one person who is friends with the sender did not receive an invite.
• The sender is in other servers too, but as far as we know, people from those other servers did not receive similar invites to B.
• The “it was a bot” explanation only came up after people called attention to the DMs.

I know Discord account compromises, malicious authorized apps, selfbots, and DM invite spam happen. However, in my experience, those kinds of scams tend to be more indiscriminate. The goal is usually to compromise or bait as many accounts as possible so those accounts can be used to spread the scam further, like the common fake Mr. Beast/Nitro-style scams.

This situation seems different because the destination server, B, is very small, around 200 members, and the outreach seemed narrowly aimed at members of another specific small server, A. There is also prior tension between the two servers, which is why the pattern feels less random to the people involved.

What I’m trying to understand is whether this specific pattern sounds like normal hacked-account/bot behavior, or whether it sounds more like selective manual outreach.

If this were caused by a malicious authorized app, compromised account, selfbot, or invite-spam bot, what evidence would usually exist? For example, would it normally DM friends first, recent DMs, random mutual-server members, everyone in a server, or only people from one selected server?

Also, are there any known bots, scams, authorized-app exploits, or account-compromise patterns that would behave this way specifically: sending one particular server invite only to selected members of one other server?

If so, how exactly would that work? For example, would the mods/admins of Server B be able to set something up so that accounts belonging to Server B members could automatically DM people they are connected to and recruit them to Server B? Would that require the account owner to opt in, authorize an app, add a bot, scan a QR code, or have their token/session compromised?

Sorry if these are basic questions — I’m just trying to understand the mechanics. I’d really like to believe that the person who sent the invites was compromised by a bot like they claim, but I’ve never heard of a bot/scam pattern that works this selectively before.

Thanks in advance for your time and insight.

I just got home from a late-night drive.

I was feeling awful, so I went out with no real destination in mind, just trying to clear my head. I forgot my phone and wallet, and I didn’t feel like going back to get them, so I drove around aimlessly for a while.

I stopped by a Walmart, but it was already closed. I drove through some strip mall areas I hadn’t really explored before, not for any particular reason, just to see what stores were there. Eventually I turned down a road I’d driven before, but went farther than I usually do.

It was really dark, so I was going about 5 mph under the speed limit. After the familiar area ended, I passed some condos or apartments that looked more like rented townhouses. I thought they looked kind of neat, so I turned in and drove around a little. It was hard to see much at night, and at one point I turned down a no-outlet street. I did want to look at the area more because it genuinely seemed nice, but then I started feeling self-conscious about being in a neighborhood where I didn’t live, so I left.

I still wasn’t ready to go home. I didn’t know where I was going next.

Then police lights came on behind me.

I pulled over, and a very kind officer came up to my window and asked if I knew why she had stopped me. I said no. She explained that I had been driving under the speed limit and that my driving looked suspicious.

Apparently, she had been following me for a while. I hadn’t noticed her. I was focused on the road because I knew I was emotionally compromised and didn’t want to make a mistake. I didn’t think I was driving suspiciously, but I guess from the outside, I was. I was unfamiliar with the area, made a turn weirdly, and didn’t immediately realize part of the street was wider than the other part. Thankfully there were no other cars around, so at least no one else had to witness me embarrassing myself.

She had also followed me into the apartment/condo area and thought I might have been trying to dodge her.

When she asked me what was going on, I blanked for a second.

Then I just started crying.

Not a few tears. I mean uncontrollable crying. The kind where you know you look ridiculous and you want to stop, but your body just will not cooperate.

I told her I’ve been dealing with years of online harassment, and nothing has made it stop.

I have tried so many of the things people suggest. I don’t engage. I block. I ignore. I avoid these people as much as possible. I’ve looked at anti-harassment resources and tried to follow the advice. But it hasn’t worked.

I thought things were finally settling down recently, but it now feels like it was just another lull while they set up more things to blame on me.

The worst part is that these people keep telling others I’m unstable, dangerous, and “need help.” They abuse things like Reddit Care Resources to spam me with fake concern. But given that this all started with people sending me multiple messages a day telling me to kill myself, those fake “concern” messages do not feel like concern. They feel like another way of reminding me that they want me gone and that they will keep trying to destroy my reputation.

Nothing has worked.

The police can’t really do anything unless there are direct threats or something more clearly actionable. Lawyers have told me I may have a case, but the quotes I’ve gotten are thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars to make real progress. Platforms often won’t remove the content because each individual post just barely skirts the line of violating TOS, and it seems even harder to get action when the harassment has been going on across multiple platforms for years.

One of the most painful parts is that I am actively trying to take care of my mental health.

I’ve worked with the same psychiatrist for over 10 years. We’ve tried so many medications and treatment options. I’ve kept trying new medications even after previous ones failed. I’ve ended up in the ER twice with life-threatening side effects, and I still kept going.

I also actively pursued therapy specifically to deal with this harassment, including dealing with all the American insurance red tape to find someone who was a good fit and actually covered. I’ve spent huge amounts of money on treatments that insurance didn’t cover, like TMS and ketamine.

So when these people keep pushing the narrative that I’m unhinged, severely mentally unwell, dangerous, and unwilling to get help, I don’t even know what else I’m supposed to do.

I feel powerless.

I am not suicidal. I am not interested in self-harm. I am overwhelmed, exhausted, and feeling very hopeless.

The officer did not give me a ticket. She was actually from a different municipality than the one I live in, and she offered to have one of my local officers come to my residence to talk to me. I declined. I wasn’t in immediate danger, and I already know there isn’t much the police can do for me right now.

She was kind, though. Kinder than she had to be.

I just feel embarrassed and drained. I went out to try to clear my head, got pulled over for looking suspicious because I was driving slowly and aimlessly, and then completely dissolved in front of a stranger because apparently that was the point where my body decided it couldn’t hold it in anymore.

I don’t really know what I want from posting this. I think I just needed to get it out somewhere.

As the title says!

While I'm not nearly as hardcore of a gamer as I used to be, I'm still constantly outing myself as a gamer due to some of the lingo that I use. XD

Some of these words/phrases are not exclusive to gaming, but I'd first encountered them through gaming, or I first saw them used in gaming contexts. It feels totally normal to me to use them, especially when I mostly use these words in joking contexts, and not all of them I picked up from video games (i.e. some come from playing TTRPGs). Sometimes I realize, oh hey non-gamers probably don't typically use these words, so it's always interesting to think about.

What about all of you?

(Example words for me: aggro, diminishing returns, RNG/RNG-sus, brb bio, buff/nerf, side quest, speedrun, POV, grinding, carrying, skill issue, min/max, consumeables)

I got back into tamas recently and in addition to loving the process of growing my collection, it's been a lot of fun visiting this sub and seeing everyone's tamas. I've been learning so much and it's just been so great basking in all the tama love. 💖

There are a lot of devices that I've missed and will probably never own, so I feel really fortunate to be able to live vicariously through other tama lovers here. 🥰

I forgot to pause my gen 1 when I went out, and it died while I was out.

Other than knowing that I have tamagotchis and play with them, my partner doesn't know anything about them. So when that tama started going off, he rushed to get it because those continuous beeps sounded very urgent, only to see that blinking skull.

He didn't know what to do, but he tried pressing all of the buttons anyway, and of course nothing happened. He felt like he did something wrong and kept trying to help it, but as we experienced tama players all know... its time had come, and there was nothing anyone could do to save it. 😅

When I got home, he was so sad, thinking he'd killed my tama. When I explained to him that that was it dying and that there was nothing to do, he was horrified, and was like, "Seriously? So it beeps at you for like 30 seconds and makes you watch it die, not letting you do anything? THIS IS A TOY ORIGINALLY MADE FOR KIDS???"

Is it horrible that I LOL'd? 🤣🤣🤣