I do general outpatient mental health counseling now and I’ve met some bad people doing that but earlier in my career I did a brief stint of about 19 months doing forensic work (eg, working in a prison)

I met some truly awful people there. And the thing is, you often wouldn’t know it at all. I met people who were super cordial and polite. I met people who would tell me backstories that were kind of like this. And then later I would read their chart and find out they were serving 18 years because they violently raped 4 women, or they were serving life because they murdered a family including young children during a robbery

Your demeanor and backstory doesn’t mean shit if your current actions are abhorrent

Also I posted this before but United’s subsidiary, optum, is cutting mental health reimbursement rates in January by 30% for therapists using telehealth platforms such as headway and Alma (who optum has invested in along with cigna). Further, Alma is pushing therapists to write notes that are so lengthy (1-2 pages per session) they can be described as invasive. Do you really want your therapist to document every word you say? They are pushing for recording of sessions and AI summarization with tools like twofold health, which is inherently invasive and an unnecessary security risk

So, he was a class traitor then‽

I could easily write the same Horatio Alger take about Adolf Hitler himself. I won’t, because I don’t feel like writing a paragraph glorifying history’s greatest monster. But he came from similarly modest roots. And he also had people who loved him.

You can be the nicest person in the world to your family, but that means nothing if you kill thousands and trap millions in a labyrinth of pain and suffering. Make no mistake. When Thompson hit the pavement, he did not stop falling. If there is a Hell, he is burning there right now.