Unpopular opinion time

@DanielTepesKraus  
I was referring to before that, you said Starlight fitted the qualities of a sociopath. I said she didn’t, and you said it was statement about ponies as a whole and brought up Pinkie as an example.
 
…and for the record, Pinkie has become depressed after losing her friends… twice. And once was hardly all that bad, and she snapped out of it pretty quickly by herself.
 
And the fact you think antisocial personality disorder should be treated with medication also worries me if you are in fact a doctor, because it really can’t.
 
@Josh103  

 
I’m not even going to try and deny that!
 
…if anything, our fashion sense is even worse.

@Philweasel  
my point was that tons of the ponies seem to have mental issues as a whole. case in point, pinkie and depression. though, i’m surprised you’re discounting the possibility of using medications to treat conditions associated with apd like aggression or anxiety.
 
still, if you wanna pick each other’s brains about i’m up for it elsewhere. i doubt anyone other than us two would be interested in psychobabble.

@DanielTepesKraus  
Oh I know.
 
But do go on. It’s amusing to me. It’s funnier because I once thought I was colloquially a “sociopath” because of how uncaring I was. Nowadays I’ve realized I do care… just a lot less than the average person.
 
@Philweasel  
I think things might be different in the UK compared to here in the states. The nurses I’ve met seem to have a high opinion of themselves since they believe they are overworked.

@Josh103  
lol. don’t even get me started on self-diagnosis. it’s almost never a good move.

@DanielTepesKraus  
Heh, psychobabble is my bread and butter. It’s what drew me into MLP in the first place, the fact that it was pretty much a group therapy session for personality disorders. It’s also why I love Starlight. Her somewhat more seriously treated and more challenging portrayal of mental illness, along with a pretty realistic and well researched treatment plan, played right into my pet loves.
 
…to be honest, I’m not actually in mental health either, I’m primarily orthopedics. I’m a strong believer in never making my hobbies my profession, because I know it will kill my enjoyment of it.
 
I’m really not a fan of drugs, having had a lot of bad experiences with people using the ‘chemical cosh’ and making a bad situation considerably worse, along with mental health patients who admit to buying more medication from questionable sources because ‘they make it better’ (and promptly walk into traffic or fall down the stairs). It’s also probably because I’m English, so medication is considerably more frowned upon than it is in America.
 
I don’t feel Starlight has really big issues with aggression or anxiety either. Her anxiety can be a problem, but it’s more a problem because she is embarrassed to admit her worries and difficulties and tends to try and work around them on her own (and she really doesn’t have the best judgement). Aggression too is hardly a big problem, even when furiously angry the only one she’s ever tried to physically harm is Twilight (and actively avoided harming her former followers). She even developed a non-lethal spell to hold Twilight while she gloated.
 
Really her major problems are her abandonment issues, her poor judgement, her difficulty in understanding personal boundaries and her emotional immaturity, which are all things that Twilight’s approach is best suited to treating.

@DanielTepesKraus  
I self-diagnosed myself having high-functioning depression. /s

I still want a Princess Celestia and Princess Luna episode that focuses solely on them and does not have a third-party motivator.

@DanielTepesKraus
 
Magic can mess up your mind;

@Josh103  

 
A high opinion of myself? Constantly moaning that I’m overworked? Me?! Never!
 
…ok, maybe a little. Sometimes.
 
One thing I will say about doctors is that the grand majority of them have been the most humble, hard working, and approachable people I could ask for. I realize that the reason why many of them have so little knowledge of anything outside their specialties is because they’re worked so hard that they have little time for anything else.
 
On the other hand, I’ve met a depressing amount of arrogant, lazy, distracted nurses, who would rather talk about what they’re doing on their day off than work… sigh…
 
 

 
And I’ve also worried about myself on occasion. I’ve always felt very disconnected from other people, don’t tend to get emotional about their problems, prefer my own space and don’t socialize all that much.
 
…it’s called being an introvert. Don’t worry about it. It’s not that weird.
 
Helpful in my job too. Emotions are for people who beat people to death with golf trophies. I’m a professional, I prefer ethics.

@Philweasel  
medicines are just tools. every patient is different, and mental disorders are particularly tricky to treat. certain conditions that arise as the result of said disorders, however, can easily be controlled with medication, which makes it easier for the patient and the doctor to treat the root cause.
 
consider this: pretend you’re in a bad place. you need to renovate your house and your kids are in the way. me, being a friend, comes along and babysits your kids while you focus on renovating. that’s basically what medicine can do.
 
going full professional mode for a moment here, what i would honestly do as a doctor in equestria for starlight glimmer, is therapy and a magical dampener (like flurry heart got) so she can’t as easily injure herself or others while the root cause of her problems are treated. don’t want her ripping out her anger or other pony’s cutie marks by accident, do we?

@Philweasel  
Heh as I thought. Everyone is overworked, people react differently to it.
 
I never cared much for medicine (other than when I’m sick, of course), yet I work(ed) in a pharmacy setting. Go figure!
 
Actually I can’t say I’ve ever cared much for anything.
 
Other than Twilight, of course. Maybe Sunset also. I turn on Starlight too easily for me to say I care enough about her also despite being my third favorite character in MLP.
 
Oh but I’m very introverted. I don’t like people or anyone, for that matter. I’m only talking to you or anyone here because I can’t see your face, I only see mediocre artwork of Starlight. I’m not for social interaction, my ideal place is far from society. Not to say I wanna go all “nature wild man”, because that’s just dumb to me. It might be why I really want Moondancer to appear more, because she’s appealing to me. Not to say I study or am a bookworm or anything, I never do that.
 
I would never be a medical professional since I don’t care for ethics. Working in the pharmacy already gave me anecdotal proof that yeah, those guys juggle with your life. I mean, everyone does, but at least you’re aware of it.

@HJSDGCE  
Me too

@DanielTepesKraus  
I’m on my phone so apologies for in inelegance, but I’m just going to quote myself.
 
@Philweasel
 
The treatement for BPD is Dialectical behavior therapy which:  

@Background Pony #8F00  
Because a big part of Tempest is playing with people’s expectations.
 
She’s deliberately designed to look like an edgy OC, and people fell for it hook, line, and sinker. But you can break down her colour scheme and find that it actually stands up under scrutiny.
 
A person might assume that her personality would only appeal to thirteen year-olds. But she’s actually, polite, respectful and professional, the opposite of what a teenage would consider cool.
 
A person might assume she works for an even more evil overlord. And while when you break it down, The Storm King really is a horrible person, he’s also a huge goofball.
 
A person might assume that Tempest has a scar and broken horn because she’s a battle-hardened badass, but it’s actually due to a traumatic childhood injury.
 
So the icing on the cake is that she actually has the most cutesy name in the entire show.

@LightningBolt  
I kind of am to a lesser extent, but only because the other movie characters are being shafted because of this. I still think the fanfic writers ought to do more with Skystar and the hippogryphs.
 
Though I am def glad at least one thing about the film left an memorable and meaningful impression on fans.

@LightningBolt  
I don’t find her interesting.
 
I know I type that a lot. From a certain point of view, I only still watch FiM to see Twilight.

@LightningBolt  
Thank you

@Background Pony #CB05  
Well, no. The other movie characters are being shafted because, sadly, there’s just not that much to say about them.
 
I would love to be proven wrong on this.

@Philweasel  
thing is, every study sourced in that wikipedia article under “efficacy” listed that pharmaceutical drugs were used in addition to dbt. see for yourself:  
-‘To maximize external validity, there were no restrictions on ancillary pharmacotherapy’.  
-‘They randomly assigned 34 (largely chronically) depressed individuals age 60 and older to receive 28 weeks of antidepressant medication plus clinical management’
 
also the acronym of PLEASE, the “a” only says to avoid non-prescription drugs. dbt’s legit, but like medicine and every other treatment it’s no miracle but merely a tool to be used to help the patient.
 
now, seriously, hate to engage staff mode here but let’s take this to pm’s so we don’t derail this thread any longer.

@Poison Trail  
>good natured race
 
Have you forgotten all the pony antagonists and freaking king sombra and all the pony biases see starlight glimmer and tempest shadow they let the storm king die but didn’t let tempest shadow die because she’s a pony and obviously much more good than the non pony even tho she helped him destroy lives and kingdoms but because she’s a pony she doesn’t deserve to die with the storm king all because she’s “good natured” inside….bullshit.

@Goobington  
>playing with people’s expectations
 
It was plain obvious that she’d be redeemed at the end of the movie and made more obvious when she told her back story which is almost like starlight’s back story because she’s a pony.😑

@Background Pony #8F00  

 
This.

@LightningBolt  
New pony character that’s female? I kind of expected such :o

@Background Pony #8F00  
I answered your question, and gave non redemption-related examples of playing with expectations.
 
>because she’s a pony
 
Well, her whole story started because she was injured trying to help her friends, who then abandoned her. She worked for The Storm King because she saw no alternative, and he offered her a way to get her horn back. Twilight saw this, and offered her a chance to redeem herself. Tempest did so by sacrificing herself to save The Mane Six.
 
But let’s just ignore all that and say she was saved because she’s a pony, since that’s easier.