But I am 100% suggesting Walton being a **** who needs to mature is absolutely a possibility. I've never said anything about him being entitled or spoiled.[I had some personal matters to deal with and just now finding the time to reply]
Yes, I did seriously ask you to do that, but didn't seriously think that you would. Operationalizing psychological constructs is extremely difficult and I don't think people appreciate the complexity involved. Instead, you say that you used logic and common sense? Well, I say that I also used logic and common sense. See the problem with this?
However, I didn't JUST use logic and common sense. I used clinical intuition derived from years of experience treating people with brain diseases. I also used the clinical criteria that's been proposed to diagnose CTE in living people (yes, it's only proposed for now but it's a solid place to start).
This is a list of the clinical observations I made about Mark's presentation in that 10-min. video: cognitive impairment (confusion, memory issues), emotional dysregulation (irritability, violent outbursts), emotional lability (mood swings), perceptual abnormalities (paranoia, distorted reality), poor distress tolerance, impulsivity, impaired judgment.
Are you really suggesting that being immature or a **** includes someone having perceptual abnormalities, cognitive impairment, and poor distress tolerance? I doubt that you are.
You do make a good point about alcohol as a complicating factor. For many conditions in the DSM-5 you often see something like this: "the disturbance is not attributable to the physiological effects of a substance" that, if met, would rule-out a particular diagnosis. However there are several videos of Mark demonstrating at least some of the clinical features I listed above, which suggests a consistent pattern of behavior.
Could he have been using in every video? Sure, that's a possibility, but then this suggests that he may have some type of substance-use disorder, which as you know is a psychiatric illness.
You seem like an intelligent, reasonable guy and I appreciate your willingness to offer alternative explanations; you have more balls than a lot of the ignorant, contrarian clowns on here. However, his clinical presentation simply cannot be accounted for or explained by being immature, spoiled, entitled, or a ****.
My feeling on Mark is people on this board have always had ways of making excuses for him, which made sense because he had such a harsh background that people really wanted to see him succeed. I get it. The narrative was always "He's a great player, and a great person". But was he really ever either?
As a Player - Walton had way more bad games than good at Miami. A lot of very smart people with tons of experience in football (like you have experience in your field) gave "reasons" ranging from - He was too young, he was injured, he had more plays called back than anyone, the coaching was bad, the play calling was bad, the OL play was bad, etc.. I always thought the answer was much more simple and obvious - He's not a very good athlete and just not that good of a player - and that's why he had so many bad games. Simple.
People might see his convulsive celebrating after a meaningless run in a meaningless game, or throwing a fit after getting pulled out of a game that was already over, or jumping and waving his hands to get the offense play call in as "Passionate". I always just saw them as a bit spastic and over-dramatic.
As a Person - People always said he was a great person, and I always thought that was true. But maybe he just wasn't. I mean - people always said he was great player, and he wasn't - so maybe this is the same. Just like people didn't want to believe he wasn't a good player, so all his bad games had "reasons" - people don't want to believe he's not a good guy - so he's a bipolar, multiple personality, schizophrenic with CTE. People don't want to think maybe he's just a dude making bad decisions - so they think there's got to be some medical "reasons" for them.
All the symptoms you say shows Walton likely has CTE - confusion, memory issues, irritability, violent outbursts, mood swings, paranoia, distorted reality, poor distress tolerance, impulsivity, impaired judgment - I think if you watch any episode of COPS you'll see a 10 minute video of someone getting arrested displaying all these same "symptoms" - doesn't make me think it's CTE. At any bar in America that's crowded with 23 year old alpha males - you're gonna see a dude showing these same symptoms. I think there's a "possibility" you might be way overthinking this.
I don't see anything in this video that rules out the possibility of him simply making some dumb decisions. I REALLY don't see it in any other video - so not sure what you or anyone else is referring to there.
In the end - I look at things more simply. Again, I am no medical professional so if you ask me to explain medical reasons for my take on things - I can't do that. If a random 22 year old college student gets drunk and ends up getting arrested for getting in a fight - I don't think he probably had substance abuse issues along with major brain trauma, and/or psychological problems. I just think he was being a dumb college student who did some dumb sh^t. I don't think you need a medical background or reasons to think someone is immature or acting like an ***. Using logic/common sense to decide if someone's acting like an a-hole is much, much different than using logic/common sense to decide if someone's suffering from serious and progressive brain disease.
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