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Comment by bena | Hacker News Reader

The unsettling truth was that he was apparently an abusive malcontent who decided to run away from the problems he created once again.

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It's a shame, he could have had a healthy and productive life just posting every day to the Linux kernel mailing list.

Yep. He just missed finding his people, unfortunate.

And also that he basically left his life behind with no intention of ever coming back and hiked until he literally starved to death.

It sounds like he was aware enough of these flaws that he decided to do something about it. That's a lot better than some people who go a lifetime without ever being self-aware.

> he decided to do something about it

But not, apparently, therapy.

Based on what? Some ex’s word?

One person could be an aberration. But when multiple people all say similar things, it's a pattern.

It's not just "some ex's" word. It's her word and the words of the other people who knew him.

But he told obscure jokes! But yeah, I think the title is clickbait, nothing here actually seems unsettling.

> On a Saturday night in September 2016, K was injured when a terrorist set off a bomb on West 23rd Street in Manhattan. “I had pretty bad PTSD to which he hated caring for me, even kept a dated log of every time I needed help, to the point where he left me outside in the dark—knowing that at that time I couldn't be outside alone or be in the dark without panicking,” she recalls, before adding, “and this is only the light stuff.”

You don’t find this behavior unsettling? How about this anecdote being characterized as “this only the light stuff”?

Not to diminish her problems, but at the same time this is extremely reminiscent of girlfriends that are super attention seeking and constantly have “problems” that need to be resolved immediately. Sounds like this guy wasn’t super emotional and was distressed by incessant calls for attention.

A person who has such high levels of distress or lack of emotional regulation that they cannot manage by themselves the level of emotional turmoil they experience sounds... like PTSD, which uh, yeah, she has PTSD and this was a known behavior that he presumably chose and accepted when he was dating her. It makes no sense to date someone and then actively neglect their needs, even if their needs are greater than people who don't have a severe, chronic illness.

Maybe I've become jaded living in a low socioeconomic area but this sounds like the people living 2 doors down from me. They're forever having screaming matches, both diagnosed with mental health issues, they rarely work. But they're not that unusual here at the bottom end of the income distribution.

I was a little to flippant in my comment, maybe I should be more unsettled?

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