Someone "naked on the street, screaming at a wall, eating a pigeon or whatever" could be having a bad trip on some drugs, not necessarily mentally ill. The drugs will wear off, and they will be a regular neurotypical person again. But by slapping a mental illness label onto that person, you've proven that you have no clue what you're talking about, and you shouldn't be diagnosing anyone.
Our brain is designed through evolution to slap labels, aka engage in hasty generalisation. The world is much more complex than that.
becase most people are not qualified to distinguish mental illness from emotions, stress etc, and obviously you are not either. A broken, protruding bone is obviously broken and protruding; you see it with your eyes and you know that it's broken. Mental illness is much tougher to diagnose because you're looking at symptoms, not the actual brokenness. You said it yourself - you are a layperson, not a doctor, which confirms that you are nowhere near qualified to diagnose mental illness. Your "argument" stinks of ad hominem.
You could say "he's behaving irrationally" or even "he seems to be experiencing severe burnout".. But your exact phrasing is way too close to an "online diagnosis" (which is not a valid way to assess a mental illness - afaik no psychiatrist would ever diagnose anyone without ever talking to a person). On top of that, it's too close to an ad hominem - even if you didn't mean it that way.
Everyone is fighting their own demons. Some people are neurodivergent, but nothing good ever happens from an unsolicited "diagnosis" or slapping labels like "unglued". Every one of us can snap under enough pressure. Let's not go there.
Our brain is designed through evolution to slap labels, aka engage in hasty generalisation. The world is much more complex than that.
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