so my younger cousin is flying in to visit from brazil on sunday, and will be staying here for like, the entirety of july. which, don't get me wrong, is super cool! i love the kid! but it felt like a super weird move, considering his parents are the SUPER strict and borderline helicopter parents. even the smallest prank/roughousing with him/his little sister would lead to a strict talking to from his parents, he couldn't ever do anything without their clear permission, that sort of stuff. so letting him fly at alone at 16 to a whole different country and stay there for a whole month seemed WILDLY out of character. additionally, it just felt like a super last-minute trip. it's not like we have any plans to do when he gets here, and the flight itself and stuff only got booked like, midway through june.
and i was talking to my mom about it, kind of trying to nudge some answers out of her, and after a while she went, "yeah, i think they're sending him over here to get away for his boyfriend. see if the distance breaks them off." which, first of all, surprised me because last i checked, they didn't KNOW he had a boyfriend. literally everyone in the family did EXCEPT for them because while that entire side of the family being semi-conservative, his parents (mostly his dad) are EXTREMELY old-fashioned. so clearly something already went wrong. and considering the only reason the rest of the family knew is because one person found out and it spread like wildfire, i have a sneaking suspicion he wasn't the one to tell them, either.
and second of all. they're sending him HERE. to try to make him forget his homosexuality. i couldn't do anything but just wordlessly gesture to the multiple pride flags scattered around my room, then to myself, because really? he has like two other cousins in the us and they're sending him to me? honey i am about to introduce this kid to queer scenes you have never even heard of. he'll be returning home with labels only shrimp can perceive
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Personally, it's always a bit wild to me to see commentators interact with the Hunger Games franchise as if Collins were writing science fiction stories instead of essays with faces. She's just not that interested in fleshing out side characters or digging into the details of the worldbuilding. These characters are concepts and symbols before they're people. There's an almost mathematical precision to who and what she explores and how deeply she does it. This is a step or two away from pure allegory. If she were writing a couple of centuries ago, she'd have named her characters things like Innocence and Anger and Watch-Carefully-Your-Soul-Lest-Ye-Be-Damned, but since she's writing for modern audiences, she has to settle for puns and allusions. If she has another essay to write, she'll assign some faces to it; she's not going to look into backstories or other eras just for the sake of storytelling, and it's not a failing as a writer that she doesn't.
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Please, if you can, take a moment to read and share this because I feel like I'm screaming underwater.
NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) stigma is rampant right now, and seems to be getting progressively worse. Everyone is using it as a buzzword in the worst ways possible, spreading misinformation and hatred against a real disorder.
I could go on a long time about how this happened, why it's factually incorrect (and what the disorder actually IS), why it's harmful, and the changes I'd like to see. But to keep this concise, I'll simply link to a few posts under the cut for further reading.
The point of this post is a plea. Please help stop the spread of stigma. Even in mental health communities, even around others with personality disorders, in neurodivergent "safe" spaces, other communities I thought people would be supportive in (e.g. trans support groups, progressive spaces in general), it keeps coming up. So I'm willing to bet that a lot of people on this site need to see this.
Because it's so hard to exist in this world.
My disorder already makes me feel as if I'm worthless and unlovable, like there's something inherently wrong and damaged about me. And it's so much harder to fight that and heal when my daily life consists of:
Laughing and spending time with my friends, doing my utmost best to connect and stay present and focused on them, trying to let my guards down and be real and believe I'm lovable- when suddenly they throw out the word "narcissist" to describe horrible people or someone they hate, or the conversation turns to how evil "people with narcissistic personality disorder" are. (Seriously, you don't know which of your friends might have NPD and feels like shit when you say those things & now knows that you'd hate them if you knew.)
Trying to look up "mental health positivity for people with npd", "mental health positivity cluster bs", only to find a) none of that, and b) more of the same old vile shit that makes me feel terrible about myself.
Having a hard time (which is constant at this point) and trying to look up resources for myself, only to again, find the same stigma. And no resources.
Not having any clue how to help myself, because even the mental health field is spitting so much vitriol at people with DISORDERS (who they're supposed to be helping!) that there's no solid research or therapy programs for people like me.
Losing close friends when they find out, despite us having had a good relationship before, and them KNOWING me and knowing that I'm not like the trending image of pwNPD. Because now they only see me through the lens of stigma and misinformation.
Hearing the same stigma come up literally wherever I go. Clubs. Meetings. Any online space. At the bus stop. At the mall. At a restaurant. At work. Buzzword of the year that everyone loooves loudly throwing around with their friends or over the phone. Feels awesome for me, makes my day so much better/s
I could go on for a long time, but I'm scared no one will read/rb this if it gets too much longer.
So please. Stop using the word "narcissist" as a synonym for "abusive".
Stop bringing up people you hate who you believe to have NPD because of a stigmatizing article full of misinformation whenever someone with actual NPD opens their mouth. (Imagine if people did that with any other disorder! "Hey, I'm autistic." "Oh... my old roommate screamed at me whenever I made noise around him, and didn't understand my needs, which seems like sensory overload and difficulty with social cues. He was definitely autistic. But as long as you're self-aware and always restraining your innate desire to be an abusive asshole, you're okay I guess, maybe." ...See how offensive and ignorant that is?)
Stop preventing healthcare for people with a disorder just because it's trendy to use us as a scapegoat.
If you got this far, thank you for reading, and please share this if you can. Further reading is under the cut.
NPD Criteria, re-written by someone who actually has NPD
Stigma in the DSM
Common perception of the DSM criteria vs how someone may actually experience them (Keep in mind that this is the way I personally experience these symptoms, and that presentation can vary a lot between individuals)
"Idk, the stigma is right though, because I've known a lot of people with NPD who are jerks, so I'm going to continue to support the blockage of treatment for this condition."
(All of these were written by me, because I didn't want to link to other folks' posts without permission, but if you want to add your own links in reblogs or replies please feel free <3)
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