#not even getting into how similar npd and bpd are and how sometimes i feel like there's gender bias in diagnosis

[juniper-bunch]

Inside Out 2 and how we relate to it

This is going to be essentially in long bullet points, expalinging what happens in the movie and then our own experiences. There are spoilers, so we’ll cut it here

This ties into the first movie more, but when Riley moves, she has a major shift in mood and personality. It seems very sudden to her parents and she seems to go through a bout of depression. // when we moved during the summer after 4th grade, that was the first move that actually affected us (our father is in the military, so we’ve always been moving). Sometime during 5th grade, a lot of things caught up to us and we had a major shift, a huge depressive episode, and a change in who our host was (for some time, we didn’t even have a host. We were unaware we were a system at the time). Our parents say it happened over night, like a light switch, the major personality change and the depression.

Joy tossed away the negative memories to not deal with them, and then later, Anxiety bottled up the original emotions and had them hidden away. Both times, these two think they’re helping Riley. // We used to do that a lot. It got so bad we essentially became numb to everything. We could barely feel anything and we just became a shell of a person. We always bottled up our emotions, thinking it was a good defense mechanism. I myself still do this with my negative emotions, and I now struggle a lot to tell what I’m feeling. However I am getting help from my head mates and therapy.

3. Anxiety tossed away Riley’s sense of self and made her change for others so she would be liked and accepted. // We used to do this a lot. We would completely disregard ourselves for others to be liked. We completely lost complete our sense of self as a whole for a really long time. We’re now getting better with that and are finally learning to set boundaries.

4. Riley pushed away her friends for others, leaving behind her friends and making them upset with her for doing so. // We have bpd (and highly possibly npd) and we always pushed people away whenever we got upset or scared or even because we were afraid of others judging us for who our friends were. It was a defense mechanism that we had and we didn’t realize until way later how bad it was. We still struggle with this, but we are trying to get better.

5. Riley has a panic attack over upsetting others and all her emotions coming flooding back, leading to a breakdown. // We used to be very prone to panic attacks over similar things. Any mistake, no matter how small, could send us spiraling. Sometimes our emotions would come flooding back after awhile causing a major breakdown/panic attack that we didn’t know how to handle.

6. Riley is able to calm herself down when she learns to accept the emotions and re-connects with her friends and sort things out. // We’re now not as prone to panic attacks, but when we have them, we do know how to help ground ourselves, even if we can’t make it go away, we know how to at least make it not so bad. We’ve had several falling outs with people, but with some of them, we’ve talked and reconnected, getting closer again. Things got easier when we learned how to handle things in a more healthy way

There isn’t as many points here as we originally made in our head, but then it would’ve been too long and we don’t really remember all of them anymore. These are just the main ones we really wanted to point out. Her different emotions taking control is similar to how different alters take control, trying to act like the person everyone knows and not themselves. This is just how we saw it. We were able to connect with the movie very well and it was a pretty good movie.

[epick-cluster-b-blog]

https://www.tumblr.com/epick-cluster-b-blog/751546470985056256/

hi, i have aspd + npd + other things. i do not feel empathy and dont even always understand whats going on with someone emotionally but still make an effort to whenever i deem it important, which is most of the time because i only really communicate with people i care about. the closest thing i feel to it is "this is something that makes this person sad" and then try and think about how i felt when i was sad about something, and then respond accordingly. i dont actually "put myself in someone elses shoes" i just link it back to something similar i've already experienced if i can. i try and keep an open mind when listening to people, and not get caught up in "well i just would/wouldn't do this"

if its someone i "dont care about", i have no idea what to do or how to respond. if you start crying in front of me my first thought will be "oh no i don't have the time for this right now" but i'll at least try to not make them feel any worse because that goes against my code.

it can be distressing sometimes but overall i like not having empathy, it saves me a lot more unnecessary emotional turmoil than i already experience and i can look at a situation without judging something by a pure gut reaction and think through it. it can be distressing because i can never tell what people are "truly thinking" and never know if they actually care or value me or not. i have very bad rejection sensitive dysphoria (alongside npd and bpd) so i tend to stress over these things way more than anyone else ive met does. most of the time i cant understand why the people around me choose to be around me because i cant "put myself in their shoes" and understand what they see in me. that part sucks.

thank you for the answer anon!

[entropy-sea-system]

BPD Grumpy Bear

Reformatting this post from a previous post I made!

I've watched only the recent care bears(unlock the magic) and I found it relateable that Grumpy had moments where he snapped at people he cared about or had his anger be more intense than he found manageable. As someone who has experienced similar things as a trauma response and still sometimes needs to be left alone when really angry so I don't inadvertantly hurt people, I related that to being similar to an aspect of my bpd.

more under the cut!

And grumpy's anger gets represented as a thundercloud due to his belly badge power which sometimes functions as an indicator of emotion. I sort of relate to not exactly knowing how you feel until it becomes visible or obvious, due to my alexithymia. Also he has one arc where because he was working on something that was important to him(Rain, Rain, Go Away), he didn't realise until later that he was frustrated and taking it out on others, which he then apologises for.

He also appears to split on another character whos kind of like his friend/kid(?), (basically a young whiffle who joined the group and gravitated towards Grumpy) alternating between getting along with her and feeling very positive about her and then having times where due to frustration he wants to be left alone or gets upset at her(If it's Broke, Fix It).

He also shows similar emotions about the other characters he's close to and has a few taking accountability for the effects of his anger and doing his best to manage it type of arcs I suppose(Rain, Rain, Go Away and Sorry not Sorry). The latter episode also shows him to have difficulties with apologies which I relate to though thats due my aspd and npd rather than bpd.

Also its not very noticeable but he has this thing where he feels the need to be alone usually due to being introvertedish or needing to work on something or due to intense emotions, but at the same time misses others when alone and seems to have doubts about himself. Sort of makes me think of the emptiness and possibly abandonment issues associated w bpd.

And in one episode he is shown to be likely the most suspicious of newcomers out of the care bears(Things That Go Plunk), and this suspicion towards others is something I relate to my bpd and trauma, more so the latter, as a hypervigilance type of thing.

In one episode where his anger-formed thundercloud causes rain (Rain, Rain, Go Away) , the whiffles in the meadow where it rained(which as a result became messy and muddy and the plants got washed away), including Dibble(the one whos joined the care bears group), are upset at him.

As a result, he thinks the best solution is pretending to always be happy and not prone to anger or frustration, basically the opposite of his usual personality, to the extent that his sense of self is eclipsed by his need to avoid anger. Its even physically shown by him sticking a sticky note with a smiley face on it over his belly badge and asking to be called Mr. Happyface.

This I felt reminded me of bpd masking and having an unstable/variable sense of self. The storyline that results felt kind of iffy in that the other care bears try to make him angry so that it rains in an arid field in addition to telling him to be and accept himself. It felt like they were just trying to get him to make the raincloud at some points.

But at the end of the episode he also learns that its best to be himself and accept his emotions rather than pretend to be someone he's not which I feel can be similar to someone realising they're pwbpd and not feeling like they have to mask their bpd traits all the time. I guess I personally have been masking less since I realised Im pwbpd but also prefer to be left alone when some of the traits like intense anger show up due to that not always being safe for me to show around others.

I will also definitely be making an addition here of the IDW comics arc he has because that felt very much like I related to it as someone with BPD. However when I made the initial post, I had not read the IDW utm comics (and in fact may not even have made my way through the entirety of season 1 at that time)

Okay, so, remember how Grumpy's cloud powers get more rain and storm like when he's frustrated or angry(and more unpredictable due to being in the silver lining)? I noticed a detail here in the comics where he's lifting cans with a cloud (as far as I remember he does not lift things with his clouds other than perhaps the entire cloudseeker, in the show) and as his mood changes the cloud turns gray and rainy.

(for reference he starts off pretty burnt out already from fixing things in this issue. He just really needs a break.)

There is a plot point here where Bluster, Robbie, and the bad crowd are messing with these mirrors that are supposed to show one's ideal self to make the mirrors show their worst self. They dress up as the worst possible selves of Grumpy, Cheer, Goodluck, and Funshine (as they are the ones who enter the 'funhouse' with the messed up mirrors).

Each bear has an arc where they overcome the negative perceptions of their worst reflection. Grumpy's 'reflection' shows up the earliest and he did not look at the normal mirrors which show ones ideal self first like the others did.

Cheer, Goodluck, and Funshine all see past the illusion but realise Grumpy's still in the maze. At this point Cheer goes in to find him.

I do very much connect this to having an unstable sense of self (which I experience due to my bpd and other neurodivergences). It also really shows how much he cares for his invention (The Cloudseeker) and Dibble. (Also side note huh. They can get oil from rainbowson mountains??? Interesting. )

At this point, Cheer reassures Grumpy that the crew knows he's not turned to the bad crowd like Bluster and Robbie try to convince them (and him) he is. She also reminds him that they know he cares and I think it's really cool how her leadership skills are shown in this arc!

And at this point Grumpy breaks through the illusion with the help of Cheer. I find it to be a similar arc to Rain, Rain, Go Away in the acceptance of having grumpiness as an emotion though this is also Grumpy realising he matters to the people he cares about. And I think its nice that this arc is portrayed.

At the end, Cheer also gives him this piece of glass from the funhouse for his souvenir hat to remind him of his true self, and that was another way Cheer's leadership skills and ability to reassure others was displayed.

Finally, the arc ends with Grumpy seeing his ideal self in the nearby mirrors. I feel the comics mostly spoke for themselves thus I don't have all that much to add on here.

(-Rift)

[mental-illness-bingo]

I have a couple questions for fellow systems (and to be clear, if you believe you are an "endogenic system", you are too early in your journey to answer this question if you don't remember your trauma yet) that have low/no/fluctuating/conditional empathy for people outside of the system. Whether it's due to autism, aspd, npd, etc. if you fit those two things, I'd love your input.

1.) Do you have affective empathy for your alters that you have at least some communication with? If so, is it for *all* of those alters, or just some of them? Try your best to exclude things like emotional bleeding from other alters and passive influence if you can. This one I'll do as a poll, since it can easily be made into one, but if it's closed when you see this feel free to answer in tags/reblogs/replies.

2.) If you do have empathy for all of them, do you think it's possible not to? Would it be possible to not have affective empathy for someone sharing a brain with you? It's obviously possible to not care what a particular alter is feeling, but is it possible - without amnesia barriers involved - to not know what they are feeling if they were to not tell you?

3.) For those who have empathy for their alters, but not for people outside the system, do you feel like it affects your relationships with people outside the system? Does it feel like your relationships with people outside the system are less deep/meaningful than with those in the system? Especially for those with in-system romantic relationships, do you feel like outside romantic relationships struggle to be valuable in comparison?

My answers - to give more context to why I'm asking - are under the cut for anyone curious

Background: have at least somewhat solid communication with pretty much all of my alters except maybe 2? at this point because I have done a lot of work to get there and made it a priority for a long time to get there. I have no empathy for people outside of the system due to ASPD (and possibly also impacted by my autism), besides what are called Exceptions in the ASPD community (similar concept to BPD's Favorite Person).

1.) I have empathy for some alters, but for others, it feels like I don't? Even though I don't know exactly how that would work? I have good communication with these alters and yet I only have a vague idea of what they're feeling unless it is outwardly obvious (crying/yelling/etc) or they tell me, much like how I experience my lack of empathy outside of the system.

2.) I don't know if it is possible, or if it is, how that would work, hence making this post. It feels like good communication would be linked to having empathy for them? System psychology and neurology is a really complex topic with little research and few definitive answers, so I'd love to know anecdotally how other systems are experiencing this.

3.) Due to my particular brand of trauma and me being poly, I am in *several* in-system romantic relationships. There also are and have been other in-system relationships not related to me. In comparison, it feels so much different from how I experience romantic relationships outside of the head. I know any type of relationship with alters will pretty much always be different and likely deeper than outside relationships, but I feel like systems with typical empathy for other people still seem to want to engage in outside relationships. For us, we frequently feel like we're forcing it. I can pretty much only handle dating Exceptions when dating outside of the system because it's the only thing that feels somewhat close. I love my partner of course, and I hope to spend my life with him and any potential afterlife there may/may not be with him as well, but it does sometimes hit me that it doesn't come as easily as dating in the system. It feels much less natural, and I'm curious if other systems feel this way as well, or if it's just my regular ASPD-related aversion to people. Many (but not all) of my alters are Exceptions, so that helps, but I can date non-Exceptions in the system and cannot outside of it. I guess I'm just wondering if I'm alone in this feeling or if any other systems have struggled with it too.

Thanks for reading : )

[weabooweedwitch]

I dunno I kinda get the vibe that you also view your mom as a defective loser who can't change? you don't really have any nice things to say about her and seem to hate her about as much as you hate yourself (not to say that your mom isn't a pain and immature as fuck to boot bc she absolutely is). you call her subhuman and an idiot and all these horrible things a lot, before I thought it was just harsh online venting of your deepest most private thoughts but I guess you say that stuff to her irl too? just from seeing those texts, I feel bad because I know you're going thru a lot and you're hurting I don't want to make it worse but I kinda had to agree with the verbal aggression and suicide threats comment. not defending your mom, she is a pain-in-the-ass womanchild, but I can kind of understand why she's so defensive and reactive if that really is the way you speak to her. I'm sorry I know that's probably not what you want to hear or the most validating thing, your feelings are absolutely valid too here and I understand how grating having that type of parent can be, as someone who has a similar-but-maybe-not-as-bad situation over here

btw, as I understand it personality disorders are actually very responsive to therapy. the only reason people with certain disorders like aspd and npd don't get better is because a lot of them don't view themselves as having a problem or view their life problems as mostly other people's fault and don't want to hear the negative criticism. bpd has a very good prognosis too for those that recognize a need to change their behavior.

I mean, ultimately yes, i am real shitty to her off and on, but my opinion I guess is that, the temper and the insults are something that developed over time and is specific to our specific relationship. Like my mom and I have always kind of butted heads, but me being, I guess openly malicious towards her is a development that came about within the last few years, or decade maybe, just progressing over time

It's sort of like, you know, one of the things I hate the most is having to repeat myself because someone wasn't listening the first time, and with my mom, we just have the same issues over and over again that are never resolved, or I keep seeing weird behaviors in her, or she makes decisions that I find literally nonsensical. And its just. I look at her and I see someone still making all the same mistakes she always has, and it makes me angry because, I mean, my entire childhood was fucking ruined from constantly moving and literally being trapped in cars with her while she ranted. My relationship with extended family was ruined just because she had personal grudges that I kinda lowkey think are also her fault tbh. I got moved away from my grandmother because my mom was randomly like "oh I can't find any jobs in Missouri, let's just move 8 hours away to Wisconsin" and she didn't regret it but like, my older sister was completely devastated, and by that age, I myself was so desensitized to the constant instability that I was like "well yeah I don't mind moving again, we switch schools almost every single year or sometimes twice a year, do you really expect me to have any friends to even miss"

Like this developed over time. I didn't always feel this way about her. But as I've grown up, I've changed and she hasn't. She's still the exact same person. Even my father says she is literally the exact same person. It's like the thing with her moving my hairbrush out of the shower and never putting it back. I had to tell her over and over to stop even taking it out, that it's literally just a fucking hairbrush, stop taking it out of the shower where I keep it amd not putting it back and also it quite literally wasn't in her way in any way whatsoever, and she kept doing it, and there's only so many times you can "hey mom please don't do this" "mom please just put it back ok literally just put it back after you remove it" "ok I've asked you repeatedly can you stop touching my fucking hairbrush i need in the shower" until you snap and say "alright you STUPID CUNT if you do this one more time I'll remove YOUR things from the shower and I'll take them straight out to the dumpster" and THAT got her to finally stop

Like it's literally gotten to "you don't listen to me when I'm nice so why should I even waste my emotional energy pretending to be nice to you when i don't think you deserve it". "Why should I act nice to you when I feel so massively unsupported and drained and exploited by you"

Like she quite literally doesn't fucking listen, TO ANYONE. You can communicate clear as day with her and she'll still do whatever the fuck she wants. In the past my sister stopped even letting us into her apartment because my mom would start TOUCHING THINGS every single time we were there, like literally opening her fucking cabinets and touching her dishes and unloading her dishwasher, until my sister was basically screaming at her to stop and then it's "ugh Emily is so hysterical she doesn't take her medicine" like no you fucking dumbass you won't let her have agency over her own belongings in her own apartment after she moved out to literally run away from you and you're still doing it to her as an adult and she'll just look at how extremely upset you are "ugh I was just trying to help 🙄 you should think about how I FEEL"

She pushes and pushes and pushes and then when you snap and lose your patience with her, she goes straight for your fucking throat and acts like everything is your fault and she's just the blameless fucking saint. Sometimes I wonder if she is even capable of giving legitimate apologies because any time you bring anything up with her, no matter how valid you are, no matter how upset you are, she just Always responds with "im sorry but *laundry list of excuses*" or "no that's not what happened. You exaggerate. You need to be medicated." Or the favorite, classical deflection she always uses of "well what about when YOU--"

She will tell you every single day the exact same suggestion that you have already said no to. I was literally growing up in school and she'd constantly say "oh you're so smart, you could be a doctor" until I was telling her over and over "I DONT WANT TO and you make STRESSED OUT because it feels like you're trying to force me". Jesus fucking christ for example it literally makes my goddamn blood BOIL absolutely fucking BOIL that she still says "you should put highlights in your hair" when I've been telling her MY ENTIRE LIFE I DON'T WANT TO, I DONT WANT TO DYE MY HAIR, I DON'T WANT CHEMICALS AND BLEACHES, and she literally STILL SAYS IT like it's this kind of thing that makes me go "what would actually make you listen, fucking beating you like your ex husband? Are all these 'abusive relationships' you cry about and told us about when we were inappropriately young to try and squeeze sympathy out of us just you pushing people until they swing on you"

Like. I'm 26 years old and I feel like my own mother doesn't even try to understand me and i feel like if you asked her a list of personal questions about me that she'd gst most of them wrong. And I also feel like, and have felt like for a long time, that, well I guess to outright be cruel, the biggest reason she had kids was because literally no one liked her and i guess she thought children would have some sort of indentured love to her. She won't even like acknowledge i was an accidental pregnancy, she just deflects and says "no you're my miracle baby bc after I had you I found out I had endo-" "ok but mom you were not actively trying to be pregnant and you didn't like my father by the time I was born can you just at least say I was I unplanned, I'm not even saying it as you hating me, can you just acknowledge I was an unplanned pregnancy" "no :)"

I get absolutely no closure with her. Like. This might seem like an extreme comparison but the other day I was watching bodycam footage for the arrest of Joey McVay, a 10 year old who shot his mom. The story is all "oh his mom shot him because he got mad when he was asked to do chores" but then they dug a little deeper and asked the grandmother and the story was "oh this kid had a disability and his mom was actually a rude slob who worked him like a horse while also still treating him as defiant and incompetent and stupid and even being physically abusive and his house was a borderline dilapidated shack and he snapped and shot her because she made him feel literally worthless" and I was watching that thinking, wow that could have been me.

It's the constant like dehumanization she has pushed upon me while also expecting me to listen to her rant and rant and rant for years about her own problems. 'Sympathy for me but not for thee' kinda shit. I can't keep pouring from an empty cup bro? I can't give sympathy that's no longer there because it was sucked out of me like some kind of energy vampire

Ok but like exactly as I'm typing this my mom woke up and I mentioned to her how I'm trying to book with a dermatologist bc I'm having hair thinning and nail denting and I didn't want to be on the phone so I start trying to Google online, and then I end that topic and switch to , bringing up to her this personality disorder conversation, and she literally fucking interrupts me in the middle of my sentence "do you want me to make the call for you" and I just broke down sobbing because I'm sitting here reopening all my emotional wounds to write this post about how unheard I am and, there she goes doing it again, and now I'm refusing to speak to her because like, you didn't let me speak the first time, why should I waste my time saying it all again 🙃

I dont know. I guess it sounds mean but at this point she does it to herself. I've been worn down and demanded to care over and over while being ignored so now I have no sympathy. At this point its no longer "oh gosh I'm sorry that happened to you" and now it's "well what mistake did you make to fuck things up this time" which, in my defense, like, she does cause most of the problems in her life and my own. Like my god there was a period of time where we had just moved and we barely had any money I mean like financially struggling and she's like "oh I hate having all our canned goods on the floor, it just looks so GHETTO, I don't like it" and she ordered furniture off online and it. It literally. We've lived here for like two years and it still isn't fully assembled becuase she didn't read the instructions when she made it and refused to finish it without my help. Like we barely had money for rent and she wasted money on, a cabinet, because things not looking nice made her feel bad. And then in that same period of time she tried to order a dining room table that we have literally no room for, and I can't even tell you how many months ago she ordered a larger size glass enclosure for her bearded dragon and its been sitting in a box for literal months because. Uh. She expects me to help her assemble it and I told her straight up she shouldn't have even bought it if she won't even put together HER cage for HER pet which she takes poor care of, though I'm one to talk considering how little I've gotten to hold Louie

You just. Can't keep demanding sympathy and never giving it back? You can't raise your daughter constantly texting her instead of speaking to her for every little "oh I have a headache bring me a glass of water" to like the point there were periods of time she'd be lying in bed just shouting out for me instead of getting it herself and I'd barge into the room "it's just a glass of water your bedroom is literally next to the bathroom and we have neighbors, stop shouting you stupid bitch"

Like it gave me a COMPLEX. I've been sick and throwing up and refusing to take medicine and refusing any help from her because I grew up watching her pop pills for everything and argue with doctors and just constantly want help that I never saw returned the same way. She's on the couch next to me right now and she's trying to talk to me and I'm still so upset over being interrupted earlier I'm just popping earbuds in and pretending she isn't even here because the couch and her office chair are the only seats in this whole apartment which of course means she lives on it

Like maybe I could overcome my trauma and change with therapy. But mom? She'll argue with doctors. She'll argue with therapists. She'll like you and then you'll make the smallest slight against her and suddenly she wants nothing to do with you and has a laundry list of things she hates about you. She's a fair-weather mother and I'm sick of it. It's at the point where ant help or assistance or support or love she gives me almost doesn't even matter anymore because the constant mistakes and talking over me is still so constant that there's like a 70/30 hate to love ratio at this point.

I know that's a lot of text but, yeah I guess I can still keep certain disorders in mind but my mom is literally the only person I treat like this

[sleepy-shutin]

I'm someone who suspects that I may have DID or OSDD, and I want some scientifically based tools that could help me identify if that's the case (or if it's another dissociative disorder, psychosis, etc).

I also want to know if there's some sort of objective way to "measure" whether or not my trauma was severe and long-lasting enough to cause DID or OSDD (taking into account that I may or may not remember all of my traumatic experiences).

You don't have to respond, I know it's a lot to compile that kind of list.

I came here because you seem like a reliable source. I want to do my own research/look into scientific research, but honestly that kind of academic language can be really inaccessible at times. Sorry if this was the wrong place to ask

honestly, there's not really a whole, comprehensive list i or anyone else on the internet could give you. the best you can do is research. read into DID, personal experiences with it, how it works, how parts may influence each other, how switching and fronting and passive influence can feel, how DID compares to other, seemingly similar disorders, like DP/DR or BPD.

research is going to be your best bet there. there's no list.

"I also want to know if there's some sort of objective way to "measure" whether or not my trauma was severe and long-lasting enough to cause DID or OSDD (taking into account that I may or may not remember all of my traumatic experiences)."

there's not really a way to objectively measure if your trauma was "severe enough" to cause DID. the requirements to form DID aren't "you must have this much trauma", but rather having repetitive, long-term childhood traumas coupled with a disorganized attachment/unstable support system, before/around the age of 9.

it's also important to remember that trauma is less of an event itself and more a reaction to an event. having a good support system lessens the chances of someone getting PTSD after experiencing a trauma, but not having one increases these chances because lacking a reliable support system after trauma can make the events and what happens after them more traumatic and difficult to deal with, which correlates with the idea that trauma is a reaction.

so yes, people with DID often experience severe trauma, because they are/were lacking a support system to deal with incredibly stressful events.

there's also the fact that you can have childhood trauma and not DID still. not every case of child abuse, even with a disorganized attachment, leads to DID. sometimes it just leads to CPTSD, or it leads to CPTSD and NPD or BPD or ASPD, etc.

and honestly, the best information on DID is found in books and papers written by reputable dissociative specialists. the medical language can be hard to parse, but not every book or paper has that kind of language. books like "understanding and treating dissociative identity disorder: a relational approach" actually doesn't have a lot of incredibly confusing medical language. "got parts?" is a self-help book for DID that also does not have this. "separating fact from fiction: an empirical examination of 6 myths about dissociative identity disorder" and "dissociative identity disorder: an empirical overview" are both two papers that are also not heavy on the confusing clinical and scientific language. "the phenomenology and treatment of extremely complex MPD" is also a relatively easy read.

and by "easy read" i mean that all of these are pretty easy to comprehend, not that they aren't triggering, because they can easily be very triggering, so fair warning.

a great way to get started on research is reading at a book or an academic paper on DID, and then going to the sources at the end and searching those up and reading those as well.

one thing that helps me read academic language that might be confusing is taking notes on it. taking notes to see if i'm understanding it properly, googling words and phrases i may not understand, and reading passages multiple times to make sure i'm comprehending them properly. it can make reading a single paper a lot longer than it normally would be, but that's how i make this sort of thing accessible to myself.

hope this helps somewhat.

[intersex-ionality]

I think you're assuming too much good faith when you're stating that narcissism as a concept is distinct from NPD. Just because you don't conflate them doesn't mean that other people don't. People aren't just calling tyrants toxically selfish, they quite literally demanded #diagnoseTrump (with NPD, to prove he was unfit for office). Many of the "resources for survivors of narcissistic abuse" explicitly name-drop cluster B PDs as well, or list the DSM criteria of npd and bpd as signs of abuse.

Okay, I’ve decided that out of the anons I got yesterday, this one is probably a legitimate attempt to converse. You got the bad luck of being surrounded on all sides by death threats, hate mail, and general chicanery. While I’ve tried to calm myself down so that I can engage with you fairly, please try to forgive my if I get a bit acidic here.

Before we begin, I want to re-center the fact that this discussion was about whether the word “narcissist” should be dropped from the English language.

The “diagnose trump” movement was an ableist shitstorm. And that’s not the same thing as just using the word narcissist in casual conversation. The word came way before the diagnosis. The diagnosis is named after the word, not the other way around. And the word continues to have perfectly valid, non-diagnostic utility, as well as to simply be a common word.

Ableist movements that try to simultaneously claim that evil men are evil because they are sick, that sick people are all evil, and that being sick means you cannot be trusted, therefore anyone who cannot be trusted is sick? They’re conflating a harmless word, a harmless group of people, and massive scale war crimes. Something like “diagnose trump” was functionally trying ti both punish him for crimes, and simultnaeously, absolving him of any guilt for those crimes. It was a chaotic blame-shifting mess than hinged entirely on the idea that mentally ill people are monsters.

And a movement that hinges on calling the mentally ill all monsters, is abelist by definition.

But saying that those movements mean the word must be retired also conflates the word with the group of people.

This is not to suggest that the latter reinforces the former. Rather, both rely on inappropriately ascribing sameness to very different things.

And hey, maybe just making people stop saying “narcissist” would have some degree of positive impact. If you believe that, and you want to focus your activism towards that, I’m not going to be the one to stop you! Do as you like and as you will!

But it is not and will never be what I want to do with my own activism. I have other projects, goals, and actions that I am always going to prioritize over that.

If I spend my time saying, “you can’t ever say the word narcissist because it’s a medical term,” then when someone says sociopath instead, I need to now expand it to, “you can’t ever say the words narcissist or sociopath because […],” and so when someone says, psycho, I need to expand it again, “you can’t ever say the words sociopath, narcissist, or psycho […],” and when someone says, delusional I have to expand again, and when someone says crazy, I have to expand again. I will never stop expanding the list, and it will not only be a waste of my time, but it will become increasingly difficult to impossible for my audience to remember all the fine details of that ever-expanding list.

As such, I choose to focus on other kinds of writing. To say, “self-centeredness is a completely common, human trait that most people have, and it can drive people–especially people with a lot of power–to act in ways that are careless of the others around them, or the others living under their power. So, when someone is behaving carelessly, self-centeredly, that’s worth criticizing, worth stopping. People in power who make the conscious choice to harm others should have everything that gives them that power and enables that harm taken from them.

“In contrast, mentally ill people don’t choose to be mentally ill. And those compulsions can cause them to act in ways that are on the surface similar to the violent behaviour of tyrants and abusers, but those behaviours are not choices. They cannot be approached in the same way. Mentally ill people require the support to help them control their compulsions and to help them avoid situations which would set off those behaviours.

“Where evil and powerful people must have things taken to resolve the problem, mentally ill people must instead have things given–namely help and accommodation–to resolve the problem. Since these two groups require two very different approaches, one should not suggest that they are interchangeable. Rather than claiming people in power are incapable of being decent, acknowledge their choices as fucked up. Rather than suggesting mentally ill people are de-facto monstrous, acknowledge that they simply need accommodations that they often aren’t receiving, to help them deal with the internal stresses of mental illness.”

That way, I only have to make that explanation once, and it applies to every single use of mental illness as an insult. I can link back to it, and move on to other things, instead of repeating the same discussion for every new variation. It equips my audience with the skills necessary to examine any new slag or vocabulary that pops up and make an informed choice about the implications of those words without me needing to make a new bullet point and add it to a list of inviolate rulings. People who look at that explanation, who come to understand it, will make their own choices about what language to use.

But most of them will shy away from using obviously diagnostic language such as “psychopathy,” and will also has the tools to differentiate between harmless uses of overlapping terms, from manipulative attempts to conflate a group of mentally ill people with a group of violent criminals. They’ll be better equipped to understand the difference between someone saying, “my ex-boyfriend was so narcissistic, always getting on my case about my clothes/figure/hair making him look bad, so we broke up,” and saying, “my mother beat the shit out of me any time I did something that disappointed her; but hey, you know how narcissists are.”

For me, that’s more appealing, efficient communication and the more appealing final goal. It lets me focus on other things, like considering angles and details I had not previously considered on old subjects, or learning about new subjects.

That’s not going to be the case for everyone or every situation. Sometimes I don’t feel like making a big old explanation, so I ask the people around me, “as a favour, could you not complain about ‘The Borderlines at Work,’ and instead just talk about, IDK, whatever specific crap they pulled, instead?”

But this blog is a public space. I’m a private citizen, but I make these posts to have a public discussion on a public platform. So I write them for a public audience. I don’t want to ask personal favours of that audience. They have no reason to grant those favours, even if I did ask.

Different audiences, along with different situations, require different tactics.

[chebleedsink]

Narcissus’ Shadow

Do you ever find yourself covering for someone just because you feel bad for them, just quietly keeping to the shadowlands that they create for you? Maybe because they’re not all bad all the time, and in fact they can wonderful when they want to be? Because generally speaking, they treat most everyone (aside from yourself) really well. Maybe because you know their damage and toxic behaviors started in childhood, where they couldn’t choose to walk away from it? Or maybe because you know how alone and awful they feel on the inside all the time? Maybe because you’re empathetic enough that you not only can imagine, but can physically, mentally, or emotionally feel what it’s like to be them?

I know I do. It’s become second nature to me. I tend to side with the villains and “bad guys” in movies often too, for the same reasons. Really horrible people that do really horrible things, usually weren’t born that way, and they often had really horrible things happen to them first. Reminding myself that they are the hero in their own story isn’t a far stretch at all. I am even pretty certain that if I was ever held hostage, there would be a real possibility that I would develop Stolkholm syndrome if I saw the slightest trace of humanity left in my captor. I always think, “if only someone would love them unconditionally and hold some space for them, just give them the opportunity to change, they might not be villains anymore.” I’m sure the odds would be in favor of that being true some of the time, but some people are so caught up in their roles they play, that they can’t even see themselves for their behavior. Some people can see it, but can’t or won’t change it. Many of them just blame outside causes, while refusing to take any kind of responsibility for fixing things. They don’t want to be fixed. It’s not their problem.

I’m painfully aware that conditions like Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, (and less commonly Psychopathy, and Sociopathy), at any point of their wide spectrums, wreak havoc in peoples lives, affecting not just the person suffering with them, but often everyone that comes in contact with them. Alongside generalized anxiety and depressive disorders, these extremely destructive personality disorders like NPD and BPD are taking the spotlight. Dare I say that our society currently supports and encourages the traits, behaviors, characteristics, and tendencies that are indicators of these disorders? Some people have figured out how to put these behaviors to good use, and they use them to unapologetically advocate for animal welfare, or starving children, environmental issues or other human right’s issues. Unfortunately though, that is probably the exception to the rule, and even when directing their attention at these just causes, they are still trampling the people that get in their way underfoot without a second thought.

So many people are either suffering from these disorders directly or indirectly, and so much mental and emotional damage is caused because of them. Someone with several of these traits wouldn’t even have to be considered disordered or even on the spectrum, (and they certainly don’t need to have been clinically diagnosed), in order to hurt the people around them. They are just as toxic in their own way. To know that highly empathetic people have turned into these people due to emotional numbing after feeling too many extreme emotions, as well as knowing people who were previously abused by this same type of person also become these people, is truly heart-breaking. It’s such a cruel cycle to see.

I know all of this, I know mental illness is not the mentally ill’s fault, I know it’s not fair to blame their damage on themselves, but I also know that many of these same people have been given opportunities to better themselves and they often choose not to. Again, with these types of disorders, those who are inflicted with them often can’t or won’t acknowledge that they need help, nor will they acknowledge the damage they cause. They very rarely see therapists for these particular issues, because to them, they aren’t their issues. Some of them can’t even feel bad about the things they do (due to a lack of empathy), even though they may have learned to act like they do. Some of them see reality completely backwards, where they honestly believe that everything they do to others, is actually what’s being done to them. Some of them are so good at fooling even themselves, and they have adapted so well to hiding, that they believe they are the empaths being abused in their various relationships. Empaths feel other peoples’ emotions, whereas narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths fake other peoples’ emotions. Sometimes it’s near impossible to tell the difference.

Aside from complete avoidance, how do you even begin to deal with these types of people in a healthy or productive way? Even worse, some of those people are just dipping a toe in and out of the spectrums of those disorders, and you can still see some hope for them. Hope that the switch won’t flip all the way, that they won’t be completely lost to it. Hope that they’ll come back around, or that meds and therapy could help. That hope is miserable. It destroys more people than the disorders themselves ever could. But for some of us, if there’s hope, we’ll still put ourselves in front of the train in the hope that we can help, in the hope that we can all be saved. Too often though, we are just hit by the train, and surviving and recovering from that train-wreck is a long and painful journey. Some of us never recover.

Even after spending the last 5 years cutting these types of people out of my life, there are some I can’t escape. It’s just not an option. So, to maintain the “peace”, I find myself still covering for them. I find myself treading water in the wake of their explosive fits and moods, just concentrating on the damage control to follow and on not drowning. And I am so tired of it, I hate it, I am done with it. It doesn't fix anything, and I'm pretty sure it always just perpetuates more problems than it solves, yet I still do it all the time.

Why? Why continue covering up their bad behavior behind the scenes? Why bite my tongue? Because I don't want to upset anyone, and they're already having a hard time, and if I don't have anything nice to say..., and it wouldn't make a difference anyway (-in fact it just causes more problems), and we have mutual friends, and they monitor my Facebook posts and have actually told me not to air my dirty laundry on social media (even though they do so regularly), besides, they’re not really that bad all the time, the list goes on.

I was so angry and upset the other night and I wanted nothing more than to vent on fb, mostly because writing is how I work through things, and because there are always a few people online to commiserate with who have gone through similar experiences, but once again, I didn't, because of all of the above reasons.

The next morning I thought I'd have calmed down a bit, but I hadn't. My brain was literally screaming at me to stop covering for him. Because it's not fair. And I know that. And I've literally put up with it for a decade. That's a long time to put myself on the quiet chair for someone else's sake. Two days later, and my brain won’t let it go.

I have spent years trying to be a better person, always improving myself, working through my baggage so I don’t have to keep carrying it around, generally just trying to be a decent human being really. My brain is demanding that I break this pattern of sweeping other people’s trash under my rug. And I really want to, but I still feel like I shouldn’t. I’ve been well-trained.

Honestly, I just wish I didn't always feel so bad for them, like I'd be kicking a downed horse if I ever called them out. But what do you do when the horse is always down? And when they’re actually up, between minute moments of calmness, they're extremely reactive and aggressively defensive, they’re kicking and biting you or things around you, they’re shitting everywhere, they’re loud, they’re stomping mud through the house, breaking things, leaving the barn door open, always threatening to run away, and you're afraid that anything you say to them, any way you say it, whether he's calm or otherwise, might set him off or upset him even more causing an even worse tantrum. You’re stuck in close proximity, but could you just avoid the horse? Maybe that way you'd feel less tempted to kick it? Oh, but wait... avoiding the horse just upsets the horse too?

Even worse, what do you do when those people have spent so much time convincing other people that they aren't like that at all? When they've convinced you that you're the only reason they behave like that? When they've actually convinced you that you're the one behaving that way, not them? When they claim to be the emotionally fragile one that you keep attacking?

Gaslighting is no joke, and even if you know it's happening, it's so easy to get sucked back into. It's like quicksand. The harder you fight against it, the more you panic when it's being flung at you, the deeper it pulls you in. I've learned the best reaction is to not react, and to stay calm, but that is not easy to do when your brain is screaming "Oh my gods! He's doing it again!!! Panic!!! Fight or Run!!!!.....Wait, maybe it is me and I am really the abusive crazy one!?!? No!!! Fight Back!!! Explain to him how he's twisting everything around!!!! Maybe it is my fault, I never should have said anything…Did I really do those things?.. But that’s what I was just saying…. Maybe I just don’t remember…" Before you know it, it's sucked you back under, because there's no point in arguing with someone who knows exactly how to gaslight you. You will never win that fight.

Fatigue is setting in. I’m exhausted with this person, with these people. I am tired of watching them say one thing, while they are actually doing the total opposite. I'm so tired of watching them play the victim and the pity me cards on social media, when behind the scenes it's so obvious that even though they are mostly responsible for their own suffering, they have zero self-accountability. I'm tired of double standards, especially the one where they expect to be thanked and appreciated for every single thing they do, every time they do it, even though they don't do the same, and in fact they rarely even notice (and certainly don't acknowledge) even half of the things that someone else does.

I am beyond tired of these people bragging about their greatness, and how much they do for other people, when it's all just for show and personal gain under the guise of philanthropy. I'm tired of them complaining about how hard they have it when they have been given so many handouts in life, especially when they've literally shoved other people out of the way to get where they are. I’m tired of their sense of entitlement that they claim to not have.

I am tired of the type of people who constantly make other people feel like an inconvenience, especially when it's their turn to repay a favor or a debt, or to hold up their end of a bargain or partnership. Especially, when they willingly made a deal or agreed to something (which they most likely never expected to be held accountable for.) I’m tired of people who talk over or belittle other people as an attempt to publicly shame or dominate them. I’m tired of them always stepping into the spotlight when it’s someone else’s turn.

I'm tired of people who try to hold others hostage with power-plays, and by manipulating emotions. I'm tired of damaged people getting away with damaging other people just because they're damaged. I'm tired of inconsiderate people. I'm tired of hypocrites.  I'm tired of constantly volatile, hyper-defensive people who don't take responsibility for anything. I'm tired of people who try to shift the blame from themselves to everyone or anyone else they possibly can.

I'm tired of cleaning up other people's messes, literally and metaphorically, of all types, shapes and sizes. Even more than the actual "cleaning" part, I'm tired of being expected to do the job. I’m just as tired of expecting myself to do the job. I’m tired of people doing a half-assed job because the “job” isn’t their choice of what they want to do, and I’m tired of people putting in the least amount of effort possible. I’m tired of people who have no clue how to be a team-player.

I'm tired of people who give or do things for others as a way to put people in debt to them, or to be able to take credit for their successes later on. I am tired of "those" people who say, "but you don't see things from my side", or "you never listen to me". You know, the ones that when they say that, it's such a pile of crap and it's painfully obvious that they only see their own side of anything. The same people may be able to repeat back exactly what you said, but they didn't "hear" a word of it. I'm tired of talking to and fighting with brick walls.

I'm really, really tired of the people who use "I'm sorry" angrily, as a way to excuse their behavior, shift the blame, to clear their own conscience and to justify them doing the same thing over again for an unlimited amount of times. I'm tired of two-faced people. And I am so tired of people who claim to be the world's victim, when they're really the ones victimizing people. I'm tired of the people who accuse others of doing exactly what they themselves are doing.

I'm tired of keeping it to myself for someone else's sake. I'm tired of not bitching about it. I'm tired of keeping other people's ugly sides hidden, and I'm tired of keeping their images polished for some nonsensical reason.

You want to act high and mighty and tell me not to do something you just did (the 10x's worse, extreme version of) the day before?

Fuck you.

You want to tell me your shitty behavior is my fault?

Fuck you.

You want to act like you're so misunderstood, down-trodden, wounded and abused by me, when I was the one that excused and put up with your toxicity, abuse, and neglect for years.

Fuck you.

You want to try to poke me where it hurts, salt the wounds repeatedly, then try to cover it back up with sugar, just because you can?

Fuck you.

I'm tired. And I'm done. Just because someone does good things too, does not mean that you should put up with their shit. Just because you love someone as a person, doesn’t mean you have to let them hurt you. Just because you still feel some sort of hope for someone’s well-being, doesn’t make it your job to protect or help save them. Being a victim, being under too much stress, being mentally unwell is not a justified reason to pass the abuse. When it comes to physical abuse, these things are much more obvious, but emotional and mental abuse are equally damaging, you just can’t see the marks left on the outside.

I cannot wait until this page in my life turns to a fresh leaf, where I can just breathe again. Where I have space and where I can put some distance between myself and the things that hurt me the most. I know growth is painful, but I’m ready to take my hand off of the remnants of this fire. Although I often hate myself for the decisions that led to my situation, I count my blessings that I was at least able to remove myself from the pits of the original blaze, even if I did I let it burn me for way too long. I was left with so many scars, but I turned those scars into red-flags and memorials for life-lessons learned. I don’t ever want to forget those warning signs.

I currently have an amazing, loving, kind, considerate and self-aware partner in my life, the kind of person that I started thinking didn’t really exist. They’re not perfect, (no one is), but they don’t pretend to be, and they hold themselves accountable, and they do the work. Not only have they set a new standard in my life, but they have given me a whole new type of hope to focus on; the hope that I will continue to rise above my ingrained patterns of constantly choosing toxic people to surround myself with, and that I can make better choices, without feeling guilty about not sacrificing myself to save someone else.

My brain is still grumbling that I’m still covering. That I didn’t even mention who I was talking about or the details of the last argument, or the things he said, or the toxic things he does on a daily basis, or the way he really acts when no one else is around. Perhaps I’ll save that for another post. I feel that the vagueness of this post may just be more useful for anyone reading that may have needed to read this today.

If you’ve read this far, I’m assuming you probably can relate. You’ve probably felt these stingers once, or twice, perhaps more times than you’d like to count. You might be trapped at the moment, without a clear path to escape, but when the time comes, as soon as the opportunity arises, don’t think twice about getting out. Don’t feel bad. Don’t feel guilty. Don’t feel like you’ve failed. Don’t convince yourself that maybe you should just try one more time, because you probably shouldn’t. Don’t cover for them if you don’t have to, or if it’s safe not to. You owe it to yourself.

Don’t believe them when they tell you it’s all your fault, and that if you would just behave differently things would be better. Don’t believe them when they say they’ll change. These types of people rarely change without meds and therapy, and if you already feel tired, or done, or you’ve been covering longer than you’d like to admit, chances are the jokes on you. Don’t believe them when they say it’s all in your head. Don’t believe anything they tell you to try to convince you that there isn’t anything wrong with them, or if they argue there is something wrong with them that you just need to accept because it’s not going to change.  If they repeat your argument back to you as their own response, if you hear your own words or emotions being turned around and parroted back, or being used completely out of context, run my friend, run and don’t look back.

Should we still hold space for these people? Afterall, they are just human beings, right? They are just as deserving of love and acceptance as anyone else, even if they are toxic, even if they can’t love or accept us. I think we should hold space, and we should still love them unconditionally as human beings, however, we should hold their space as far away from ourselves as possible, and we should love them from great distances. My heart still bleeds for them, I can’t imagine what an awful existence many of them live, and I still wish I could help, but I’m so much wiser now. I know better. And every day, I get a little braver. One day, I’ll stop covering.  

[dandelion-and-the-wolf]

Okay, so I don’t usually make any point of commenting on the writing or plot of The Arcana, even though I’ve had some f e e l i n g s on some of the more recent books. With the last update (Book XX - Judgement) though, I’m just too disappointed, and quite honestly, angry, not to.

Now, I can overlook the (in my opinion) decrease in quality of the writing. I can overlook the feeling I get that the main LI’s lost some of their spark and character along the way. But the thing I absolutely can’t overlook is the way that Lucio has been portrayed, treated, and “dealt with” in the latest update.

Why? Well, partly, because I identify with Lucio. 

I know, shock horror, right? How could I identify with someone who is constantly referred to as “garbage”, “trash”, “abusive” and “a whiny little bitch boy”, among many other negative descriptions? More to the point, why would I admit to it?

If you’re reading this and you don’t know me, or haven’t come across my blog before, I have Borderline Personality Disorder. BPD, as the name suggests, is a personality disorder that generally results from some form of childhood trauma. It shapes and affects who I am, how I interact with and relate to people, and impacts pretty much every aspect of my life.  BPD, for me, is a constant need for attention and validation. It’s a horrible, perpetual fear of abandonment and rejection that seems irrational to most, but for me it’s very real and absolutely terrifying. It’s being told you’re a manipulative, attention-seeking monster by the media and sometimes even the people who know you. It’s unstable relationships, impulsive and self-destructive behaviours, it’s mood swings, explosive anger and paranoia. It’s sometimes feeling like you’re a god, worthy of everyones respect and admiration, and other times feeling like you’re worthless. It’s being “sensitive” and “whiny” and making a big deal out of “nothing”. 

I’m not suggesting at all that Lucio was written as a character who has BPD, but I can recognize many of his traits in myself and I felt that I could understand his thinking and motivations, and the things that led to him becoming the person that he is, especially given the little we’ve seen of the environment he grew up in and the way he was treated by his parents. 

Lucio actually fulfils most of the criteria for being diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which is closely related to BPD and shares a lot of common traits. 

Some of the most typical signs of someone having NPD are:

Attention seeking

Exaggerated entitlement

Admiration seeking

Excessive reliance on others for self-esteem and self-definition

Lack of empathy

Exploitative of others

Grandiose and condescending 

Sound like anyone we know? Whether it was intentional or not to write Lucio with the characteristics of a narcissist, the fact is that he has them. NPD and BPD are very real, debilitating mental illnesses that affect a lot of people’s lives. A lot of people playing The Arcana will have NPD/BPD/a similar disorder (or at least know someone who does) and see parts of themselves in Lucio.  To have his character development not go beyond “I’m a self-important asshole who is only out for myself, and there’s no explanation other than I’m just garbage” is disappointing, to say the least, if not downright offensive. 

Every single person in existence has motivations and reasons for the way they behave, and the views that they hold. Think of all the most popular villains in books and movies - every one of them has their own reasons for doing what they do. Some have traumatic pasts, some have been wronged, some have a skewed idea of what is right and how the world should be. Some are redeemable and some are not, but well-written villains should at least have some kind of character development and have thought put into why they are the way they are. I’m not saying Lucio is or ever was a “good person”, and I’m not saying that he should have been forgiven or have a redemption arc. But come on, he deserved more than either being chased out of Vesuvia like a little bitch, killed by his wife, or drained of blood and eaten in a ritual with no further hope of learning more about him. People that were invested in Lucio as a character deserved more. If nothing else, it’s just lazy writing and poor character construction. 

But the worst part for me? Seeing Dana’s reaction to peoples upset on her Twitter;  “loving garbage is valid, you don’t have to try to convince yourself it’s not garbage. but also? don’t convince yourself a dumpster is actually a treasure chest, then get mad when there’s actually garbage inside and not treasure.”

No person is just a fucking dumpster, and no one should ever be made to feel that way, even in terms of a fictional character. If you want to write your characters as one dimensional, sure, go off. That’s your business. But understand that some people are (rightly) going to be upset, and maybe try to be empathetic to the reasons why. Some people have mental illnesses that make them behave in similar ways to your character, who you berate constantly. Some people have put a lot of time and money into this game, and most people playing have some level of emotional involvement. Some people hate Lucio, some love to hate him, and some people love him. All absolutely valid, and I’ve seen posts from people with all opinions on Lucio unhappy with the way his character arc was ultimately handled, or not handled, more to the point. 

So, after the update, I can see that I’m not the only one feeling let down by Nix Hydra, and it upsets me to see how badly some people have been affected by this. 

We expected more.

Lucio deserved more.

[vulva-o-queef]

@hestiaq​ (making a new post because I don’t want to keep reblogging a long threat)

I’m really sorry for what you were put through. I sincerely hope you’re in a better situation now and doing okay. That’s horrific.

I remember the Ted Bundy bit you’re talking about- and she’s…. honestly quite right? If enough men have NPD/ASPD a few of them are going to seem intelligible, I think. I don’t really understand what you’re saying about Ted Bundy- if it’s tongue in cheek or not.

Okay, like I said, I haven’t seen this post she made. necromancerdoll just said that larps said sociopaths/psychopaths “can’t perform well in society/function with others.” I know aspd and being a sociopath are often considered the same thing, and I know a lot of them are pretty transparent assholes. Psychopathy isn’t a formal diagnosis at all, but criminal psychologists do use the term, and there’s a pretty solid consensus on what it means. Some people say psychopaths are a subset of sociopaths, and other people say it’s a similar but distinct thing, but in either case, one of the main characteristics of a psychopath (which a sociopath doesn’t, or doesn’t always have) is that they’re smooth and charming, and they use those traits to manipulate others.

My comment about Ted Bundy was sarcastic (and probably not in very good faith, but also wasn’t really related to the main point of all this), because saying psychopaths “can’t perform well in society/function with others” is the opposite of the truth. Ted Bundy was charming, socially adept, approachable, and likable, which was exactly how he managed to lure in many of his victims. He would put on a fake cast and ask women to help him get things into his car, which is what that scene from silence of the lambs is based on. Larps might be totally aware of all that and just phrased something too broadly. The only way it would be relevant to the rest of what I’m saying is, if she really meant to say that psychopaths are socially inept, it would be another example of how she tries to speak as an authority on mental disorders she doesn’t understand. Mostly I was just poking fun.

Women are over-diagnosed. But I don’t understand how Larps pointing out shitty behavior is the same as “diagnosing everyone”. Also, she’s talked about how borderline personality is over-diagnosed and often ascribed to women who are dealing with trauma. She’s also not talking about it from a “I don’t personally like them” only- “these people” are people who are cruel and vicious and play victim when called out on their cruel vicious behavior.

Clearly, you and I interpret the things she says about bpd and ‘cluster b’ in general very differently. For one, diagnosing anyone over the internet is absurd. In my first response to her, I did agree that she has made some good points, mostly about the link between autogynephilia and narcissism. But that’s about noticing an overarching theme within a specific population, and there’s already a decent amount of academic writing about that link. Case studies done by real psychologists. Actual studies done with controls and statistics and so on. And even with stuff like fucking “trans lesbian” dating profiles that larps points out herself, there is some solid evidence there due to the sheer repetition of entitled attitudes, fetishism, etc, the list goes on. My issue is with the way she thinks she understands BPD when she clearly doesn’t, how she applies “cluster b” or bpd to an awful lot of people, largely young ‘transmen’ or radfems she doesn’t like, and how whenever anyone she’s put down for having BPD tells her to cut it out, or tells her that she’s wrong about them, she dismisses anything they have to say by citing “people with bpd are insane,” or telling them they’re being irrational due to their disorder. Basically she’s using it as a shield to avoid being held accountable for the things she says. “Anyone who’s telling me borderline people aren’t irrational is only saying that because they’re borderline, and therefore they’re irrational!” I’m not saying she’s diagnosing “everyone.” And regarding transmen specifically, there are a lot of psychological factors involved in that situation, and for someone who’s so vocal about the cultlike, exploitative, backwards nature of the trans movement, you’d think she would understand how absurd and frankly just plain egotistical it is to think she can simplify all of those psychological factors and dynamics down to “cluster b.” Again - remember that she’s talking about people she’s never met in her life, usually judging from one blog description, a handful of posts, or sometimes nothing more than a fucking selfie.

Even as a younger girl with supposed “BPD” (who even identified with the label)- I wouldn’t have found this stuff offensive, and if it did (which I might have, and sometimes still do)- it’s really that easy to log off or go outside.

That’s good for you, and I respect your perspective. And you’re right, I could just log off and ignore what larps is saying. You can say that about anything anyone says on the internet, and technically it’s true. But I didn’t. The things she’s saying are ignorant, I find them personally hurtful, and I think she’s spreading misinformation, harmful stereotypes, and regressive thinking. I see that she’s saying dehumanizing and belittling things to women on this site who deserve respect, and probably worst of all, I see that there are a lot of people who look up to her, ask her for advice, sometimes idolize her a bit, and many of them will believe pretty much anything she says. She’s feeding them bullshit and some really vile ideas about mental health stigma, and how people with certain disorders (mainly BPD) deserve to be treated. I don’t think she’s the devil incarnate, and I don’t think she’s out here ruining lives and destroying families. I think she’s an asshole with an inflated sense of her own insight and knowledge, and I decided to say something. I could have logged off, but in this case, I didn’t. That’s all.

...I don’t understand how Larps memeing on a Tumblr blog and often posting insightful ideas about personality disorders is “insulting, ignorant, and dehumanizing”.

Yeah I don’t know what you consider “insightful,” but posting the definition of “insane” and copy-pasting a list of bpd symptoms and saying “see? these people are insane,” and tagging her response to my post with #have u ever noticed how all of these people have personality disorders (callback to “anyone who’s telling me borderline people aren’t irrational is only saying that because they’re borderline, and therefore they’re irrational!”) ...doesn’t quite cut it in my book.

She doesn’t bring up cluster b whenever she “feels” someone is acting unreasonable and dramatic- they… are unreasonable and dramatic- at least in whatever context, and people don’t have to dig deep to see who someone really is to be able to just say “no that’s insane, bye”.

Mmmm... I realize you see the situation differently from me, but am I acting insane? I mean, at worst, I’m making the undeniably blunt way she talks to people into something bigger than it needs to be. And yeah, I know... classic cluster b, amiright? But even if that’s the case, even if I’m misinterpreting her views, surely you can see where I’m coming from. And there are quite a few people who have the same objections that I do (mostly radfems, radfem adjacent women, terves, etc.). When she wrote that tag #have u ever noticed how all of these people have personality disorders, isn’t it clear that she was referring to me, as well as the rest of the radfemmish women who have been speaking against this behavior from her lately? Isn’t she making an assumption that I have a personality disorder (which I do not)? 

Do you really think my objection to the way larps talks about bpd is an indication that I have a personality disorder, and that I’m insane? Unreasonable at worst. But yes, she is absolutely using the excuse that those who object to her saying borderline people are irrational are saying so because they’re borderline/irrational. And like I said, I’m hardly the only example of her saying things like this. Someone just reblogged the original post of all of this and said #I just blocked larps bcuz shes been reblogging random old posts from me calling me a cluster b as bait #as far as I know I’m the only quote on quote crazy bihet that doesn’t have a pd? Someone else wrote #I really looked up to larps hence I’m so torn about this #if I didn’t believe she was a smart and decent well meaning person I wouldn’t care. That’s just on that particular post, within the last few hours.

People with personality disorders are diagnosed because they’re anti social and cause harm to those they “love”/interact with and the cluster b community (that I hung around) spend most of their time groveling in misery- despite often constructing their own fantastical narrative of people horrifically abusing them and demanding to be coddled for every emotion.

Some of them, yeah. Not all of them, and not enough to justify making assumptions about people you’ve never met.

What I mean is- the pain that they’re feeling is an offense to ego a LOT of the time. And other’s shouldn’t have to walk around eggshells to make sure that they don’t injure others egos.

Agreed.

Like it’s not real, rudfems don’t enable or contribute to violence against women. None of these women, no matter how mean they are, contributed to the pain I experienced in childhood for being called BPD- actually it was always men and handmaidens.

I didn’t accuse larps, or any other ‘rudefem’ of contributing to violence against women. I know that men were the reason ‘hysteria’ could be diagnosed in the past, and I know that men are the reason bpd is being overdiagnosed in women today. And I’m honestly not even trying to say larps is being misogynistic to the women she says this stuff to (though re-reading, I realize it could easily sound that way). Misogyny or not, dismissing someone’s perfectly measured, reasonable objection as irrational just because they have a bpd diagnosis - which in several cases, dr. larps diagnosed all by herself - is unacceptable, is the same pattern and circular justification used on ‘hysterical’ women in the past, and is particularly bad because, as we agree, bpd is too often being diagnosed as the new version of hysteria. She’s re-enforcing age-old stereotypes about mental illness, and she’s buying into it so completely that she really believes that borderline people are so unreliable that she knows what’s going on in their heads better than they do. Hence saying that borderline people objecting to her backwards stereotyping are doing so out of a kneejerk reaction to a damaged ego, rather than because they know what she’s saying is false.

Also - she isn’t talking about everyone with “diagnosed” BPD.

If that’s what she means, then she’s the one who needs to say it, not you. Again, I respect that you have a different view of this, and I understand your perspective, I can’t believe what others say about her intentions and supposed read-between-the-lines distinctions, when she doesn’t say it herself, and the things she says and the way she acts do not communicate what you’re saying about her.

Meaning, there’s a distinction between people who have been diagnosed and are suffering, and people who have been diagnosed (or not) and are cruel and have a total lack of insight and disregard for other people.

Mental health is complicated. You can’t divide people with bpd into two clean categories like that. That’s not how it works. And you CERTAINLY can’t lump people into the “bad” category simply because they don’t like how you talk about their disorder. You can’t see someone objecting to what you’re saying and assume that YOU know that they’re coming from a “total lack of insight.” People are not psychic. Larps is using the fact that some people with pds have a lack of self-awareness to dodge accountability when it’s convenient for her. It’s complete circular logic - something you would think she would be above, no? “they’re irrational, and when they complain about me calling them irrational, I can shut them down by saying that any complaint they make is irrational.” I know I keep saying this, but it’s true. In my first comment, I pointed out that this is her pattern, and what was her response? hashtag have u ever noticed how all these people have personality disorders. fucking exactly what I said her response would be, because that’s the only excuse she has. 

And yes, insight is a qualifying factor that “””exonerates”””” (quite a loaded word in this context????) someone from being “really” BPD. The thing about BPD is that they will not (or cannot) change- like it’s not a fixed part of your personality, and if it is- you deserve to be called out, and if it isn’t and you still behave like that… you deserve to be called out, still.

Again, no. If this is the case, then we need to make a second definition to separate “REALLY bpd” from “sorta bpd,” since currently they both meet the same diagnostic criteria. It’s not up to you, or larps, to create definitive new categories of mental illness.

I went from being told I had “borderline tendencies” to being diagnosed with full BPD, to basically nothing at all, because I became aware of those patterns, learned how to be objective about my thoughts and emotions, and practiced resisting them to the point where they only show up if I’m already in a really bad state. I don’t consider myself to have - or to have had - a personality disorder, because I’ve almost completely gotten rid of those mental reactions. But I know people who do have BPD, who are self aware, who are trying the same things I did, but the difference is that even though they now have the tools to keep them in check, those mental and emotional reactions are still present for them, and likely always will be. To say they don’t REALLY have bpd because they’re able to control it is frankly insulting. “If you’ve been able to improve it through treatment, you never really had it in the first place.” I know that’s not how you meant it, but that’s what it boils down to.

BPD is not defined by a lack of self-awareness. It’s a pattern of ingrained emotional and mental reactions (and, subsequently, behaviors). These often develop as a method of self defense against external abuse. Or sometimes there’s no abuse and it’s there anyways. The cause isn’t always clear. But the criteria calling these symptoms “pervasive” doesn’t mean the individual is unaware of them. People who know they have bpd, and who are working on treating their bpd still have bpd.

“...deserve to be called out”... it’s not larps’ business to “call someone out” for having bpd. She can call someone out for acting like a shithead, but simply having bpd is not a flaw that needs to be criticized. Your phrasing makes it seem like that’s what you’re saying, and although I’m pretty sure that’s not what you meant, that’s what larps seems to think.

Not only are neither you nor larps qualified to determine the “category” of bpd that people on the internet who you’ve never met fall into, but even IF that’s how she sees it, then, again, she needs to say that herself, and she needs to reflect that view in the way she treats people.

But to conclude, she really does make that explicitly clear that she doesn’t think everyone with BPD is a “screeching, manipulative, hysteric”.

Where

You made a bunch of excuses for her and I still have no reason to believe any of it is true

However, I’m mostly speaking for myself here because I’ve been hanging around tungle for too long and I mostly want to say that this all doesn’t really matter. Like, so many feminists on here ramble on about “but what about bpd women who get misdiagnosed?” yeah I didn’t face brutality at the hands of snarky women on the internet. These are not the people that even enabled the violence that me or many other women with trauma face.

Again, I didn’t say that. I don’t think she’s destroying lives either, I was just frustrated, saw that many other women are frustrated about her too, and I felt like saying something, so I did. That is the extent of my motivations here. I do think that she is spreading harmful stereotypes and misinformation, but I’m under no delusion that she is causing damage on a massive scale. She is, however, just one more raindrop in the proverbial ocean of mental health stigma. Insignificant as a single drop may be, surely it’s no less significant than any of those people with bpd whose bad behavior you say should be called out. If it’s larps’ business to call them out, then it’s just as much my business to call her out.

It’s not up to her and other women like her to clarify every single thing they say- people DO generalize and we should be able to communicate without having to specify for everyone.

I’m not asking her to clarify “every single thing” she says, I’m asking her to stop acting like a shithead, labeling people she’s never met, acting like she’s an authority on personality disorders, and using her actually wildly skewed perception of these disorders which is steeped in regressive, harmful, and demeaning stigma and stereotypes about mental illness in order to manipulate her way out of being held accountable for any of it. I’m not telling her to stop generalizing for the purpose of communication, I’m asking her to stop making inaccurate generalizations based on stereotypes, and to stop using “cluster b” as a catch-all for bad behavior. Just because someone is a shithead, or unreasonable, or overdramatic, doesn’t make them borderline, and it’s insulting to the people with bpd who are truly good people, who also have to deal with their disorder being an internet trend for self-dx’ers to milk sympathy and excuse their abusive behavior (sounds just like what larps would diagnose as cluster b, I know, but it turns out that many people who don’t have bpd exhibit these traits as well), deal with shitty treatment from healthcare providers who read the diagnosis and think they know everything about you before you even walk in the door (back when I had the ‘full bpd’ diagnosis, a therapist said to my face that people with bpd were considered ‘used goods,’ and my current psychiatrist treats me with an absurd and totally unjustified level of suspicion), deal with the massively pervasive stereotypes everyone else holds about bpd (ranging from ‘serial killer’ to ‘used goods’ to ‘fake trend on the internet to get attention’), as well as dealing with - oh yeah - the actual fucking disorder, as well as often comorbid cases of PTSD, depression, anxiety, bipolar, etc.

I’m just saying, it would be a lot more effective and hurt a lot less people you supposedly didn’t mean to target if you just called out the actual behavior instead of “calling out” a disorder. Additionally, I’m pretty sure that people with bpd who do lack self awareness are far more likely to respond to direct criticisms of their behavioral patterns than they are to respond to the label of bpd being “called out.” They’d just see the latter as more fuel for self-pity. It’s a little harder to justify being the victim of someone saying “hey stop being abusive.”

And if that’s not enough reasons for you, consider: people who have shitty behaviors who don’t have a cluster b disorder (yes, larps, they exist) are just gonna hear criticisms of a disorder they don’t have and brush it right off. Call out the actual behavior, and there’s a chance they might recognize it in themselves. It’s like a quadruple win.

A hallmark of bpd/npd/aspd/hpd is having no insight into that, that people say shit, and you take what you can and leave it-her, or me, or anyone else mincing that up….. doesn’t help bpd women live in a world where nobody is going to mince anything up ever. It did not help me when people coddled me, and I intuitively knew that and was deeply frustrated with it.

You’re right that it doesn’t help to have people make excuses for you or ‘coddle’ you. But not being unfair and pushing harmful stigma is not the same thing as “coddling.” Nor is “not mincing” words the same thing as saying things that are untrue, unfair, dismissive, and insulting. Much like Trump saying blatantly racist things is NOT “just telling it like it is.” (and no I’m not comparing you or larps to trump or calling anyone racist. except trump)

Many of the women who have ‘spoken up’ about larps on tungle, I’ve seen on other mediums (fb, wordpress) and they’re often just blatantly manipulative

Really? Am I being blatantly manipulative? Or insane? And, to reiterate, is what I’ve said on her post enough for her to assume that I - and anyone else raising these issues with her - ALL have personality disorders? Is it justification for her to say that I’m “glorifying” ASPD/BPD?

and will never have any insight to the fact that all of this is really a non-issue

I gave you several examples above, and here's your treasure trove:

https://larpsandtherealgirl.tumblr.com/search/cluster%20b

Notice how she loves agreeing with everyone saying they’ve been abused by someone with a cluster b disorder, or otherwise says something negative about a person/people with a cluster b disorder, makes sweeping generalizations and basically uses “cluster b” with the same tone that you would call someone an asshole - that is to say, using the same logical standards of “you said some shit I thought was rude, so I think you’re an asshole & I’m going to call you one” when talking about psychological medical diagnoses?

Yeah, occasionally she claims she’s only talking about The Bad Ones, but that’s a pretty thin excuse when 99% of the time you make no attempt to differentiate, and post things like screenshotted symptoms (which - if the “good ones” with that disorder actually have that disorder - would apply to the “good ones” too) with captions like “these people are insane.”

Again, I realize you see the things she says very differently from me, but surely you can see where I’m coming from. And I would hope that you can see that my having this perspective does not justify saying I have a personality disorder, that I am insane, or that I am “glorifying” ASPD and NPD. I would hope that the similar shit she’s said about several other women who said things similar to what I said would also strike you as unjustified. You can make excuses that she wasn’t literally diagnosing me with a personality disorder, but you can’t make that excuse every single time she says something like this.

but instead “leave radical feminism because it’s so full of mean lesbian separatists” and make huge texts about it everywhere else and how rfeminism is a cult.

Okay... this is an entirely separate and irrelevant subject and I’m not sure why you’re bringing it up. I mean it sounds like you’re saying “people who don’t like being told they’re insane are just butthurt kek” which I really hope is not what you’re saying. I’m pretty sure there are plenty of radical women who would object to being called insane and having their opinions dismissed because of a mental health diagnosis, who would raise their objections and still believe in their politics, probably due to the fact that - in this context - those things have virtually nothing to do with one another.

My point is- she’s not just saying ppl who criticize her have bpd- they often do because people with personality disorders come out of the woodwork to be hideously angry at anyone who calls them abusive or “wrong” and “bad” (whatever that means at any given moment).

In summary: I appreciate and respect that you interpret the things larps says in a very different way, and I’m not trying to tell you that you should be hurt or anything like that. But I can’t accept what I see as excuses that you’re making for her, since she doesn’t offer any of those explanations herself, and I don’t see any evidence of the intentions you’re attributing to her, in her own words or behavior.

At the end of the day, larps is the only person who can speak for larps’ intentions (much like the people whose criticisms larps deflects by claiming they’re motivated by irrational emotion and a threatened victim complex SHOULD be the only ones who can speak for their intentions).

And at the end of the day, larps didn’t show anything but disrespect and a total unwillingness to even consider that the way she speaks to, and treats, people with bpd and people who criticize her portrayal and internet-diagnosing of bpd, might not be 100% faultless.

At the end of the day, larps read what I had to say about her dismissive attitude and manipulative, circular justification for avoiding accountability. Her response was to double down on calling people with borderline “insane,” and double down on her own belief that googling a list of symptoms makes her an expert on psychology, as well as an expert on the thoughts in other peoples’ heads. She used the exact circular, dismissive excuse I was calling out, yet again said that the people criticizing her were all doing so because of their - well “our,” I should say, since she diagnosed me - personality disorders, rather than their actual thoughts, opinions, and perfectly reasonable objections. And then she answered a bunch of messages laughing about how crazy and terrible “cluster b”s are. No, she didn’t literally say “EVERY SINGLE PERSON with bpd is like this,” but come on. She’s not the only person who can recognize patterns of behavior.

[ilygsd]

241018: 2

okay here we go, this is from some shitty mental health site ot whatever. i actually liked the site though. i read about aspd, adhd, autism, ptsd, bpd, npd etc. informative i guess

somewhat true i guess. i dont want anything else than to love him. i dont know why i feel the need or want to but i need and want to (lol) love people. with all my fucking heart. i want to die for someone (wow) but they need to take care of me, and above all APPRECIATE my love. this guy cant even FEEL my love, how the fuck is he going to APPRECIATE it? it’s all empty and the only thing he feels like the... the sexual parts or smth ugh idk. 

he is a social predator. he once said i reminded him of a beautiful but innocent deer and now i cant stop thinking about it. idk, it used to scare me before but tbh now i dont even know if i should be offended or fascinated by how..... fucking smart and talented these people are. he said i was pretty desperate when we first met (still am oops) and little did i know i was. i was desperate wooow he could probably smell my desperation and vulnerability miles away that fucking monster haha. this article sounds a bit dramatic though. im pretty sure he would be amused by reading it, idk. amused and annoyed. i feel like this is his standard state lmao. annoyed, bored and slightly amused. 

the best way to receive love is to give love, yes indeed and he knows that. and loving him is amazing. i dont know how or why, i cant describe it and i refuse to actually admit that i love him.... I REFUSE: i dont even trust the guy, he stands for nothing, always playing the devils advocate fucking white boy, always provoking me but.... maybe its just cus he’s older and im just bored with life. well yeah probably that too. i mean.... if i was content with my life, my relationships and health i wouldnt need him lol. especially not considering how he treats me and hurt my feelings. but wow as i’ve said, i love loving him (or whatever the fuck it is) and theres nothing i’d rather do than loving him. he’s a drug

and yeah thats definitely exactly what it was like. i still cant believe i actually thought we were similar LMAOOOOOOOO and he’s like “yeah people think that we’re similar until i tell them otherwise”. we are NOT similar. okay yes, i have some abusive traits, some manipulative i guess. i guess that’s similar. but other than that.... nope

uh, he says im emo all the time when im with him lol. trueeee. im so comfortable with him my emo just jumps out and i get really depressing wow. i wonder why he stuck with me for so long. i must be so boring. i mean it could be for the sex as i’ve said, but i doubt that. i wonder what the heck he thinks he can use me for. im always paranoid he’ll use me but at the same time i struggle with thoughts that im useless so.... bruh idk lmao

true that i stuck it out during the bad times because the good times are fantastic. true. true. idk, its not that fantastic. he’s pretty normal its not like im over showered with compliments and gifts and love but on the other hand i wouldnt want that either. hmm, idk im so curious how he’s acting with other people. if he’s similar or if he changes and adapts himself

im just svared of that “the honeymoon comes to an end”. what does that mean? will it be worse than this??? i mean is he bored now? what happens when he’s bored? will he just leave or do smth stupid? sometimes i think he’s starting drama bc he’s bored tbh that sounds more like me. he actually tried to “end” the fight by that “u owe me 5 blowjobs now” joke but i chose to continue bc he threatened to murder me and i was offended lol

yeah that may have been stupid. it was a choice of mine. he gave me a chance to move on and i chose not to because i thought i could make him apologize. LMAO NOOOOO. this bitch wont apologize for anything in the worldddddddd. makes me so FUCKING frustrated because i AM NOT going to apologize for trying to demand him to apologize. if anything i will just ignore that this ever happened. and i WOULD have, if it wasnt for the STI fact lol. it’s so awkward honestly i have nothing to say if i were to contact him. i dont know, maybe he got HIV now because of me LOL and why the fuck would i expose myself like that like why would he be with me if he publicly stated he wants to murder me if i transmitted it to him. i dont even know (yes i know, i obviously dont fucking have HIV) and i won’t know until he get tested. and he probably wont tell me so actually i should just block him before he gets tested considering he wants to kill me. ok he said he wouldnt etc etc. and i know he wouldnt but he would probably destroy my life in another way. 

uh idk, i guess i have to get myself tested again and this time HIV AND AIDS INCLUDED. only then i have a reason to text him and its to say that im clean. what a pathetic reason, i will see right through it. he KNOWS i want him. thats why there’s no reason for me to contact him at all because he already knows i’ll always want to be with him sigh

ok so as i’ve said i’ve thought about this a lot. like what the fuck does he want from me? actually he’s ignoring me right now so idk if he still wants anything sigh. but i guess thats why he wanted to meet so fast irl. i get it now though. at first i was like “NO WE NEED TO TALK FOR AT LEAST 6 MONTHS” but now im like ugh lets just get it over with. i really thought he was a typical charmer, a slut, but hes been very firm that he doesnt let anyone touch him and that he’s not always up for a second “date”. i guess its smth with their boredom? 

ok i guess it’s...... charm? and also sometimes threatening and coldness. 

and yeah idk. either he’s ignoring me bc he really lost interest. he’s the one who overreacted though for real... i cant fucking believe he got so pissed over something like that and then just straight out REFUSES to apologize for THREATENING TO MURDER ME. uugh its so annoying it makes me so pissed. he said he’s not the one to block people though. guess he will just let me message him like a fucking pathetic idiot and then leave me on read lol. like he did with my cringe snaps

LMAO YEAH I KNOW TELL ME ABOUT IT. rage.... boy can this sweet angel become angry. he’s always so rational and calm yet he lets himself get triggered over such nonsense. maybe he’s just faking it though to scare me or smth honestly i dont really know, i just know he pissed me off. he’d make a great james fallon, james fallon is a neurobiologist who studies. too bad jo wants doesn’t want to be a scientist or researcher in that matter but actually WORK as a psychologist WITH PATIENTS

fuck i cant help but be attracted to his intelligence though :( wow it makes me feel like such a dumbass typical girly girl and i hate itttttttt. i told him i’d like to see him cry haha. idk. im just curious. im happy he haven’t cried though like used it as a manipulative tool or something. im just rambling idk what the fuck im writing lol

[merchantsprobably]

in the past few days i’ve been learning a few valuable life lessons so i figured i’d type them up. they’re what help me personally.

systems are created through trauma alone, however, i don’t think there’s an “age deadline” for when the trauma had to occur, and i think presuming there’s a “level” for how bad it should have been is...ridiculous. it’s trauma. it was traumatic. trauma isnt a word you throw around - if you get hit on the head thats one type of trauma, if you get punched in the stomach it’s another, it doesn’t mean that just because you experienced different trauma than another person that anyone else’s trauma is less real, which brings me to my next point

just because you experienced the same thing doesn’t mean you know exactly how another person feels. you can relate on aspects like pain and experiences, but to assume you know what another person felt during and after the event/abuse/trauma and use it against them in an argument? that’s harmful to both parties. you open yourself up to things like numbness to emotion and harmful outburts, while putting the other person down.

there is no such thing as system hopping. you can have your spiritual beliefs for hopping systems but i refuse to acknowledge it. i’m not picking fights with people who believe it though, i mean this is my blog and i do with it what i want (insert obligatory “dont like dont read” comment). i just dont think it’s a logical thing. systems are purely mental topics, they have nothing to do with spirituality, though i do believe in being able to sense a headmate’s energy and motives. as for people who experience system hopping on a personal level, i dont think that’s true, i think if two systems are close enough then some headmates take on traits of another’s and sometimes alters can form for comfort reasons in response to another’s system, resulting in introjects of another alter. anything about “i remember being in their headspace” is either coincidence, delusion, or on the lines of sensing energy.

alters form in response to emotional lapses like breakdowns or relapse. alters can also form out of the blue, and if they do, it’s probably in response to environmental events, because part of DID/OSDD is dissociation so it’s understandable if alters form even if you personally don’t feel stressed.

i don’t believe alters can be created on purpose. however, i do believe in tulpas, which is where you create an “imaginary friend” and give them attention and “power” until they begin acting on their own - however this is more spiritual. i believe if you are a system and you have “created” your own alter, then what happened was an incredibly rare situation in which you created an active tulpa, but as your system reacted to it and its ability to assist you, it adapted the traits and created its own version of it. i dont know about the tulpa though...i’m still giving this thought.

i know everyone says “bpd doesnt create alters” and while i agree for the most part, i dont think anyone’s even once addressed the possibility of the affects of bpd on a person’s systemhood. to which, here’s a few thoughts - - a symptom borderlines experience is the adaption of personality traits onto their person. i think a borderline’s system, if they experience the same disorders, may do the same to the point of forgetting who they were and recreating themselves. unknowing systems can mistake this for “system restarts” and think that their old headmates are dead and they have new ones now, when in fact it’s the same people but with different aspects. if you have bpd and are a system and this seems familiar, ask yourself if the “new” headmates fulfill a similar role, personality, or aesthetic as the “old” ones. - sometimes adapting traits can be so intense that they confuse the system, and people start believing in “fractures” or “fragments”. i think that when this happens, people should take time when the “fragment” is “gone” to evaluate what they do, how they act, and so on, and maybe ease into the idea that it’s ok to be wrong about your system and if they’re not a shy headmate then they’re most likely a result of bpd. - sometimes trait adaption CAN result in alters due to idolization, projection, and adoption. people can idolize others as a result of bpd and their system responds by creating an introject. people can project a character’s traits onto themselves and idealize them as a more comforting character and the system responds by developing a new alter. people can adopt certain traits in response to a situation or environment and different things become more comforting and if the system develops another alter, then there’s a high possibility of them being brought in with similar traits.

i do think that due to the harsh environment of this site and the overexposure to black-and-white arguments over what is and isnt considered part of a disorder, that young users on this site can get confused over what disorders they have, if any, and are either too afraid to admit they’re wrong, or are so misinformed that they defend the wrong things about the disorder and spread false information and create a toxic environment where other misinformed people join them and, what happens from there is drama.

on that note, its completely ok to be wrong about things. you could assume you’re a system but it turns out you have heavy bpd, and vice versa. you could think you have npd, but it turns out you have hpd, or bpd with narcissistic traits. just cause tumblr doesnt know how to accept mistakes in a healthy manner doesnt mean you should shun yourself for getting something wrong. do what you can to recognize the mistake, realize you were wrong, accept that it’s normal and a good learning experience, and move on with your newfound knowledge.

people will leave you all the time. it’s part of life and unfortunately, not everyone is meant to have several perfect friends 24/7. not everyone is going to agree with each other all the time, and it’s ok to have friends who have some weird traits, or problematic interests, or are iffy allies, or drain you cause they do that one thing.

friends can be found in anything or anyone, too, and none of them are sad or pathetic. a friend can be an unlikely person you met by chance, or a regular at your store, or someone you’ve just met. if they have your best interests at heart, they are a friend. if they seek to take advantage of you by constantly asking for favors or pressuring you into things, they are not your friend. if they ignore you constantly and only reply when they feel like it, they are not a friend. friends can also be animals!

what happened to me with the people who abused me...it happened. it happened and it passed. i KNOW that they are wrong. i KNOW that they are lying. i KNOW they were trying to hurt me, and use me, and threaten me, and tarnish my name, make me panic, incite negativity in me, and so on. i know what they’re trying to do, and it wont work. it will never, ever work anymore, because they dont matter to me anymore. what people will believe, thats not up to me. i know who my allies and friends are, and they are people who have my best interest at heart, and i trust them enough to know that they wont listen to the abusers. they know im not lying and they know i’m their friend. i am above the people who abused me, and i’ve moved on.

jealousy is a natural human feeling that should not be bottled up. if you’re feeling jealous, let your partner know so you can work something out. do NOT, however, say guilty things that put yourself down. it’s like saying “nice art! i cant draw for shit” to an artist - it’s wrong and makes everyone feel bad. try to word your concern in your own nice way.