Reminder: Broad Generalizations won’t be tolerated

There has been an uptick in posts and comments stigmatizing certain personality disorders and the mods would like to remind the community what is acceptable here. While it’s fine to discuss our experiences and realities, it’s not cool to jump from saying one person with x diagnosis in my life has been terrible to me so everyone with x diagnosis is terrible. We especially will not tolerate calls to hate or ostracize anyone with x diagnosis. (No Hate Speech)

This goes for personality disorders, gender, etc. too

Generalizations hurt our collective understanding of personality disorders, diagnosis, gender, and etc.

It's good to remember, people can and do make broad generalizations about those with CPTSD and those who have survived abuse too, so it behooves us to not make a similar mistake as it doesn't help us heal in the long run.

Address individual actions and accountability, not diagnosis/personality disorder/gender/etc.

in CPTSDby HumanWhoSurvived

92%

6mo

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DesmondTapenade

6mo

Can we please do something about the anti-therapy rhetoric? Thank you.

HumanWhoSurvived

6mo

It's something we are aware of, and we have removed some comments/even made a ban in recent days.

We try to achieve a balance in letting people vent/criticize troubles with therapy (which is fair) while also not allowing people to proselytize/advise others to totally denounce therapy working for others.

If anyone sees comments trying to advise people against getting help/therapy, please feel free to file a report then we can address it right away, or at least read into the situation to make a determination.

_MaerBear

5mo

If anyone sees comments trying to advise people against getting help/therapy

Are people really doing this? That makes me sad.

[deleted]

5mo

I don't advise against therapy, but I've been a victim of stuff like "attack therapy" and forced therapy where my abusive parents were pulling the strings. It's hard to talk about those experiences, and ironically, you can be branded a bad patient or disordered or self unaware, etc.

A lot of my attempts to talk about it get branded esoteric, extremists, etc. But it's just where my trauma comes from. What if people stigmatized talking about marriages that fall apart or marriages with elements of domestic abuse in them? It's dangerous. Therapy has historically been a breeding ground for the re-victimization of traumatized people. You can look at the bad without being a deranged maniac.

Some of the therapists who were abusive fit the typical patterns of being narcissistic, veering between idealization, love bombing, and devaluation. I've had therapists appear to not be in their sound mind. Be people who enabled abusers, seem trauma bonded or just be acting out a lot of bs that is often sort of projected on to people with PDs.

I've had problems talking about my experiences where people reacted by policing my language. Even if I don't use labels. They don't like me to paint a profile that has the stereotypical traits. But that's what a lot of abusers are like. Not my fault.

When I've been toxic, it fits similar patterns. People get triggered, and they get mad or push back even if you don't generalize.

_MaerBear

5mo

ironically, you can be branded a bad patient or disordered or self unaware,

It is incredibly tragic to me that the patient is being faulted for being disordered or un-self-aware in any context around therapy. That is how it is supposed to be. That is literally what therapists are for. I'm sorry that is the reaction to receive, especially if that is happening in this space.

I think the danger lies in talking too generally. If I'm talking about how harmful my marriage was, it is safer and more productive for me to keep the conversation about MY marriage, or about specific dynamics I experienced that are common in some marriages, not make it a condemnation of marriage in general. I can't speak to how you've talked about therapy in your posts, since I haven't witnessed it, but I just thought I'd share my theoretical 2 cents.

For the record, multiple people very close to me have been harmed, abused, invalidated and gaslit in therapeutic settings. It is a very real and dangerous issue and makes me sick every time I hear about it happening. But I try to keep my rants on the subject targeted to the specific situation/individual/harmful-behaviors. I don't really see any benefit in fixating on or speculating on the specific diagnosis of abusive therapists, only that they should have their licenses revokes and maybe serve time in some situations.

It is easier to simplify the situation down to the binary of simple labels like BPD or NPD, and it makes sense to do so when one is stuck in their trauma brain and objectivity is a bit farther away due to elevated activity in the amygdala, but I think we owe it to ourselves and our healing processes to look at situations with a more nuanced and aware perspective when we are in a state that allows that. Otherwise we just perpetuate the cycle of spewing out words based on instinctive, hind brain, animalistic reflex (trauma responses, which also drive much abusive behavior). I think that is one of the reasons why a closed support system can be really beneficial, it is a space with people you trust around whom you can be messy without risking doing harm or being harmed in our vulnerability.

I say that but I'll be damned if I know how to rebuild a support system when I don't know how to trust anyone and I'm always on edge. For now my closed support system is my therapist, and hopefully soon, there will be more people I can start opening my heart to.

I'm not trying to invalidate you, and I hope it isn't coming across that way. I'm just trying to imagine why your posts might trigger other people to shut you down in the hopes that if you can understand what is triggering that response, you can open up in a way that gets you a response that feels more supportive and less shaming. Ultimately we can't change how other people behave, but we can change our own behaviors and how we communicate which often changes the way we are received by others. You deserve to be accepted and seen in your vulnerability, not rejected.

I sort of suffer from the opposite issue. I compulsively tailor my communication to what I think other people can hear and will respond to or accept... I also automatically dissociate to tone down my emotions to a level that I don't think will disturb people around me. It means that it is very hard for me to be messy (vulnerable) around other people, which means I cannot receive the support I need because I'm ultimately not allowing for it to reach me. It also means that in the rare moments I am messy (authentic/feeling) it tends to be overwhelming to the people in my life who are accustomed to my muted emotional responses and how stable and reliable I normally seem to them (which is a perception so far from reality it makes me wish I could scream and cry and break things).

[deleted]

5mo

I can't remember any specific time someone reacted negatively. I usually don't say anything at all or try to be extremely explicit in what I do say. I avoid generalizations and I personally experience a lot of compassion and natural empathy for people with PDs. I can inherently relate. But I still think that a lot of what get's branded "hate" or inappropriate just isn't.

A lot of the bad is glaring, like people saying that they all deserve this or that treatment or they are all evil. Other stuff needs to be allowed.

I don't think you "trigger people" like it's a verb. People get triggered and it could be from a song playing in a public setting. For me, being shushed and told to calm down, be more polite is a trigger. It's how I was gaslit and disempowered. There's no right way to engage with people who are ill.

In general, we don't have to turn into a hate group, but there's also the risk of turning it into a toxic family, where you don't point out the elephant in the room, you walk on eggshells and enable.

When it comes to BPD and NPD or even just trauma, including CPTSD, the victim perpetrator cycle needs to be acknowledged. I don't know if it's still standing, but I think this sub used to brand that a "myth." Why? To cater to people's "triggers." Some didn't like to be talked to as if they were the abuser instead of the abused. But that just starts to defy logic. You can be both.

I actually think spaces like this lean into enabling a lot of issues in their members. Subs like this are both understanding and highly empathetic and often extremely toxic. With people essentially enabling each other (in their hopelessness and isolation mostly), replaying old roles and getting triggered by other's trauma.

To be inclusive of anyone, with any label, that developed abusive tendencies, if done wrong, it can set everyone back, including the people who have those issues.

I do think that there's an obvious stigma against some disorders, but it's a systemic type of issue. There's unconscious bias, and we've been taught one way of looking at things. But if you take one wrong action or trigger one person, you aren't categorically the wrong type of person to participate here. It can start to turn into a space where the most dysregulated and unhealthy drive others out.

[deleted]

5mo

Another very valid critique that gets people mad is that therapy is widely very inaccessible. I can't afford it right now.

Real story, I've been bullied by people diagnosed with BPD for struggling both with access and receiving unethical treatment. They were younger than me and trying to appear the more righteous, claiming to have had years of therapy. They were a horror to deal with. It was in the context of a hospitalization. They were making comparisons and playing the role of the "good patient" probably also to bait me on that front.

I'm not saying you should expect nastiness from all people with BPD. But if I tell the story, am I then ableist and spreading hate?

I also think drive by diagnosis are a very grey area. For me, reading up on "BPD subtypes" (really abuser profiles, I admit the site and perspective can be shady and harmful) was where I started my healing journey when it came to my abuse. I was able to get validation and start to understand that not everyone deals with that type of stuff. I avoid using labels, because I don't care and don't really know, but my perspective is still informed by that type of online content. I would say that even just telling the story without overt labels can lead to push back. You get gaslit, as if you're making it up just to hurt them.

_MaerBear

5mo

Another very valid critique that gets people mad is that therapy is widely very inaccessible.

Agreed. Crazy to me that anybody thinks this is controversial. IMO no therapy is often better than bad/unethical/unqualified therapy, and it is really hard to find a good/effective therapist, especially if you have C-PTSD. That is only more true when considering "in network" options if you are trying to get insurance to cover it. Then there is the question of how much insurance will even cover...

It isn't lost on me that I'm blessed to be able to afford a therapist who is actually able to help where everyone else has failed.

Regarding the diagnosis shaming... I am personally against normalizing the practice of generalizing and using a singular diagnosis as the singular lens of description and understanding, whether talking about an abuser or someone seeking help. But I can admit it isn't quite so simple. Directing anger and blame outward is a crucial part of the healing process for many people (including me). Understanding that it is okay to be angry and hurt when you've been abused and to stop blaming yourself is so so important. So is understanding the markers for people who are likely to hurt you in a similar way (Because as long as the wound is still festering we are likely to let in similar people, as trauma survivors/victims often repeat/recreate the conditions of their trauma over and over until they are able to slow down and take an honest look at things).

All that said, especially in a public community space dedicated to healing for everyone, the way we choose to talk about such things is very important so we don't cause even more harm than has been done to us.

The fucked up truth is that hurt people very often hurt people, and abusers are often carrying deep wounds. So long as these people are going to continue to be in our society regardless, it behooves us all to leave space for those people to heal and come back into the fold of reasonable human behavior, otherwise they will never have a chance to heal and will continue to be a blight upon the rest of us. That only gets worse when they are barraged with hate and shame and rejection (which likely resonates with the wound at the root of their abuse). I'm definitely not advocating for people to "forgive and forget" or to welcome past or potential abusers into their lives with open arms, but rather to keep the (deservedly) hateful and angry and messy processing in appropriately private channels, and to use the language of empathy to ensure that public spaces are as safe and inclusive for as many people as possible. That ultimately comes down to word choice and framing when we are sharing stories rather than lazy label blaming and summing a person up with a single acronym that casts shade on everyone else with that acronym. The diagnosis of the abuser can be a relevant detail in processing and sharing stories, but I think it is dangerous for it to be the only detail.

I personally find more healing when - after processing through my grief and rage - I take some time to actually understand as much as I can (in retrospect and from a distance and after they are out of my life) about my abuser as possible. I find it healing to at least have some kind of picture of what happened to that person that made them that way. Because an abuser with NPD doesn't become an abuser because you are an easy target (which is a self blaming narrative), they often become an abuser to compensate for a fundamental lack of self, so profound that they had to manifest a hilariously, horrifyingly exaggerated false ego to protect themselves and the only way to keep up that illusion is to lash out and take advantage of others to prove their power when they feel insecure (which they can't admit to themselves). I refuse to sacrifice my own empathy, which I cherish, for the sake of those who have cut themselves off from their own.

If I am taken advantage of by a narcissist it is unequivocally not my fault that they are abusive. But (in many instances) I did let them into my life, so it is worth exploring why I did that so I can heal and avoid similar danger in the future. I lose the opportunity to fully do that when I just say "it's because they had NPD". That robs me of all my power and opportunities to keep myself safe, save situations where people are wearing a sticky note on their forehead that signposts their NPD.

Sorry about the rant, I think I wrote much of that more for me than for you.

reallynotanyonehere

5mo

I have no idea about what's been going on, and might be getting myself in trouble here. I agree totally on "broad generalizations."

Some people view therapy as a golden calf, rather than the flawed system(s) that it is. The same thing happens with 12-step, not because it actually works, but because it's all we've got. I always support people who are struggling with either.

In all my years on this group, I never read an account of someone who did some therapy and was cured. It's value is limited, and it can be dangerous to present it as the end-all, be-all of recovery (which happens far too often, IMO) because it is not.

_MaerBear

5mo

well put. I agree on all these points.