Oh, and since this is turning into a discussion of bad relationships, emotional abuse, and mental illness in general, some necessary disclaimers:
1. Not all abusers are mentally ill; not all mentally ill people are abusers. Duh. Some people just do it because they’re assholes.
2. You don’t have to be mentally ill to get into an abusive relationship. Also duh. And, in fact, abusive relationships tend to work by eroding the victim’s self-esteem and screwing with the victim’s ability to name, define, and understand the reality of her situation, so that they can create reactions that look like the symptoms of certain mental illnesses. That said, some abusers find that their work is easier when they pick up people who already have poor self-esteem or poor boundaries. But they can create poor self-esteem and poor boundaries too.
3. Pathologizing every person who’s abused in her relationship is equivalent to blaming the victim; defining every abuser as mentally ill is stereotyping and demonizing people with mental illnesses. Some illnesses, like Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, do get talked about a lot in connection to abusive relationships, because abusing one’s partner is often a symptom of those illnesses. They’re notable for the way they affect people’s ability to empathize with or relate to other people. BPD gets talked about a lot in relationship to suicide too, because self-harm and suicide attempts are on the list of diagnostic criteria. But there are some people who basically blame all abuse on BPD, and others who basically blame all abuse on NPD, and in both cases, they’re oversimplifying how abuse actually works. We should try not to do the same here.
I’m not really happy with a lot of the rest of the discussion about mental health conditions in this particular thread, but this comment by Sady Doyle sums up everything I’d ever want to say on the subject in a way I really appreciate.
It is very very common for people to leave comments that are, in essence, “all people with [X diagnosis] are abusive”, and often from commenters who are otherwise aware enough not to make such similar sweeping statements about another group. I will not pretend that there aren’t people with these diagnoses who are abusive. There are also people without them that are. There are also people with these diagnoses that are not abusive.
People in my readings have been talking a lot about the stigma of mental health diagnoses. This is one of them.
Thank you, Sady. (The term “duh” makes me squirm, but the content of the comment is very much appreciated.)
