…until it is someone with narcissistic personality disorder, psychopathy and sociopathy, but mostly NPD.
EDIT: There seems to be some misunderstandings about this post. It is not an attack on this community or the users here, it’s just a general vent I have for the type of people that claim to be anti-ableist until it is something they don’t like.
Yes, I’ve been called a nar*******t and it was deeply offensive. It reminds me of the times I got called a re***d, or a sp**g, or a fa***t, or a tr***y. Half of those other slurs are also spins on the name of a mental disorder.
Marginalised, oppressed people are not responsible for empathising with our oppressors. While doing so can often be helpful to our causes, it should never be considered a requirement, and it should certainly never be called out by majorities demanding that we do it in order to earn respect. It’s impossible to dehumanise, attack, and villify someone for how they were born, and then reasonably expect them to be civil, polite, and empathetic. Some of us, like myself, are polite and empathetic, and we do take the time to understand how our oppressors feel. But we are the exception, and there’s a very compelling reason why that is.
Hey, um, you’re all over this thread and you seem like you’ve really got an axe to grind here. What’s your story?
My parents were abusive, and I never developed the part of my brain that feels inherent self love and worth. I got a personality disorder. And I had the right genetics and environment to get NPD out of that abuse instead of another personality disorder like BPD or ASPD. That means my fake self-esteem comes from grandiose self ideas instead of defining myself by another person or by rejecting society utterly like those other disorders.
This wasn’t a problem until I entered young adulthood. Over a period of about a year, I came to terms with my NPD. And then I proceeded to suffer many years of abuse for my disorder. It started before I ever knew the disorder, when society told me narc****sts were evil abusers. My exploration of my disorder started as a fear. I thought it was paranoia at first. But no, my worst fears were true, I had childhood trauma and genetic bad luck, and that combination made me what society considers the worst thing a person can be. According to someone in this thread, we’re basically the same as pedophiles.
I never abused anyone. Never manipulated anyone. I know it says exploitative behaviour is a criterion in the DSM, but first off the DSM is full of bad information on personality disorders, and second you don’t have to have any of the “bad” criteria to quality for the disorder. I’m haughty, pompous. I dream of greatness. I’m easily hurt when I fail or when I’m threatened. Quick to anger, but only in self defence. I can turn my empathy off at will. According to hundreds of people I have met, that makes me a born abuser. A monster.
Someone doesn’t even have to know I have NPD to sense it. For some reason, a lot of people take someone else’s big ego, even if it’s a private affair, as a personal attack. I’m not even allowed to think highly of myself, because according to some people that’s inequality and fascism. And yet if I don’t, then I don’t fundamentally feel that I’m worthy of love. I don’t think I deserve to live. It’s trauma. It’s a disorder.
I’m the only person I’ve ever hurt with my NPD. But the vilification by others has done far worse to me. They demand humility. If I’m not humble, they say I deserve to die. If I am humble, I think I deserve to die.
And here comes OP, saying my pain is right. That I do deserve to feel upset by how many people don’t believe in support for “monsters” like me. And yet with such an inoffensive, kind post, everyone has to change the subject to supposed abuses I am responsible for, just for having my brain the way it is.
I respond with the anger borne of the trauma of a lifetime of abuse from society. And that anger is justified. I do not speak with violence, I do not attack, but I am, privately, angry.