Defending it under ableism kinda feels like calling the word “abuser” abelist
Drag is willing to accept that premise only after psychologists put “abuser disorder” in the DSM. They can probably put it right next to “crime disorder” and “being a bad person disorder” within the “things that are behaviours and not mental health conditions” section. Until that section gets made, everything in the DSM is a mental health condition and NOT an action.
Honesty I think you’d be better off pointing out how these people aren’t mentally ill and are fully culpable for what they do, instead of labeling it all abelist.
Por que no los dos?
Trump is a criminal because he’s chosen to do criminal things. Musk is an abuser because he’s chosen to do abusive things. ASPD and NPD aren’t choices and they aren’t actions. Mixing up criminal and abusive behaviour with mental health conditions is ableist. It’s the ableism that happens when you hear about a bad thing and assume a minority did it. “Someone robbed the convenience store? Must have been a black.” “A famous musician molested a child? I always knew he was gay.” “A politician bribed a pornstar with campaign funds to hide his relationship with her? He must have a mental illness.” It’s wrong.
Taking words away from people that they use to describe their abusers (narcissist, psychopath) is going to hurt people who don’t deserve it (schizophrenia, etc) when you lump it all together as abelism. That’s my point.
In my opinion, they did put abuser disorder in the DSM. Here’s the diagnosis criterion for NPD (need 5/9, must be maladaptive) Notice how its just the description of an emotionally abusive person, when you need 5 and its gotta be bad enough to affect your life?
A grandiose sense of self-importance (exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
Believing that they are “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
Requiring excessive admiration
A sense of entitlement (unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with their expectations)
Being interpersonally exploitative (taking advantage of others to achieve their own ends)
Lacking empathy (unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others)
Often being envious of others or believing that others are envious of them
Showing arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
This is from Wikipedia, btw, I dont own the manual and cant find it online. DSM is just a guide to help psychiatrists give treatment to people who need help, not a list of descriptors you can no longer use.
Notice how its just the description of an emotionally abusive person, when you need 5 and its gotta be bad enough to affect your life?
Is it really? Let’s do some math.
A grandiose sense of self-importance (exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
The way other people feel about themselves isn’t an attack on you. You don’t have the right to police other people’s level of self esteem. Abusive traits so far: 0/1
Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
The way other people feel about themselves isn’t an attack on you. You don’t have the right to police other people’s level of self esteem. Abusive traits so far: 0/2
Believing that they are “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
The way other people feel about themselves isn’t an attack on you. You don’t have the right to police other people’s level of self esteem. Abusive traits so far: 0/3
Requiring excessive admiration
Other people having needs isn’t an attack on you. You don’t have the right to police other people’s needs. You can say no, you can say you don’t personally want to be asked or expected to do it, you can’t get mad at people for wanting something. Abusive traits so far: 0/4
A sense of entitlement (unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with their expectations)
This is called being a Karen, not being an abuser. Abusive traits so far: 0/5
Being interpersonally exploitative (taking advantage of others to achieve their own ends)
This one is abusive. Abusive traits so far: 1/6
Lacking empathy (unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others)
Other people not having the feelings you want them to have isn’t an attack on you. You don’t have the right to police other people’s feelings. Abusive traits so far: 1/7
Often being envious of others or believing that others are envious of them
Other people having bad feelings isn’t an attack on you. You don’t have the right to police other people’s feelings. Abusive traits so far: 1/8
Showing arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
The way other people feel about themselves isn’t an attack on you. You don’t have the right to police other people’s level of self esteem. Abusive traits so far: 1/9
Okay, we did the math and found that only one out of nine traits is abusive, and given five are required for a diagnosis, it’s reasonable to assume most people with NPD don’t have any symptoms that make them abusers. On the other hand, most of the traits you called abusive were just other people’s feelings you don’t like. So it sounds like you’re just interested in being the thought police and acting like the contents of other people’s heads is an attack on you. Which, you know, is a method abusers use to control their victims. Drag doesn’t like you.
Alright Drag, that’s fine. I usually respect what you have to say that’s why I took the time to type all that out. I’ll stay out of your replies in the future.
I’m just going to point out the criteria is “maladaptive” not being a Karen sometimes, so I don’t agree with your ratings. Being a pain in the ass sometimes isn’t the same as having something so wrong with your personality that you need a pathological label.
It sounds like you are being the thought police
I’m pointing out a word people have used for thousands of years to reference antisocial behavior really shouldn’t be called ableism, because when you do that, you weaken the word ableism. That’s hardly thought policing.
Sorry about the aggression. Drag thought you were unfairly judging people for the way they are, and wanted to make you feel the way you make people with NPD feel.
Drag thinks you’ve maybe understood the meaning of the word “maladaptive”. It doesn’t mean hurting other people. It means hurting yourself. Remember, diagnoses are part of medicine. Medicine is about helping the patient. It’s not about judgement. People with NPD require an excessive need for praise, and it’s maladaptive because it hurts them. The diagnostic criteria don’t have anything to do with whether it hurts other people. That’s not a factor.
Drag interpreted your statements as wildly aggressive, because drag assumed you knew this. Drag can forget how little some people know about the field of medicine. Try to think about what you said in the context of the maladaptivity applying to the patient: “You have feelings that hurt you, and having those feelings is an act of abuse.” That’s what the discourse is if everyone understands that medicine is about helping patients. Drag forgot that not everyone spends hours pondering the philosophical purpose of medicine.
People with NPD require an excessive need for praise
If someone is classified as NPD for a mere excessive need for praise, your beef is with someone else, not me.
Anyway, some context is required I suppose.
My husband sought therapy for multiple reasons, but because he had this sneaking fear he was a narcissist. He had issues with anger and criticism from others. It’s not the only reason he sought out therapy, and that wasn’t the totality of his struggles, but that’s saying enough, I think.
The psychiatrist diagnosed him with cPTSD. He told the therapist about his fears about what his supposed narcissistic traits. His therapist told him those with NPD typically never have the ability to self reflect enough to have this worry, and basically there was no reason to worry at all.
He asked me to help him tell his mother about his diagnosis, that it was important to him, and I did.
His mother told him his psychiatrist was a hack. All psychiatrists do is label you so they can continue to make money off you, and she should know. She’s been to around a half dozen of them. They all keep telling her she has something called NPD, a fake and made up disorder. Anyway, it’s impossible for my husband to have cPTSD, that’s for abused people, and my husband wasn’t hit all that much. And those times his step dad broke his arm or something, he deserved it because he was a terrible child, always causing trouble.
Anyway.
It made me think of my own father, who was diagnosed with Bipolar. He would emotionally manipulate my mom and myself and my siblings when he was in one of his phases. He controlled her financially. He did other things that I will not name here. I wished she would leave him for years, and I even had huge arguments with her in highschool. I told her he was a shitty person and she should leave him. She said it’s not his fault. He’s sick. In sickness and in health, right? He can’t help it, he’s sick.
She only left him after he became physically abusive in my late teens. Even then she insisted we maintain a relationship with him and couldn’t understand why I would refuse.
We no longer talk.
I don’t blame her, but I can’t maintain that relationship. I am deeply regretful of this, but I don’t know how else to live.
The person who you are imagining, who believes themselves to be perfect and believes others should see them that way, and also doesn’t do deeply shitty things to other people, lives alone. Sometimes it’s OK to call a spade a spade. Eventually, it stops mattering whether someone can help it or not when they are doing terrible things.
I have read that medium article in the past. While interesting, one medium article (honestly, a blogpost) does not change how that word has been used for years.
Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read all this. I don’t expect to change your mind, I just feel the need to give you context as to why I felt this way.
Honestly, drag agrees with your mother in law on one thing: the psychiatrist who told your husband he doesn’t have NPD wasn’t following professional standards.
Lack of self reflection is not a diagnostic criteria of NPD. That psychiatrist was not following the DSM, they were following their own preconceptions. That’s not ethical. And it’s not supported by the research, either, because the current research actually shows that people with NPD struggle with self doubt a lot. That’s where the “excessive need for admiration” comes from. They need to be told they’re not a failure. Your husband needed to be told he’s not a bad person. Drag isn’t saying your husband has NPD; he probably doesn’t. Drag is saying the psychiatrist’s reason was wrong.
Maybe your psychiatrist is actually competent, and was telling a comforting lie to soothe your husband’s fears. Or maybe they were letting their preconceptions and stereotypes compromise their professional judgement.
Drag is willing to accept that premise only after psychologists put “abuser disorder” in the DSM. They can probably put it right next to “crime disorder” and “being a bad person disorder” within the “things that are behaviours and not mental health conditions” section. Until that section gets made, everything in the DSM is a mental health condition and NOT an action.
Por que no los dos?
Trump is a criminal because he’s chosen to do criminal things. Musk is an abuser because he’s chosen to do abusive things. ASPD and NPD aren’t choices and they aren’t actions. Mixing up criminal and abusive behaviour with mental health conditions is ableist. It’s the ableism that happens when you hear about a bad thing and assume a minority did it. “Someone robbed the convenience store? Must have been a black.” “A famous musician molested a child? I always knew he was gay.” “A politician bribed a pornstar with campaign funds to hide his relationship with her? He must have a mental illness.” It’s wrong.
Taking words away from people that they use to describe their abusers (narcissist, psychopath) is going to hurt people who don’t deserve it (schizophrenia, etc) when you lump it all together as abelism. That’s my point.
In my opinion, they did put abuser disorder in the DSM. Here’s the diagnosis criterion for NPD (need 5/9, must be maladaptive) Notice how its just the description of an emotionally abusive person, when you need 5 and its gotta be bad enough to affect your life?
This is from Wikipedia, btw, I dont own the manual and cant find it online. DSM is just a guide to help psychiatrists give treatment to people who need help, not a list of descriptors you can no longer use.
Is it really? Let’s do some math.
The way other people feel about themselves isn’t an attack on you. You don’t have the right to police other people’s level of self esteem. Abusive traits so far: 0/1
The way other people feel about themselves isn’t an attack on you. You don’t have the right to police other people’s level of self esteem. Abusive traits so far: 0/2
The way other people feel about themselves isn’t an attack on you. You don’t have the right to police other people’s level of self esteem. Abusive traits so far: 0/3
Other people having needs isn’t an attack on you. You don’t have the right to police other people’s needs. You can say no, you can say you don’t personally want to be asked or expected to do it, you can’t get mad at people for wanting something. Abusive traits so far: 0/4
This is called being a Karen, not being an abuser. Abusive traits so far: 0/5
This one is abusive. Abusive traits so far: 1/6
Other people not having the feelings you want them to have isn’t an attack on you. You don’t have the right to police other people’s feelings. Abusive traits so far: 1/7
Other people having bad feelings isn’t an attack on you. You don’t have the right to police other people’s feelings. Abusive traits so far: 1/8
The way other people feel about themselves isn’t an attack on you. You don’t have the right to police other people’s level of self esteem. Abusive traits so far: 1/9
Okay, we did the math and found that only one out of nine traits is abusive, and given five are required for a diagnosis, it’s reasonable to assume most people with NPD don’t have any symptoms that make them abusers. On the other hand, most of the traits you called abusive were just other people’s feelings you don’t like. So it sounds like you’re just interested in being the thought police and acting like the contents of other people’s heads is an attack on you. Which, you know, is a method abusers use to control their victims. Drag doesn’t like you.
Alright Drag, that’s fine. I usually respect what you have to say that’s why I took the time to type all that out. I’ll stay out of your replies in the future.
I’m just going to point out the criteria is “maladaptive” not being a Karen sometimes, so I don’t agree with your ratings. Being a pain in the ass sometimes isn’t the same as having something so wrong with your personality that you need a pathological label.
I’m pointing out a word people have used for thousands of years to reference antisocial behavior really shouldn’t be called ableism, because when you do that, you weaken the word ableism. That’s hardly thought policing.
Sorry about the aggression. Drag thought you were unfairly judging people for the way they are, and wanted to make you feel the way you make people with NPD feel.
Drag thinks you’ve maybe understood the meaning of the word “maladaptive”. It doesn’t mean hurting other people. It means hurting yourself. Remember, diagnoses are part of medicine. Medicine is about helping the patient. It’s not about judgement. People with NPD require an excessive need for praise, and it’s maladaptive because it hurts them. The diagnostic criteria don’t have anything to do with whether it hurts other people. That’s not a factor.
Drag interpreted your statements as wildly aggressive, because drag assumed you knew this. Drag can forget how little some people know about the field of medicine. Try to think about what you said in the context of the maladaptivity applying to the patient: “You have feelings that hurt you, and having those feelings is an act of abuse.” That’s what the discourse is if everyone understands that medicine is about helping patients. Drag forgot that not everyone spends hours pondering the philosophical purpose of medicine.
Anyway, before drag hits post, drag wants to share an article drag read which really contextualised the last two thousand years of history of the use of the word “narcissist”: https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/narcissus-wasnt-an-abuser-he-was-queer-15a74e456838. The people who said the word started out being about abuse lied to you.
If someone is classified as NPD for a mere excessive need for praise, your beef is with someone else, not me.
Anyway, some context is required I suppose.
My husband sought therapy for multiple reasons, but because he had this sneaking fear he was a narcissist. He had issues with anger and criticism from others. It’s not the only reason he sought out therapy, and that wasn’t the totality of his struggles, but that’s saying enough, I think.
The psychiatrist diagnosed him with cPTSD. He told the therapist about his fears about what his supposed narcissistic traits. His therapist told him those with NPD typically never have the ability to self reflect enough to have this worry, and basically there was no reason to worry at all.
He asked me to help him tell his mother about his diagnosis, that it was important to him, and I did.
His mother told him his psychiatrist was a hack. All psychiatrists do is label you so they can continue to make money off you, and she should know. She’s been to around a half dozen of them. They all keep telling her she has something called NPD, a fake and made up disorder. Anyway, it’s impossible for my husband to have cPTSD, that’s for abused people, and my husband wasn’t hit all that much. And those times his step dad broke his arm or something, he deserved it because he was a terrible child, always causing trouble.
Anyway.
It made me think of my own father, who was diagnosed with Bipolar. He would emotionally manipulate my mom and myself and my siblings when he was in one of his phases. He controlled her financially. He did other things that I will not name here. I wished she would leave him for years, and I even had huge arguments with her in highschool. I told her he was a shitty person and she should leave him. She said it’s not his fault. He’s sick. In sickness and in health, right? He can’t help it, he’s sick.
She only left him after he became physically abusive in my late teens. Even then she insisted we maintain a relationship with him and couldn’t understand why I would refuse.
We no longer talk.
I don’t blame her, but I can’t maintain that relationship. I am deeply regretful of this, but I don’t know how else to live.
The person who you are imagining, who believes themselves to be perfect and believes others should see them that way, and also doesn’t do deeply shitty things to other people, lives alone. Sometimes it’s OK to call a spade a spade. Eventually, it stops mattering whether someone can help it or not when they are doing terrible things.
I have read that medium article in the past. While interesting, one medium article (honestly, a blogpost) does not change how that word has been used for years.
Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read all this. I don’t expect to change your mind, I just feel the need to give you context as to why I felt this way.
Honestly, drag agrees with your mother in law on one thing: the psychiatrist who told your husband he doesn’t have NPD wasn’t following professional standards.
Lack of self reflection is not a diagnostic criteria of NPD. That psychiatrist was not following the DSM, they were following their own preconceptions. That’s not ethical. And it’s not supported by the research, either, because the current research actually shows that people with NPD struggle with self doubt a lot. That’s where the “excessive need for admiration” comes from. They need to be told they’re not a failure. Your husband needed to be told he’s not a bad person. Drag isn’t saying your husband has NPD; he probably doesn’t. Drag is saying the psychiatrist’s reason was wrong.
Maybe your psychiatrist is actually competent, and was telling a comforting lie to soothe your husband’s fears. Or maybe they were letting their preconceptions and stereotypes compromise their professional judgement.