*Bad language & self-harm*
To the woman (I assume) who attacked my personality the other night…
This was going to be a post about people like yourself, who have a habit of diagnosing those you don’t agree with, with mental illnesses. I had collected evidence from the last few months of just that, where people said President Trump has Borderline Personality Disorder. I wanted to tackle the stigma that people like you are spreading with your uneducated opinions. But after the way you spoke to me the other night, I’m addressing you as an individual.
I never challenge things online. For reasons such as you. It took a lot for me to pluck up the courage to speak up. But I couldn’t see such lies about BPD being spread. You were saying that BPD is a ‘personality defect’ and ‘not curable’. You are wrong on both counts. I felt I had a duty to say something. I naively thought you looked like a decent person, and might be welcoming of new ideas. I thought you might be a reasonable person…. boy was I wrong! I’ve encountered some nasty people in my life – it’s why I am the way I am…. but you are by far the worst of all the people I’ve had the displeasure of conversing with.
Your responses to me were full of sarcasm, attitude, anger and false accusations. You are a spiteful bully and a narcissist. You talked to me of ‘projection’ – projecting your own projection onto me … which is ironic, as that’s a part of being a narcissist – the same thing you actually mean when you talk about Trump. The thing you’re confusing with BPD. I was trying to educate you on the difference. It’s not my fault you’re a closed-minded bigot. You actually were trying to ‘gas-light’ me as well, by saying ‘you WERE absolutely asking me to have compassion for Trump supporters’ – that’s another narcissistic tactic, to try and create doubt in my mind about what I said and what I meant… to change the narrative to make yourself look better…. it’s either gas-lighting or you’re just dumb and didn’t read what I said at all. Maybe your understanding of the English language is below par.
I most certainly was NOT asking you to have compassion for Trump supporters, I was saying people should have more compassion for those with a mental illness, and since Trump supporters do not have this mental illness of BPD, I was NOT asking you to feel compassionate towards THEM. I was asking you to have more respect for those with the mental illness. They don’t have it. Trump doesn’t have it. You just hate him. I could easily claim that YOU and your lot have a mental illness…. I’d probably be closer to the truth with that too, as you seem totally deranged in your fanatical hatred of Republicans. But the truth is your lot also don’t have a mental illness…. you just have different opinions to Republicans… and those of you who seem crazy and show all your bad qualities are not mentally ill, you are just unpleasant people!!! You see? People have different opinions. Just because they don’t fit with yours, and you can’t accept that Trump is the President, it doesn’t mean that he and those who put him in power, have a mental illness… but I would seriously consider whether you have one….
The way you went on the attack, and were so unreasonable causes me concern. It’s not normal to behave that way. Yes I was challenging something you said, but I did so respectfully, with goodwill. I was not rude to you, I didn’t swear, I wasn’t provocative, so I don’t know what your problem is. I think you are so livid with the result of your election, and hate Republicans and Trump that much that you swipe at anyone who isn’t as livid about it as you. You’d probably take a swipe at a Democrat who has even one ounce of reason or acceptance of things. You need something to control your rage. You are behaving worse than you are accusing others of being! You try and give off this sense that Democrats (just like Remain voters) are better people than those who won the vote…. but you show from the way you speak of them, and your violent, aggressive, hateful and divisive nature that you are in fact MUCH worse as people.
I wasn’t trying to ‘shame’ you by saying ‘the likes of you’ – that’s a wild interpretation of a set of words…. those words simply meant ‘people like yourself’ i.e. you and others who feel the same as you…. but Twitter has a character limit, so ‘the likes of you’ fitted in better! Deary me if you’re offended by that… ! It was actually a way of not singling you out – not being so confrontational as saying ‘something that YOU are fortunate to not understand’ – for fuck’s sake, if my trying to not be confrontational made you angry then you need help! I honestly don’t see the offence in my words. However calling me an ‘arrogant know-it-all’ IS bloody offensive and I reported you for it and all your subsequent tweets.
You also said that you’ll rush out and get a psych degree so you don’t insult ‘people who have no compassion or interest in other humans’….. First of all it doesn’t take having a psych degree to know how to be kind to people. I don’t have one, and I manage just fine. Most people I know don’t have such a degree yet know how to be a decent person. It’s not hard… though you obviously think otherwise! Second of all you talk about these people who have no compassion or interest in other humans, yet you prove that you have no interest in how other people feel, no interest in changing your behaviour and wording so as not to hurt other people, and you have no compassion for mentally ill human beings…. I think this sentence tells everyone all they need to know about you.
You said to ‘whine at someone who cares’… you made it perfectly clear you are not a caring sort of person. You made yourself sound like a teenager having a strop. I’m shocked to discover you’re actually in your late sixties! Your behaviour does not reflect this in the slightest. I’d have thought you would know better how to be respectful of others. Clearly not. You said I was just ‘pretending to be on the high road’, simply because you recognised I was on the high road, and you wanted to drag me down from it.
You are a little bit delusional and dramatic if you think your country is crumbling around you… your own little world where you get your own way may be crumbling around you, but I don’t think things are all that bad. They’d be a damn slight better if you started accepting things the way they are. You’d find more peace. But you clearly enjoy conflict above all else. The ‘assholes causing it’ are probably those unwilling to accept the result two years on, as it is here. I respect you don’t like Trump, you don’t agree with the result, but calling his supporters ‘assholes’ won’t change anything. It won’t get you anywhere, and will only breed anger and division. You should calm down.
You say I jumped into what was an obvious political discussion – yes, I did, because you were incorporating MENTAL ILLNESS in that political discussion, and my whole point was that was uncalled for. If it was solely political that’s different – when you bring mental illness into a political discussion it suddenly changes from a political discussion, to a political and mental health discussion. You don’t dictate what is allowed to be discussed henceforth. It’s indecent of you to label someone as ‘borderline’ simply because you don’t like them. Only I was saying it in a nicer way. But I’ll be straight now, and say – it’s a bitchy thing to do, and makes you a very nasty and uneducated person. You are adding to stigma and should be ashamed of yourself. There. Said it. I’ll speak your language, rather than trying to be polite about things… being polite and thinking through my responses still ended up with me being spat at anyway. At one point in our discussion I actually typed in the words ‘To use language you understand – fuck you!’… but deleted it, because I’m not that person. But actually after what you were like, and what it did to me… yeah… fuck you.
I wasn’t ‘lecturing you’, I was hoping it might guide you, inform you, enlighten you, and I was making sure people newly diagnosed with BPD know there is hope and that it doesn’t mean their personality is flawed. But you’re a closed-minded moron, so nothing will get through your thick skull. As for ‘think what you like’ – I realised I was talking to the thickest of walls, so your opinion is your opinion, feel free to think it…. but it doesn’t mean you’re right. Still makes you a bitch. Still makes you nasty and a bit of a sociopath to be honest, but keep doing it, whatever works for you….. Again, character limit.
But do you know what I noticed? I noticed that you picked apart every innocent word I said, and turned it into either an ‘insult’ or me being ‘above you’ i.e. ‘arrogant’. You read into words that mean nothing. You are either highly paranoid and need help with it. Or you recognised that actually I was right, and you felt bad, so had to attack me to feel better about yourself…. but since I was not offensive to you, you had to try and find some fault in the wording I used, to make it look like an attack on YOU – that is fucked up mate.
I’ll tell you how you were being offensive – calling me an arrogant know-it-all. You called me arrogant twice. You don’t fucking know me mate. Anyone who knows me would tell you how polar opposite I am to that. You’re the arrogant one. There’s some projection going on with you I think ‘deary’. Patronising bitch. Fuck you. You only WISH you were on a high horse. You were on the ground, and losing ground, so you were wildly, viciously clawing at me, to make sure I was no better than you. You were trying to get a rise out of me. I managed to stay calm through most of it. My heart was all over the place. But I waited for it to calm down before responding. I wish I hadn’t given you as much as I did, because you will use that as ‘evidence about people with BPD being a certain way’. You’re wrong. Anyone would have reacted how I did when provoked. Of course your side of the story would be that I provoked YOU. That I baited you and then played the victim. But if you can’t take a little questioning of your spreading of misinformation on something quite important actually, and your ego is too big to be ‘challenged’, then I’m glad I did it. Because people like you need taking down a peg or two. You think too much of yourself. You think you’re right, and anything else is wrong. That much is evident from things you said to me, but also on your timeline. I simply made a comment in defence of those with BPD – that was not baiting you. It may be what you read into it, but it didn’t require a response, especially in the manner you responded. And you continued it even after I explained and tried to defuse your aggression.
The fact is you knew I had BPD, and yet continued to lash out at me and hurt me. This either shows the FACT that you don’t know anything about BPD, and that therefore you should not cause such hurt to someone… though given your opinions about Republicans I’m wondering why you would think anything other than ‘I shouldn’t cause hurt to anyone whoever they are’ – as you think you’re so noble and morally superior….. Or it shows that you’re a psychopath and a narcissist and you take joy in making people like me cut themselves. Because that’s what I did. Repeatedly. Violently.
You were fucking offensive and aggressive, and you tried to excuse that by insisting that I don’t know you and called you ‘the likes of you’…. in what world is that even offensive? If you want offensive then read this bloody letter. I’d agree it’s offensive. I’d also say it’s true though from what I’ve witnessed with you and how you made me feel. I’m rightly angry about your bullying nature – this is the reaction to that. Your response was totally uncalled for, and out of proportion with what I was even saying. That’s because you’re so caught up in your hate-filled bubble about Trump, that you perceive everything as an ‘attack’…. you see everyone as ‘the enemy’ unless they agree with you 100%. What I said was not in the slightest bit offensive. And you people wonder why you get called ‘snowflakes’! Seriously. I don’t call people that, but being offended by a general term of ‘the likes of you’ – meaning ‘you and others similar to yourself’ is very snowflake-ish. How anything can be inferred about your character from those words I don’t know. But calling me arrogant is an offence against my character. There’s no mistaking what you meant by your words. So that’s how you were offensive. I notice you deleted that tweet soon after… did it reflect badly on you?
I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation with anyone so vile as you. There was one who I used to know who was offensive and resorted to personal insults, when they couldn’t bring me down any other way. But actually even she pales into insignificance next to you. You do your side of the political debate no favours. I don’t actually give a fuck about American politics. I don’t give a fuck whether I SHOULD give a fuck about American politics. I believe in democracy, acceptance and just bloody well getting on with it. But you have shown Democrats to be vile, deranged bullies. I’m quite upset that I also at the moment think badly of Americans. I know I will get over that, because there are lots of lovely American people, but you do them no favours by behaving in the way that you have.
I’ve seen too much evidence of Americans attacking Trump and sometimes his supporters, saying they all have BPD. This is unacceptable. Nobody can diagnose someone from their armchair. Even medical professionals who say they think he’s got it, cannot and should not do that. You cannot diagnose someone unless you are qualified to do so, and have met them in person and evaluated their mental health. You cannot decide who has what mental illness. If you want to call him a narcissist that’s different, because you’re not referring to the illness of NPD, you’re just talking about his nature, if that’s how you perceive it. People can be narcissistic without having the personality disorder. But I don’t get why you can’t just state the fact you hate the guy, hate everything he says, everything he does, everything he stands for, and will never accept him as President, full-stop. Why bring mental illness into it?
Does it make you feel powerful or something? That would be my guess from reading such posts. It gives off an air of ‘I’m better than you – I’m more sane than you…. you’re a crazy person…. you have a mental illness…. your “crazy” is showing’. It seems like you’re all doing it to make you feel better about yourselves. Can you not see what is wrong with that mentality? To put people with mental illness down, to make you feel better…. to use a mental illness as a way of insulting someone you don’t like….. to imply that someone is incapable of doing a job because of a supposed mental illness…. you are stigmatising and discriminating against those with mental health problems. And when you attack one, you attack all. Even though in your mind you’re possibly thinking ‘Depression and anxiety are “good” mental illnesses…. BPD is one of the “bad” ones’. You are still discriminating against those with mental illness. Would you do the same with those physically disabled? Would you use their personal circumstances to make you feel better?
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I would hope that most of those throwing ‘BPD’ at Trump would in reality have compassion for those with such a mental illness. I’d like to believe that people still have their humanity. That if faced with a loved one with such an illness, they would be caring, compassionate and understanding, and defend their loved ones against harmful words like this. Either I’m wrong, and they honestly think those with BPD or mental illnesses are the scum of the Earth, in which case may they live long enough to experience such a mental illness themselves and face such stigma. OR I’m right and they do care about people with mental illness, and are just being foolish in posting such shit online. Maybe they don’t comprehend the damage they’re doing….
Trump is a controversial character. People love him or hate him. The hate is toxic. WRONGLY diagnosing him with BPD, and listing incorrect symptoms of BPD to back-up that false diagnosis, will cause trouble for those of us with BPD. When people hear about our BPD they will think of Trump, if these opinions are allowed to circulate unchallenged. Trump does not have BPD… not the recognisable diagnosable version of it. I realise I am equally unqualified to say he doesn’t have it, as I’m not his therapist – but the point is he would have to be assessed by a professional to be given a diagnosis, and I feel I know a fair bit about my own illness, to know what the symptoms are, and what they are not. People say he meets all the criteria. This cannot be assumed. How does anyone know how he feels about himself? About abandonment? Does he self-harm? Is he suicidal? Does he feel empty? How would anyone but a personal psychiatrist / therapist know any of that?
People seem to be basing this apparent ‘diagnosis’ on possible anger outbursts – which EVERYONE is capable of… doesn’t mean they all have a personality disorder; on ‘impulsive’ decisions he’s made; on ‘narcissism’ which they believe is a symptom of BPD; apparently ‘pathological lying’ which they claim is a symptom of BPD too – news to me! They talk about his BPD and how he’s self-absorbed, thinks he’s always right. They claim projection and triangulation (playing people off against each other), and gas-lighting are symptoms of BPD… these are all symptoms of NPD, and the two should not be confused! I feel convinced that knowledge of the different personality disorders varies in America from in the UK. I’ve often witnessed people lumping all ‘Cluster B’ personality disorders in together, as though they’re all the same. They’re not. There may be a little overlap between the disorders, but they are different. People have claimed that those with BPD lack empathy, therefore Trump has BPD. What bullshit is this?! Anyone who’s reading this and has BPD knows what a lie this is – we have an abundance of empathy… so much that it actually hurts when others are hurting… we are able to read the emotions of others. We wouldn’t hurt or reject other people because we know too well how it feels, to be hurt and rejected by others.
Everything they say about BPD is wrong. Some even refer to it as a ‘narcissistic borderline personality disorder‘ – there’s no such thing… it’s one or the other. I shouldn’t be too bothered, as they’re only showing their ignorance… but it’s sad that so many speak of something they know nothing about, and those words they speak are damaging and dangerous for people who already suffer a great deal. These people all paint a picture of people with BPD being ‘monsters’. If they only knew the reality they’d feel ashamed of vilifying us. People with BPD are some of the loveliest, kindest, most caring, loyal, funny, creative, generous, loving, understanding people – a damn slight nicer than those who insult them! Whilst people are painting the image of us as people who abuse others, we are in fact more likely to be the VICTIMS of abuse ourselves.
This woman who attacked me said that BPD is a ‘sad personality defect’. She is so wrong. Ignorance and the unwillingness to learn from your mistakes, and attack people instead is a ‘sad personality defect’. A stubbornness and arrogance. That’s what I would refer to as a ‘defect’. BPD is not a flawed personality, as we all know. We know about the movement to change the name, as it doesn’t reflect the meaning. It’s not about our personality at all. It is about our emotions, our difficulty regulating them, and how we relate to the world. It’s about how we cope with our emotions. People labelling Trump and followers with it are implying it’s who we are, there’s no cure, we don’t even accept there’s a problem (NPD), and that negative character traits = personality disorder. It doesn’t. Everyone has less than desirable traits – it doesn’t mean they all have a personality disorder. People like this woman for instance… she demonstrated many undesirable qualities in just a few short tweets…. do I therefore diagnose her with a personality disorder? Whilst the temptation may be ‘yes!’ because I’m angry with her, and appalled at her behaviour, there is no reason for me to diagnose her with any mental illness, including a personality disorder. She’s just an arsehole.
People can hate Trump. I have no issue with that. I don’t think people should be so offensive towards those who support him and voted for him…. I think these people need to become familiar with ‘live and let live‘… accept a difference of opinion and move on. But let’s just say for a moment that I don’t even care if people hate Trump voters too….. People can say what they like about Trump, the situation, the voters…. they can say they hate him, he’s a prick, his supporters are idiots, they detest their country now, their lives are ruined forever… whatever…. but mental illness? Come on! They’re ‘free’ to say what they like about that too, as we have freedom of speech still, for now, but I want those people to realise it makes them look like not very decent people. A lot of people in the world are trying to be more open about their mental health struggles, and battle the stigma, and such ignorance and hatred – trying to get people to hate those they deem to have a mental illness, is just so backward-thinking. So they can’t use mental illness as an insult, and then claim they have the moral high-ground politically.
My question to those people would be – Would you speak about BPD in this manner if you weren’t associating it with Trump? Forget Trump is President… rewind a few years…. would you spread such vile opinions about a mental illness like BPD? Or are you just doing it to have a go at Trump and make yourselves feel better because you lost? If you would still do it then shame on you…. there’s no hope for you ever changing probably… though it would be nice if you could properly educate yourself about mental illness (note: this does not require going to university and getting a ‘psych degree’ – read a book…. read blogs…. listen to people who have BPD!). If you’re only doing it because it’s Trump then think. Be better than this. Don’t let your hatred of Trump and Republicans turn you into ill-informed, ignorant, insensitive arseholes.
I know nobody likes to admit they’re wrong about something. A part of me would be concerned that I honestly upset and embarrassed this woman the other day, and that she was just refusing to admit a mistake. But to be frank I think she’s just a bitter, angry woman, who loves hurting people and putting them down to make herself feel more powerful. I’ve met one or two of them in my life.
I hate people trying to paint me as some sort of villain when I’m trying to do something good in the world. I’m not a nasty person (I know you might think so from this post, but this is the releasing of emotions stirred up by a bully)… I don’t like confrontation. I hate conflict. I think the scars on my arms would tell you as much. I’m a peaceful person. I’m quiet and reserved by nature. And my only aim in what I said was to help people who have BPD… to defend them against such vicious lies. To stand up for what’s right. To stand up for those of us with this illness, who feel we have no voice a lot of the time. To try and educate people to stop the stigma. This woman has a fixed idea in her head what BPD is all about. She has demonised us and will never change her stance. Upon hearing that I am one of those with this illness, she obviously decided what sort of person I was and treated me in relation to her beliefs about people like us. This is her problem not mine. She got me all wrong. She misunderstood me as a person… she misunderstood my intentions, my illness, my words. She invented insults out of what I said. She interpreted what I said and tried to tell me what I said / meant, when only I know what was meant… she thought she knew my mind better than I do. She doesn’t know anything but her own mind. I think she lives in her little bubble of hatred… she’s blind to all else. The trouble is though, once someone like this makes up their mind about you, there’s no persuading them otherwise. She’d decided I was a villain, just like Trump and his supporters – I didn’t even have to be a Trump supporter myself to incur her wrath. Once I’d been put in that category there was no coming out of it. I could’ve been the sweetest person on Earth to her, and she would insist I was doing it to wind her up, and to pretend I was better than her.
This is what’s known as a ‘superiority complex’. It’s something that’s fascinated me in our politics too, where Labour voters perceive Conservatives to be ‘above them’… ‘looking down on them’…. ‘posh, rich snobs with no idea of real problems’. These attitudes are in themselves ‘snobbish’. Labour voters sneer at Conservatives and call them ‘Tory scum’, to put them down and make themselves feel superior. They claim to be morally superior to hide the fact they FEEL inferior. The important thing to note is that they’re not actually inferior. And Conservatives DON’T think they’re better than them. This is why it’s called ‘a complex’. They feel inferior, so try to appear superior. Conservatives don’t look down their noses on Labour voters… certainly not for the reasons they think. More recently I’m sure a great many do, but simply because of the behaviour of Labour voters – the same sort of behaviour I witnessed from this woman. When people act like that, you do start to feel like you’re ‘better than them’, and ‘above such behaviour’. You do start to feel morally superior…. and in that way what people with a superiority complex do, is cause the very behaviour they’re afraid of… It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As someone with BPD I take on the negative things people think and say about me, as though they’re true. This comes from not feeling certain of who I am – I often split on myself, and go from thinking I’m a good person, to thinking I’m a terrible person. And words like ‘arrogant know-it-all’ scar me. They go into my negativity memory bank, for a rainy day when I’m hating myself. They will replay now forever. In a rational, more positive mind though, I know how wrong she is about that. I know I have the qualities of my granddad, and he was gentle, reserved, quiet and a good person who worried and cared about other people.
That was all I was doing by my tweet… worrying how those with BPD would feel. Standing up for them. Challenging stigma. If that makes me ‘arrogant’ in someone’s view, then so be it. I think it’s better to defend and explain a mental illness than to demonise it. I just chose the wrong sort of person to do that with. She wants to remain ignorant. I will continue to fight stigma where I can, but I will stay far away from anti-Trump fanatics from now on. They’re not reasonable people. And I’m not strong enough to cope with them.
Said by the husband of who that woman would
have supported in the elections. How ironic.
More Harm Than Good 
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