Post by Mea on Jan 7, 2016 5:49:41 GMT
Anonymous asked: I'm borderline and like to think I have a pretty good grip on myself (and do like 90% of the time), but what if your abusive favorite person/boyfriend is abusive because of his mental illness? My boyfriend has OCD and when he gets "caught in a loop" he gets very nasty. If I left just because his words got abusive when that happened, I'd be a hypocrite, since if people took that stance with me, I'd be horribly, horribly alone because let's admit, BPD can make us abusers too.
Answer: I don’t think a disorder makes anyone an abuser though.
Can symptoms influence our behaviors? Absolutely. But ultimately, symptoms are symptoms, and how we react to those symptoms and how we express them is dependent on the person, not the disorder.
That being said, I don’t think your partner is abusive because of their mental illness. While I’m sure their OCD influences them a great deal, whether or not that have a mental disorder doesn’t change the fact they are abusive. And it doesn’t matter what mental health issues someone is dealing with, that does not give them the right to abuse you. You are not being ableist if you decide to leave an abuser who happens to be mentally ill.
I was seeing someone once who abused me, and she was later diagnosed with BPD. Looking back, I can connect some of her abusive behaviors to her BPD, or rather, I can see the line of causes and effects where BPD influenced her abuse. I once told her I was suicidal, and it triggered her abandonment issues. The abandonment issues were certainly BPD related, but she decided to act on that by threatening my life as a means of testing whether or not I really wanted to die. Threatening someone is not a symptom of BPD, but abandonment issues are. Her behavior was dependent on the kind of person she was, and the kind of person she was was a controlling and manipulative one. And thus when symptoms surfaced, she acted on them in abusive ways, whereas a non-abusive person with BPD… would not do that.
That being said, you are not in the wrong if you leave this situation. It doesn’t matter what diagnosis someone has. If they’re abusing you, you have the right to protect yourself and do what makes you happy. You are not obligated to stay with them.
-Mea
Answer: I don’t think a disorder makes anyone an abuser though.
Can symptoms influence our behaviors? Absolutely. But ultimately, symptoms are symptoms, and how we react to those symptoms and how we express them is dependent on the person, not the disorder.
That being said, I don’t think your partner is abusive because of their mental illness. While I’m sure their OCD influences them a great deal, whether or not that have a mental disorder doesn’t change the fact they are abusive. And it doesn’t matter what mental health issues someone is dealing with, that does not give them the right to abuse you. You are not being ableist if you decide to leave an abuser who happens to be mentally ill.
I was seeing someone once who abused me, and she was later diagnosed with BPD. Looking back, I can connect some of her abusive behaviors to her BPD, or rather, I can see the line of causes and effects where BPD influenced her abuse. I once told her I was suicidal, and it triggered her abandonment issues. The abandonment issues were certainly BPD related, but she decided to act on that by threatening my life as a means of testing whether or not I really wanted to die. Threatening someone is not a symptom of BPD, but abandonment issues are. Her behavior was dependent on the kind of person she was, and the kind of person she was was a controlling and manipulative one. And thus when symptoms surfaced, she acted on them in abusive ways, whereas a non-abusive person with BPD… would not do that.
That being said, you are not in the wrong if you leave this situation. It doesn’t matter what diagnosis someone has. If they’re abusing you, you have the right to protect yourself and do what makes you happy. You are not obligated to stay with them.
-Mea
