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Helping homeless gay kids that have been tossed out on their ear by hate filled, homophobic parents would be a wonderful way to celebrate winning marriage equality in three more states.
I completely agree with you.
But I do not agree with #103´s reply to #99.
Oh, wait, it's just douchebags using a DSM diagnosis as a perjorative. Nevermind, carry on.
2. Re: religious people being in-your-face. I think that's largely an American phenom at this point in history. I know a few people who are religious and they keep that shit to themselves.
Really?
Your are so off base, I wonder if it's intentional. Hell, why not go further? Why not claim that I'm advocating setting up an automated call system that calls believers every night after dinner to remind them that I think their beliefs are ridiculous?
Or we can be honest about the exact situation we're discussing, here.
If the subject of religion comes up on a column of a known atheist, other atheist get to express their thoughts about religion clearly and honestly in the comment section. We are going to say exactly what we think about religion.
You are welcome to disagree. You are welcome to tell us exactly why you think we are wrong about it. You are similarly welcome to just ignore us.
But we aren't going to censor ourselves to help others protect their seemingly delicate illusions about the universe. Please stop asking. No can do.
Really?
You are so off base, I wonder if it's intentional. Hell, why not go further? Why not claim that I'm advocating setting up an automated call system that calls believers every night after dinner to remind them that I think their beliefs are ridiculous?
Or we can be honest about the exact situation we're discussing, here.
If the subject of religion comes up on a column of a known atheist, other atheist get to express their thoughts about religion clearly and honestly in the comment section. We are going to say exactly what we think about religion.
You are welcome to disagree. You are welcome to tell us exactly why you think we are wrong about it. You are similarly welcome to just ignore us.
But we aren't going to censor ourselves to help others protect their seemingly delicate illusions about the universe. Please stop asking. No can do.
You like to find women who were sexually abused and bring it up, repeatedly. That is your thing. Sometimes, maybe because you get self-conscious about it, you put a lot of effort into justifying it. You'll explain why you find it a moral imperative to mention that the person you're talking to was raped. Sometimes you do it as a complete non-sequitur, like you're continuing a conversation you were having in your mind, like here.
It is super creepy, either way.
If you are so sensitive to me disagreeing with your post, maybe you should post more clearly.
What you said in post 103, replying to sissoucat @99, is not what you are saying @109/110.
(PS - White folks: please abandon the word "Latin" as a descriptor of brown people with Spanish surnames. Some of us are indeed spicy lovers, but using this word makes you sound like "chips and salZa" hicks from Seattle where sensitivity to racial difference cannot overcome a flavorless, yet deeply ingrained laundry list of demeaning clichés. "Oh-lay!")
(PS - White folks: please abandon the word "Latin" as a descriptor of brown people with Spanish surnames. Some of us are indeed spicy lovers, but using this word makes you sound like "chips and salZa" hicks from Seattle where sensitivity to racial difference cannot overcome a flavorless, yet deeply ingrained laundry list of demeaning clichés. "Oh-lay!")
Proselytizers are quite annoying no matter what their cause.
This isn't picking on religious people; it's just refusing to cater to them.
I live in an European non-religious country (check my profile), so I can't talk for places like Ireland or Poland. But in my country, the only ones I've ever seen hurt by religious matters are the religious people themselves - who are pretty intense about it and who really hate seeing their chiefs disagree. Atheists have no care for religious people and their religious agenda (and religions are not tax-exempted, by the way). Sure some religious people did protest lately against same-sex marriage, but they're not using hate speech in their protests. Nor saying "it's unholy" or any other religious words that would cause the majority of the passers-by to shut their ears and walk faster, to avoid the weirdos.
Now if you're talking about fanatism and terrorism - it has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with power, violence and manipulation and pockets of deep poverty. Religion may be used by fanatists to promote murders, but in previous decades they used nihilism or a number of atheist philosophies. No established religion in Europe ever calls for violence nor uses hate speech. Including Islam.
"I would be very interested in knowing some other example you can think of, non religious, of an adult having an ridiculous idea where you shouldn't point out that it is a ridiculous idea."
Some years ago I was driven home by a colleague, after work. It was pretty hot and I opened my window a bit (the AC was not working). She asked me to close it, because she was afraid that pebbles would come inside the car, through the window, and hurt us. She told me it had happened to her. She was driving and getting tense. I closed my window.
Hunter is one of our resident trolls. Mostly he's just too bored.
I really enjoyed your comment and it hit the nail on the head for me. I reposted it on Facebook and credited you.
I don't think it's the best example for your point, though. Indoctrination requires active and deliberate lies, and the victims generally lack the reasoning skills for there to be a reasonable expectation of a rational rejection. Or do you maintain that religious instruction is equally insincere, which would make your case more consistent?
I'm not sure I'm getting your meaning re : Santa Claus. I do give my kids Xmas presents that they find under the tree on Xmas morning. I call them "Oh, look what happened ! Presents !". They answer : "Santa came !"; I ask : "I didn't see him, did you ?" and they : "Sure, he came at school. Santa came ! I knew he would !" Is that what you would call Santa-neutral ? It's pretty easy, kids like to talk more than listen, and only hear what they want to hear.
Religious instruction for kids is equally insincere, sure.
I've never seen religious instructors for kids delve into the Christian history, nor into the mystery of Faith.
It's always "Poor baby Jesus, bad king Herod wanted him dead". The massacre of Béziers, with the abbot saying "Kill them all, God will know his own" should be discussed right after that, don't you think ? Babies were killed too there. But trust me, it's not.
It's always "Jesus believes in you, how could you not believe in him". It's never "Faith is based on Reason, Grace and Personal Will. For Grace and Personal Will, I can explain, but for Reason, huh. Thomas of Aquino did find 5 ways in which Reason leads to the existence of God, but science has voided them all since. Huh. So I never understood it myself, and I'm happy to believe Faith is based on Reason, because I've been told so, but I've never understood that myself and neither will you ever".
I'm not sure I'm getting your meaning re : Santa Claus. I do give my kids Xmas presents that they find under the tree on Xmas morning. I call them "Oh, look what happened ! Presents !". They answer : "Santa came !"; I ask : "I didn't see him, did you ?" and they : "Sure, he came at school. Santa came ! I knew he would !" Is that what you would call Santa-neutral ? It's pretty easy, kids like to talk more than listen, and only hear what they want to hear.
Religious instruction for kids is equally insincere, sure. For example, I've never seen religious instructors for kids delve into Christian history, nor into the mystery of Faith.
It's always "Poor baby Jesus, bad king Herod wanted him dead". The massacre of Béziers, with the abbot saying "Kill them all, God will know his own" should be discussed right after that, don't you think ? Babies were killed too there. Not discussing Christian deliberate killings of babies for religious reasons, whenever Bad Herod is mentioned, is insincere.
It's always "Jesus believes in you, how could you not believe in him". It's never "Faith is based on Reason, Grace and Personal Will. For Grace and Personal Will, I can explain, but for Reason, huh. Thomas of Aquino did find 5 ways in which Reason leads to the existence of God, but science has voided them all since. Huh. So I never understood it myself, and I'm happy to believe Faith is based on Reason, because I've been told so, but I've never understood that myself and neither will you ever". Kids are manipulated by adults into faith - because it's "so much easier". That's insincere.
As for religious instruction, it may be ill-founded,
but I've assumed that at least some people genuinely believe, even if they tailor their instruction to delay the onset of skepticism. After all, one doesn't know any otherwise rational adults who suddenly start believing in Santa Claus.
Yeah----isn't it a relief?
One, that the election and all its mudslinging is over, and
Two, that the Democrats beat all obstacles to defeat backwards
thinking Rethugs and their Tea Party puppets!!
I think there's a big difference between a serious relationship and fuck buddies.
A 40 year old who wants to fuck a 20 year old? That's nature. A 40 year old who wants a relationship with a 20 year old? That's a 40 year old who either doesn't care about the partner for anything but sex OR who is developmentally impaired.
Rough approximation, haters.
I don't see anything in this letter that suggests that the lw or any of us view Latinos any differently than any one else.
It would be unethical, according to the relevant professional associations, for a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist to give a diagnosis in the SLOG comments, but I am neither, so I don't see how using clinical terminology is any more problematic than terms like "douchebag", "asshole", or "crazy".
As I said, it's just a guess, but everything the letter writer mentions is classic borderline behavior (this is definitely not just a case of immaturity). If LW Googles the phrase, I'll bet he'd come away with a clear and helpful understanding of the difficulties he experienced in this relationship, why he's having so much trouble extracting himself from it, and how to avoid getting enmeshed with women like her in the future.
On the plus side, all that borderline mind-fuckery usually comes with some intensely hot sex.
I have a sister in-law from England who was fanatical in her belief that participating in the Santa myth was wrong because it was a lie(!) and it taught her children religious belief systems.
Based on my experience with our kids, I would argue the opposite - by refusing to participate in Santa, she had robbed her children of a wonderful lesson in skepticism.
The Santa progression - believing in something dearly, having one's belief questioned (usually by savvy peers), evaluating the evidence, and then ultimately rejecting the myth and joining the non-believers, is a perfect model of how liberal, scientific thought emerged, and how it operates. I can't think of a better way to initiate children into atheism and skepticism.
We played the whole Christmas thing up and everyone had a lot of fun with it. Neither of our kids believe in god.
Yep. Santa is a wonderful thinking oportunity :-)
I'm trying to give them the full of it. I took time before confirming its inexistence to the eldest. What I wrote @99 is inaccurate - I did confirm the very day he told me he was going to tell the youngest ones of his suspicions, but he had been probing around for months before that, with no better results than "I don't know, I never saw Santa myself, make your own opinion" and "Ah, Xmas presents are so mysterious...".
I also tell them from the start that Santa doesn't give presents to adults. Adults give presents to each other at Xmas, to remember how it was when they were kids.
Now only my six-year-old doesn't know. He's questionning the thing. He's also questionning the Tooth Fairy (in France it's the Little Mouse). He's not definite yet about either. I think he's balancing between being pretty interested in knowing the gifts' actual origin, and desiring to maintain the status quo, to get the gifts regardless. He's building his own moral sense, greed vs knowledge. It's fascinating.
You don't?
You can't see the difference between using clinical termonolgy as a perjorative and using a perjorative as a perjorative? Do you think it's okay to call someone or something 'retarded'? What about using racial stereotypes as insults? Are those okay?
I'm using the term here as a descriptive, not a pejorative. I'm theorizing that this woman may actually have borderline personality disorder. How am I supposed to say she has borderline personality disorder without using that terminology? Why do you think I should be obliged to do so?
Do you think it's okay to call someone or something 'retarded'?
If we're talking about someone who meets the clinical criteria for mental retardation, or appears to, then yes, it's OK, and certainly better than referring to them as "idiot", "moron", etc.
What about using racial stereotypes as insults? Are those okay?
Huh? If you want an analogy involving race, essentially, you are arguing that I shouldn't use the terms "black" or "African American" to describe people who appear to be black or African American.
So look, either you're using it as a perjorative (which you seem to be tacitly agreeing is wrong) or you're using it as a descriptive (which you're not qualified to do).
@137 On the plus side, all that borderline mind-fuckery usually comes with some intensely hot sex.
...and that is how one gets lured in! DAHMIKIJK. In the end, it still isn't enough.
Anyone can use the DSM to make an educated guess about a person's mental health, just as they can read any of the thousands of publicly available medical resources and make an educated guess about whether someone has a broken leg or might have breast cancer.
People do this all the time, and that's a good thing - that's usually the first step towards seeking professional treatment.
I'm not a licensed psychotherapist, I haven't misrepresented myself as such, and I'm not giving a formal diagnosis. I'm just offering my opinion (carefully qualified as a "guess"), which is more or less what we commenters do in response to the variety of mental and physical maladies that are presented here in Savage Love. I like to think that LWs who read the comments occasionally find something helpful here.
If you think my opinion is wrong, feel free to dispute it. Nevertheless, I'm going to continue offering my opinions based on the limited information these letters provide, with or without the relevant professional certifications, like everyone else here (Dan included).
Normally, I could live and let live on the question, but people get way too obnoxious about it. My favourite nephew was probably five years old when he cross-examined the nonsense completely out of one of my most disliked relations, who'd been spouting non-stop for some time.
My best friend won't mind my relating that she was actually terrified of S.C. when she was a child. Her parents played up the Big Brother aspect.
The one good thing about Santa is that I finally agree with Church Lady and lift one eyebrow in wondering whether or not it's a coincidence that Santa is an anagram of... SATAN?!?
LOL at the Church Lady reference.
We never much mentioned the whole "sees you when you're sleeping, knows when your awake" bit, given its obvious potential to traumatize.
There was just too much fun in all of it for us to pass up - bringing home the tree, the corny old Christmas specials, the lights (especially appreciated in the dark months of Seattle's winter), the decorations, the presents that magically appear, the remaining crumbs of the cookies left for Santa, the gnawed stubs of carrots left for the reindeer, the kids trying to roust me from bed so they could begin opening presents.
As it turns out, my oldest discovered the presents hidden in a closet one year, but she still played along with the ruse for a couple of years without letting on that she knew.
As for why Hadrian went so overboard, no one really knows what happened on that Nile cruise. It should be noted that Hadrian's wife was ALSO on that cruise. Murder, suicide or accident have all been posited. My guess is that Antinous was growing older and either Hadrian started losing interest, or more likely, he felt he couldn't continue that particular relationship with a full grown man, which was frowned upon in Roman Society. So I think Antinious killed himself.
Anyone can do whatever they want - doesn't make it a good idea.
"People do this all the time, and that's a good thing - that's usually the first step towards seeking professional treatment."
Agree to disagree. If you have evidence for that statement I'd love to see it, it certainly doesn't make any logical sense to my mind.
I think there's ways to hypothesize about someone's behaviour without pseudo-diagnosing them, especially when you're talking about a diagnosis like BPD. That's the single most stigmatizing clinical diagnosis that exists in the psych world.
So for example if someone says "I've been coughing and coughing lately" and I say "oh maybe you have some kind of infection - I'd go to the doctor if I were you." I think that's appropriate and may be helpful.
If instead I said "Oh wow, you know, my ex has the exact same symtoms and it turned out to be pneumocystis pneumonia*, that's probably what you have." I think that would be a pretty fucking irresponsible thing for me to say, even if that person knows I'm not a doctor.
*For anyone who isn't familiar and wants to know why I chose that specific diagnosis as an apt analogy, here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumocysti…
LOL. The most stigmatizing diagnosis is pedophilia by a mile (last I checked there is no public registry for borderlines, although perhaps there should be). Schizophrenia, mental retardation, autism, and antisocial personality disorder aren't so hot either.
In any case, I would never publicly label a person by name with BPD. LW's ex is anonymous, and I'm assuming she will remain anonymous, in which case, no individual has been stigmatized by my amateur speculation.
As for the stigma of BPD, it has been well earned. Sure, not every man or woman with the diagnosis is abusive - some are misdiagnosed, some respond to treatment, some are only on the spectrum. With BPD or any other psychopathology that tends to cause people to devastate other people, I can sympathize with the fact that abusers often can't necessarily help it (in many cases, they were abused themselves), but ultimately, my ethics place a priority on their current and potential victims. Just like non-offending pedophiles are advised to avoid being around kids, classic borderlines should probably be advised to stay out of romantic relationships, or short of that, inform potential partners about their disorder.
As for sharing medical tips, I guess we travel in different circles. I've been on the giving and receiving end of lots of medical insights and anecdotes with friends and acquaintances, and I see nothing irresponsible about that. Quite the opposite.
I also know of many people who have received horrible care from incompetent or negligent doctors, or from the many quasi-medical snake oil peddlers out there. If you have a serious and/or complex health issue going on, I think you'd be a fool to blindly trust a doctor you know nothing about who happens to be on your insurance panel without checking their advice against the wealth of medical information that is literally at your finger tips, or at least against the experience of others who have been through it, directly or indirectly.
I could talk your ear off about meniscus tears.
You're right about pedophilia (although 9 times out of 10 that's a legal issue, not a psych one) and there's no registry for pedophiles (that I know of) there's a registry for sex offenders. Big difference (for better or worse).
It's documented that BPD is more stigmatized than schizophrenia, I can find you studies if you like. Ditto mental retardation and autism. Since antisocial is cluster B we're really talking about six of one half dozen of the other at that point.
We do run in different circles, for sure. The patients who I see who vet their doctors and sit there googling and self diagnosing usually just waste their and everyone else's time. Just last night I had to answer a neverending stream of irrelevent questions for someone who thinks the same way you do.
*shrug*
Does it ever happen that a patient walks into a psychologist or psychiatrist's office with a problem and gets diagnosed with narcissism or hysteria or some other borderline personality disorder? I ask because, in my experience, the diagnoses are always made on the person who's not there. The way it goes for me and a number of folks I know is that the identified patient goes in with symptoms of depression or some difficulty dealing with the people around him/her. It's a problem forming friendships or keeping a job or staying in a relationship. The professional listens carefully and does a workup which includes asking about upbringing, and early experiences and current ones, etc. After a time, the professional pronounces someone ELSE in the patient's life as having a borderline disorder. That could be that the patient's mother is a narcissist or that the wife is a hysteric. Maybe the boss sounds like a sociopath. (I'm haven't reviewed these terms so don't know if I'm getting them right.) Then the professional works on helping the identified patient deal with that circumstance. The wife or mother or boss is never seen by the professional.
Here's how it works: say you and I knew each other in a past life. Say we both start to remember it, and remember specific events from that life. Say you start telling me about those events, and you tell me something very specific that I had already remembered but hadn't spoken aloud. Say I then do the same for you. Viola! Evidence! But as far as any third party to this is concerned, there's no compelling reason to believe that the two of us are telling the truth. So unless you've actually had this happen to you, there's no good reason to believe it. Sorry.
As for the disparate age relationships, there's a particular sort I'm willing to be judgmental about. That's the one where the more powerful is taking advantage of the less. It's the one where the older's impairment takes the form of only being capable of being in a relationship with someone who holds them in awe.
@mydriasis: I've been informed by my local expert (who actually is qualified to give the diagnosis) that I've gone too far by suggesting BPDs in general shouldn't be in relationships.
I don't find age-differences attractive at all. That makes it so much harder when older guys (like 10 to 20 years older) hit on me, and just don't understand that I am not interested.
I don't judge people who are happy in such relationships - unless a 38 year old guy tells me how his 18 year old girlfriend is really mature and thinks such profound thoughts- until I meet her and realise she is just repeating what he is saying.
@Crinoline:
Yes, when a friend of mine was hospitalised with severe depression, her therapist suggested her husband might have high-functioning Aspergers' explaining his complete lack of regard for her exhaustion due to a baby, a toddler and a full-time job. The therapist talked then to her and her husband giving them tips how to better discuss feelings etc. It worked - at least for a while.
Feel less sorry for the guy, and more sorry for the baby: it's no fun to be the child of a person with borderline syndrome.
I think Crinoline, @ 155 hits it on the head: we typically presume that an older, more experienced person is somehow manipulating, taking advantage of, or using the younger one in such relationships. Certainly the potential exists for an older, more experienced partner to take advantage of the youth and naivete of the younger one, and clearly in cases of an unequal power-dynamic (employer/employee, teacher/student, spiritual adviser/member of the flock) it is either downright unethical or illegal, or at the least queasy and questionable for such relationships to occur. But there are also a lot of relationships in which the younger, cuter, sexier person is manipulating the older person.
And there are still plenty of honest, everyone's-eyes-wide-open, no one-manipulating-anyone-else pairings between partners with great age discrepancies.
What makes this letter stand out is that the lw doesn't appear to want to take advantage of the younger, more traditionally hot participant, and indeed, isn't finding the guy's youth and physical hotness alone compelling enough to continue this lopsided match. He doesn't want to use, and he isn't being used.
The fact that people are having a hard time believing that an older, bearish guy couldn't legitimately not be interested in quick, no-strings sex offered by a hot much younger guy is what is sad to me.
1. Griz: " I ask because, in my experience, the diagnoses are always made on the person who's not there."
That hasn't been my experience.
2. cocky: "By the way, what is so terrible about someone being a little developmentally impaired in this context?"
The thing is, the 18 year old is likely developmentally on-point, so five, ten years later, she'll outstrip him. It happens constantly. It's not a value-judgement on him as a human being (although it is, in my book, a value-judgement on him as a partner, which is why I never date anyone significantly older).
3. Seandr: "I've been informed by my local expert (who actually is qualified to give the diagnosis) that I've gone too far by suggesting BPDs in general shouldn't be in relationships."
I'd agree :P
4. AFinch:
My highschool boyfriend had BPD. I have nothing but lovely feelings towards him today.
I want to believe that borderline personality disorder exists because I keep seeing people I want to diagnose as having it-- or accuse people of having it. But then I realize that they probably want to accuse me of having it, and what we've really got is an argument, not a serious psychological diagnosis. We've got 2 6 year olds squabbling, each yelling that the other is selfish because she wouldn't share her favorite toy. Each believes that "selfish" should be an objective medical term as opposed to a subjective value judgment. I've done the reading, and it makes sense to a degree, but then I wonder again if a personality disorder is just a personality.
This comes back to my original point about the fact that BPD is often used a perjorative (this is a long time issue in psychiatry/medicine/etc).
BPD does certainly exist. But it doesn't exist for you to use it as an insult or a way to insult people you disagree with.
Oops! That was Crinoline, not you! My mistake.
@163 - while I'm quite happy for you that you've arrived at the point where you have "nothing but lovely feelings for him", I have nothing but lovely feelings that this person is no longer part of my daily life, which is not really the same thing, and they are quite as valid as your feelings. I genuinely wish her well and happiness, but any love or warmth is gone. I am grateful that the few people who knew us together were able to recognize that her trashing of me as some kind of evil abuser (pretty much the same story she gave me about her EX), was a load of manure. I'm quite certain she continued the pattern as some of the accusations were passed along, just so I'd know.
I didn't "arrive" at that point, I've alway been there.
In my experience at a mental health rehab program, people with borderline personality disorder were diagnosed (directly) after a suicide attempt or after someone discovered self-mutilation or other problematic behavior and pushed them to seek help. It is also my experience that borderline personality manifests itself in the teenage/early adult years, allowing this to be the case that a family member or school employee will guide the young person towards a professional who will make the diagnosis.
I also object to tossing out psychiatric diagnoses on a message board because it perpetuates misunderstanding and misinformation about psychiatric disabilities. For the longest time, people used the term "schizophrenic" to refer to a person who was moody, because the lay public didn't know the difference between schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, dissociative disorder (prev. known as multiple personalities), etc. Fortunately, more accurate language leads to better understanding, which leads to less stigma and less health care disparity for those with mental health isues.
Thanks for sharing :)
Burn.
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