Stigma and BPD

‘One GP told me I wasn’t ill, just a bad person’

Imagine being told by a doctor that you are “just a bad person.” Of course, psychopaths are told that all the time, not usually by shrinks, although even some shrinks call us “evil,” but by Hollywood, folks next door, even former friends. People with Borderline Personality Disorder are severely stigmatized as well. Just finding a therapist can be daunting as many refuse categorically to treat people with this disorder.

Of all the Cluster B “disorders” those with Borderline seem the most prone to suffer. Psychopaths have detachment. Narcissists have their “false selves” to protect them from the “thousand natural shocks the flesh is heir to.” Histrionics feel lots of emotion but their experiences with such are normally short-lived and “superficial.” Borderlines have described themselves as someone missing a layer of skin — exposed with no effective protection.

Blogger, James Renard said something that rings true. “You’re right about the overlap, but that also means that the polar opposites (I would say the continuum goes Borderline – Histrionic – Narc – Antisocial) are very different from one another. And Antisocial shares some similarities with Cluster A, while BPD is similar to Cluster C.” Yes, the antisocial/psychopathic detachment does slide into Cluster A while the emotional agonizing of Borderline is something like Cluster C. Borderlines are ultra emotional, like Histrionics who, in turn, attract attention like Narcs. Down the Rabbit Hole notes, “All ‘Cluster B’ means really is the person has a weak, fragmented or nonexistent sense of self.” But Psychopaths also have a “weak” or, I would call it a fluid sense of self so we can be whoever or whatever we need to be in a situation. I’ve also heard Borderlines mention feeling a void inside themselves. But Lucky Otter also senses such a void inside Psychopaths.

I’ve described this look before–I’ve seen it on my mother’s face and it gave me nightmares for weeks. I saw it once on my ex’s face when he was drunk and angry. It’s not so much a demonic look (which has a sort of life to it) as a dead, lifeless look that is far worse. It’s a malignant look that makes you want to get away from them fast. Like there’s nothing inside them except an vast and endless black void of nothingness. It’s like standing at the precipice of a black hole, and what can be more terrifying than some nameless void that can suck you into itself–and can even swallow light?

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I don’t think evil is the opposite of good. I think evil is the opposite of somethingness–evil is pure black nothingness. Here are some examples of the dead, reptilian eyes of known psychopaths and malignant narcissists.

When I was a very small child, I sensed a void that threatened to engulf me. Was this a Borderline experience or a psychopathic one? I do have a memory of a classic Borderline behavior when I was a teenager. I wrote my boyfriend a letter in my blood. Really. But such Borderline manifestations vanished many years ago. I’m closer to death than ever and I can’t bring myself to really feel much anxiety about that. Is there life after death? I think so. But…whatever… I have no desire to embrace religion or therapy.

Borderlines live with a lot of pain or so I’ve been told. They want help but many shrinks don’t want them as patients. While some shrinks think this condition is untreatable, others say it is the easiest to cure. Perhaps those who find it “untreatable” are the ones who lack the competence to do the job and are blaming the patients for their own inability.

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Links

• Borderline Personality Disorder. Emily Reynolds
• Where did BPD stigma come from? Down the Rabbit Hole
• The Distinctive Look of Psychopathy. Looking into the face of evil.
• Spiritual Void … Psychopaths and Identity.
• Borderline and Psychopathy: A Comparison
• Why Do We Feel Empty? Borderline Personality Disorder Forum
• The Doctrine of No Soul. “… the idea of self is an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding reality…”
• Make BPD Stigma free.
• The Stigma Associated With BPD.
• Borderline Personality Disorder: Stigma, Prejudice in Treatment World.
• Stigmatizing Patients With BPD.
• The Stigma of Borderline Personality Disorder.

An Unpopular Opinion

…even for a psychopath

As a psychopath, I believe I have the ability to see with greater clarity issues that most people find fogged-over with emotion. There are opinions which are practically banned from polite conversation. Some of them, such as pro-racism, are banned but, since I agree with the consensus, I don’t mind. But with others, I resent the heavy-handed way almost everyone I know just makes objective discussion all-but-impossible. Psychopaths are heavily demonized, for example, which is one of the reasons I started this blog. With doctors analyzing our “pathology,” and haters saying we should all be killed, it was clear that the world needed to hear from actual psychopaths. I have noticed that a group that’s even more universally hated than psychopaths is that called “pedophiles.” I cannot speak for them but I can give my point of view with is more open-minded than that of most people. I also include links to where they can speak for themselves.

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When I started seeking-out other people who identified as psychopaths, one discovery I made about them is how pan-sexual many of them were. I ran into many bisexuals and sadomasochists. It made sense to me since I’m both of those things. I figure that, since we have less rigid identities, and fewer moral hangups, of course we would be free to explore our libidos wherever they led.

That’s why I was surprised to run into instances of thinking that was both rigid and conventional. Some groups I belong to insist on the freedom to transgress the lines most people dare not cross. I think these are sometimes offered as challenges to see how immune each of us is to emotional reactions. In a world where anything goes, one not only has the freedom to be or say whatever. The rest of the group has the same freedom. So, one might say we are free to do anything except judge each other.

Because of this radical freedom, I was surprised, nonplussed, in fact, by what seems to be a fairly stunning exception to the anything goes rule. About a week ago, someone posted the following link: Why I Masturbate my profoundly disabled son. I thought it was beautiful and courageous, if productive of yucky images. But there were a lot of judgements by people I know. Some objected to it because it was gay. If the mother had jerked her son off instead of the father this person would have been more comfortable. A more common objection was that this disabled man was like a child. Of course, since he is unable to speak, how would we know how mature or developed he is? Some of these people likened the father’s act of mercy to child abuse. The fact that this man had erections which his father saw when he changed his diapers and the fact that he showed obvious signs of happiness and gratitude for the relief he was afforded didn’t count with these people.

The exception to the non-judgemental attitude that pervades our psychopathic group is, you guessed it: pedophilia. I have argued for a nuanced approach to the subject. There are pedophiles who forswear acting on their desires for the sake of the children. One would think that these, of all people, would be held blameless. No such luck. Here is a response (not from my group) to such benign people:

People are sexual beings from day one. I remember my own childhood. No, I was not molested but I was sexual. Obviously, there are age differences in what acts are safe and which are harmful. A grown man fucking a small child could physically harm her (or him). But most pedophiles (I’m told) go for acts that don’t involve intercourse. When I tried to make a distinction between consensual and non-consensual interactions, I was told there is no such distinction. If it’s a child, then it’s rape. I notice a tendency for people to rhetorically equate one thing with another thing. Andrea Dworkin was a great one for that. “Pornography is rape,” she declared. Such reductionism is handy when one wants to condemn something by equating it with something already considered worthy of condemnation.

Not all pedophiles take a hands-off approach. They believe they can have a loving, consensual relationship with a younger person. Of course, there’s a difference between sex with an underage teenager and sex with a pre-pubescent child. The former is called Ephebophilia and only the latter is really defined as Pedophilia. One can credibly argue that teenagers are biologically ready for sex and that prohibition of sex between a teen and an adult is really OK and only demonized by an uptight society. As Pat Califia (now Patrick) points out in Public Sex, many of us had our first sexual experience with an older person. I know I did. My first full-blown sexual relationship, at age 17, was with a 38-year-old man. I would call my status at the time I met him “semi-virginal.” In other words, I had been poked and my hymen was gone but I had never really had full-on sexual intercourse. So I think of him as my first lover. Come to think of it, the other abortive experiments I had before that were also with adult males.  One of my pet peeves is the way sex between a minor an a major as called statutory rape. The word “rape” is highly prejudicial and not indicative of what really happened. If we must make under-18 sex verboten, at least call it something less prejudicial than rape.

Public Sex defends sex between adults and people of all ages. She (now he) mostly speaks from the standpoint of the gay world. Of course, the gay liberation movement has made no bones about the fact that any underage-adult relationships is anathema. NAMBLA (North American Man Boy Love Association) has been banished from all official (and most unofficial) activities of LGBTQ organizations. The initials, of course, stand for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Queer. Lots of tolerance for all except pedos. It’s understandable since homophobia used to take the form of assuming all gays were pedophiles. The movement had to protect itself from that stigma. They have been successful. One never hears that kind of attack anymore. However, Califia reminds us of the little-known fact that the original founders of the LGBTQ movement were boy-lovers.

The fact that many of the founders of the gay-liberation movement were (and are) boy-lovers has well-nigh disappeared from the official history of our rebellion. The very term “boy-lover” is rarely heard in gay discourse. True, there have always been political disagreements within our community about the age of consent and cross-generational relationships. But the decade of FBI harassment suffered by the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) probably has more to do with the mainstream gay movement’s drawing away from this issue. It is a serious and terrifying thing to confront such a powerful institution. So perhaps it was inevitable that the Stonewall 25 organizing committee would vote to exclude all organizations advocating the repeal of age-of-consent laws from its June 26, 1994, march. A group called the Spirit of Stonewall (SOS) formed to protest this ban, and has invited NAMBLA to march with them. I was proud to be among the people who signed SOS’s petition for inclusion of all gay organizations in the Stonewall anniversary celebration.

Public Sex

Copyright 1994 by Pat Califia

Pittsburgh, PA

pp. 31-32

This reminds me of the way the feminist movement has tried to read sadomasochistic women from the movement. Also, the way we, in the world’s first sadomasochist liberation organization, TES, used to debate how best to present ourselves. Some wanted to stress how ordinary we were. As one member put it, we are just “regular working slobs.” I’d rather be seen as a freak than a slob, thank you. Maybe it’s inevitable that groups trying to get acceptable will want to present themselves as squeaky-clean as possible. Califia didn’t agree with this tactic. Public Sex has a large section dealing with the kiddie-porn scare. “The kiddy-porn panic is one of the biggest con games ever run on a gullible public.” ibid, page 30. One of the architects of the movement is Dr. Judianne Densen-Gerber, director of New York’s Odyssey House. This name is known and not loved by many junkies who have experienced the toxic corruption of this lady. As with the drug “epidemic,” the threat of kiddy-porn was ginned up into a lot more than existed in reality.

Freud is known for the idea that children from 5 to 12 or 13 are in a latency period of development where they are asexual. Califia disputes this claim. I am reminded of a scene in Annie Hall where the main character, Alvie Singer, is seen as a kid in school, getting heat for kissing a little-girl classmate, “Oh, Alvie,” she cried. “Even Freud speaks of a latency period.” “Well, I didn’t have one,” said Alvie. Of course, Woody Allen is now under accusation for child-molestation.

Any discussion of pedophilia needs to address the real problem of sexual child abuse. It happens and it is indefensible. The biggest red flag is the problem of power-imbalance. Children have a deficit of power in relation to adults. That is especially true of parents and teachers. It’s hard for a child to say “no” to these people who have so much control over the child’s life. If we acknowledge the possibility of a consensual relationship between a child and an adult, we must also acknowledge the difficulty of assuring ourselves that a relationship can be consensual where power is so unequally distributed. I would tend to consider relationships with parents and/or teachers out of range of claims that the kid consented. I haven’t seen much discussion of this problem in either Califia’s book nor in any other pro-pedo writings. It’s a serious problem and needs to be addressed for these advocates to have credibility.

Since the arguments for normalizing adult-child sex are framed in an anti-ageism, kid liberation paradigm, it behooves us to see what actual kids in a kids liberation movement have to say. Unfortunately, such organizations don’t usually exist for long. Kids grow up, after all. As kids, they lack the resources to build an organization. I could only find one at this time, The Freechild Project, which is included among the links. (Full disclosure: This organization seems to have adult leadership so it’s not really a complete kids’ liberation organization.) They do address, and condemn sexual abuse, which they define as forced and unwanted contact.

In Conclusion:

I think the subject of infra-generational sex is complex. I don’t completely agree with those who present it as healthy and problem-free if only the puritans would get their sex-phobic hands off. I also don’t agree with those who demonize pedophiles. Their hysteria on the subject only makes it harder to deal with the complexity of it all. Califia sees the nuclear family as, itself, sick. I would certainly welcome alternatives if they exist. In the meantime, stop the hate and start thinking.

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Links

• NAMBLA. North American Man/Boy Love Association.
• NAMBLA. Outcome of Man/Boy sexual relationships.
• What is Pedophilia. Web MD
• Ephebophilia. Wikipedia
• Ephebophobia. What kids say about it.
• Youth Liberation. The Freechild Project
• Toxic Stigma. When even the outcasts won’t have you.
• Heart Progress. Apparently, this is some sort of hoax site. Only haters here.

Addendum

And the crazy just keeps on coming. Now the guardians of childish purity are going after anatomically correct dolls. Change.org now has a petition to Ban Child Sex Dolls. A doll that doesn’t de-sex the human body. As if showing the truth of what we really look like makes a doll a “sex doll.” These dolls are “perfectly legal,” shrills the Puritans. What’s wrong with them? “These child sex dolls can normalize a pedophile’s behaviors, emboldening them to harm children, as is often the case with those who view child pornography.” Good grief. A pedophile is attracted to children without the encouragement of an anatomically correct doll. These dolls are not life-size blow-up dolls. They are made for children.

Self-Mastery

It’s a well-known truism that psychopaths feel less emotion than “regular” people. This inability to feel everything NTs feel is often considered a deficit. But it can also be beneficial. Without the full range of emotions, psychopaths are also spared the emotions of guilt, anxiety and shame. Tests suggest psychopaths are also less susceptible to physical pain. The same detachment that enables psychopaths to dispense with unpleasant emotions can also free us from physical suffering.

An episode of Law & Order: SVU features a psychopath who has overcome his reaction to pain that he was able to burn off his fingerprints on a hot grill without so much as a quiver. Although it is doubtful that many psychopaths can achieve that degree of detachment, it can be done. I have experimented with such achievement.

It started when I happened to be in pain from something or other and I wondered what it was about pain that is bad. I focused on my pain to try to isolate the thing about it that is, in itself, unpleasant. The more I focused, the more illusive the sensation became until it disappeared. I realized I had a found a way to stop pain. The trick is not trying to stop it. You have to truly and sincerely be trying to invite it. From this point, I realized that the thing that makes pain painful is our trying to flee from it. In other words, not accepting the moment. Those who are always in the moment need not suffer. Pain and fear are practically the same thing. Both involve dreading something. In the case of fear, it is something in the possible future that is dreaded. In the case of pain, it is a sensation of the body.

I have since come across my method (I think of it as mine because I discovered it myself) in the writings of others. It’s considered a high form of  yoga. It’s kind of paradoxical that psychopaths should have access to this very advanced kind of self-mastery, especially when we are sensation-seekers, game players and power seekers. The expression on the face of the man at the top of this page is not the peaceful look of an enlightened being such as the Dalai Lama. It is an excited face, the face of a man thrilled with his own god-like abilities. Speaking for myself, the peace of enlightenment is well and good. I guess I’ll want to achieve it some day. But as long as I can seek and get thrills, I want thrills. I want the excitement and the drama of Life but I am not above dipping into some of the wisdom of the sages when it can improve my life.

Kevin Dutton’s book, The Wisdom of Psychopaths, attracted attention partially by the paradoxical idea that we can be wise. We can be impulsive, amoral, transgressing and without a conscience. We are free to do anything we want. But why should wisdom mean living with shackles such as the ones imposed by morality. Is that what the voices of society want us to believe? What if it’s not true. Maybe the laughter of the gods is about this very (to most) terrifying truth.  Someone just asked why it is terrifying. Because most people are afraid of freedom. They think without their precious morality, everything would fall apart. They fear the temptation. As Coleridge wrote: