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League_Girl
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27 Apr 2018, 10:39 am

It always seems like to me is it's easier to have compassion and sympathy for those with mental illnesses like Bipolar, Borderline, etc. when you have never been with anyone who has it but once someone has been in a relationship with someone with it, they no longer show compassion for them and they put them on the bad list of evil to stay away from. Mostly with NPD and BPD I always see.

Why is it that it's easier to have sympathy for those with mental illnesses and how it affects them until you are in a relationship with someone with it, your sympathy goes out the window and you see them as mean and evil now and jerks even though you know it's not their fault?

Has anyone ever noticed this before with humans?

Even I admit it is hard to have empathy for someone when they have hurt you and harmed you and not take any responsibility for it and not have any remorse. I've experienced it. So it's hard for me to have sympathy for anyone who is mean or a jerk and a diagnoses doesn't change it.


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Shatbat
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27 Apr 2018, 11:10 am

It makes sense to me. People who are in a close relationship with someone with a mental issue will have to deal daily with the drawbacks and to provide a greater standard of care than what they would otherwise need to with a neurotypical person.
And I can see how someone may use mental illness as an excuse to justify uncaring or selfish behaviour. On the other side of the coin, I can see the neurotypical partner not being able to see how much effort is going on under the hood, and assume uncaring or selfish motivations from their partner. Both situations would create resentment


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League_Girl
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27 Apr 2018, 2:34 pm

Shatbat wrote:
And I can see how someone may use mental illness as an excuse to justify uncaring or selfish behaviour.


I've seen that attitude here from time to time from some members here but that isn't exclusive to those who have ASD, it happens in other disorders too and hopefully they are the minority of the mental illness or disability population. People wonder why mental illnesses are so stigmatized, well this is why.


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dragonsanddemons
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27 Apr 2018, 4:09 pm

If it's past relationships or current relationships that aren't going well, at least a significant part of it may be that people will have a tendency to think that anything and everything related to their (ex)SO is bad, evil, etc, or will be looking for something to be able to say "That's why he/she is this way" and if the (ex)SO has a mental illness, it's easy to try to blame things on that. People will also sometimes get the idea that since this one person with (insert disorder) is a certain way, that must be the way all people with the disorder are, so if it's an ex-SO they now dislike/hate, they're going to have a negative feeling toward others with the disorder. Or someone may have trouble understanding or believing that a "normal" person can be so (insert trait they find abhorrent), and so they'll try to blame it on a mental illness. But like Shatbat said, some of it may also be having to directly deal with all the negatives of the mental illness on a personal level, and may feel resentful about that because they weren't prepared for it, and that will be amplified if they can't understand how hard the person was trying or that no, really, they didn't do these things on purpose, or intend to come off this way, or whatever.


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01 May 2018, 10:31 pm

Well, I don't think I tend to do that with people with a mental illness, but it partly depends on how it expresses itself. I have zero empathy left for people with narcissistic personality disorder, in fact I do consider them evil. (Had one in my family.) But other people with personality disorders, with autism, mood disorders, schizophrenia, etc., are harder to hate. At most, I would find them trying. People with addictions are also trying, you have to distance yourself to keep from being harmed (e.g., robbed to feed their habit), but I have been able to view such folks with their beautiful sides, too. Pedophiles and other sorts of antisocial personalities, get no mercy from me.

I don't mind run of the mill depression and anxiety in someone I'm close to. Bipolar would be a little different. It can create a lot of chaos as well as financial ruin in family members.

Finally, I just don't have very much sympathy with completed suicides, although I have maintained warm relationships with people who have attempted suicide. That seems like an arbitrary distinction, I know, but mainly, people who kill themselves and leave the world to clean up their mess get no sympathy from me. Besides, being dead, any sympathy extended towards a completed suicide is just wasted emotional energy.


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League_Girl
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17 May 2018, 10:25 am

Lot of people definitely have no empathy for those with cluster B but they will for those with schizophrenia and Bipolar and stuff. Lot of people don't consider cluster B as mental illnesses. Lot of people also don't see addiction issues as a mental illness either nor obesity. But I have noticed in the media when someone with schizophrenia, Bipolar, etc. commit a violent crime, sympathy for them goes out the window and people then say they are faking it.


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shlaifu
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25 May 2018, 7:30 pm

dragonsanddemons wrote:
If it's past relationships or current relationships that aren't going well, at least a significant part of it may be that people will have a tendency to think that anything and everything related to their (ex)SO is bad, evil, etc, or will be looking for something to be able to say "That's why he/she is this way" and if the (ex)SO has a mental illness, it's easy to try to blame things on that. People will also sometimes get the idea that since this one person with (insert disorder) is a certain way, that must be the way all people with the disorder are, so if it's an ex-SO they now dislike/hate, they're going to have a negative feeling toward others with the disorder. Or someone may have trouble understanding or believing that a "normal" person can be so (insert trait they find abhorrent), and so they'll try to blame it on a mental illness. But like Shatbat said, some of it may also be having to directly deal with all the negatives of the mental illness on a personal level, and may feel resentful about that because they weren't prepared for it, and that will be amplified if they can't understand how hard the person was trying or that no, really, they didn't do these things on purpose, or intend to come off this way, or whatever.


First: great avatar! I show bobby yeah to my students every year, just to freak them out (works every time).

I'd assume that a stranger with a mental illness is a not a person, but a body with a brain impairment.
But a loved one with a mental illness is a person, in that: you know the person has free will, and the mental illness is a part of that person, but not the whole. And I think the conflict in this appearance - as either an impaired brain OR a person with a character and free will is causing trouble.
In people with less pronounced mental disorders, i.e. NTs, the conflict is not as obvious, it's just the person's character. An outsider is not put in the uncomfortable spot of having to decide whether the other is mentally ill or just a horrible person.


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B19
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25 May 2018, 7:35 pm

I haven't noticed anything more than tiny scraps compassion for people diagnosed with borderline. I have noticed very nasty comments made by members of the profession that diagnoses them. The exceptions are professionals who have been affected themselves, like Martha Linehan. But overall, the borderline diagnosed people seem particularly stigmatised and even demonised, and they seem to experience a lot of discounting from all medical branches once that diagnosis is on their records, as if they people never to be believed or given serious attention. I really feel for them. Many have terrible histories of abuse, and to have invalidation and discounting heaped on them on top of unhealed abuse is a hard life to live.

The same could be said for many of us.



Sahn
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25 May 2018, 9:46 pm

The professionals are afraid of being shown up as failing in their care in this area and the same is true of some exes. People can go into relationships feeling that their love will bring about a great transformation and when this doesn't happen a defense mechanism kicks in that puts blame on the pwBPD.