PDs have nothing to do with morality

inossak2 wrote:i hate you too reaper...

I know, babe.

crystal_richardson_ wrote:that is riddled with illogic, but you raise some points i will address.

PDs exist exactly how they are defined - maladaptive personality given a particular environment. a set of early learned rigid behaviours stemming from learned rigid ways of thinking and feelings (the definition of personality) that are ill-fit for a particular environment, that the person cannot change (easily) because...it's their personality!

it exists as much as any other mental illness.

so, some live in stressful environment, or due to work experience clinical depression, anxiety, etc. if they were to leave that environment, and go somewhere else, they may cease having those issues.

so yes, mental illness is environmentally relative, which means that it can become very common or not common at all, as circumstances change even within the same location.

i don't know how that amounts to PDs not existing...again i believe it is due to misunderstanding.

it's like many people are very knowledgeable on PDs here, but they lack sort of the essential part of understanding. it's like they are just missing this little piece and it skews the rest a bit.

Of course the symptoms exist, never disputed that. I just don't believe that a whole personality can be "disordered", that part to me makes no sense.

In order for a personality to be "disordered", there would have to be a "norm", would there not? What exactly is that norm? These psychologists have tried to define it for decades now, and are coming up short. For example, many PD experts had a very categorical outlook when it came to PDs, you either have the symptoms, or you don't. But these symptoms are so pervasive, just to lesser degrees I suppose, across the whole populace that they cannot even define what the mean is any longer.

If we can't define exactly where the mean, or norm is, then the illogic lies in trying to define what is "disordered". If you can't define one, you can't define the other, imo.

it's not like that. is that what your psych has seen as basis for identity issues?

Not *my* psych, but if you look into STIPO, or the DSM 5 Personality Functioning Scale, it is criteria for some maladaptive personality traits.

Your post does sound like a BPD-type issue. But on this forum, your identity seems to be more intact than you let on. Not perfectly coherent imo, but you seem to have a stable identity. Of course I'm just a forum-goer like you, not an expert, la la la.

To be honest, I think identity issues are quite normal in people before mid-life. Many people in their 20s are, like you said, trying on different hats, different lifestyles, beliefs, and so on.

There may be a practical reason why someone with BPD has more issues with this. When you're constantly, or almost always distressed, you have little time to sit down and figure out who you are. So, you change yourself because not being comfortable with your true self (either due to lack of self or low self-esteem) to get your needs met. Put someone with BPD on some meds, away from others for a few months...they'll find their identity. In one way or another.

put BPD in a stable environment and they become more stable.

one thing i notice is that i am very sensitive to change around me, as in i get swept up in it.

so its like if something changes, i immediately question who i am and often change with it. could be a small ephemeral thing too.

i lack a core to endure the tides of life.

like how marilyn monroe was like a candle in the wind in Hollywood...and was swept up by it

a candle in the wind...that's an apt description of BPD...though not all shine so bright...all flicker and whose personalities are as fragile as a candle flame in the wind.

-- Tue Jul 05, 2016 11:05 am --

respond to first part later

NimplyDinply wrote:In order for a personality to be "disordered", there would have to be a "norm", would there not? What exactly is that norm? These psychologists have tried to define it for decades now, and are coming up short.

I'm pretty sure most psychologists would say that it's a range. That if you take various behaviors, motivations, ways of thinking, etc, and apply them to a graph, there would be a bell curve that peaks at maximally normal.

Then, you have one or two standard deviations out where a particular trait is less common, and more likely to stand out. The standouts are abnormal. It might be good, bad, or both, but it's abnormal.

It doesn't mean normal is the best, necessarily. Maybe an extreme trait could be really awesome for a person. It could also be extremely dysfunctional. Either way, though, it's an outlier.

It also doesn't mean that people within one standard deviation of the bell curve won't have problems. Normal people have plenty of dysfunction--it's just not as extreme or pervasive. A PD diagnosis requires a number of pervasive traits that play off each other. If people just had one of those traits, or a couple, it might be easier to work with, but all of them together seem to harden the individual to change.

Back on the original topic, morality is derived from the conscience, so nothing could really be more relevant to morality than dysfunctional conscience.

that's called defining the norm statistically, but that's not really how it is, although it's often appealed to.

the norm is adaptation. it's qualitative not quantitative.

normal personalities are normal because they are adaptive. there are many people who act weird but so long as they can adapt to get their needs met when the situation requires in the various sectors of life (work, relationships, etc.) then they are normal.

so really, disorder is not defined in relation to normal per se, but functional.

abnormal is kind of an old term, and rather misleading. i think it stems from the fact that this branch of psychology we are talking about is called 'abnormal psychology'.

What if maldaption is required for things to more forwards and not stagnate? What if maldaption is the key to success?

maladaptive and disorder are always relative to the current state of affairs.

if a society is undergoing significant social change, then 'stagnant' personalities might be pathologized.

even today, some 'progressive' clinicians view things like racism, sexism, and prejudice as PD traits because they are at odds with changing culture as they view it.

and because many institutions are vocally against these things, as mandated, the person may experience issues if they are rigidly racist, sexist, or prejudice...but not too long ago those things were the norm and even implicitly expected as a requirement for getting hired.

indeed, arguably the current trend toward de-pathologizing some Aspd traits does reflect the changing state of affairs toward nonconformity, anti-authority, etc, being normative...or some version of these things.

Aspd is still Aspd but what exactly constitutes 'antisocial' is being redefined according to the needs and norms of society, as each version of the DSM attests too.

if Aspd becomes decriminalized, i don't think that's a good thing because it means lesser antisociality will now be considered diagnosable illness subject to the usual social control.

society was more brutal in the past when you did get caught crossing the line, but less was illegal, from drugs/opiates/cocaine to just beating people up cuz.

now any physical altercation as an adult can get you an assault charge, it's ridiculous.

crystal_richardson_ wrote:if Aspd becomes decriminalized, i don't think that's a good thing because it means lesser antisociality will now be considered diagnosable illness subject to the usual social control.

If by 'decriminalized' you mean people with AsPD won't be held accountable for their actions because of their diagnosis? That will never happen.

Why? Because we have control over the choices we make and the choice to break the law is made in full knowledge that what we're doing is illegal.

AsPD does not equal insanity.

by decriminalized i mean criminality won't be the basis for diagnosis as it is currently.

it might be lesser things, like 'social manipulation'...which is stupid

criminality would still get you diagnosed, but so could all these lesser forms of deviance...which would suck

it's just more policing of our interactions...even if we don't break the law

You can get diagnosed with AsPD without a criminal record.

If a diagnosis of AsPD relied primarily on criminality then every common criminal would get diagnosed with it, but that is not the case.