All right, I know it's off-topic, but I sort of feel I have to address your comments, Tom Tit Tot.
Ganesh, I suppose your relationship with NG got off to a bad start when you repeatedly made extremely questionable comments about people suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder, which bothers both her and myself (and others, I would hope) for a variety of reasons, one of which is that some of our close friends and relatives struggle with BPD. Now, I know you're not a doctor or anything, so there's not necessarily an ethical dimension to your post (other than treating people a lack of prejudice) but it's not like you've stopped doing so - even though you offered an apology to NG eventually. Clearly you understood that your comments were not totally acceptable, yet did not choose to alter your behaviour.
I remember this well; it took place in the context of the 2004 Big Brother discussion thread, specifically my comments on one particular Housemate, Kitten. I compared her self-sabotaging behaviour to that of certain "highly ambivalent individuals" and, in a later post, I speculated that she was on the "Borderline Personality Disorder continuum". I went on to say why I thought this.
Nobody's Girl contacted me by PM, and argued that I was perpetuating stereotypes of BPD. This led to a PM dialogue in which I pointed out that I had criticised a particular mode of ambivalent, manipulative, self-destructive behaviour whose manifestations I had encountered many times. I had not directly criticised "people suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder"; in fact, I did not mention BPD until the second linked post. Nobody's Girl syllogistically conflated the two points ('Kitten reminds me of frustrating, self-destructive people' and 'I think Kitten is on the BPD spectrum') and reached a generalised conclusion ('BPD-sufferers are frustrating, self-destructive people') which was a certain distance from what I had actually said.
(I don't believe, then, that I have made "extremely questionable" generalisations about people with BPD, and I rather resent the implication that, as a doctor, there may be an "ethical dimension" or I might be generally prejudiced in my treatment of others - all based on a particular misreading of a couple of posts on an Internet message-board. You might want to check out your own comments on Kitten, in that same thread.)
I said all this at the time, and offered an apology for having been snarky to Nobody's Girl in-thread, something I regretted. If such an apology is to be taken as tacit admission that one's comments are not fully acceptable, then it's perhaps worth mentioning that our PM exchange also led to Nobody's Girl apologising to me, and acknowledging that her frustration may have been projected/misdirected.
I don't believe that mental illness is a reason for invalidationg the opinions and emotions of others. I wouldn't bother mentioning this, except I believe it helps to explain why you're so keen for NG to go away.
I'm not quite sure I understand what you're saying here: who's being unfairly invalidated on grounds of mental illness? If you're suggesting that I want Nobody's Girl to leave the board because of a PM exchange (I thought we'd) resolved two years ago, then I hope I can reassure you that my opinions are not so precious to me that I insist on the 'removal' of anyone who challenges them. I don't want Nobody's Girl to "go away", but I would like her to avoid sweeping generalisations which damn or patronise Barbelith in its entirety, or repeatedly making insinuations she subsequently cannot substantiate or evidence. If she's unable or unwilling to do this - and she genuinely views her interaction with the board as some sort of doomed exercise on a par with attempting, electorally, to vote out "the same old shit" - then I'd suggest, again, that she'd be better off putting her energies into something which doesn't make her feel jaded and unhappy. |
