Showing posts with label ornery and sly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ornery and sly. Show all posts

Thursday, May 7, 2020

Lesser-Known Symptoms of PTSD, and Why the Borderline Personality Disorder Diagnosis is Crap

It doesn't, actually. it creates scar tissue.
Free Use image by Alexas Fotos.


This is a good post. One of the things I like to talk about is the theory (which I believe is correct) that "borderline personality disorder," a label that is applied disproportionately to girls and women, is a subtype of PTSD. Everyone labeled with "borderline personality disorder" has a history of trauma. Their behavior doesn't come out of nowhere.

It took me forty years to realize that the main reason behind a lot of the acting out I did in high school was the fact that I had been assaulted by a creepy guy that I agreed to go on a date with. This was 1980, and back then, it wasn't considered sexual assault if there was no intercourse. Without going into details, what this 19-year-old guy did to my 15-year-old self was clearly sexual assault. I kept it hidden and blamed myself for not fighting back harder and for being stupid enough to go out with him in the first place. I knew nobody would take my side and would blame me.

I started cutting class, cutting myself, and doing a lot of drugs. Rather than anyone asking me if anything had happened to me, all I ever heard was "you used to be a good kid and now you're a bad kid. You need to straighten up and fly right." Surprise, surprise, at sixteen I was labeled a "hysterical neurotic" by one of the most inept clowns of a psychiatrist that I've ever had the displeasure of meeting. I was later given the equally useless label "borderline personality disorder." 

"Borderline personality disorder" is the modern "hysterical neurotic." It is a way of writing off girls and women who are acting out because of trauma. It is a label that needs to be retired.

If you're interested in reading the piece that I wrote about the traumatic incident, the link will follow. Fair warning that it isn't pretty and it doesn't have a happy ending.

Ornery and Sly
Telling it Like it Is


Ornery Owl
Free Use Image by Open Clipart Vectors on Pixabay

Sly Fawkes
Image copyright Julia Henze, purchased from 123rf.com