Rant on diagnosing others

[Dana1010]

you’d think that people with a diagnosed mental health condition would be keen to not perpetuate stigma about other disorders.

The difference is that they're effed up because they're effed up; we're effed up because they effed us up. Does that help? LOL

There is a vast difference between an innocent PTSD sufferer and a psychopath or narcissist who gave them PTSD in the first place. The latter is not only incurable but dangerous. Narcs and paths are bad by definition. If they're not bad, they're not really diagnosable narcs or paths. Maybe some of them don't act as badly as others. Whoop-de-doo. I'm not in a rush to make their acquaintance.

Do you really believe there are abusive people who don't have any diagnosable disorder? I'm talking about people for whom abusive behavior is a constant throughout their lives. Not someone who acts abusive on rare occasions in response to triggers.

If you were to examine a sample of consistently abusive people, I bet many of them would meet the diagnosis for narc or path. Or at least they'd hit the threshold.

There are a handful of people in my past who I've diagnosed. There really isn't anything you could say to me that would change my mind. The general public needs to be educated about these disorders. I do not mean to imply that it's easy to spot them. It's not. They're masters of camouflage. But it's not impossible. If I'd read a couple books before I'd met these people, I might have figured out what they were and what they were up to in a few weeks. It's possible that some real disasters could have been averted.

I was on another PTSD site, and amazingly, almost every one of the posters had a narcissist in their life. What gives?

Do you think it's plausible that people suffering from PTSD are disproportionately likely to have had a narcissist in their life?

 

[blackemerald1]

Do you think it's plausible that people suffering from PTSD a

We are back to whether or not those poster's were using the term's in a anecdotal way or they really truly were properly diagnosed.

I think I read somewhere that narc's and psychopath mhd were statistically rare. (no source). Is this because they are not diagnosed - good at hiding or locked up before diagnosis??

 

[Dana1010]

@blackemerald1, what is mhd?

I believe diagnosable narcs and paths are statistically rare -- but not as rare as we'd like them to be. Right now, the conservative estimate is that one percent of the population are psychopaths -- so one out of 100 people. Um, how many Facebook friends do you have?

 

[blackemerald1]

mhd = mental health disorder

but not as rare as we'd like them to be

But we really don't know because statistically they're a hard mob to count. :)

the conservative estimate is that one percent of the population are psychopaths

^Source?

I just did a quick google search and the average is one in 200 but I don't care about how many there are. A large percentage are in prison and an even larger percentage are not serial killers or criminals.

As for narcissists well who would know. It is getting rather over used as a descriptive term and that's not a diagnosis is it?

how many Facebook friends do you have?

None. Not on fb :)

 

[Dana1010]

because statistically they're a hard mob to count.

How do you figure that?

Source?

Robert Hare.

A large percentage are in prison and an even larger percentage are not serial killers or criminals.

All of the ones in prison were free and at large until they got caught. The vast majority of the ones there now will be released at some point. Just because they're not serial killers or name-brand "criminals" doesn't mean they can't ruin your life. Trust me.

It is getting rather over used as a descriptive term and that's not a diagnosis is it?

I agree. I think a lot of the people yapping about them online are referring to some run-of-the-mill asshole with narcissistic traits. So, like, the average human. :-D

Does anybody have a good, succinct definition of a real narcissist?

To my mind, the litmus test seems to be how they feel when their narcissistic supply is cut off. It's a lot like a drug addict's withdrawal. Like cold turkey.

They lose interest in things, they're cut off, they can't think about anything but getting a fix. They'll resort to anything to get out of withdrawal -- go digging in the garbage, damage relationships, hurt people, even ruin their own lives. The only thing that matters is steady supply, because the withdrawal is unbearable. I think it's like a very insulted feeling. Like, they feel like they're the biggest loser on earth and everyone knows it, or something.

I've noticed a tendency to dumpster dive. They just need someone -- it could be someone vastly beneath them, a total bum -- to regard them highly. Like, "I'm nothing out there, but I'm something to this nobody. They'll never do better than me." I don't know. Maybe that's just a certain covert type.

 

[Friday]

If we start adding percentages of types of abuse/abusers together (hardly a complete list, just roughly here on paper, skipping over wide swaths of violence and crimes against persons), we’re looking at a very conservative maaaaaaybe 7% of the population is abusive in one way or another.

NPD & ASPD only make up 2% of the population.

The vast majority of abusers? Aren’t NPD/ASPD.

Even if all 2% were also abusive (and they’re not) that’s still only 2:7 which would mean that 72% of abusers are not NPD/ASPD.

And with victim stats being notoriously low, and since I’m omitting all kinds of crime & violence, it’s probably an even higher percentage that are neither narcissists nor psychopaths.

- Narcissistic Personality Disorder DSM-5 301.81 (F60.81) 1%

- ASPD/Psychopathy I&II less than 1%
THE CRIMINAL PSYCHOPATH: HISTORY, NEUROSCIENCE, TREATMENT, AND ECONOMICS

*****************

- Pedophilia population is 3-5%
Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, p. 698 “Prevalence”

- Domestic Violence stats are easy to find from the victims side of things, but difficult to find estimates about the number of perpetrators, so my non-mathmatical ass is going to guesstimate based off of the numbers we do have (keep in mind, these are well known to be conservative estimates since so many go unreported) NCADV | National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

1:3 women & 1:4 men victims of some kind of domestic violence
1:4 women & 1:9 men victims of severe physical violence by intimate partner
1:7 women 1:25 men severely injured from domestic violence

1:3 - 1:7 (33%-14%)
1:4 - 1.25 (25% - 2.5%)

Divide by a Global & US avg of apx 10 partners
Average number of sexual partners by country | Statista

Very very roughly 2-3% of the population are abusers against adult partners in the population

- Child Abuse stats are actually a lot lower than most people think, with about 9:1000 (0.9%) as compared to say, rape, which is 1:4 (25%) 1%

https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubpdfs/canstats.pdf (because it’s a long report I’m quoting the relevant section below.

Approximately one-fifth (17.2 percent) of the children investigated were found to be victims of abuse or neglect—a rate of 9.1 per 1,000 children

It’s probably that trauma-brain making connections where non exist & all or nothing thinking thing.

If YOUR abc was 123? Clearly everyone else’s (or at leas most) abc’s are 123.

ABC Parents - 123 Abusive
ABC Abusers - 123 ASPD/NPD
ABC Rapist - 123 White male
Etc.

 

[Dana1010]

The vast majority of abusers? Aren’t NPD/ASPD.

So what are they?

If abusers who aren't narcs or paths are only a single-digit percentage of the population, they're obviously not normal.

Is there a cover-all "abusive personality disorder?" Do they maybe have an as-yet undefined disorder that makes them abusive?

 

[blackemerald1]

How do you figure that?

Not all criminals have mental health disorders. Not all people with mental health disorders present at any stage of their lives and consequently become a statistic. Not all abusers are counted statistically because not all crime/abuse is reported.

Also, I don't know if you have heard the old saying about relying on statistics. It's good to be wary of leaning on them too much or at least being agile enough to know that not all stats bear out.

Robert Hare.

Hmm.. he's an 86 year old researcher/author with a few credentials. Even the titles of his books show his leaning. I'm not rubbishing him Dana.. but it's good he makes a living out of that kind of thing. Someone ought to. :)

Just because they're not serial killers or name-brand "criminals" doesn't mean they can't ruin your life. Trust me.

Preaching to the choir here I think. :)

To my mind, the litmus test seems to

Again, are you speaking about anecdotal type's here on people that are fully diagnosed?

they're obviously not normal.

"abusive personality disorder?" Do they maybe have an as-yet undefined disorder that makes them abusive?

No. People can be bad without being 'mad'. Loads of them... enormously a huge amount of them. Overwhelmingly most of them actually.

I'm afraid you seem to have converted every type of abuse or behaviour that inflicts harm onto another as some kind of mental disorder and I think that is partly what @DharmaGirl was railing against. Not every criminal/abuser has a disorder. Not every nor most victims will suffer at the hands of a diagnosed NPD or anything else.

Being really stupid isn't a mental illness last time I checked.

Speaking from my own experience most abusers do not sit neatly into a diagnostic condition and are probably well and truly within the parameters of 'normal'. They may have a screw loose here and there though. lol :sorry:

 

[ILoveLife]

Like my T said: "Most people who commit serious crimes don't fit into a diagnosis, but they can definitely be sick."

Psychiatry and diagnosis are ever evolving, you can accept your own current diagnosis in that lens too, in a few decades PTSD can be something else entirely (or not, I dunno), the research on criminality minds is not that big and even the specialists say it's difficult to be certain.

I'm not sure if anyone here ever had a pdoc look at them and say "I'm just not sure what is it you have", because mental health diagnosis are checklists, but several symptoms can belong to several diagnosis.

I see the point of a diagnosis to be treatment, not a label for me to parade around. It's helpful for me to understand my mom's bpd traits for example, and it was helpful in the past to look at our relationship in that lens, in terms of what I can do to help her and our relationship. But she was never diagnosed, although my therapists all said it's fairly possible. Possibility doesn't make a fact.

I don't see the point in calling all my abusers by what I think is wrong with them. Particularly it would be bad for me specifically because I would see myself the same way, defined by my diagnoses or lack of them. I am not and neither are them.

There's another thing, like seeing the label of the dx as an end all game. But it's not exactly so, if you think about it. Long gone are the days when a mental health dx was definitive.

 

[Dana1010]

"Most people who commit serious crimes don't fit into a diagnosis, but they can definitely be sick."

Um, this. We're trying to define that sickness. It's not normal, so what is it? "Sick" isn't a satisfactory definition.

 

[Sideways]

The difference is that they're effed up because they're effed up; we're effed up because they effed us up. Does that help?

No. It doesn’t help. Mental illness is an illness, not a choice.

Narcs and paths are bad by definition.

The DSM 5 has a lack of clarity about NPD in particular. But neither the DSM 5, or the DSM IV before it, included “badness” or “abusive” in the definition of NPD.

In fact, I’ve met someone who had been clinically diagnosed (by a psychiatrist, rather than someone with access to google and a very strong opinion) with NPD and he didn’t have an abusive bone in his body. He was dysfunctional to the point of needing hospitalisation, which is where I met him, and spent considerable time getting to know him, while his health was at its worst. Not an abusive guy. Not a bad guy. Just dysfunctionally convinced he could solve all the world’s problems with his brilliance.

If they're not bad, they're not really diagnosable narcs or paths.

Simply not true with regard to people with NPD. They don’t get diagnosed with NPD because they’re bad people, they get diagnosed because they have a series of clinical symptoms, have had contact with someone qualified to assess that.

Google and social media have a lot to answer for. NPD is a mental illness. It’s an affliction some people are born with, and suffer terribly disabling symptoms from. They aren’t all abusers. They aren’t all ‘bad by definition’. They’re people with an illness that they didn’t ask for, don’t want, and will have a very hard time getting proper treatment for.

‘All narcs are bad’? That’s stigma. We can do better than misinformation like that.

ETA: I have a problem with abusive people. But I have a problem with them because of the things they’ve done, not the illnesses they may or may not have.

 

[mumstheword]

We are back to whether or not those poster's were using the term's in a anecdotal way or they really truly were properly diagnosed.

I think I read somewhere that narc's and psychopath mhd were statistically rare. (no source). Is this because they are not diagnosed - good at hiding or locked up before diagnosis??

It's because, by definition, they are masterful manipulaters, liars, and charmers, who will never own up to having any social or behavioural issues, let alone 'fess up to diagnosis. They are "superior" to others. Everything is other's fault. And they would NEVER own up to being diagnosable to ANYTHING. In fact they know better than EVERYONE.

In order to go into therapy or see a psychiatrist, one needs a measure of self-awareness, accountability, honesty and humility. That is not anywhere or anyhow NEAR the characteristics of 'paths and narc type people.

It seems very knee jerk and "blame-the-victim" to be all sympathetic to the people they are ANONYMOUSLY called narcissistic or psychopathic. It's none of anyone else's BUSINESS whether that person they are talking about has been officially diagnosed or not. They don't have to justify to you, to prove they have a right to use that term, in my opinion. The fact of the matter is, they have been VERY HURT, permanently damaged, by some else's cruelty, isn't that level of abuse, by definition, severe enough to be called narcissistic? Or psychopathic?

I don't know about the rest of you, but I got so obsessed about trying to figure out why (one of) my (long term) abuser(s) was so devoid of honesty, accountability empathy or responsibility towards me, that I researched EXTENSIVELY, as well as getting my psychologist's opinion, and while her's is the most severe diagnosis of my abuser, I have read amply on narcassism and narcissistic abuse and I know I understand it very well. I would not be surprised if other victims have reseached equally extensively.

Why the knee jerk reaction about other people's business? What does it even have to do with you? Surely something to research and examine for yourself.

In actual fact, autism could be a factor in my abusers case, but that doesnt take away from the EXTREME lack of empathy, honesty, accountability, the grandiosity and enjoyment in causing, pain, lack of agency, invalidating, gaslighting, character assassination and extreme disempowerment that they righteously and continuously perpetuated apon myself.
Those behaviours, are by definition and narassistic and psychopathic.

And DON'T expect those kinds of personalities to rock up for diagnosis, they are often very clever, and operate under cover of darkness, in that, they can only wreak their misery, lies, predatory behaviours and manipulations in an atmosphere of ignorance, "innocence" and their own "superiority" and entitlement. They can't do that with psychiatric authories knowing their crimes and their game plans. They DO NOT willingly or honestly present for diagnosis. If they did, they are not exhibiting the pathological profile that would enable the diagnosis, in most cases. These people are CONSUMATE liars and power trippers. They, mostly, NEVER admit to culpability.