Hello, If someone with a mental illness is abusive because of their illness, can someone give me the script (to bury my own post-traumatic stress (whether it is ''disorder'' or not)/anxiety/depression) that people use to tell them and others "it's okay" because it was their illness? Because it makes me angry that I have to say "it's okay" they accept so willingly because beyond it not being their fault due to their illness, they choose not to care about the harm/impact it's had on me and expect me to be 'over it' because me being hurt due to their psychotic is upsetting them and reinforcing stigmas about mental illness:abuse. Can someone give the script/way of being to cope through a situation like this? Thanks.
Well, it's not OK. And for the most part, I think a lot of people use the claim of a mental illness as a "get out of jail free" card when there actually may not be a formally diagnosed mental illness. With a few exceptions, having a mental illness doesn't excuse someone from responsibility for their behavior. Their actions may not be 100% in their control at all times, but they should, for the most part, be able to own it at some point and accept responsibility for it. What one can do is remind themselves, at all times, that everyone is doing the best they can with what they have. If someone was raised in abusive environments and never learned how to love or connect to people, then his/her responses will likely be to push people away with anger or isolation. If a person is depressed or anxious, s/he may limit or avoid contact. If someone is severely schizophrenic or has a psychotic disorder, then s/he may not be able to perceive events that are happening in the same way as someone who doesn't have that disability. In most of these cases, however, the person still has some level of cognitive capacity and knows right from wrong, so one can reasonably expect him or her to take responsibility for their behavior after the fact and apologize for it, and to make an effort to understand and identify the triggers that lead to the behavior so it is less likely to happen in the future. That isn't a direct answer to your question but I hope it helps.
No script. You are entitled to feel hurt if it impacted on you. They shouldn't dismiss your trauma. If they do dismiss your trauma then they lack understanding. They are the ignorant one, not you.
In about 10% of cases, however, especially combined with abusive childhood history and history/current alcholism, schizophenics can be abusive. "Especially combined" for anyone with a mental illness, with alcholism being an illness itself, but I'm not sure of the percentages. Percentage of "10%" from psychology today. People in severe psychosis or dissociation, according to psychology websites, cannot be held responsible for their behavior as 'they' are not there. Of course, in most cases of DID it isn't true, most cases do not hold up in court. However, it still can happen. Furthermore, many mental illnesses actually have 'abusive behaviour' or behaviour that often leads to abuse. For example, munchousen syndrome by proxy (now facious disorder) when a person (usually mother to child) harms another in order to gain sympathy for 'making [the person they harmed] them better.' Many personality disorders also contain abusive or generally shitty (sorry for my language) behaviour. Conduct disorder literally means that a person has trouble following rules and breaks rules in given society. Anxiety, PSTD, depression, Bioplar-depression can cause aggression or not caring for others - which in a position of care such as parent could lead to neglect that is abuse. Bipolar-mania includes spending exessive amounts of money which could lead to financial abuse. Impulsive control disorders can include acholism (which often leads to the violent kind of abuse, but also financial if stealing money), fire-setting, exessive shopping. It seems people, activists, are okay with you saying "mental illness can cause abuse" as long as you are sympathetic to the abuser, otherwise say it's an "abelist stigma and not true, just to induce fear". However, even if rare, there are cases where someone cannot be held responsible. So really, it can. But my own emotionally-fulled opinion on that is that then it is okay to fear, we are meant to fear things that could hurt us. Even if we know the likelihood is low. ----- I am, however, talking about either in those few cases or when someone uses it as an excuse and use it to keep people in that relationship. It's really hard to leave an abusive relationship because of control and fear. ----- Also, because I [personal story] was in an abusive mother-daughter relationship I couldn't leave as I was a child unable to do anything (told teachers, mother talked them out of concerns). She has told me it was ''okay'' because she was depressed, but at the time she told me and my brother (who she also abused) ''it is okay for a parent to harm their child in that way''. But it wasn't. It's not okay to pin your child down, or pour water on them, or put them in freezing showers or beat them up for making a mistake when trying to do something nice. Not okay. She chose us to punish us this way. Then when I told her it couldn't be her depression, she decided it was her multiple sclerosis that made her do it. Basically then I knew she is just avoiding responsibility - ''why else would I do it, I guess I'm just a bad mum then.'' she said crying and shut me up. Silenced me for another year then I talked again because I needed psychiatric support (yeah, now I'm the one whose depressed/anxious and informally named post-traumatic stress) but she silenced me until she decided to support me saying it was my "years of hospitalisation" that caused me to be this way. Yes, that added to it, but they were at least making me better not abusing me. And now, in my head, lots of times over, I see myself either being alone-alone (no family, no friends, no real aquantiences. Just do my job and go home) or with friends/family/partner/good work-home life but being abused and abusing myself to numb myself from it. ----- And anyway, what can I do to leave the situation IN THE EVENT of it being one of those ''rare cases''? ---- The way I see it is even if you are psychotically not in control, if you try to 'bully' someone to stay with you knowing at any moment you could abuse, then you are choosing to potentially abuse them. But of course, this is opinion.
Ignore them. My mother and I are sure my dad isn't 100% sane but I put in my earphones turn up my music and ignore most of it. My dad doesn't think he has a problem but every day he behaves in a way that can't be normal. I think he knows that his behaviour is abhorrent but since no one he cares about is there he behaves as bad as possible. I know he can behave himself he does it all the time when we visit family or they visit us. But when it's just the immediate family he threatens to beat my dog, he's angry I exsist, my mother and I are out to get him, he's deaf mishears things then screams at me for stuff I didn't say and goes as if to hit me when I ask him to please swallow before talking to me. If he can refrain from calling me a selfish bitch and a failure and a drain on his resources around family he should be able to do it all the time. If someone is mean by nature they could use theit illness as an excuse but they shouldn't be allowed to.
Then how come so many individuals with or relationship (sexual or platonic) with those with mental illness who are abusive are okay admitting their condition makes them abusive as long as it's done in sympathy to the abuser? Also, this is a panick. What if I'm dating someone with high-functioning autism who, despite me telling them "I need you to ask me before you touch me, each and every time. You need to get my attention first and wait for me to reply. Being told 'yes' on one prior occasion does not mean you have permission a later time." and yet they continue to just touch me (whether casual or sexual) when they haven't asked me, and do not look at my non-verbal reaction and tell me it's my "fault you didn't tell me you didn't want me to touch and I can't work out non-verbal, it's my autism" even though I have told them before I need them to ask me and somehow it's "my fault I won't respect their autism by 'getting over'" when they touch me when I haven't given them permission I've asked them to ask. Seriously, I met my best friend's friend and my best friend's mum told him I didn't like being touched. He respected it but we also got into a conversation that led me to infer he thought I was autistic - which he did. I went into anxiety mode for about 3 minutes after that, thinking he would no longer respect the fact I don't like being touched. Thankfully he is nice and does respect me, as with my best friend. But I know there are some autistics out there who don't, with other conditions too, but autism is on my mind a lot as my best friend is (love her) and then I get panicked about the autistics who aren't respectful but "it's okay" because they're autistic - even though they're high functioning so their mental age is pretty much the same as their chronicalogical age (between 18-24 if I were to date them). Even though there are equally panicked/melt-down autistics who hate being touched, and hate on ''neurotypicals" for melting-them down by touching them 'for the fun of it' and how that is disrespectful to autism. I support autistics here, but if you [autistics, not neccisaraly you yourself though] want to be respected then you have to respect non-autistics as well. I mean, if you're an autistic who respects autistics who don't like being touched, then why do you suddenly do the whole "it's my autism, can't help it" with non-autistics if you can 'help it' with autistics. Then if I "don't respect you" by letting you touch me, somehow I'm "against autism". No, or by that case if I don't like genocidal politicians then I'm "against autism" because Hitler was. I'm against people who harm other people, and I hate the fact my emotions 'cave in' over excuses. ----- If I'm going to get called "discriminatory" when I try to break up with you for hurting me just because "XYZ condition made me do it" then I'd rarther just be discriminatory and not date you for XYZ reason in the first place. ---- Or I just settle all this by never having a romantic/sexual relationship, but then I still panick about this unless I give up the idea of having friends as well (which I'd be fine with if I didn't have my best friend who I love so much).
This is not someone I'd have as a friend, let alone someone I'd date. There's a line between making reasonable accommodations for someone with some sort of a disability, mental or physical, and tolerating a complete lack of boundaries (as evidenced by their touching you.) You aren't obligated to accommodate someone's disability if it takes away your sense of security, control, or well being. You deserve better. Again, this is entirely your choice. And given your challenges with touch and your proneness to anxiety attacks, I think this would be the first group of people that I'd simply choose not to engage with. Again, this is in no way a judgment of people with autism; it is simply looking out for your needs. It sounds like you might have a difficult time doing that. Sorry, that's bullshit. Entirely reasonable. Well... no. There are about 95% of people on the planet who don't have disabilities that interfere with their boundaries and ability to respect other people's boundaries. Given your situation, you are totally entitled to choose to spend time with people who respect your needs and boundaries, just as people with autism are absolutely entitled to spend time with people who respect and appreciate their needs. Those are not necessarily overlapping categories.
