Fairness (or Lack Of It)

[xamg]

When one has BPD, that person is prone to angry rages, sometimes called tantrums. The way society looks at this is that if it's a woman, she's a bitch; if it's a man, he's an abuser. Same behavior, different responses typically. It's why BPD goes underreported in men: many of them end up in jail. Men, ostensibly, are more dangerous because they're stronger than women, so society has a much more alarmed reaction when men misbehave.

You're right, and it's a sad view that many unfortunately share. For me however, my boyfriend alerted me to being an abuser, not just a bitch, when we finally had the "talk".

[Ocean Wolf]

I have never gotten hugs or support for being abusive. I don't want any either. Actually what I wanted when I realized what I was doing (and what we were offering to the guy) was advice on how to save my relationship and become someone better.

I haven't seen posts where women have gotten hugs and support for that kind of behavior. Granted, I don't read every single post on here.

I have an idea of how feminism started. I was refering to the feminists like your mom. That is certainly not equal. That's sexist and, in your mom's case, abusive.

Interesting thing to note though (and still on topic), female serial killers can usually avoid jail for twice a long as male serial killers.

[AndyL]

I can see where people might infer that I'm invoking stereotypes, but I'm not. I'm referring to studies and noting trends and societal attitudes and extrapolating that to behavior I'm seeing here. In fact, I didn't even assign blame to anyone in particular or characterize one group or the other as anything! All I said was that men with BPD are liable to experience harsher treatment than women for the same behavior, as evidenced by what I've noticed here over the last two years or so that I've been on this board: a man will have his behavior interpreted as abuse, while a woman will usually get hugs and sympathy.

So somebody please point out the stereotype here, because I'm missing it. How is talking about how one group or another is treated a stereotype? Does that mean stating that black people in the U.S. were oppressed during the Jim Crow era invokes a stereotype of African-Americans? I don't see it.

Look, I'm not targeting any one group as being guilty of this or that. All I'm asking is that everyone get treated the same. Why is that so difficult?

Obviously I'm not being persuasive enough here, so I'll stop. But before I do, can we please give the guys who actually take responsibility for their negative behavior a break? We all here have one mental illness or another, usually BPD. We know what it does to us. If we want to characterize our rages as abuse, I actually agree. It is. No one should have to take what we dish out. It's not fair to them and it wrecks our relationships. But if we are prepared to characterize a man's BPD rage as abuse, then we should also talk about abuse the next time one of the ladies here says she screamed at her boyfriend last night.

Or we don't. We give everyone the same sympathy or empathy, support and/or advice, because this is a support board and we support people who are having a hard time. That's all I'm asking. I think part of the problem is that I have overstated my case and that may have left the environment charged. Lesson learned. I'll go back to moving threads and asking people to be nice to each other now! :lol:

[AndyL]

Ugh. I'm done. Mea Culpa!

[Crocus]

I see no hugs and I see people telling her that her behaviour is wrong and she needs to get control of it. There are only 2 replies to it so far but no hugs! Spider also got a lot of similar replies to that so I don't get what you're getting at? Only reason I've not replied is because I replied so much the last couple of days to Spider and was so triggered that I stopped posting on his thread today and told people in chat that I should avoid his thread for a while as I know it's triggering me, so would pretty stupid of me to start all over again on someone elses thread and get myself worked up again!

[Crocus]

She was also talking about a one off occurence not years of abuse. I don't think a one off explosion at someone counts as the same thing as years of weekly abuse.

[Crocus]

unless of course you think that a one off rage causes as much damage as systematic abuse over years?

[Ocean Wolf]

Well, on the topic you first brought this up on, you said that the conversation spoke to that issue. It didn't until you brought it up. Yes, unfortunately, it is something that happens in society and maybe on this forum (as I said, I don't read all the posts, so I just know that I haven't come accross any). But it's not everywhere. It wasn't in that conversation, but you claimed it was. I still don't know where you got that idea, but you did say the conversation spoke to that issue.

Can you define what you mean by "giving guys a break?" Because on the topic you claimed spoke to this issue, the guy has asked for advice and still is and is receiving advice. Yeah, the advice is hard, but I think it's better in the long run than just hugs. It's better in the long run for both males and females. Btw, he's also getting congrats for actually working on this, which is why he's asking for advice.

[Crocus]

Not to mention that you're the only one with a problem with the way we are giving our advice as he's made it clear that he's fine with how it's coming across.

[AndyL]

Not to mention that you're the only one with a problem with the way we are giving our advice as he's made it clear that he's fine with how it's coming across.

I must not have read the thread carefully enough, then. Clearly I am in error and I do apologize.

[Crocus]

No offence taken by me... look if someone can bother to spend time typing advice aimed at helping..

I am gratefull.... also for the insights into a women (abuse receivers) feelings..

Though to give you credit this quote was AFTER you started the topic.

[Crocus]

Also I can understand you wanting to defend the percieved 'underdog', I do that too. Whether the person needed protecting or not is besides the issue I guess. You're intentions were honorable if misplaced.

[Crocus]

Sorry I know I'm getting irritating now but I wanted to add I can also see that he is a new member to the forum, and had he had a different character to what he has, he could have been scared off by our responses, despite our own intentions.

[jenga]

Well, let's just say that things are not always heard/perceived/understood in the same way. That includes initial posts, and also responses to them. I'd hate to see people stop posting because of this. We are all in this together, right?

Let's all take a minute.. take three deep breaths.. that's good, let them out slowly.

Next new topic, please?

[Crocus]

I'm annoying myself now! But to get back onto your topic about men being treated differently to women with regards to say violent behavior...On another forum I go to, a 19 year old girl who was kicking off was pinned down by 2 police men to the ground and carted off desite the fact she hadn't actually physcially attacked anyone, but was displaying agressive behaviour - that was in the US.

I also know that if you call the police about someone with a mental illness kicking off and inform them that the person is mentally unwell they normally have specific departments that are trained to deal with it better or they call mental health team out. The problem that is often witnesses to the behaviour may not be aware of any underlying mental health problems to notify the police and of course then police can only react to what they are aware of.

[Crocus]

http://www.oregoncounseling.org/Handouts/D...ViolenceMen.htm

Great article. Note that the reason more attention is on abusive men is due to how long violence against women went on but was obvious but ignored, till people made a stand and taught self advocacy to women to help them speak out.

I guess this needs to be done for men too. It's not about how WE as society view abusive men and women differently as you have seen most of us here view it the same, but in fact it is about the men that do not speak out against the women and the abuse. There needs to be more encouragement to men to make the same stand we as women did years ago.

[Crocus]

Also a good point made is that there are no shelters for abused men! I had never even thought about that! How does an abused man escape?

[AveMaria]

I think there is a big difference in someone being an abuser and someone displaying abusive behaviors. I do a lot of things that if I did them regularly or actually directed at a person, I would definitely consider myself abusive. As it is though, the only person I direct it at is myself or it is when something has happened and triggered me so I feel like I am being attacked. In fact, most of those times I am not in danger, but from my past experiences I just immediately react, without realizing that I am in a totally different situation that just reminds me of the past. In these instances I will display "bad bpd behaviors/ temper tantrums/ abusive behaviors... but I am honestly terrified and feel like I am being hunted. I have done many "abusive" things when I am feeling that way, its like everything is happening in a haze, I can't distinguish between the past and present, between who is helping me and who is hurting me. I have held my fiance at knifepoint, although like I said before... I was not attacking him or in my opinion being abusive as I was not even able to recognize who he was or that he was trying to help me get back to reality... I saw a man attempting to grab me and hurt me and I defended myself. I have screamed at my fiance, I have thrown things at my fiance, I have done so many things that could be termed "abusive" depending on the circumstances. I have to take responsibility and get help so I don't do these things, but the drive behind my actions is fear for myself, not any of the emotions "abusers" usual feel. I am not trying to dominate, hurt, scare,... anything to my fiance. I am trying to protect myself. These are some of the reasons my fiance is not scared of me, he can tell when this happens and realizes I am not even totally aware of what is happening. To other people, this would appear as a clear cut case of where I am abusive if they only see that part, or if they only see him wrestling with me to try to disarm me, more for my own good more than his, him being abusive. Yet in this case, I don't feel that either of us are abusive, yet we are both technically displaying abusive behaviors. I don't think barely any issues brought up here are ever black and white issues.

xxx

[Ocean Wolf]

One of the things that used to bother me was when I was first trying to get help for a certain problem. The problem was homicidal and sadistic fantasies. They didn't believe me and I never got help with that problem. No longer want help, but at the time, I did. On the other hand, they believed my fiance and he wasn't even asking for help. Come to think of it, I don't even remember if he had said anything for them to believe it.