If you don't call ppl with depression etc 'Cluster A's', don't call people with different diagnoses under the umbrella of Cluster B, 'Cluster B's'. It's gross, and dehumanizes plenty of ppl who aren't narcissists.

We are, but it's not the spiders.

I think it's fine as a kind of shorthand for specific types of interpersonal issues a person may find herself dealing with. I've never found it helpful, but I've got a friend who does. That's different to sitting back and diagnosing people you don't even know. At most, you might see behaviours that remind you of X trait, maybe because the person is narcissistic, maybe because you're already primed by exposure to interpret the traits in particular ways. The only ppl who should be diagnosing a full blown PD are diagnosticians...and even then...well, let's just say there's a lot of debate about what, if anything, the DSM actually captures about mental illness.

I think the fatwa was - renewed? - in 2019.

Oh, man. That's very sad. I don't like Rushdie as a writer or really, in the way he comes across in interviews, but by God, he has walked the talk when it comes to artistic expression and freedom. I remember him fondly for his forthright stand re Hebdo.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2022/aug/12/salman-rushdie-attack-stabbed-onstage-new-york-latest-updates

Yes, I agree that many disorders of the personality are rooted in childhood injury, physical and emotional. BPD is also considered a child sexual/other abuse disorder but I'm sceptical of that in a way. I think the disorder is over-diagnosed and captures backgrounds that differ from the 'classic' presentation. But, ya know, it's definitely possible to inadvertently cause harm to a beloved child. I straddle the awkward spot of not blaming myself while accepting some responsibility. It just wasn't deliberate or malicious.

Right. Yes. Ppl in general are pretty intolerant of mental illness and disorder.

There's a survivor bias. It's a dangerous, life threatening disorder for many. If you make it through the confluence of young adulthood and high levels of psychiatric distress, you are likely to have developed coping skills along the way, regardless of treatment. Or you have some underlying health and resilience. Or you stumble into an environment that is a good, supportive fit and can develop coping skills.

I think it's really not ok to refer to people as a 'Cluster B'. I think it's important to understand that just as anxiety is not depression is not an eating disorder, not all PDs are the same. I know my child with a BPD diagnosis was not intentionally abused or trained up to struggle emotionally with suicidality or self harm.

Yeah, I have a kid with a BPD diagnosis, and my relationship to that is complex. One complexity - when we stray away from talking about NPD and move to BPD - a different diagnosis - is that BPD is a pretty sexist diagnosis. Just be a young woman in psychiatric distress presenting for treatment for self harm or suicidality more than once...bang, here's your BPD label. I think looking at environment is much more than blaming the parent, because the parent is just one aspect of environment.

Well, it gets tricky when we conflate disorders - not all PDs are the same, plenty of people with some PDs seek treatment and improve, and 'they' - a person with a diagnosis - will have an individual journey with their disorder, heavily influenced, of course, by their environments (family are only one aspect of environment). If you're thinking of BPD, it often improves even without treatment ( if a person survives the associated suicidality) with age. I don't know why anyone would think it would be easy to change a pattern of personality that may well be rooted in injury or trauma. You need mega resources and courage to do that. It's not like it's treatable with a pill or an 8 week course of CBT, kwim?

OK. So I think there's a place for people experiencing relationships in which narcissism plays a huge role to gather to talk for mutual support without having to think about how they express themselves. I think it's off to speak generally about 'they' and 'them' and what 'they' do. People with PD's are people with PDs - not a walking PD. Besides anything else, not all PDs are the same in terms of treatment and outcome. I think there's a lot of faux-psychology in the world of narcissism support. More generally, if we want a world with less pain from PDs, we need to turn our attention to the prenatal and childhood environment. Broken circs make broken people.

Awake with insomnia, have the radio on, just heard. Presenter and Rushdie attacked by a man who stormed the stage, and Rushdie stabbed in the neck, air lifted to hospital. Hope his injury is not severe. It's intolerable that an author is injured for his work (if this is a result of the fatwa).

I'm not sure I think of the diagnosed personality disorders as an illness. I think of them as more akin to intra and interpersonal disorganisation of the personality. Sometimes the disorganisation has a clear cause and sometimes it doesn't.

Everyone has some narcissistic traits. Some people have a narcissistic personality disorder. In general, not a fan of armchair diagnostics.

It's not the same relationship between each child/parent. It's possible to have a more difficult fit with one, or issues with one you don't have with the others. It's not like you can apply the same 'recipe' each time and get identical results. I think it's always worth considering if one child is carrying the family dynamic in some way. Always good to remember, though, that we are shaped by our environments and each child has a different environment, both in and out of the family.

My one kid who did have to study geography as a discrete subject, because she went to high school where it was compulsory 7-10, is comically bad at maps and all spatial things. She's lived in other cities in her adult life and still has no concept of relative distance and direction from where she grew up. If she can't find the capital of Australia, where she lives, on a map, there is no chance she'd find anything else. She might know where London is, but I doubt it. Yet I'd be hard pressed to call her Euro-centric, given her passion is Indigenous and multicultural health. I used to pore over the atlas as a kid planning my escape from AU, and I have a relatively good mental map of the world's continents and countries, but I'm very Euro-centric, much more than DD.

These type of details here would be covered in h/s history + science curriculum, I think. Though human well-being in geo overlaps with climate studies in science. A student could learn/know this without being able to place the city on a map.

I've been mulling over this thread and wondering, I guess, the utility of being able to name and place cities on a map. Here is what a Year 10 geo student would be studying here: geographical processes Interconnections within and between environments and people environmental change and human well-being Collection, collation, analysis of primary data Spatial distributions, patterns and trends Contemporary geo challenges ~ Of course, a student could learn cities on a map as she goes, but it's not a key aspect of the curriculum. I do think literature + general knowledge + geography can add up to a relatively well rounded understanding of the world, but it's not reliant on mapping cities.

Cities? No. But I could if I'd been to a Chinese city etc. As it is, I've only been to cities in Europe and Scandinavia, so I can find those. We don't study that type of geography here, so it's not down to the ed system for me. I can ID some major US cities because I've looked at maps over the years.

Sounds like the nonsense 'they' were saying about Australia at the beginning of the year, that we were in concentration camps and on the way to never ending authoritarian rule. Jokes on 'them' (tho sadly also on us) because not three months later we entered full Covid libertarianism, so....

No! She is a good, lively, bright person, so just no. 💔💔💔

Sydney is hosting World Pride early next year, with the strong potential that it will be a super spreader event - I hope vax rates amongst males who have sex with males ( the group currently considered high risk) can dampen that potential.

I am so grateful to those who still.mask. Thank you!