(Yes, Stuart’s blog is the only blog I consistently read almost every single day. Sue me. No, wait. Don’t sue me.)
I’m writing on this mainly because people like to “diagnose” me online, for some reason. Maybe they think if they challenge my diagnoses they’ll win a battle over me or something. I have no idea. Anyway, BPD is one of the “diagnoses” angry people have flung at me before. I thought I’d go over some of what Haven has written.
She offers a quote:
“You know you’re borderline when you’ve spent so much time acting normal, other’s say ‘you’re cured’ so you show them you’re not.”
Haven responds to that:
This is me. This is the plight of the Quiet Borderline. This is why it’s so hard for us to ask for help, and to get help, because so often when we do finally attempt to shed that mask, people look at us and say… But you’re so normal, I think you’re fine.
One of my diagnoses is Asperger Syndrome. I wonder how people might confuse Asperger with this “mask” part of BPD because of the fact that Aspies have to learn how to behave based on observations of how other people are acting. It has been something of a torture for me to learn which behaviors are expected of me because I have mind blindness. I always feel that I am behind a wall, on some level, because of that. It is not a “mask” that I put on. It’s a wall that God put into my head.
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve run into this. xRoommate told me she didn’t think I was Borderline. Current Roommate (who is also a Psych major) has told me she would never guess I was Borderline. I think this is a two part problem.
Haven is accomplished at wearing a mask, I suppose.
The stigma surrounding BPD focuses so strongly on the angry, volatile, aggressive, explosive cases of BPD, that it’s become stereotyped to the exclusion of evidence to the contrary.
So it is with all mental illnesses. This is why doctors have to do the diagnoses, not your blog readers and not your family and not your friends. Doctors.
To the outside world I do not rage. I do not show how quickly my moods can change. I hold it inside until I’m alone and can let the façade slip.
One of my diagnoses is Bipolar Disorder. I could probably name at least 100 people who have seen me rage publicly. The ability to put up a facade isn’t something I have during an episode. Certainly, I will do my best to keep myself quiet during an episode, and certainly I am able to control to a certain point, but sometimes, no. There is zero control.
“Acting normal”, not letting people see my emotional instability, not letting people see things that would make them question whether I have it together, is vitally important.
It’s important to me, too. It’s just not always possible for me.
I learned growing up and from the abusive relationships that I’ve been in, that anything “abnormal” mentally and emotionally is something to be ashamed of and can be used against me to humiliate me and alienate me from the people I need in my life. How can someone love you if you’re broken? So I hide it.
I didn’t ever know that kind of pressure. I have two brothers in nursing homes due to brain injuries. One was injured in 1979 and the other in 1992. I have several family members with Bipolar Disorder. My family has always known about mental issues and that it is nothing to be ashamed of. It was in that environment that I learned about dignity and that we love those most who are broken.
Until it’s too much to hold inside. Until I’ve finally, finally reached a point where I need to reach out for help. When I’m literally dizzy and shaking from the anxiety, depression, rage, and pain I’m feeling and can’t keep going on my own anymore. When I finally cede that I need to try, I hear… But you seem so normal. You’ll be fine.
That part I understand deeply. Trying to maintain control, I never really know what I look like to other people. I have been suicidal before and people told me I seemed fine. I know what that feeling is like. Then there are those who would call the police and tell them I’m suicidal when I am not. That’s extremely annoying to both me and the police.
Invalidation. Of course I seem normal, because that’s all I’ve let you see! You don’t see what’s happening inside because I’m positive you won’t be able to deal with it and won’t like me anymore. Not to mention I feel guilty bringing my problems to you even this one time, let alone all the times when things feel like they’re too much for me to handle, so I bury them so you won’t be burdened with how much I’m hurting. Of course you don’t see all that is inside of me.
That must be torture.
Read the whole article. And remember, don’t try to diagnose people unless you are a doctor trained to diagnose mental disorder and the patient has physically come into your office and talked to you. You’re only making things worse otherwise.
Stuart posted this, and Brandon Vogt called it the “Best. Parish. Bulletin. Ever.”
I’m pretty sure I’m going to sound like the Wicked Witch of the West to some people when I say this but that looks an awful lot like consoling people in their sins and ignorance to me. If people are coming to Mass because it’s about “them” instead of about Jesus, and if they are not ashamed of things like that they “blew all the offering money at the dog track,” and if they have to be told that they should not be ashamed of something like that or else they won’t come to Mass, then they are there for the wrong reasons.
People should be ashamed of their sins. And they should know that the Mass is not about them. It’s about God and making His will our own.
If that makes me the Wicked Witch, in some people’s eyes, so be it. I can tell you that I am a convert to Catholicism, and I converted not because people were consoling me in my sins but rather because I knew I should be ashamed of them and I wanted to seek God and His will for me. The first time I attended Mass, there was no one greeting me at the door “welcoming” me AND I WAS GRATEFUL FOR THAT because it wasn’t about me. It was about God. That facilitated my conversion.
This is going into the “Identity” category because making the Eucharist the focus of the Mass, and consoling Christ in His Agony instead of consoling disorder and sin and ignorance, is an identity issue.
I notice that Boing Boing is calling Chick-Fil-A “homophobic” today while exhibiting what appears to be an irrational fear of Christian teenage girls by linking to this. So, what exactly does “homophobic” mean? And does it describe you?
homophobia — unreasoning fear of or antipathy toward homosexuals and homosexuality.
Antipathy is “a natural, basic, or habitual repugnance; aversion.”
So, if you have a natural aversion to homosexuality, then you fit under the definition of “homophobic.” I’d say that covers just about everyone who is not homosexual. If you are not averse to committing a homosexual act, then you’re not “homophobic,” technically speaking. Otherwise, you’re “homophobic.”
There is something very important that everyone needs to understand on this issue. Aversion to homosexuality is important for one to become a saint and it is the duty of every Catholic to become a saint. This is why the “gay rights” movement — as expressed in their dogged unwillingness to keep their sexual preferences private — and the Catholic Church will ever be at odds. One must be “homophobic” (as defined in the dictionary) to be a saint.
So, to my fellow Catholics, I say this. When they say you are “homophobic” then rejoice and be glad that you are that much more on the path to sainthood.
Texas Alliance For Ethical Government releases website and video at Runaway Grand Jury.Org exposing cronyism in dismissal of Justice Medina’s grand jury indictment on arson related charges
Texas Supreme Court Justice Place 4 race heats up as grand jurors reveal the truth and seek to defend their integrity
North Korea, a communist country, has up to 70,000 Christians locked away in concentration camps. They are in those camps simply because they are Christian. Christianity has always been the greatest threat to socialist tyranny. Despite the prevalence of Christianity in America, we Christians are losing ground against this tyranny. Many of today’s political activists and politicians are decidedly as Marxist as Kim Jong Un is. What they either don’t know or won’t tell you is that the ultimate cost of their socialist vision is misery heaped on the backs of most of humanity who are living under such governments. The most oppressed of these are most often Christians, as is the case in North Korea, because Judeo-Christian government looks like what the American founders set up for our country. That is, it’s about freedom. The ignorant, the brainwashed, and yes some truly evil people, will spread all sorts of lies about Christians in order to “justify” marginalizing them. This marginalization, taken to its final extreme, is seen in North Korea today. I’ve decided to put together a list of the Top Five Lies Told About Christianity in Political Discourse here in America. I solicited responses on my Facebook page and this is what my friends and I came up with.
Josh May
1. From Josh May: Lie – “We’re anti-science and refuse to believe in things like evolution, the big bang, the solar-centric model of the solar system, etc.”
They have some traction with this because Christians are not universally science-loving people…just as atheists are not universally science-loving people. I’m not a big science buff, but I understand the scientific method. It was invented by the Catholic Church. You will find some key roots of science in Christianity. Christians believe that all of nature is subject to God. God can do whatever He likes with nature. He is supernatural. Catholics and protestants differ in their views on some scientific questions. Some protestants agree with the Catholic Church on evolution. Others do not. The Catholic view of evolution is that there can be development within a species, but that no species can turn into another species. The Galileo controversy damaged the reputation of the Catholic Church but for the wrong reason. As for the origin of the universe, Catholics and all Christians believe that God created the universe out of nothing. Belief in this does not in any way contradict science despite the claims of those who would like to believe otherwise. Certainly, many scientists disagree with Christians, but also certainly, many scientists will tell you that nothing in known science refutes the claim of Christians on creation.
Again, it is unfortunately true that there are some ignorant people in the world who are also Christians, just as there are ignorant atheists. Salvation is for all people, ignorant or otherwise. If a few Christians make claims about science that are over the top, it does not mean that “Christianity is anti-science” any more than the existence of some ignorant atheists means that atheism is anti-science. A real scientist will investigate to see what Christianity actually teaches about these things, pose a hypothesis about it and then offer evidence. It is quite unscientific, not to mention false and hypocritical, to make blanket claims that “Christianity is anti-science” just because you hate Christianity.
2. From Jennifer Mauney: Lie – “That we are anti-women – both because of the abortion issue and women staying at home with their kids.”
And from Leticia Velasquez: Lie – “We are waging a war on women by denying them the right to abort their babies and contracept thus achieving equality with men.”
Leticia Velasquez with her daughter who was born with Down Syndrome.
Ah yes. Well, if you believe that women’s bodies are inherently flawed because they have uteruses and that this is because of a “mistake” or “fluke” of evolution that has to be “fixed” using “science,” or some such thing, you might get the idea that Christian views on the family are denying women their “equality” with men. Who knows where you get the idea that women have to be like men in order to be “equal” to them? I’ve never been able to figure that one out. The fact is that there are countless women who embrace Christian teaching that all people are equal in dignity, no matter their gender, because our dignity comes from the fact that we are created by a loving God and in His image. Christians believe that men and women have different roles even though they are equal in dignity. Father Z, for example, would make an absolutely HORRIBLE nun, but as a priest, he is quite awesome. In like manner, I cannot be a father to my children…because I’m not a man. These roles are generally based on the fact that we were created by God to have different bodies — not to mention different gifts and strengths and weaknesses — which are suitable for different things. To deny those things about ourselves is to deny the purpose for which God made us. You might say, in fact, that our views are more science-based than yours are because we see our bodies and how they are made and we utilize them in accordance with that. (See #1 claim above.)
David Adams, a fellow Kentuckian.
3. From David Adams: Lie – “Jesus was a socialist so Christians who aren’t socialists aren’t following Christ.”
How many times do we hear this one every day? I lose count. Jesus was not a socialist any more than he was a conservative. Jesus was/is God. God trumps all that stuff because, you know, He’s God.
When somebody claims something about the person of Jesus,” Bishop Moronta added, “the attitude of believers in Christ must be that which is inspired by the Gospel: a profession of faith, made without hesitation and without fear, not to condemn another, but to invite him to understand what the true meaning of the existence of the person and work of Jesus the Lord is.”
“Therefore, neither a revolutionary, nor a Socialist, nor a hippie, nor a philosopher, nor a Gnostic deity, nor an alien, nor a ghost, nor a myth: Jesus is Lord, the Son of the living God, the Savior, the Word incarnate who has made the mystery and plan of God known to us, the Beginning and the End, the faithful witness, the same today, yesterday and forever,” Bishop Moronta emphasized.
Because Jesus is God. You know? I would posit that the more a socialist grows in his love for Jesus, the less socialist and the more Christian he will be.
Carol’s profile picture.
4. From Carol Wiggins Malone: Lie – “That we are pathetic because we cling to our guns and our religion? I forget the whole quote but you know what I mean.”
Yes, you’re thinking of a quote that is from Barack Obama himself, and it goes just like this:
You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.
And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
The claim is that people who cling to religion are doing so out of bitterness against the world that we feel has let us down. This is precisely the opposite of what Christianity is. In order to feel that the world has let you down, you have to start with an expectation that the world has something to offer you. Christianity is about understanding that the world is an inherently fallen place that is in need of redemption, and so our hope is not in the world. Our hope is in God. Bitterness also indicates animosity toward the things of the world. This, too, is a false claim about Christianity. We believe in the redemption of the world and we seek to tell people about that redemption so that they, too, can have hope in God. Barack Obama’s claim is completely the opposite of who we really are as Christians. If the claim is that we are violent (guns) or that we are racist, then the claim is even more ignorant. You may not understand the right to self defense or how enjoyable it is to shoot targets and wild game, but this is no reason to claim our intentions are bad. And when people say that they are for enforcing immigration laws, it is not at all reason to claim their intentions are racist. If you ask me, the president was advancing a false conspiracy theory about Christians for political gain. That’s not very Christian of him, is it?
Jason Allred
5. From Jason Allred: Lie – “Separation of Church and State is a tenet of the Constitution.”
That one makes me groan every time. I’m not sure why this myth is so widespread but we hear it ad nauseum. For instance, when I mention that the government should not be forcing the Catholic Church to pay for contraception through her insitutions, I hear, “What about separation of church and state?” The reality is that the HHS mandate violates what “separation of church and state” actually is about, and further, the phrase “separation of church and state” is nowhere in the Constitution. The term actually comes from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists who were concerned that a state religion might be established. Historian David Barton lays out the background for the exchange of letters between the Danbury Baptists and Thomas Jefferson. (Click here for that.) It would not be Constitutional for the government to establish Catholicism as the state religion, thereby forcing Mormons, Baptists and Methodists (and everyone else) to reject their faith (or lack of it) and worship in the Catholic Church. That “wall” preventing such a thing is the only “wall” Jefferson was referring to. To suggest that “separation of church and state” means that Christians may not lobby for government to have laws reflecting Christian values is preposterous. America is a republic, not a democracy, but even a “democrat” should know better than to claim that a Christian view should not be considered in law just because it is Christian in nature. Not only is the idea that Christianity cannot be reflected in our laws a notion that is opposed to the Constitution, it is also opposed to the “democratic values” that Democrats claim to hold dear. Shockingly, Democrats like Maxine Waters and others routinely advocate for government to allow the imposition of Sharia Law, the Islamic legal system that is decidedly in direct contradiction to the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, while out of the other side of their mouths they will claim that Christianity should remain only within the walls of the churches. It’s hypocrisy.
By and large, claims against Christianity launched by the Left in America seem to be based on the very bitterness and antipathy that the president claimed is held by people of faith. This bitterness and antipathy comes from ignorance about what Christianity is.
I have been involved in online debates for many years. When I first came online, Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was president. I spent my time online in apologetics forums, debating with non-Catholics about whose church is the true Church. I remember how intense these online debates were, but they were never hostile. No one ever got ugly. No one ever threatened anyone. No one ever exhibited hatred of individuals who simply disagreed with each other. Despite our differences of opinion, which were deep and wide many times, we still loved each other and treated each other with respect. Never would any of us have imagined that we would all be on the same team in such a short amount of time, facing the greatest threat to religious freedom America has ever known. It used to bother me when someone said he was a Methodist, or a Mormon, or a Baptist, but the Left in America has united so strongly against Christianity in all its “flavors” that we have become one in our stand against them. I am grateful to know that Christians share this love for each other in the face of this great trial, but I do so long for the days, even under a Democratic president who I disliked, when we were free to boldly debate our ideas with each other without any fear whatsoever that we might lose our freedom.
America has not merely been transformed. America is dead everywhere but in the hearts of people of faith. It is time for resurrection.
After that, I removed “Patrick” from my blogroll and pretty much forgot about him, and he apparently did shut down his blog, only to resurface later – which I would learn is a serial thing with him wherein he has a blog, causes a lot of trouble, wonders why nobody likes him, blames everybody for what he did, closes the blog, opens a new one, attacks people, blames everybody for what he did, wonders why nobody reads or links to him, closes the blog and then opens a new one again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. He also resurfaces with different usernames that are typically variations on whatever names he has used before, as you will see.
My, but doesn’t that sound familiar? Except for the part about changing names, that sounds a lot like me. I have Bipolar Disorder. I have closed websites and blogs multiple times and started new ones. I’ll bet most of you don’t know I used to do this. Yea, I should probably update that.
What’s going on is that people in the conservative blogosphere appear very willing to run to the aid of other bloggers when they are in need of assistance. Those of us who are on fire in our brains could use some help, too, but you can’t give us the kind of help we need. It can really hurt to see everyone running to everyone else’s aid when you desperately need help and no one can/will help you. I’m not the kind to blow up like this blogger apparently has, but I have blown up at people. I can’t apologize for it, either, because it would be scrupulosity. I’m sorry for the pain, but it’s really not my fault. If I blame myself for something I have no control over, my illness will only intensify.
Then, last week, “Patrick” repeatedly attacked my friend, Robert Stacy McCain, and the attacks were picked up by other bloggers and that caused more attacks against Stacy from elsewhere, turning into a whole big mess, but Stacy was still very kind towards “Patrick” and generously linked to him more than a few times which resulted in “Patrick” getting what was probably the best traffic he’s ever had, and yet, he continued to attack Stacy.
See? This is what I mean when I say that Stacy is a Christian. As for this person continuing to attack Stacy, well…if he has Bipolar Disorder it means he’s on a spiral and it’s very likely not his fault. The best thing that anyone can do is to do what Stacy did and either be kind to him or ignore him. But in some cases of those who interact with him regularly (maybe only a few cases) ignoring him is going to hurt him. I know because it hurts me when people do that. It’s not your fault unless you are someone who is a friend of his who he relies on regularly for some kind of support. If someone like that suddenly starts treating him like dirt, or suddenly cuts him off, that would be very unkind. Whatever you do, please don’t be mean to him.
If he has done something illegal, like issuing a death threat, you should report him so that he can get the help he needs.
I want to apologize right now if I have this gentleman pegged wrong. I am just trying to be helpful. I acknowledge that I could be completely wrong about all of this, but I have seen it before in myself, and I recognize it as being similar to things I have done and I know that I’ve had no control over it whatsoever. When it was not handled correctly by others close to me, I ended up suicidal in the crisis unit. Please proceed with caution. And please pray about all of this, and especially for him. Thanks.
The Obama Administration’s regulations on private businesses have reached the point of insanity. Look at this chart at National Review Online.
Onerous regulations erupt from Washington like flaming rocks from a volcano. The National Labor Relations Board regularly coughs up such projectiles. As attorney William J. Kilbert explained in the July 12 Wall Street Journal, the NLRB last September authorized “micro” bargaining units among larger workforces within union shops. An NLRB judge, for instance, recently certified a mini-union that represents the women’s shoes departments on the third and fifth floors of Bergdorf Goodman’s New York City store. Imagine such a retail manager negotiating wages and benefits, not with his entire staff, but with various floors and even departments under his roof.
A mini-union? Representing the women’s shoes departments? On two floors of a store? It’s no wonder the economy is in the shape it’s in.
North Korea, a communist country, has 
