Sociopath Community

I've felt this way for a long time, actually.

Moreover, I think labeling a personality as "disordered" is problematic in itself. I'd advocate for the disuse of all those labels, because I think they do more damage than good. We ought to treat the life-disrupting symptoms, rather than condemn the person. Lots of people are poorly-adjusted, rarely solely through their own choosing, and these symptoms are overwhelmingly manageable when given appropriate attention. 

This is why my abnormal psych professor stressed the word "Context" so often, and reinforced it a lot with case study questions. He seemed somewhat tired and frustrated while talking about malpractice potential, and also discussed how different parts of the world have both their own labeled disorders (such as Paris Syndrome from Japanese People) and the absence of some of ours (such as treating Schizophrenia as Shamanism). He also stressed the "If it's not causing problems in their lives or the lives around them, then is it really a disorder?" question a lot. A lot of WebMD syndrome tends to usually come not from displays of Munchhausens, but from stretching the criteria of disorders to their utmost limits (or cherry picking those that they can stretch) until they assume they must fit the bill while weighing the listed traits equally instead of by priority of deviancy and severity. 

I agree that "Disorder" is a stigmatizing term (enough to have people protest homosexuality being in the DSM, leading to it's removal in 1973), but I still believe that they're quite real when displayed past a certain threshold. The biggest problem right now is how quickly they're willing to slap certain go-to labels onto people, like childhood ADD and Depression, and following that how quickly they'll throw pills at it instead of trying everything else they can first. 

I agree with most of what's been said but my understanding of an actual PD, and not the shit terms that get tossed around here, is that it has to be causing significant problems in one's life before it is even considered a possible PD.

I mean most people will demonstrate negative characteristics evident in one PD or another at certain times, esp. when they are under duress, but the difference is whether it's behaviour that's consistent and present the majority of the time. And, how destructive it is to the person doing said behaviour or others. 

MissCommunication stated: source post

I agree with most of what's been said but my understanding of an actual PD, and not the shit terms that get tossed around here, is that it has to be causing significant problems in one's life before it is even considered a possible PD.

I mean most people will demonstrate negative characteristics evident in one PD or another at certain times, esp. when they are under duress, but the difference is whether it's behaviour that's consistent and present the majority of the time. And, how destructive it is to the person doing said behaviour or others. 

Very true and diagnostically relevant. TC's point about context also.

I'm not a psychiatrist, but if I saw a person who (for example) presented with a pattern of short, intense relationships, self-destructive sort of behaviours and such, I don't think I'd be doing them a favour by declaring that they're - who they intrinsically are as a person - disordered. This neglects their positive and functional qualities. They might be needy and melodramatic, but perhaps they're also kind and assertive. By declaring the personality disordered, it almost negates the good aspects of a person. Too often do we seek to categorise people, and the result can be excessively reductionist.