[here today]

There was a post recently in the ASPD subforum about posts by people not diagnosed with PD’s or even knowing very much about them. I think it’s a concern a lot of us who post here regularly and in the subforums might share.

I was diagnosed with PDNOS, not ASPD, so I’m not posting there anymore. I got into a “tangle” recently that was not helpful for me personally (except for what I learned about myself in the process) in the NPD subforum with somebody also not diagnosed with NPD.

It seems to me that authentically participating in a community is something that many people with PD’s may not understand very well – I certainly don’t – and it’s also something that I think is really important to learn.

For instance, the reason I got into the “tangle” in the NPD forum was that I was codependently trying to take care of what I thought was a problem there. I thought that “somebody” should do it, but to notify an administrator would be like “telling on” the person and that is kind of against my value system. Plus, was it really my business to do that since I don’t have NPD (at least according to my T and myself)? I eventually did contact the administrators and appreciate their responding to me.

It shouldn’t be a surprise if people with ASPD strongly dislike the notion of reporting people, too. But maybe that's up to the members of the subforum communities? Or would they rather have people to "fight" with than nobody?

[Fuzzybear]

Thanks for sharing... I have thoughts on this but am not in a good place right now. PM if you like.

[Rapunzel]

Those are interesting observations/questions. I'm sporadic currently as to participation, but I used to be very active here, in fact, I used to be the moderator of the personality place forum (back before there were subgroups). I am now a therapist and personality disorders are one of my main interests. I thought that I had two or three or four personality disorders until recently, and now I am not sure as my most current diagnosis is Asperger's, and a lot of what looked like personality disorder symptoms probably were my autistic traits.

Anyway, those who understand personality disorders are probably aware that these are disorders that have a huge effect on how you interact with other people, so it makes sense that tangles would happen in a forum like this. I also understand how it can feel wrong for people to come into particular forums and seem to have no understanding of the problems in question and make comments that are just way off.

I don't see it being feasible to restrict people from posting or reading in a forum if they don't have that particular diagnosis. People are here for so many different reasons. Some are here to learn about a disorder that someone in their life has or that they think that they might have. As a community, what do you think would help people to cope with others who seem to lack understanding, help them learn more, and teach all of us to improve our interactions with others in the community? If participating in a community is not something that comes naturally to people who struggle with interaction with others, how can this community best help with developing those skills? My opinion, for what it's worth, is that we would do well to try to understand ourselves and others as much as we can, but I don't think that we need to protect people from things they are uncomfortable with, like ASPD and telling the admins if there is a problem. Overprotecting and enabling perpetuate issues rather than helping people to work through them. You only get better when you face the discomfort.

[here today]

Originally Posted by Rapunzel

. . .As a community, what do you think would help people to cope with others who seem to lack understanding, help them learn more, and teach all of us to improve our interactions with others in the community? If participating in a community is not something that comes naturally to people who struggle with interaction with others, how can this community best help with developing those skills? . . .

These are questions that I struggle with and don't have answers for. I would be glad to help participate in something, if that would help, but it would probably have to be spearheaded by professionals. In the USA, there aren't any grassroots organizations that I can find of people with PD's, or people who have recovered from them, to ask and answer those question on our own. It seems so clear and so frustrating to me and I feel so helpless to do anything about it.

[ocdwifeofsociopath]

I believe in the aspd forum their first attempt is to answer the question because that's what this place is here for. After that, it's rare that it's necessary in that forum to report somebody, and i'm sure they figure the moderators do their job well and will take care of it if somebody is out of line. The complaints they (and I) had, were not complaints probably valid enough to take to a moderator. And to a certain degree, there is some interesting aspects to the posts that are annoying to them. Until they get bored of being annoyed anyway. They are also i think aware that it's not up to them who gets to post where.