what is sanism against cluster B disorders and what you can do to help fight the stigma: a thread

1: what is a cluster B disorder?
You’ve heard the term narcissists and sociopath before, but is your perception correct?

A cluster b disorder is one of four disorders comprising the B section of the ten personality disorders.

Cluster B is marked by egocentric, dramatic and overly emotional or unpredictable thinking or behavior. They include antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder.

Before you jump to any conclusions, let’s remember that these disorders almost always result from trauma, specifically some form of abuse. The people with them cannot control this.

2: why is it important to learn about them?

It’s important to learn about these disorders because there’s actually millions of people with them. Hell, you may even know someone with one! (But don’t armchair diagnose, well get into that in a moment)

2a: Think abt the questions Durand et al. asked participants in their study about their attitudes and beliefs about “psychopaths”.

These included a wide range of items relevant to stigmatising attitudes, such as people’s with aspd propensity for violence and crime, morality, causes of aspd and rehabilitation potential.

Additionally, participants read a short fictional description of someone diagnosed with aspd named Harry, and then answered a series of questions about their view of him. These questions related to four factors:

how fearful and dangerous they thought Harry was; their willingness to help him if he was in need; their willingness to force Harry to accept treatment to cure his aspd, even against his will; and negative emotions, i.e., how much they disliked Harry because of his diagnosis.

In the results of the study, meanness and disinhibition, but not boldness, were negatively correlated with participants’ belief that ppl w/ aspd are prone to criminality, and positively correlated with their belief that aspd had noncriminal aspects.

Additionally, boldness and meanness were negatively correlated with participants’ belief that folks with ASPD are prone to violence.

TL/DR: People with aspd, and other neurological conditions in cluster B are over stigmatized. This is a terrible problem in today’s society

3: what does stigma look like?

The stigma against these disorders is derive, considering phrases like “narcissist” “sociopath” and “attention seeking” are common insults, but it’s important to remember the people with these conditions ARE suffering

As a 2017 article put it “This discrimination is especially harmful given that these disorders by definition cause distress to the people experiencing them. Not only that, Cluster B disorders often — but not always — result from trauma.

It is true people with these disorders can cause trouble for others — as can everyone — and this should not be sugarcoated or excused. But this also drives home the importance of humanizing people with Cluster B PDs. Stigmatizing them can prevent people from seeking treatment

4: examples of micro aggressions

“The terms sociopath and psychopath”
If you didn’t know, these are not medical terms, I have a whole thread on why you shouldn’t use these terms but to sum it up!

They came from horror movies trying to sell the mental illness trope and we’re removed from the DSM due to the insane amount of stigma people with them face.

“The term narcissist as an insult”

Narcissists like myself are just trying to live, man. There’s so reason you cannot use “self absorbed” or “overly dramatic” instead of further stigmatizing a disorder.

I’ve literally seen people with NPD he denied disability benefits because of the nature of their disorder.

Besides those two big points I have an entire card you read on micro aggressions!! Here you go :} https://sanism101.carrd.co/ 

5: what you can do to help

- Boycott movies, magazines, articles and blogs that label narcissists, borderlines, histrionics and “sociopaths” as bad people that can harm you

- Be understanding of your friends and family with cluster B disorders, do not try to modify their behavior on your own, let a trained professional talk to them
- Encourage therapy: be there for them

- Stray away from using ableist language such as “what’s wrong with you?” “Why are you so xyz”
- Retweet threads made by people with cluster b disorders

Sorry this is so long I just wanted to indulge myself because I’m super hyperfixated on psychology, autism tingz what can u do