from a leftist perspective - which requires us to consider these types of issues within their proper social context - cluster b disorders can be understood as a hyper-adaptation to capitalist alienation - which would then mean that their behavior is a rational response to extremely effed up conditions.
people do not “behave” in a vacuum. when we think “crazy,” we think of wildly irrational, unpredictable behaviors that have no connection to the reality that “sane” people inhabit. but all behavior has context. mental illnesses, including cluster b disorders, are rational responses to the conditions of this anti-human society we are all immersed in, the reality we are all living in. some of us adapt to these conditions better than others, and some of us over adapt - as is the case with cluster b disorders. truth is that the “problematic” behaviors associated with cluster b disorders are actually pretty heavily rewarded in our society under circumstances that are deemed acceptable.
as leftists, we’re supposed to be all about “community” - building community, connection, interdependence, collective well-being. but the truth is that most of us haven’t spent much time thinking on this much deeper than meetings, actions, political work - all guided by our own internalized alienation under neoliberal competitive individualism - that anti-human system that starts hammering away at our humanness from the day we are born. we learn to tolerate it by dehumanizing ourselves and one another - we blunt our own humanity so we can keep plugging along, fulfilling the obligations imposed on us by this anti-human system.
and so we take on the role of oppressor, using the oppressors’ tactics, when someone is seen as disruptive of our shallow efforts to perform “community.” understand that banishment is violence. to deprive a human being of social connection and belonging is to inflict psychic pain and lifelong torment - that’s trauma. and trauma is where cluster b and other mental health diagnoses got their start.
as leftists, we need to broaden our ideas around what constitutes a “leftist space.” if we are serious about transforming society, we need to take ourselves seriously by incorporating counter-alienation practice into our day to day lives.
if we want to raise collective consciousness, we need to recognize the ways our own character has been shaped by social forces, and we need to learn how to recognize the ways those same social forces have shaped others, most especially those who are most severely impacted.
if we hope to decommodify social relations, we must make a conscious and deliberate effort to keep our spaces free from transactional dynamics that replicate market relations
if we are serious about building solidarity, we need to take ourselves seriously by developing community support structures that counter the isolating tendencies that neoliberal society has so deeply instilled in us.
to further isolate the people who have been hit the hardest by capitalist alienation is basically what we have been trained to do by the system. the entire point is to resist.
i am in no way minimizing or dismissing the harm that some people with cluster b disorders can be capable of - i am in the thick of it right now, my life has been a nightmare for the past year and a half and it’s not even close to over. i am hurt, i am afraid, and most of all, i am angry - because it didn’t have to get this bad. none of this shit had to happen and the fact that it’s STILL GOING—-
when we say that people need to be held responsible for the harm they cause, what are we even talking about? punishment? retribution? vengeance? banishment? what is it that you think propels the destructive behaviors we’ve come to associate with BPD? it’s carceral logic. the logic passed down to us by the hegemonic neoliberal order, that tells us to harm one another under the guise of “safety” - is pathologized when it’s turned onto us by those we have left behind.
what i’m saying is that we are them, they are us. and we need to start taking responsibility for the harm done to them as well as the harm we allow them to do to us. they do not have the power that the ruling class has. they could not cause such devastating harm if we were at all serious about building and practicing solidarity.
networks of genuine solidarity, community care, and interdependence mitigate that harm. but for as much as we like to talk about it, few if us have the faintest clue as to what that actually looks like, or how to turn it into action when it matters most.
