Are bipolar women the natural target of the abusive male?
An aspect of mental health which is often neglected is the exploitation we can expect from bullies in society. Resources focus on our intrinsic experiences and often those of our friends and family; thankfully discrimination is becoming more widely addressed; but nobody ever warned me that the lesser well-meaning people in society would see a diagnosis of bipolar disorder as a big flag marked, "Abuse me."
A mental illness is like a "buy one get one free" for a bully, because in general we are vulnerable lot who can be easier to manipulate than others, but also, if we ever try to stand up to them they can use our diagnoses to try and discredit our voices.
I've seen this happen to people with mental health problems professionally, in housing situations and most prominently in sexual relationships. Psychologically abusive men seems to flock towards mentally ill women because "No dear, you're just a bit manic" is such a convenient deflection.
Perhaps when we are taught how to spot the early warning signs of mania and depression, we should also be taught how to recognise a bully and successfully remove one from our lives before they get too strong a hold.
The symptoms of bipolar disorder - the highs, the lows, the self-criticism, the guilt - are tough enough to live with without always having to be on our guard for people who want to take advantage of us, yet we do have to be extra vigilant.
On the plus side, those of us being treated for mental health problems tend to have well-developed support networks and have learnt effective coping strategies, which means that if we do become victims of bullying, we are in a relatively strong position to defend ourselves, compared with victims who have never previously needed psychological intervention.
4 comments:
Your last paragraph is contentious. We are never in strong position to do anything.
The context is strong compared with victims who don't have immediate access to psychiatric support.
You have to admit, already having a CPN at hand is a valuable asset that women without long term psychiatric problems, might not have immediate access to.
I couldn't agree more about being vulnerable to bullies, I have certainly been in abusive relationships where the fact that I was bi-polar seemed to be a factor in the abuse. But I would like to say that the two relationships where this was an issue were both with women and this has not been an issue with my heteroseual relationships... I'm not saying that men don't do it, they clearly do, but just that women can be just as sadistic.
True, not all abusers are male and not all victims are female.
Psychological abuse can happen in all types of relationship, gay or straight and the victims can be of either gender.
Abuse against men is often underplayed. In fact I imagine bipolar men must be at huge risk of mental abuse because in general, female abusers will not have the physical advantage and need other ways to assert their control.
All bipolar people are vulnerable to abuse compared with their healthy equivalents. Let's just hope we can put all that CBT to good use to protect ourselves.
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