To be Bipolar and Blog

Posted on October 21, 2005 in Blogging Mania OCD

Reddhead went way too far today with her article that attributes OCD disorder to Scooter Libby. That she thought herself a therapist who could, without meeting the man, make a diagnosis is all too common. What is worse is her mean-spirited characterization of the sufferers of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder:

Today, in the LA Times, we learn that Scooter Libby was obsessed with getting even with Joe Wilson. And when I say obsessed, I truly mean it. The kind of obsessed that makes you buy a whole lotta binders and fill them with tabbed sections, highlighted passages, and meticulous formatting.

Look, I’m clearly sympathetic to the plight of the anal retentive. I try to be a detail-oriented kind of gal in dealing with large amounts of information and documents, and I can appreciate someone wanting to have everythihg formatted in an easy to read style.

She goes on to say:

Sure, creating this public perception of Libby as obsessed, nutball, loyal staffer might be useful to some others under scrutiny, but is this the strategy that the WH has come up with to distance the Preznit from all of this? “The people who work for me are unstable. It’s not my fault.”

In response, I wrote:

Reddhead: This time you are way over the top.

I suffer from OCD as well as bipolar disorder. I object to your use of the term “anal retentive” to describe the condition.

It is, apparently all too easy for you to throw around psychiatric terms for which you have no understanding. It is also clear that you have no sympathy or compassion for the sufferers of this disorder.

As PointedHead says the OCD tack just distracts from the main point of the investigation. The mental illness explanation is also inaccurate. I have OCD and I have a long history of support for progressive causes.

I don’t know if Scooter Libbey has this disorder (it sounds like it ~could~ be either bipolar mania or a personality disorder) and neither do you. I ask you to refrain from stigmatizing those who suffer from mental illness: you are supposed to be in league with the voices of compassion, so act like it.

For those who want to know more about organic brain dysfunctions and personality disorders, visit:

http://www.mentalhealth.com

Reddhead, I hope you will study those pages and stop your attacking references to mental illness once and for all.

This is what it means to be bipolar and a blogger: you are forever seeing other bloggers using mental illness as a means of defaming those they don’t like. More people will hop on a blogger who insults another ethnic group than will stand up for those of us who suffer from organic brain dysfunctions. The black blood of heartlessness boils from the chests of members of the Left as well as the Right. And we have to take the “jokes” almost every day.

I struggle every day with my diseases. No one takes me to task for having diabetes or a congenital heart condition or gout. Even though my bipolar disorder and OCD are as organic as any of these and as undeserving of censure, I and other sufferers are devalued whenever a pundit flaps her or his mouth on the subject.

I have been shunned for being open about my illness. I have been told that these cycles of illness that I experience aren’t real. And worst of all, I have had my mind and my humanity devalued by thoughtless remarks and inaccurate conceptions of what my illness is all about.

Others who suffer from my disorders like to point to famous people who suffered from them, too. I agree that these demonstrate that the illness does not incapacitate and entirely negate our ability to contribute to society, but I prefer to stand by myself because I am not Virginia Woolf, Vincent Van Gogh, or Lord Byron. Joel Sax makes his own life out of a cloth that includes this disease. And he knows that there is so much more to that fabric than the illness.

Knowing the pain that other sufferers — who choose to remain in the closet — feel, I cannot stay silent. When any commentator abuses one of us for having the disease, she abuses all of us who have the disease. Whether the victim is Democrat or Republican, American or Iraqi, Christian, Jew, or Muslim, Fundamentalist or Atheist, there is no standing by. Those who know the disease from the inside must speak up and stop the stigma because we have a right to be part of America and human life, too.

UPDATE: Reddhead responded to my comment. You will have to go to the main page of Firedoglake to catch the comment and my response. Her defense is that she really didn’t mean to attack OCDs, that she was only trying to point out how the Bush Administration is using mental illness as a way of exonerating itself from the actions of certain staffers. While I believe that the second selection cited above does appear to be written in that spirit, I must continue to state that the use of the phrase “anal retentive” offends me. It is not a medical term synonymous with OCD but a perjorative, a vulgarism. Even if she meant it as self-stigmatizing, that does not help us who struggle with the disease because it suggests an offensiveness that stinks of the bowels. And it legitimates personal attacks on the cognitive abilities and humanity of OCD sufferers.

The smartest thing for Reddhead to do at this time is apologize and move on. It may have been said carelessly and with no malice, but she needs to be aware of the example she set for others.

UPDATE: Reddhead has satisfied me with her retraction of her use of the phrase “anal retentive”. I accepted her explanation and urged her to avoid even self-stigmatization.