Same Old Stigma

Posted on June 11, 2006 in Stigma

I had an exchange with a prominent Coulter-hating narcissist of the Left who won’t be named only because it will only give her site more hits. The issue was, as usual, the use of mental illness or substance abuse as a tool for hitting deservedly unpopular reptiles of the Right, in this case Ann Coulter.

In my first email, I made the usual appeal to not labeling people. Her suggestion that Ann was mentally ill — albeit a substance abuser — harmed those who were struggling with illness. I suggested to her that a more proper designation was “narcissistic”. Finally I invited her to meet with any group of bipolars anytime.

The standard reconciliation shit, you know.

Well, the reply came back faster than I expected. She insisted that she had not labeled Ann Coulter as a bipolar. So I had no case. Um, what I mentioned was that I suffered from bipolar disorder and that it was hurtful to me and others to be compared to Ann Coulter.

In a second email, which went unread, I said:

You implied that she was crazy and deserved to be locked up. I’ve been locked up and so have others that I know. Many of these are substance abusers. Ann more resembles an arrogant ward nurse than she does a patient.

It doesn’t help the cause of the Left to dump on those who suffer from various forms of mental illness, including substance abuse just because they happen to be rich, conservative, and arrogant. There are plenty of other grounds to jump on Ann Coulter, some of which you covered just fine.

Suffice to say that it made me jump to read the first paragraph. I wish liberals would shove insinuations of insanity out of their attack box.

The message went to her site, ran through her killfile, and then came back affixed to a message implying, well, that I was too mentally unstable to be worth a reply.

You know, I love the positions of the Left, but what we need are a new set of commentators and comedians. I am tired of having my side represented by assholes.

(Jon Stewart is OK. Harper’s Magazine is cool.)

Now I feel like a dumbass. Why did I write to this “columnist” in the first place? If she’s nasty on her “blog”, she’s bound to be nasty when you write to her. That’s how prima donnas are!