#i dont know how to display the symptoms in a way that isnt abusive so i just dont until i explode and brcome abusive jsnt thst great

[lord-shitbox]

pretty fucking normal that I think displaying any mental health symptoms probably makes me abusive

[oleanderblume]

Okay more spinel

Because her character is cool and I like her.

So let's get on with this.

I know a shut ton of people heavily relate to spinel because she has an ostensibly relatable backstory, but also because she represents BPD to a rather miraculous extent. And I am in the mood to explain WHY.

So, when a lot and I mean majority neurotypical folks hear of BPD they think "this person is abusive and dangerous" obviously that's not always the case, the ironic contrast I have been seeing is that despite spinel's character typing, people are falling head over heals for her while at the same time; if faced with someone who actually does have BPD they would probably feel threatened by them. More on that later.

Anyways, how does BPD work? Why is spinel a decent example for someone with bpd?

Bpd or borderline personality disorder is a trauma based disorder characterized by extreme paranoia, fear of abandonment, social withdrawal or lashing out, excessive emotional eruption (feeling everything very loudly and all at once, but only short periods of time), general lack of identity and purpose, and spiraling among other things.

Because borderline personality stems from trauma and abuse, usually neglect of some sort, the person who has it has an innate urge to please others, a desire to be seen and heard and cared for heavily contradicted by their unstable fear and paranoia surround the people they most care for, that contradiction is what causes emotional outbursts and spiraling.

So, let's apply this to spinel in a way that's understandable aside from just pointing out the similarities in the disorder and her characterization.

Spinel has a history of prolonged abuse, despite gems living for thousands upon thousands of years, spinel is relatively young in comparison to her primary abuser, pink diamond. (Because spinel was made for pink and thus existed after pink)

Pink diamond is also her primary source of companionship. To put it into time relevance, pink is like a twelve year old, and spinel is like a 6 year old.

Spinel's only goal is to entertain and be a friend to pink, but she relies heavily on pink to be consistent in her approval of what spinel does as entertainment (truthful) and she relies on pinks companionship for the relationship to function as it's supposed to. She gives entertainment and companionship in return for approval and companionship.

The balance became off kilter due to pink wanting other than that companionship, a colony, and lack of proper communication leading to her manipulating spinel into playing a game she could not win.

Pink didnt communicate her disapproval of spinel's behavior, which in turn exasperated her own enjoyment with spinel, leading to that manipulation.

This lack of communication spurs the desire for approval in spinel's character, she wants to be good and a friend, was lead to believe she was, when in reality she wasn't, in her eyes. The realization of this began to dawn on her after pink left, but likely before Steven's message ie:

"Is this how it goes, am I doing it right?"

Spinel spent 6000 years in the garden waiting for pink to come back, under the impression that if she continued to play the game, correctly, that she would eventually return. Hence, her desire to be seen as a good friend who obeys and entertains above all else.

This is why she displays a deep desire to be a good gem be good at her job, and why she feels that she inherently isn't.

After she receives Steven's message, she is forced into the realization that the game didnt matter, pink wasnt ever going to come back, from her perspective, pink didnt care for her or want to be her friend, which causes spinel to feel like she is a bad gem, that she doesnt do her job, that she isnt good enough.

Spinel has received only the information from the broadcast (I am including the book reading in this because it sets up the broadcast scene and white diamond speaks to the screen directly after) she knows very little about the rebellion, or the war, only that pink made new friends, had a son and didnt come back for her withing the numerous perceived opportunities she could have. This aspect is important, as if the broadcast told the whole truth, spinel likely would have understood a bit more of the gravity of the events that had taken place.

After spinel learns of pinks new friends and Steven's existence, this is when her severe neglect and abandonment as well as a loss of identity kick in, she is filled with rage, despair and self loathing.

Spinel has lost her identity, her purpose, because she feels she isnt good enough for what she was made to do, despite being a perfect cut, she is nothing, all she will ever be is nothing, nothing to pink, nothing to anyone, nothing to herself.

After having no companionship and no means of safe emotional outlet, spinel is effectively blindsided by the sudden and impactful amount of pain and hate she is feeling. She has no way of confronting this emotion, and she doesnt know how to confront it so she does the next best thing, vent it out on people who were closest to pink, her best friends.

Essentially spinel cant focus her rage on pink diamond because she is gone, so instead she will focus it on the people who, to her, took pink away from her.

Now, given spinel's self deprecating nature, she likely had no real plan afterward, more than likely, she fully intended to be poofed, rejuvenated or shattered. After all, she is nothing to pink, and she is even less to Steven, she doesnt deserve to exist.

From observation, the speed at which she arrived on earth from after she heard the broadcast, she was likely having a severe mental breakdown and spiral, which can be incredibly hard to get out of when one has low self esteem and no proper means of emotional release.

A spiral is when a person (or in this case a character) becomes self deprecating and an increasingly more volatile rate, they are incredibly hard to get out of because the mental illness doesnt allow positive thought, the person will feel bad for their actions or feel bad about trauma or failures and will continually throw insults at themselves or those around them for trying to convince them differently.

Spinel spirals twice in the movie, the most excellent example is her paranoia of being abandoned leading to irrational thought and self depreciative spiraling and lashing out as a means of emotional protection.

I'm not really going to speak on the middle of the movie because it essentially rehashes that emotional trauma and neglect I mentioned earlier, the only difference is that is is comparable to a person with BPD who has effectively repressed those traumatic memories and is slowly reliving them, which subsequently causes a major relapse.

What I will say however, is that some other common symptoms appear in spinel like they do with folks with BPD. Spinel has an fp. A favorite person basically.

Folks with BPD often pick a companion of theirs and become extremely attached to them, they care incredibly deeply for them, and can also feel incredibly betrayed by them when they dont act in ways that the person is comfortable ie; displaying traits that can, to the person with BPD lead to abandonment.

Folks with BPD also tend to tailor their personalities for their companions in order to receive that approval they desire most.

Spinel displays this fairly effectively when she lashes out at Steven when he tells her to stay with the new crystal gems, she also displays the tailor trait when she mimics amethysts actions during the nobody else duet.

Finally, when spinel reverts back to her dark form, she displays the other symptoms of BPD, hesitance to trust, then blind trust and desire to please, her paranoia over Steven leaving her, and the subsequent spiral leading her to lash out in effort to protect herself from more emotional trauma and eventually dropping out of her spiral and then the final, trying to leave before abandonment can happen.

This is a fairly important one, as a lot of folks with BPD tend to feel that abandonment is an eventuality, and another form of protection from that is purposely distancing oneself and leaving before that abandonment can take place.

Spinel, after her second spiral is still very much traumatized, and still very much self destructive, has low self esteem, despite wanting to be better, so to spare herself the pain of facing people she has actively harmed in her worst moments, and to spare herself from what she believes is an eventual abandonment, she desires to leave and start over.

Do I think this is healthy? Mmm..no. mostly because I know that folks with BPD have an incredibly hard time breaking paranoia, low self esteem and self destructive behavior. I definitely dont think that spinel should have left with the diamonds because they have no idea what she is capable of and what she has been through, or how to deal with her self destructive behavior in a healthy way. They arent even able to completely overcome their own abusive behavior so..no, I dont think it was a good decision to have her go with them. But that doesnt really matter right now lol.

What matters is; spinel is a good example of what it is like to have BPD, she is a good example of the low self esteem and self destructive behaviour people with BPD have. She is a good example because she isn't seen as a completely lost cause by Steven and the others, despite what she herself believes. She has an acurate portrayal of the trauma that develops bpd, the symptoms of BPD in an easily digestible way and she isnt portrayed to have these issues completely resolved by the end of the film.

She very VERY quickly jumps into another relationship that can very easily be destroyed by either the diamonds or herself, and still struggles with low self esteem and the desire to be approved of by Steven, and the diamonds.

She isnt fixed by the end. But she doesnt get treated as a terrible person either.

Most people who talk about BPD who dont have it themselves very often say that they are inherently abusive, and overlook that persons trauma. That doesnt happen for spinel, Steven sympathizes with her trauma, despite largely being sidetracked and not fully indulged in helping her for her sake, rather than helping his own needs.

It's understandable and infuriating at the same time. Because the type of person spinel is, requires a different approach and a far more delicate one at that, something Steven hasn't had the same quite of experience with yet. Which is what largely caused her to spiral the second time. And it wasnt until Steven realized how selfish he had been that he was able to even make a proper and not misleading connection with spinel.

So there you have it, my analysis of spinel, why she portrayed BPD very very well, and how bod is a largely misunderstood and stigmatized disorder.

[groundramon]

Hmm decided to make this rant because I wanna make a joke in my next Digimon pride icons batch but its too meanspirited for me to just make without context so here’s the context:

So @5ugarmatsu is watching Digimon and he’s not done with all the seasons yet so don’t spoil him BUT he did finish Tamers and you know the fuck what: Ryo sucks.  Also I’m mentioning him bc a lot of this initial stuff comes from him, I just verified it and wrote it down in this post.

I never hated Ryo growing up because i was beyond numb to the compulsive heterosexuality in Digimon (ps everyone in Digimon is gay or ace/aro or both and that’s just a fact) and I liked his design and I liked Cyberdramon.  In fact my hyperdaydreaming ass reused his design for a character of my own, albeit with a slightly different personality for....obvious reasons.  Yknow he’s a mary sue so.  Not very interesting even to 10 year old me being self indulgent.

Which, there’s the easy explanation for this: Ryo is a mary sue.  That’s it.  He’s the only one besides the core three that gets to biomerge, everyone adores him, he’s got no flaws, stupid perfect hair, stupid perfect teeth...  Also Rika is clearly a lesbian and they use him to imply that she’s not, and that’s simply not acceptable.  SHE DOESNT LIKE HIM YALL

but the reason I decided to make this into its own full-length post is because there’s also a slightly more sinister undertone to Ryo.  Mandatory trigger warning for emotional and potentially physical abuse here; read on at your own discretion.

So in Ryo’s first scene, we see him wrestling with a disobedient Cyberdramon.  We also see him use a whip-like beam of light from his digivice to control his partner.  Immediately, this raised some red flags for Charlie.  Because in the Digimon universe, it’s established that Digimon are essentially equal to Pokemon.  This isn’t a disobedient dog; this is someone being controlled against their will.  I know we joke a lot about pokemon or digimon being slavery, and thats not the route im going down, but it’s definitely not...good.  Also you still shouldn’t whip or restrain a disobedient dog; the whip under any circumstances, and the restrain based on how much of a threat they are to other people.

Which brings me to my next problem - never in any of his displays has Cyberdramon been showcased as a threat.  He has fought Digimon that were endangering the digidestined (Megadramon, Majiramon), growled at takato once, and that’s...it.  At WORST, in his last appearance before Ryo runs away for the first time (he doesn’t use the whip in any other appearance), Ryo claims he “wants to fight more”.  But also, there are a bunch of Digimon behind him that Cyberdramon could fight if he really wanted to.  But does he?  No.  He never once poses a threat to Ryo or the digidestined.  He’s aggressive and cold, but...

The next point - how Ryo talks about Cyberdramon.  Ryo describes Cyberdramon as a guy of few words.  Well guess fucking what, not only is that a symptom of abuse, but it’s also a symptom that someone just isn’t comfortable with you.  I’m not an abuse victim but I still rarely speak until spoken to, and am very quiet about myself and short in my answers until I know where you stand on things.  I’m trying to get better about that but when your only practice is your family, it’s hard because you’re either already comfortable with them or too afraid to make a fool of yourself.  But I digress - my point still stands that if Cyberdramon really IS a mon of few words, there’s a reason for it (I have social anxiety which causes me to be like that) and its not because of aggression.

Is Cyberdramon aggressive?  I’d say so, yes.  But he never points that aggression in the wrong direction.  And, if he did, why is Ryo keeping him under control?  When someone punches you, you may need to restrain them in that moment, but afterwards you get the police involved.  If they’re routinely violent with you, you leave them.  But Ryo doesn’t, because although he isn’t really violent, he IS in control.  Cyberdramon clearly submits to him and not necessarily in a good way, although not necessarily in a bad way either.

There’s also the fact of Monodramon being a silly cinnamon roll in his appearances, IE the exact opposite of Cyberdramon.  People don’t really change like that, so while Ryo is still his partner, idk, it makes me feel like Ryo got stricter with him as he got stronger, or something like that.  Or perhaps Ryo feels less intimidated when Monodramon is a friendly rookie as opposed to a brooding, fight-loving dragon.  Which I would too, but it’s still not an excuse in my personal opinion.

PS this isnt a Ryo-bashing post nor a post bashing anyone who likes him (or RyoxRika) like I said I literally just made this so i could make a joke about him being an incel or chad on my tamers pride icons.  Feel free to debate with me but dont get too offended; I only did this so I could feel less bad about making fun of his stupid face. pls and thanks

[slowpoke79]

that last post unlocked a lot of feelings for me (it got personal and ranty so now its under a cut)

but i just got more real with myself than ive let myself be in years. tw suicide, tw abuse

i struggle a lot with bpd-like symptoms to the extent that i suspected i had it (now i think it comes from cptsd or something i dont know i cant talk about my trauma in therapy safely at this point) but the point is is that there is UNDOUBTEDLY unhealthy symptoms and unhealthy communities on this site but by being like ‘wow people who suffer this symptom are problematic’ is like. do you not think they know that the symptom sucks? me wanting to kill myself is problematic and i KNOW it is but that doesnt mean im a bad person for struggling with it. im also not a bad person for struggling with clingy behavior as a result of abuse and honestly? you dont know what struggles i go through because of that because i try to never ever express how much i struggle with it and deal with it on my own. but it would be nice to vent sometimes, to say that i struggle so hard with what i perceive as rejection that if i think the people i love are upset with me. it affects me for hours and hours and honestly i cry about it a lot. if im being more honest than ive been with anyone about these symptoms in years, ive spent hours crying because i want more attention than im getting or because i feel like someones rejected me or isnt 110% happy with me or even gotten worried to the point of tears when someone doesnt reply to me. but i KNOW that im displaying the clingy behaviors. i dont tell anyone about this struggle honestly because i am so scared of this kind of judgement. and im STRUGGLING WITH THEM thats the point of these mental illnesses and if you insult these people with these symptoms then youre just stigmatizing them further. this mightnt apply to all people but i desperately want to recover and i WISH i didnt have these symptoms because idk about other people (this is a very personal post now) but the people they affect the most is easily me. i havent even told anyone the full extent of these struggles because i dont wanna be viewed as manipulative by telling someone what im going through every few days. because i know the people in my life have done nothing to harm me, but my reaction to perceived rejection or even a lack of attention can be really, really difficult to cope with and sometimes i wish i wasnt going through this alone. and the only person ive reached out to vaguely about this has been so supportive of me and im so, so thankful for them because theyve been so accommodating, but what i really want is to get rid of these symptoms because believe it or fucking not i DONT like crying for hours over this shit!!!!! and most people dont and im not anti recovery for having symptoms sorry to repeat myself but im NOT

AND HONESTLY? RIGHT HERE? NOW? WRITING ABOUT THIS? is letting me acknowledge these symptoms and talk about them and its cathartic and i feel like if i could do this more i would have easier recovery but im probably going to go back to never discussing any of my bpd-like symptoms again because trust me, if you hate those symptoms? i hate them more and theyre actually most of the reason why i recently came close to attempting to end my life. no, not the way that the symptoms affect me, the fact that i experience these symptoms make me hate myself. like, actually despise myself. i would do absolutely anything to be able to cope with relationships normally. but i cannot snap my fingers and have that unfortunately and one day hopefully i can work to get there but its not something i know how to improve right now im trying to figure it out, but the way abuse can affect the brain is fucked up

i would still criticize shit like say the second response on this post

because there is a DIFFERENCE between the people who would get mad and allow themselves to be angry at you and people who would feel that and understand that its unhealthy... but the symptom itself isnt something to tell people theyre terrible people for because lets be real these people are probably suffering real fucking bad for having these symptoms and i would even dare to say that a lot of them DO want to recover the same way i want to recover from the sad, abandoned feeling i get.

there is reason to criticize some anti recovery rhetoric on here but if you make fun of the symptoms  that mentally ill people experience... youre just making fun of mentally ill people

you can criticize unhealthy behaviors AND understand where they come from, and be empathetic with those who are struggling with those symptoms

[therewas-a-girl]

Ppl thinking oliver queen would have been better - liked/treated/his issues better respected - by fandom, if he had been a woman has me laughing at the… is it called paradox? Blatant nontruth of the statement?

Here are some easy examples of how this is not so:

Laurel lance (lol most heatedly hated character of arrow for a myriad for reasons, at least half of them sexist bullshit the other ¼ shipper bullshit; had some shit writing which is always taken as a character trait and for which SHE is blamed for; had a depression arc, is an addict, after all the times shes been kidnapped abused and beaten probably has some form of lingering effect from all the… u know… trauma + the emotional upheaval that has been her life for the last 10 years. And yet - still loathed and her issues are negated and belittled at every turn. Always misinterpreted, rarely afforded the luxury of viewer empathy; favorite fandom strawoman usually)

Sara lance (ptsd from all the fucked up shit the league put her through amd that she went through before that, which was very visible when she was on arrow. Probably dealt with some for of sexual harassment/threats of violence/violence when she was on the Amazo, which we never explicitly saw thank god. A good portion of Olicity fans dispise her cause ship reasons, same with lauriver fans. Who is the REAL black canary discourse is still going strong btw, which inevitably generates hate on either of the lance sisters side. Saras bisexuality is constantly erased or denied or treated as sth tintillating for the straight male gaze; she is slutshamed at every corner; ppl hardly can be bothered to remember that she was actually suicidal at one point, that she thought she was not worthy of love or capable of love or of being with someone - HUGE CHARACTER MOMENT HERE - when she broke up with oliver usually dismissed/forgotten cause felicity walks in the room so most of the olicity fandom - big portion of arrow fandom - 9 times out of 10 doesnt bother to remember that sara was talking about herself here)

- yes shipper tendencies matter, they shape character perceptions.

Bonus: thea queen (neglected by her mother, abused physically and emotionally by her monster father, has some serious issues with violence, probably ptsd-related avoidance for it, the mask, her old life. Has utterly detatched from a whole side of her personality and history, something that was intrinsic to her for 2 years, and yet nobody sees that as eyebrow-raising worthy for some reason cause that is what a tots normal person would do. The almost oliver-like split of the sides of her life/personality is mentione…. how many times in fandom? The metas are where? Maybe ive just missed them. Okay. Oh i almost forgot - was stabbed and just about died. But she got over that, right? Which has nothing to do with the bloodlust, by the way. Thats from the Pit. Trauma outlasts the bloodlust. And yet whenever she displays behaviour that is consistent with some kind of post-traumautic symptoms/behaviour… she is bitchy or ungrateful or whiny or being a child again. Literally do not know how to go on with this one)

Extra bonus: felicity smoak. How much felicity’s trauma was aknowleged = she has all kinds of traumatic shit happen to her, including but not limited to near-death experinces, and yet the effect this had on her is nearly nonexistent in big fandom spaces. Sunshine felicity yay! Supporting and taking care of oliver. Yay. Always the light to guide his way. Untarnished. Y. A. Y. (Feel my burning enthusiasm for this interpretation. But thats my preference and of no consequence here.) And the moment it was “officially” aknowleged that a ptsd arc would be explored with her (which is, imo, still a euphemism, or a gross misusage of this very serious illness /that they cant be bothered to portray right on a woman/) - the same ppl that say ‘olivers mental illness is disrespected cause he is male’ were all about (paraphrasing here) “olivers LONG LASTING and X YEAR LONG ptsd is as valid as felicitys NEWLY CONCOCTED/FRESHLY CREATED ptsd” …somehow managing to insult the both of them and imply that the years one lives with an illness give u a sort of precedence and ‘elder card’ in the club. ‘Empathy should go first HERE where its mooore…’ more what? I just dont know how to continue this. needed? Valid? I dont know man. I mean, by works of logic the obvious non-truth of the beginning statement of this post is encapsulated by this last example. But lets be thorough.

Look there are layers. Olivers character deals with shit writing sometimes and horrifying demonisation of his mental illness FROM THE WRITERS OF HIS OWN SHOW. And there is a shitton of ableism in fandom about him.

But if he’d been a woman… my dude… my guy… my pal…. experience shows fandom generally, not as separate ppl but as a block unit, (fandom currents? Fandom tendencies?) have *lower* empathy for women and their narratives (e.i. a lot **less** 29596k word metas about why he does the things he does, trying to explain away the writing holes would be floating around). Lower patience for their fuckups. Lower imagination for their inner lives and even lower willingness to search them out. The show itself would have a lower interest in exploring these issues, as they have shown it to be the tendency with female characters.

Oliver queen is human, he fucks up, he has a deep inner life and his trauma has far reaching shockwaves. All those are characteristics we assume him to have, as default, cause hes a WHITE MALE presented as straight. Who has to contend with bullshit ableism, sure, and fandome expectations colored by toxic masculinity, which canon doesnt even support. But he would have faaaar more prejudices to contend with if he were female. All those assumptions - of hidden logical reasons, depths, triggers etc - up there wouldnt even go halfway if hed been a woman, or not white or, god forbit, a woman of color.

(Dude can u imagine the shitstorm of slutshaming that would hit a female!oliver for sleeping with a *fraction* of the number of ppl oliver has slept with??? In canon he has always had emotional ties or reasons for sleeping with every single one of his partners whether fandom likes it or not, and STILL he is called a manwhore, as if he only thinks with his dick. Even oliver isnt afforded brains and emotions when it comes to sexual agency. It baffles me.

But im willing to bet that it would be worse if he were a woman because the reason for dumbing him down would go from ‘i want to belittle all these other relationships he has so that THIS ONE SHIP shines thru’, to straight up sexism and womens agency over their bodies and emotions. Case in point ppl were calling felicity a plethora of disgusting epithets for sleeping with ray (ONE MAN) when she was a FREE BEING WITH AN INDEPENDENT WILL tied to !!!nobody but herself!!!, just cause she didnt plant olivers name on her ladyparts from the moment she first saw him. (Lets also admit that shipper reasons are present here too but the difference is that in olivers case, his sexing up other ppl lowers olicity’s value cause hes not devoted enough and whatnot. In felicitys case, her sexing up other ppl lowers *felicity’s* ‘value’ because… do i rly need to explain why here? Hint - It ties back to the ‘pure felicity oliver’s light’ argument and the dehumanization of her character by making her the literal object of olivers salvation and therefore nullifying/ridiculing her choices if they make her path deviate from olivers.) Ppl are saying Laurel would be betraying tommys memory by loving oliver still - TOMMYS MEMORY. a man whos been dead for *four years* matters more than a live womans feelings. Just… christ…)