Copyright 2008 T. Sheil & A. Sheil  All Rights Reserved

Trollwise Press

Uncle Thor's Magazine Online 

Thicken Your Skin

Dealing with People with Disorders

A few months back, a young man joined one of my forums and started posting. As is usual for my forums, all posts from a new member must be moderated before they get on the board. This deters spammers, crackpots and various trolls. The young man’s first post was a run-on sentence devoid of punctuation. It looked like a very angry rant. I denied it and wrote him a simple note explaining my objection. The next post was another rant, and what looked like a challenge to me personally. Once again, I replied briefly. I decided to remove him from the forum. Based on past experience with posts of that type, I thought I had a “troll.”.

            Imagine my surprise when I got an angry letter from his mother! It turns out that her son has a developmental disorder and he did not take rejection well. She blamed me for the entire episode. Of course, I had no idea he had a problem. His post was like those of other angry teenagers these days. Besides, my replies were hardly the kind of firebrands I used to toss in the 1990s. They were terse and direct. Even a sensitive person would not have taken them as an attack. The upshot was one very shaken lad, one very upset mother and one puzzled moderator.

            The real problem here was that when the mother told her son to boldly sally forth, she had not prepared him for the possibility of flak. Flak is the price of going forth and speaking boldly. People may disagree, and some may disagree strongly. There is no way around it. The more bombastic the statement, the stronger the response. Therefore, the individual needs to be ready to handle opposition before he starts writing or speaking. Had that mother taught her son to thicken his skin, there would not have been a problem.

            If you enter the ring, you better know how to take a punch.

            If you step on the mat, you better know how to fall.

            If you thrust with a saber, you better know how to handle the riposte.

            If you walk into a gunfight, do not be astonished when people shoot at you. 

            Nobody can expect the world to soften its response for them. When a person goes into the wider world beyond family, he is open to anything. That also goes for people with disorders. Unfair as it may seem, the world does not usually make concessions for people’s problems. It is up to the individual with the disorder to take extra steps so as to meet the world on even terms. Life is unfair. A person can whine about it or deal with it.

            This situation brings to mind a problem that needs to be addressed. It is a matter of misunderstanding. As humans, we view things through the filter of our own experiences. Difficulties arise if our experiences differ from those around us. Take the case of disorders as mentioned above. People who deal with them, such as relatives of the afflicted, are faced with this experience daily. They may lose sight of the fact that most people know little or nothing about that experience. That makes it easy to blame someone for not knowing about the problem.

            For instance, unless someone deals with an afflicted person or has a background working mental health, he probably would not know much about bipolar disorder, Asperger’s syndrome, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, borderline or clinical depression. He may or may not have heard of them. It is unlikely that he knows the symptoms, how they work, or how to recognize them. Folks who deal with disorders may forget that most people do not know anything about them.

            Indeed, it can be quite vexing for people who are relatively new to dealing with a disorder of their own or of a loved one. Learning by experience can be rough. It is better to learn from the experience of others who have handled it longer. The list below is based on the experience of people who have done just that.

            Here are a few thoughts for those dealing with disorders, either their own or those of their loved ones. It will help when dealing with those of us who do not have disorders:

1) When people encounter an adult, they assume he or she is fundamentally normal. As such, they expect that he can handle the same things as most normal adults.. They cannot be blamed for treating a person normally.

2) People do not go looking to see who has a disorder. The overwhelming majority of people would not know there was a disorder, unless the afflicted one was acting quite strangely. Most people do not know about bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, autism, borderline or other disorders. Those who do are the few who have dealt with afflicted individuals. People cannot be blamed for not knowing about someone’s disorder. Even if they know, they may not know how to adapt to his behavior, and so they cannot be blamed for that, either.

3) Like it or not, the onus is on the ones with a disorder. They have to make changes and concessions. The rest of the world will not change for them. That may seem unfair, but it is the only way to deal with the world successfully. If you have a problem, it is up to you to do the work. Do not expect the world or other people to make concessions for the disorder. If people do accommodate it, consider it a gift and be grateful.

4) Even if people know of a person’s disorder and are willing to make concessions, there are limits. Disorder or not, some things are not going to be tolerated. As the saying goes, “Your disorder is your problem. I will not allow you to make it mine.”

5) Some people do not want to deal with those who have certain kinds of disorders. People may shy away from the mentally ill, developmentally disabled, etc. That does not make them bad people. It only makes them people who are uncomfortable with things they do not understand. They may be frightened, embarrassed or uncomfortable. Perhaps they had to deal with a relative of their own and do not want to deal with it again. It is usually best to leave them be.

6) Having a disorder is no excuse for an afflicted person to mistreat others. A disorder is not a license to manipulate, trick, whine, insult, or otherwise abuse other people. People are not there to entertain the afflicted. The afflicted cannot behave miserably, and then say, “You must understand and forgive me because I have a problem.” People understand there is no difference between a jerk and a jerk with a disorder.

            This problem is more common than you think.

7) If you expect compassion and sympathy, think again. Your problem is a massive thing to you because you live with it every day. It is a trifle to others because they only deal with it when they deal with you or your loved one. Remember that they are most concerned with their own lives, not your problem.

            Besides, you would probably be appalled if you knew what some of them they say behind your back.

8) No matter how you try to avoid it, there will be occasions when your afflicted one will cause you embarrassment. Try to handle it with aplomb. That might be impossible, but at least try, just for your own peace of mind.

            This may sound cold at first glance. It is. However, it has always been the responsibility of the afflicted to adapt. Whether the disability is physical, mental or emotional, the wider world does little or nothing to accommodate it. The medical field is getting better at handling many disorders. Individual people are another matter.

            The advice on this list comes from folks I know who have dealt with disorders, be it their own or those of a loved one. Granted that they face a double dose of trouble. They have a problem to handle plus the problem of doing it in a world that is not prepared for them. It is the simple things that get them, like the man who has to request they be seated at the back of the restaurant so that his mentally-disabled son’s antics will not cause a spectacle. When getting a simple meal on the road can become a tribulation, people find ways to adjust.

            It took people a lot of trial and error and many embarrassing moments to find the best ways to face the everyday world. Perhaps this list will save someone time and trouble.