The 3 C's of Abuse (also known as the Non-PD Mantra) state that:
I didn't cause it.
I can't cure it.
I can't control it.
At first, these ideas may seem limiting to a Non-Personality-Disordered individual in terms of reducing how much power they have to change the personality-disordered individual in their lives, these rules are far more liberating to a Non-PD who remembers them and discovers that they are no longer responsible for another person - but only really responsible for their own actions and behaviors.
I didn't cause it.
It's very common for victims of abuse to blame themselves for the abuse. they may begin to ask themselves "what did I do to make him/her so angry?" It's only natural to assume that everything has a cause and effect and therefore if someone is treating you badly perhaps you did something to deserve it.
However, people who suffer from personality disorders often exhibit dissociation - where their perception of what is real and what is not is skewed by their swings in mood.
Additionally, people who abuse others often look for justification for their behavior and a convenient excuse can usually be found in the imperfections of the hapless victim.
Here at Out of the FOG, we believe everyone is responsible for their own actions and must be held accountable for their own behavior. This includes people who suffer form personality disorders and those who don't. This means that nobody is responsible for causing the behavior of another.
I can't cure it.
It is quite common for Non-PD's to try to look for a cure or a treatment for their loved-ones to try to restore their behavior back to a healthy level. While this is a noble thought, it denies what scientific evidence teaches us, that no known cure exists for personality disorders at this time.
Thus searches for a cure typically lead to frustration on the part of the non-PD, who sets themselves up for disappointment, and for the personality disordered individual, who often feels irritated and invalidated by the approaches taken by their well-meaning but ill-advised loved-ones.
I can't control it.
While no outright cures exist, some treatment programs do exist to assist personality disordered individuals to reach a better quality of life for themselves and their loved-ones. See our Treatment Page for more details.
However, it is also common for people who suffer from personality disordered to avoid treatment or to refuse to acknowledge that they have a problem.
In these situations, it is common for family members and spouses and partners to try to cajole them into treatment programs and to try to make it easier for them to be successful in these programs.
However, successful treatment almost always requires the full commitment of the person who suffers from the personality disorder and efforts by others close to them to artificially produce these kind of results often create disillusionment for the Non-PD.
Feb 10, 2010 - The American Psychiatric Association today released their first draft of the 5th revision of the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual (DSM-V) which regroups personality disorder diagnoses into 5 categories:
Antisocial/Psychopathic Type
Avoidant Type
Borderline Type
Obsessive-Compulsive Type
Schizotypal Type
There is also a proposed mechanism for scoring the severity and the match of each of the diagnostic traits.
The proposals are not final and the APA has a comment period starting today and ending April 20th 2010. The DSM-V is scheduled for release in May 2013.
Dec 30 2009 - Those of you who use the "stay logged in" feature of the Out of the FOG support forum will notice that you unexpectedly had to log in again today. Please don't be alarmed. This was caused by some updates to the board behind the scenes. Please excuse the inconvenience.
Nov 1 2009 - Out of the FOG is celebrating 2 years in bringing information and support to family members and loved-ones of people who suffer from personality disorders. In the two years since we launched, our traffic has grown exponentially and we are rapidly becoming one of the internet's premier sources of information on coping with personality disorders. Happy birthday OOTF and thanks to all our members and supporters around the world.
Out of the FOG Support Forum Zetaboards Upgrade
June 15 2009 - Please excuse our appearance while the Out of the FOG Support Forum upgrades to run on the new Zetaboards software platform. The new software contains a number of new features and improvements over our existing system which should become evident after the conversion is completed.
This upgrade will convert all our existing forums, posts, PM's, memberships and profiles. There should be very little interruption in service or loss of data. The only thing you will notice is changes to the appearance of the graphical interface. It will take 1-2 weeks to complete the conversion.
Our main Out of the FOG information site, here at http://www.outofthefogsite.com will be unaffected by the upgrade. Bookmark this site and visit here if you have any trouble logging into the board. Should any unexpected interruption in our service occur, an announcement will be posted in the "Latest News" Box at at http://www.outofthefogsite.com. Additionally, a temporary discussion forum has been established here which you can use should we experience any long-term interruption of service.
Please excuse any inconvenience you may experience as we perform the upgrade.
June 3 2009 - BPD author A.J. Mahari has launched a new version of her website called BPD INFO which has a section which invites members to submit website articles about BPD. Our own gary submitted an article to her site this week.
