i thought herman’s book was really good on c-ptsd but whenever she went into personality disorders, she lost me. especially her suggestion that bpd be replaced by c-ptsd, after deeming it useless and inherently sexist. it’s insensitive to just write it off instead of focusing on exposing the stereotypes and misconceptions that exist. another important thing that’s worth mentioning is that no matter how strong the link between bpd and c-ptsd is, not all people who have bpd have experienced childhood trauma. there are environments that people may have grown up in that encouraged the development of bpd (or any pd) without being severely traumatic. that also goes for the fact that out of two people with very similar childhoods the former can develop both anxiety disorders and personality disorders during their early life while the latter one of the two (or an anxiety disorder AND a mood disorder. orrrrr those things in addition to one or more personality disorders).
i really wish there were better resources on bpd out there for me to link you to but the vast majority of books on the subject are about warning people about us and helping them heal from their exposure to our “antics”. i’d call them biased but even that’s an understatement. even books that don’t claim to be taking any sides are often extremely flawed. two i would cautiously recommend are the revised edition of “i hate you, don’t leave me” and “the borderline personality disorder survival guide”. the first one feels a bit voyeuristic at times and has a number of easily discernible wtf arguments but explores certain issues in a more in-depth way than the far more compassionate bpd survival guide.
now on dean. as much as i also try to be open-minded i don’t entirely understand why there’s a debate over whether he has unstable personal relationships, mood disturbance and dissociative traits.
i definitely do not think of people with bpd as solely responsible for how rocky their relationships are or for getting involved in them in the first place. what makes bpd more easily identifiable for me is how the person responds to the problems that arise in those relationships.
as much as there are different sorts of agendas behind fandom’s crusade to paint dean as paranoid, oversensitive and narrow-minded, it’s hard to deny that he does find comfort in a black and white world as indicated by his conversation with gordon in “bloodlust” and the way he often seems to regress to pre-s2 characterization while under stressful situations (disclaimer: i don’t think of pre-s2 dean as mindless. just more resistant to acknowledging the nuances that he always on some level recognized; just dismissed faster).
an example. while tied up and non-consensually touched by vampires in “hibbing 911″ he proclaims that all vampires are scum and that’s the end of the story. and it genuinely does seem like he believes it at the time. many fans were rightfully left scratching their heads as to how dean could make that statement when not only was his close friendship with benny so recent but one of the first cases that shifted his understanding of the hunting world involved vampires who were trying to be good despite their circumstances.
ten episodes after that he is shown to be handling his mark of cain-fueled rage by ruthlessly taking out an entire vampire nest and stealing from them. yet when later in the episode he mentally finds himself in purgatory it’s a vampire his brain conjures up as someone to confide in and it’s the memory of that same vampire that eventually talks him out of his suicidal thoughts.
i could actually write an entire essay on dean and vampires because he has such a complicated rich history with them which is muddled by an overidentification that works on multiple levels and in a variety of ways. but in general, there are situations in which dean feels safer speaking in absolutes yet when discussing a case in a safer environment he is more likely to acknowledge that it’s the actions, not the name that makes the monster. i think canon has demonstrated as much.
since i mentioned purgatory, it’s another interesting contradiction that he missed it because of its purity and simplicity (especially compared to hell and its obliteration of the boundaries in dean’s perception of himself as human vs. demon. in purgatory he was explicitly the human even in his monstrousness) while aligning himself with a vampire AND an angel.
a few episodes before he got trapped in purgatory he told kevin that angels didn’t have it in them to care yet was very much re-assured when cas informed him that his bad decision making was motivated by a desire to keep him safe. that time period had dean going from saying cas doesn’t know what it’s like to be sorry to believing himself responsible for cas being regretful to the point of suicide. all of this is not unaffected by cas’ repeated fuck-ups in any case. it’s the extreme back and forth in the perception of the self and others that makes the bpd. in general dean has the tendency to view cas both as a typical-inevitable to disappoint- angel and an exception among his asshole siblings. similarly he at times behaves as though cas constantly abandons him and at other times he is grateful that cas is always there when dean needs him. neither of these things is 100% accurate and the only constant is cas’ desire to protect him -however misguided and twisted- but dean cannot and will not accept being left by someone for his own good if he can help it so he feels safer rewriting the narrative as never being left behind by that person in a way that matters. this is where i stop before i go into dean and lisa and his hypocrisy in acknowledging it’s safer for the other person to be left behind by him yet struggling to understand how he could ever be stronger or safer alone.
another big source of disagreement in fandom is dean’s perception of john. depending on which character the fan prefers, they’re either disappointed in dean making john out to be uncaring, absent and selfish OR making him out to be a great man, who did his best and never ran out on his family. basically the john apologists are upset about dean insulting john’s memory and not having a clear enough mind to know how much his father loved him even when he spent so much time neglecting him. on the other side of the argument there are many dean fans who consider him rationalizing john’s parenting as unrealistic so long after john’s death and the long repressed rage it brought to the surface. i don’t think it’s that simple. i don’t think it’s ever been that simple. dean has had contradictory feelings about his father even as early as season 1. what he has always struggled with is giving john’s positive and negative traits the same kind of acknowledgement so it’s not surprising to me that he so often contradicts himself even during the same episode.
dissociation is another concept that is not easily understood by people who have not experienced it. dissociation in bpd manifests much differently than it does in say dissociative identity disorder. it’s much harder to observe from the outside. i don’t think it’s a coincidence that dean is the character with the most mirror scenes. there are times i’m not even sure he recognizes his own reflection and he has been canonically alarmed by momentarily seeing his eyes flash black in the mirror.
another important aspect of dissociative symptoms in bpd is the internal splitting of the self. dean’s ability to adapt is well known in fandom. internal splitting happens when there’s dissonance between the contrasting aspects of oneself that emerge in different situations and in reaction to different people. it’s also related to the chronic emptiness associated with bpd. dean has been embodying various roles in order to avoid abandonment and rejection since he was a child and has trouble viewing any version of himself as distinctly his. i think he is caught in a vicious circle of trying to fool himself into feeling secure in his personhood by convincing the people he’s closest to. but as it was remarked on by famine, he has a big dark “nothing” inside of him that he can never fill as well as a persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud.
basically dean’s contradictions have always made a lot of sense to me. i can’t easily chalk any of this up to bad writing when it’s so consistent in its inconsistency. and it’s also not particularly relevant imo whether any of supernatural’s writers intended for dean to come off as bpd as he does.
ofc like you said there’s an issue with certain bits of fanon being particularly black-and-white (the irony) in their approach to dean’s b&w mentality. it’s particularly harmful when portrayed as an indication of low intelligence or empathy because it ignores the big pile of trauma that has shaped his experiences with the supernatural along with the us vs. them mentality instilled in him by his father at an early age.
also i don’t think i need to explain why i consider meta that only examines one character’s actions in their relationship with the blogger’s favored character as a failure on every level. especially when mental illness is used as a way to back up any points presented.
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