The Bastardization of Ableism: Complex-PTSD Advocates vs. Grifters

If you’ve tried to tell your story about Cluster B (Trauma Glossary 1) abuse anywhere online lately, chances are, you’re familiar with the swarm of hatred and vitriol. You have likely been called an ableist (Trauma Glossary 1) for demonizing a “mental illness”.

To the outside observer, they are “just trolls” and the best way to deal with trolls is to ignore them. Except this is trauma that one has been trying to process after years of silence and being on the receiving end of victim blaming and toxic invalidation. Being attacked, en masse, by the very same type of abusers that engineer CPTSD triggers flashbacks (Trauma glossary 2) of the emotional kind, feeling re-traumatized and violated. In the end, those in the CPTSD community have been left questioning and silencing themselves the second time around.

Today, the mere mention of narcissistic abuse in other, unrelated social media groups are being attacked as ableism. The admins of these groups are siding with the abusers while ordering those who were attacked to stop being ableist towards the narcissists.

It is unclear if these admins are narcissists themselves, or if they’re just being cowed and manipulated by a word that has been bastardized from its original meaning. It’s worth noting that these are the very same “just trolls” that the CPTSD community has been dealing with for years. This is where being repeatedly attacked into silence while being told to “just ignore” them has gotten us.

Last week I covered the history lesson of how we have gotten to this point. This week covers our current climate and where this is leading if left unchecked. Spoiler Alert: the pedophiles (Trauma Glossary 1) will become the next loudest voice of the moment. Did that get your attention? Stay tuned, because the patterns are already developing in that direction, as you will see.

First, let’s begin with the true CPTSD Advocates and what they’re up against. All I described above, they experience daily across social media – for daring to see clearly and for providing validating truth amidst all the attacking and gaslighting (Trauma Glossary 1). The Advocates are forced to work double-duty. In order to provide a safe comment section, they have to remain vigilant of Cluster B’s and practice block and delete as they roll in.

Thanks, entirely to the Cluster B’s “mental illness” card, they react to those Advocates as if they had just been doxed. Yet, the Cluster B’s get away with creating whole albums and second accounts. I’ve seen the Cluster B’s on Instagram screenshot the Advocates and tag them as ableists, so that the Cluster B’s and friends can take turns attacking the Advocate/s in question. On those days, the Advocate is forced to work overtime with blocking and deleting.

I’ve seen Cluster B’s inserting hashtags into the comments and within minutes, the comments swell from ten, to over three hundred, not just attacking the Advocate, but their followers as well. Yet another overtime day of block and delete, rebuilding safety for their targeted audience until new accounts are created and it starts again.

The social media bots have gotten the wrong memo on who the bullies really are. It seems unfair that the Cluster B’s are allowed to attack anyone who names the type of abuse and mass report the Advocate for, of all things, making “hate speeches”. This has been especially effective on YouTube. I know one personally, whose account was set to private by the YouTube bots, all because he dared to describe BPD abuse.

The Advocates describe and dare to name the type of abuse that engineers CPTSD. This is why the Cluster B’s despise the Advocates. The Advocate refuses to compromise or kowtow to their demands, despite the number of (low quality) followers that are being offered.

Grifters:

(weapon of choice: Followers > Truth)

This is a sub-type of the internet gaslighters (last week’s article). Bloggers and vloggers who are perpetually straddling the fence where truths are concerned. They cater to the loudest voices of the moment and are easily led by the internet gaslighers. The grifter is only concerned with gaining followers.

The grifter will not only make excuses for Cluster B’s, but will also use plenty of spin doctoring to describe those toxic behaviors in a sympathetic light. After all, the grifter has learned this craft from the internet gaslighters. The grifter will always ignore the blaring contradictions that take place in their own comments, as the Cluster B’s attack any victim who dares to speak the truth. The grifters have been fragmenting into subtypes of their own… That’s right, folks. We now have three sub-types of a sub-type:

• The Narc in Sheep’s Clothing: If internet gaslighters and enableists had a baby, this would be the result. In fact, they use the same playbook as the enableist described in last week’s article: step one, validate the victims of Cluster B abuse; step two, force compliance by preying on the CPTSD programming. The narc in sheep’s clothing takes what the enableist is pushing in support groups to the world wide web by misrepresenting the child victims of Cluster B’s.
  
  The primary tell in this one is how well they get along with the Cluster B’s themselves, collaborating with them in videos and articles, alike. The narc in sheep’s clothing is the only one who gets away with acknowledging that Cluster B’s engineer CPTSD in their children without getting attacked by the abuser’s culture. This is because the narc in sheep’s clothing swiftly turns this into a cry for helping the Cluster B’s, who according to this one, “suffer far more greatly” than their victims. (Well, it takes one to know one.)
  
  The narc in sheep’s clothing furthers their agenda by minimizing, normalizing and rationalizing abusive behaviors and marketing it as part of their “mental illness”. Last but not least, this extreme treachery committed against children of Cluster B’s has been labeled “humanizing human beings”. This has created mass confusion among children of Cluster B’s, as they’re forced to question their own trauma and feel ashamed for their reluctance to follow in the footsteps of their misrepresentative.
  
  Suffice to say, the narc in sheep’s clothing is a hit in the enabler crowd, which is trending, thanks to them. After all, who better to encourage enabler parents than one who is misrepresenting children of Cluster B abuse? Thanks to this one, who has spin doctored their way to fame by “humanizing” abusive behaviors, those who say it is not okay to normalize this are accused of making hate speeches and/or “dehumanizing” humans.
  
  It was never about humanizing vs. dehumanizing in the first place. The narc in sheep’s clothing got several years head start on the rise of the true advocates, which is the very reason such accusations are still being thrown around.
  
  
• False Advocates: Advocating for CPTSD is no place for cowards. Sadly, there are some with CPTSD in the internet community who claim they are educating and championing for CPTSD. Yet those same misguided souls are making more allowances for their Cluster B followers than they are for those with CPTSD.
  
  This one is the pioneer for sending us back to the pre-language days (which I will cover next week as I wrap up this series) of the ’80’s, when everyone thought that abusive parents were alcoholics. Not only will they share memes created by Cluster B’s, but when they finally get around to sharing something that’s validating to the CPTSD community, they play the old “describe Cluster B abuse without naming it” game.
  
  
• Shameless Self-promoters: These are more like the annoying gnats that buzz around the comments section. They’re worth mentioning, anyway because the true advocate deals with these too often and, even more importantly, the shameless self-promoter is part of the problem, not the solution. In the desperate grab for followers, they, apart from living up to their namesake, have noticeable red flags:

1. They promote themselves as experts in a certain area where, to date, there is no such thing, especially among therapists. While significant progress has been made in both trauma research, as well as understanding narcissists, borderlines, etc., none of us have reached expert knowledge.
   
   
2. They undermine fellow advocates, either by mass commenting the same lines on multiple pages, or by blatantly promoting their knowledge as superior. Their refusal to see the big picture on how fragmented our community has gotten, makes this particular cheap shot all the more deplorable. Undermining fellow advocates only promotes more confusion.

There are other, and better ways of gaining followers. Given all of the gaslighting and triangulation (Trauma Glossary 1) that’s already been established among us, showing  mutual respect and acting as a united front would be far more beneficial in the long run.

Now let’s take a look at the supporting cast members. The who’s who of the grifter’s targeted audience (besides the Cluster B’s, of course):

Enablers:

(weapon of choice: caretaking tips via minimizing abuse)

If you had this kind of parent, (Enabler Parent in Trauma Glossary 1) you can spot this one mile away. The enabler knows the Cluster B from the inside out and is hopelessly smitten (enmeshment: Trauma Glossary 1) anyway. They are the ones who can’t wait to offer advice on how to practice even more self-abandonment (Trauma Glossary 2) in order to be a better supply person to the Cluster B.

There’s no excuse for abuse is reversed in the mind of the enabler. They have an excuse for all their abusive behaviors. In many ways, they resemble the family-first shamers (covered two weeks ago in Community Victim Shamers), in that they’re determined to work things out no matter what. Giving up or, god forbid, going no contact with the Cluster B is unthinkable. The enabler harshly judges those who walk away; for in the enabler’s mind, they simply didn’t try hard enough.

Apologists:

(weapon of choice: whoever has the loudest voice of the moment)

“If everyone is saying it, it must be true,” or so the apologist believes. Loud voices tend to drown out the oppressed, but the apologist isn’t interested in considering this argument. What lies in the apologist’s core is severe co-dependency (Trauma Glossary 2), which damages their sense of allegiance. This, in turn, biases their mind against critical thinking, as you will see.

The apologist will read a heavily biased article or two, written by an internet gaslighter, and use it to limit themselves. Knowledge is supposed to be freeing, but when severe co-dependency is the driver of new learning, their ability to remain objective is blindsided. However, as they consider themselves highly intelligent and well educated, they will parrot the very same attacking buzzwords that the abusers are using on the internet.

It’s also worth adding that they see themselves as empathy soldiers, when in reality, the apologist is just as much the dark side of the Fawn Type as the narcissist and sociopath is the dark side of the Fight Type (Trauma Type 4F in Trauma Glossary 2). So naturally, they fit in well with the abuser’s culture.

The apologist will rationalize the behaviors of abusers, as long as they can claim “It’s a mental illness that shouldn’t be demonized.” Some are even on friendly terms with a Cluster B or two and think that this somehow gives them the right to tell victims “Not all Cluster B’s…” despite the fact that the apologist has no experience living with their Cluster B behind closed doors. (See Unmask in Trauma Glossary 1). For the apologist is too afraid of going against the herd to consider who’s being trampled on in the process.

As the apologist stands against the victims of Cluster B abuse today, so the apologist will stand against victims of pedophiles when they become the next loudest voice of the moment.

Where this is headed…

The pedophiles are being empowered right now through MAP the same way that the borderlines were being empowered through BPD Central. BPD Central was “really helping” the borderlines, just like MAP is “really helping” the pedophiles today.

Back in 2014, the borderlines were throwing all of the bad person blame on the narcissists (read that again) while promoting themselves as the “good but misunderstood” Cluster B’s. At the same time, awareness was being raised on narcissistic abuse across social media. Today, the narcissists and borderlines have formed an alliance and they are weaponizing the term, ableist to rob people of even talking about narcissists. No one saw this coming in 2014, and yet, here we are.

How long do you think it will take before the pedophiles start weaponizing their own words to shut people down? If we can see our way out of the gaslighting, we can see the developing patterns more clearly. If we can do that, we can stop this trend and work on ways to shut the door on the abuser’s culture, before that door gets blown off its hinges.

Personally, like any word that gets blasted on repeat enough times, the term, ableist has lost its meaning. Especially when spewed from a Cluster B’s keyboard. At the same time, I more than sympathize with those for whom this term was originally coined. I am so sorry that the Cluster B’s have completely bastardized its definition.

I do propose that one major solution to this problem would be, instead of calling it borderline or narcissistic abuse, we go with Cluster B abuse. See? I know how to be all inclusive, too.

Show the true advocates that you support them. Likes and hearts go a long way in helping them maintain their window of tolerance (Master Toolbox 1). If you don’t feel safe enough to thank them in the comments, send them a quick private message (where applicable, of course), simply thanking them for what they’re doing. Such small acts of gratitude go a long way in reminding them that what they’re enduring is worth it and that they are making a difference.