Certain Features
Is rigidity about racism and homophobia a personality disorder?
Only Robin Whetstone could go to therapy and be told she’s too unyielding on the subject of racism and homophobia. Could being anti-racism be a personality disorder?
by Robin Whetstone
Two days ago, I was talking to a psychiatrist for reasons. He said I was basically normal and well adjusted except for mild anxiety that he said was probably related to my environment and seemed to be mainly resolved. HOWEVER, he did say I had "certain features" that indicate compulsive behavior. Not a disorder, he wanted me to understand, but just certain features.
"What certain features?" I asked him. I really wanted to know, because I definitely know I've got some issues.
"Well, mainly, you are very rigid on questions of racism and homophobia. You have a very unyielding attitude about those things."
"Yep," I agreed, "For instance, if someone says they don't want to be associated with my 12-year-old's gay agenda, I am definitely not going to want to be around them. Or, if someone says that what my daughter is is an abomination, I'm going to do my best to absent myself from that person. Particularly if they are talking about my kid."
"That's exactly what I'm talking about," he said, impressed by my self-awareness and certain that I'd get right to work mitigating that personality flaw.
I was not going to put a whole lot of stock in what this man said to begin with, but now I'm confused about what to think. I guess I'm glad that a guy who reads the DSM V thinks I'm not riddled with personality disorders. But what does this even mean when he follows up with a comment like that? Do I want someone like this to think I am normal and healthy? Hmmm.
So let's review: I will listen and debate and consider any and all questions that one could possibly disagree about EXCEPT questions about whether black people deserve to be bitten by dogs and are plotting to rape my whole family because that's just how they are. I also won't put up with people declaring that gay people can never be full Christians, are more promiscuous and less moral than straight people, or are like people who have a disease or a birth defect. If you say something like this to me, what will I do? Will I murder you? Will I vandalize your property? Will I curse and yell at you? Nope. If I really love you, I will try to talk to you about it. If you double down on it and start calling me unGodly, I will simply decide to spend my time with people who are not you.
Some people I know have definitely called me shrill and self-righteous and have gotten mad at me for asking whether the "good old days" were really all that good, for example. Some people have called me intolerant for deciding I don't want to be more than an acquaintance with someone who goes to a church that preaches that gay people are going to hell. I don't know. I thought having standards was a feature, not a bug. I wonder, if I chose not to hang around people who drink a lot because I'd rather hang out with people who don't drink a lot, would I be called rigid and unyielding? I have criteria for people I'd like to be friends with, and I apply these criteria. Why did he only mention "doesn't tolerate racism and homophobia" as an example of a problem? I guess maybe because it's two of the only things that I really will not tolerate in my close friends. If this is indicative of a compulsive disorder, I guess I've got one.
Robin Whetstone is a Georgia-based writer who previously serialized her memoir about living in Moscow in the early ‘90s. As we’ve seen from her earlier contributions to The Experiment, she has a remarkable comic voice, but what makes her memoir unique how it retains that voice while describing the peril she finds herself in. You can find the first chapter here.
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