Its often the opposite sex that you get to see at their worst

[JustSwingingTheD]

As a man, I have had the displeasure of knowing some mentally ill, toxic female individuals in my life. I'm talking about cluster B personality disorders. Some of these people can even be dangerous to be around for people who are not aware of the danger. Ive suffered more physical and mental violence coming from men, but usually it has been more or less "competitive" by nature. Violence coming from these women has had a more personal, sadistic tone to it.

Narcissistic personality disorders often manifest themselves very differently between different sexes. Yet deep down they are all the same regardless of gender, show any weakness and they will bite down like rabid dogs, with zero pity. These people, men or women, often appear highly masculine/feminine and often secretly despise the opposite sex. They are not interested about getting over the "mental gap" between genders. In fact, people managing to look past gender makes their tricks less effective on them and people who do are probably seen as a threat.

I have a theory that these people seldom reveal themselves at their worst when amongst their own gender. They might seem like "allright" even to people who think they know them intimately. So i suspect that most men (at least me), are actually far less aware of what "male crazy" looks like, than what "female crazy" looks like, and vice versa when it comes to women. There is of course also the fact that relationships between straight members of the same sex rarely get as intimate as between members of different genders.

This would sure explain a lot about the huge tensions that exist whenever discussing issues involving gender. Neither party has really experienced members of their own sex at their worst.

 

[Pain In The Ass]

this is a very interesting point - I've been around incredibly violent young men, but what I saw was just a man momentarily wanting to inflict anger and physical pain upon another man - I've never full witnessed or experienced a man trying to control every detail of a woman's life, trying to control her brain with manipulation and fear for years on end, and ultimately being willing to end her life rather than see her happy with another man - I know it happens, but I've never experienced it and never will - only women, and maybe gay men, have

 

[Angst Filled Fuck Up]

From what I gather, it's an unspoken thing that we're largely supposed to just tolerate, which is baffling to me on some level. I hear no end of what I do wrong as a man, while having been subjected to really horrible things by various partners over the course of my life. If nothing else I guess it helps curb your thirst for the opposite sex as you age.

 

[Pluto]

I might chime in here as I had an NPD father AND an NPD sister. Either would have left me with PTSD. Together, well I never had a chance. Gender merely gives cruel people various weaknesses to exploit. The NPD will use ANY weakness and are potentially dangerous to anyone they come into contact with. (No offense to anyone here with NPD, I merely wanted to make the point that gender issues tend to be illusory.)

As for seeing people at their worst, this is as you say due to people being so intimate that they cannot hide their dark side beneath a mask.

Harsh as it is to say, relationships are a giant mirror. Much of the subconscious shenanigans relate to childhood. There are people in the world who attract and sustain healthy relationships, therefore the problem is ultimately within ourselves, and our repeated hardships do not provide evidence some universal fault in all people of the opposite gender - not that anyone was insinuating otherwise of course.

 

[JustSwingingTheD]

I might chime in here as I had an NPD father AND an NPD sister. Either would have left me with PTSD. Together, well I never had a chance. Gender merely gives cruel people various weaknesses to exploit. The NPD will use ANY weakness and are potentially dangerous to anyone they come into contact with. (No offense to anyone here with NPD, I merely wanted to make the point that gender issues tend to be illusory.)

That's right, gender/sex is first and foremost a weapon to these people. I have a BPD sister who i would describe more as impossibly annoying than dangerous, and a psychopath brother, who quite contradictorily is a lying, cheating, using piece of shit, (as far as i know, he could actually be even much worse than that), but has still actually been a good brother to me. I don't love him because that would be idiotic, but i do feel something for him, the little shitbag that he is.

I still have no clue what you have been through, since i didn't have to grow up under the authority of a crazy person.

As for seeing people at their worst, this is as you say due to people being so intimate that they cannot hide their dark side beneath a mask.

Harsh as it is to say, relationships are a giant mirror. Much of the subconscious shenanigans relate to childhood. There are people in the world who attract and sustain healthy relationships, therefore the problem is ultimately within ourselves, and our repeated hardships do not provide evidence some universal fault in all people of the opposite gender - not that anyone was insinuating otherwise of course.

These are just the peculiarities of the human mind trying to fix itself. We are unconsciously trying to recreate the situations which caused the trauma, in the hopes that we will be able to overcome them. Often leading to more trauma.

I have some learned insight when it comes to personality disorders, so i recognize them pretty easily these days and this has given me a way of hurting them by being mean to them. Has this helped? I have gotten some satisfaction from it. It also has turned my attention away from all those people who i could have had healthy kind of relationships with. Being an asshole towards these people has been more important to me than being nice to people who are decent. What has these brought me? Nothing.

Learning to recognize and be wary of the disordered is not all it takes to heal. Part of healing is learning how to leave these sick, pathetic leeches be. One must be able to see them, and still ignore them. To learn to understand that there is more to life than dominating, i guess the one thing that they can never learn.