DH just called. His first words were "I'm calling to say I'm ok". Followed by "I got hit by a big rig".

Yeah, I give him points for starting out with "I'm ok".

Robin, you're right! I do need that.

Today is very Monday-ish, and I don't like it at all.

I also think that a conversation starting with those words is never gonna be good.

The one time the conversation was started that way with me I developed retroactive amnesia. Totally blanked on the okay part as I freaked about the hit-by-car.

VW, I get what you're saying. I was reading a blogger diagnosing a troll with BPD, and while I understand they were talking about a really messed up person, the availability of WebMD and Wikipedia and DSM excerpts left right and centre gives people (oh, including me--page up for OCD) just enough more heft in tossing terms around that we aren't quite expert in.

I do mean to stop.

I just never do.

vw, I don't think you are overreacting, you are simply reacting. Plus you felt that you had to bite your tongue, and that always leaves me wishing I'd said something. If the comments still bother you, you might want to talk in office hours to the professor and let him/her know.

the availability of WebMD and Wikipedia and DSM excerpts left right and centre gives people (oh, including me--page up for OCD) just enough more heft in tossing terms around that we aren't quite expert in.

Yeah, but I think this is even a little different than that. But, oh, well. I'm gonna try to let it go. I can only fight so many battles, and I don't want to get on the bad side with this particular librarian, as hopefully, he'll be helping me one-on-one with my senior thesis this semester.

Am I over-reacting, though, to be offended? I just really felt he was furthering a stereotype, and I don't like that. Not one bit

I get that way with blantant stereotypes of schizophrenia so I don't think it's over-reacting to be offended. I judge whether to say something by how the comments are delivered, who delivered them and whether the audience might be getting bad stereotypes reinforced.

When I do decide to say something, I try to not be confrontational--just politely point out that the stereotype shouldn't be reinforced and that it is offensive.

I think this is even a little different than that.

See, though--the people who hear what he says? Feel more empowered to perpetuate the stereotypes, but for no good reason. Because we can look it up.

You're right though--choose your battles. I wish we could win them all, or even have the energy to fight them all.

You're right though--choose your battles. I wish we could win them all, or even have the energy to fight them all.

So, so true.

I'm really funny about talking about my diagnosis at school. And, I know this wouldn't require talking about it, but I probably would end up blurting it out, or taking things really personally. Anywhere else, I would have said something.

vw, for whatever it's worth, I completely grok both the very legit offended feeling and the not wanting to blurt in class. Not overreacting at all. OTOH, I do think it would be worth contacting the librarian about it in email -- it may be that she was making a joke that she didn't realize would find an actual target; it may also be that she was badly mischaracterizing the kind of (often quite sound) research that says "author so-and-so wasn't just a wacky drunk like people always said, but there's good biographical evidence for reassessing him and his work in light of what we now know"... in which case she's doing just as much disservice to research as she is to people with BPD.

In either case, the people I've met who do that kind of instruction would be (a) very seriously sorry for having caused you hurt and (b) absolutely want to know that they need to fix their spiel. (And it is a spiel -- if you're only seeing each class one time for a certain set of skills, you reuse lines and examples because there's no time to build the kind of shared vocabulary that you seeing the same group every day. Not a terrible thing by itself, except that it means that she's almost certainly used the same line with other classes.)

t /unsolicited advice

the people I've met who do that kind of instruction would be (a) very seriously sorry for having caused you hurt and (b) absolutely want to know that they need to fix their spiel.

Yeah, this is why I also suggested contacting the instructor. I'd think he or she would want to know.

Yeah, but don't start off thinking they mean to offend. Because I used the term "Munchausen's syndrome" in relation to to factitious behavior on the internet, not knowing that since my editor is multiply chemically sensitive, it meant things to her that I didn't mean to imply, and she kind of lost her shit with me. Start from assuming ignorance before malice.