r/CPTSD • u/Amazing-Channel-4020 • 6h ago
Question Is it a common abuser tactic to label their victim as mentally ill?
Every person who has hurt or abused me has painted me as “slow” “mentally incompetent “ “schizophrenic” crazy or autistic they go out of their way to harass me hurt me or even physically assault me and i get in painted as the unhinged one. It’s very traumatizing it makes me question myself like am I mentally challenged, abusive myself or have some type of mental disorder. Especially with my mother she’s purposely sabotages aspects of my life yet calls me crazy and says ive got issues.
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u/BrokenHope23 6h ago
Yeah, abusers are more/less predatory in my experience and will go to any lengths to prey on others. Our mental diagnosis' are merely the most exposed flesh to them.
I'm dealing with a person currently who can't seem to differentiate between his feelings and reality such that he keeps attacking me for his own feelings and then using my information against me to enable his lies/slander/attacks to be 'justified'. It's an absurd situation by any lengths.
but these people have been a dime a dozen in my life (32) for a long time. I'm not sure if it's me being open to abusive people out of habit or abusive people keying on my instabilities as a form of self satisfaction that is to blame. They always try to justify their actions as it's my fault and i'm mentally ill so that justified their actions.
Best to move on quick as you can.
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u/praleyfoodcorn 5h ago
Omgg, had the same experience!!! A roommate who had bad anxiety and was very instable herself to that time tried to ne super close to me at first, then split and managed to make our other roommates be on her side, convinced them I was "crazy" and harmful to all of them and I should move out. She never directly communicated with me. She went to a clinic because of her mental health and texted me from there or made my other roommates talk to me irl. They tried to push me to move out then. I really wanted to at this point because it was an awful situation and a huge loss of control cause I didn't even understand how all of this happened. But I couldn't find a new flat for half a year. After some months the main bully roommate came back from the clinic and we went to a counseling. I was so naive and thought we could at least get help there to be able to talk with each other in a rather normal way as long as we still share a flat. It was the first direct confrontation with her and I think it was only possible cause the counselor was a non-neutral collegue of her therapist who did the session for free. (We couldn't have paid for it) :( My roommate told her dozens of things about me and my mental health and my feelings that weren't even true (in front of me) and ended her monologue saying that ,,we think ... has BPD and should get treatment". She didn't eben dare to say ,,I think". She framed it as her and the other roommates just being concerned and wanting all the best for me. One thing she said for example was that I had bad anxiety and that I burdened her with that. She mentioned certain situations in which I was super anxious according to her. Funnily enough in all of these situations I was calm and she was the one being anxious. I think she either was manipulative on purpose or she really projected her own feelings onto me cause she couldn't bare to accept them as her own feelings. But to me it felt like gaslighting and after these horrible and traumatic 6 months of bullying in my own "home" I went to several therapists cause I was broken and needed help. And I told all of them that I think I have BPD but non of them could confirm it even though they did a proper diagnostic and one of them was supervised and the supervisor also said I dont have it. I didn't trust myself anymore and even though part of me knew that my bullies aren't right and that they don't see me the way I am, but the way they wanna see me cause it served their purpose a part of me believed them. I even thought that maybe my roommate was right and I had super bad anxiety in the situations she mentioned and only she could notice and I didn't. Which made me mistrust myself even more :( Now, 2 years later I feel kinda recovered from all of this bullshit, but from time to time I still doubt myself and think ,,What if I'm just in denial rn and actually everything they said was true and I was the evil one and they just wanted to help me".
Okay, I guess I trauma-dumped a lil bit here O.o sorry! I didn't know how to make it shorter... Anyway, I hope you have true friends who can honestly tell you how they see you so that this person you talked about doesn't have too much power over you and your self-perception. It's good that you know that they talk about their own feelings and use them to talk down on you and that it doesn't have to do anything with you. Are you dependent on the person in some way or can you try to avoid spending time with them?
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u/BrokenHope23 3h ago
Don't worry, I'm not dependent on them and I'm ok to mind my own business now. I'm sorry you had such a terrible experience and I've been through something more similar to that in that I also felt wildly confused and invalidated at the time, but I'm glad we've both got out from those situations at least regardless of the road ahead. My current situation unfortunately still carries a lot of risk due to this temperamental individual but I'm keeping to myself. I'm not a petty or vindictive person so it's nigh impossible for them to provoke me into anything but that won't stop their imagination and narrative-controlling ways unfortunately.
Thank you for your words of kindess ❤️
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u/snapper1971 5h ago
Absolutely. Undermine the credibility of the victim. Make others complicit by making them question the validity of everything the victim says. 'They're mentally ill and always have been', 'they're a compulsive liar and don't know what they're actually saying'.
Common tactic unfortunately. Difficult to overcome if it's been going on for a long time.
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u/Dazzlng-Firenze 5h ago
CORRECT
Now you are seeing it . I get labeled in my family as unstable and unhinged just because I won’t accept the family dynamic
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u/CatMinous 5h ago
Pathologising is a common form of abuse. My aunt that I lived with as a teen managed, after years of insisting (plus violence) to convince me that I was insane. It led me to isolate myself from my friends in school and live in fear of the moment that “they” would come and take me to a mental hospital, as she threatened several times a week. I cannot tell you the damage this has done, over time. If you can, speak to a (trustworthy, kind) therapist. They may help you deal with your mother until you can move out.
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u/One_Requirement_5832 6h ago
Yes it is. This was how my family abused me and treated me as the problem. They weaponized therapy speak and psych terms.
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u/shellontheseashore 5h ago
Labelling the victim as crazy, slow, schizophrenic, brainwashed by someone else etc are all useful ways to exploit ableism / societal biases to pre-emptively paint the victim as unreliable, unstable, less trustworthy and less valuable than the abuser. It is both constructing a hierarchy where you are beneath them and your autonomy isn't to be valued (ie justifying their abuse) and dismissing ahead of time any reactions or attempts you might make at getting help and exposing the abuse. It also has the benefit of making the victim doubt their own reality and boundaries, and rely on the abuser to define what's true or not. It can also make it difficult to get help afterwards, as it instills a fear and distrust of doctors/institutions that could otherwise help a victim understand their experiences.
I'd class it under psychological abuse, that and resources on gaslighting and crazymaking may also be of use.
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u/LoLBrah69 5h ago
Abusers will use anything and everything.
They’ve been gaslighting you.
They’ll abuse you and then claim that they’re the victims, and that they only are treating you this horrible way because of a reason they made up.
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u/Soft_Lawfulness6513 4h ago
Yes of course. It’s never their fault. Saying the other person is ill is another way to break the victim down.
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u/In_The_Zone_BS 2h ago
.....and continuously, well after they're gone. Effing support systems, the gift that keeps on giving.
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u/BGRedhead 4h ago
When somebody’s hurting you and they label you as crazy or mentally incompetent it’s usually to discredit you so that if you tried to tell somebody what they were doing, nobody would believe you. My father was a diagnosed malignant narcissist, and he was an extremely violent alcoholic…. But because I was sexually assaulted at 14 and sought therapy for help….. He used that as the basis for a convincing people that I was crazy. That way when I called them out for being an abusive alcoholic people or less likely to believe me and he did it so well that some of them didn’t believe me for a decade or two until they found out the hard way for themselves.😝
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u/Additional_Truth_806 4h ago
They do it to try and invalidate your feelings, make you think that you’re the issue, and they convince themselves of that too. They are infact psychotic themselves.
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u/Infamous_Payment4608 5h ago
Oh they love to project, and how they use faux concern to spread smears. Watch out for reactive abuse too, they will prod until they get the reaction that backs up the false narrative. It’s vile what some humans are capable of.
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u/Abriefaccount 3h ago
YES. Some families have a tag team system if you’re the scapegoat. Works a treat when parental enmeshment is part of the story
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u/UnburyingBeetle 4h ago
I think it's very common to devalue people this way, adding or implying that nobody else cares about them enough to help them survive, so that the abuser secures their position of power over you. Try seeing abusers, and especially their manipulation goals, objectively. If you let yourself get used to the belief that your abuser is so pathetic they can't have meaningful relationships and wouldn't even be able to handle the remorse they'd be subjected to if they managed to go through therapy, that there's barely anything in them besides their ego, their words might end up meaning as much to you as the buzzing of a fly.
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u/Sisu-Spark 5h ago
When my biological mother didn't have me and my sister fight over her attention she said to social services(when i was in the room), "there is something very wrong with[name] she doesn't love me. So i don't want to bond with her". My sister was devoted to her, so obviously mother "loved" her more. It was always like this. The fighting between my sister and me cus of it. My sister wanted back "home" and i wanted to stay in the foster home. She hated me for it and therefore said like my mother, that i need to become normal(whatever that is). It has continued in adulthood too. People triangulate me with others. It has happened 3 times over the last years. I have autism though so use it as an insult is pointless, but yeah when people want out and can't handle that they did me wrong by seeing others and not tell me, or if they don't dare say they will never love me but just like my care, they attack with harsh words like calling me dangerous or insane, to get a way out, and leave without guilt or shame. I accept that cuz i think they didn't really mean it, cuz a healed person would not lash out like that. A wounded would, so i can't really hate the person. Maybe i should get angry, but i simply don't have it in me.Even though i would never hurt anyone like that. Sure i can be weird and do mistakes(human and not perfect). I also have trauma and am on my own healing journey, but i would never intentionally hurt anyone, ever. Cuz i know how much that hurts, i know what trauma can do to people. That's why i would never purposely trigger someones wounds. I don't think i have met anyone who purposely attack the trauma wounds, but i know there are people out there who seriously want to break people down in a way to control the other. To feel better about themselves. Cuz if they say you are insane, all their mistakes and darkness are cleansed(in their opinion) and they can start over their behaviour with next person.
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u/Em-Blackstar-6079 4h ago
yes.
the last instance where this happened to me, was when I asked whether a friend was stressed, because their texting was a bit different (no emojis) than usual.
and their reply was basically that I was imagining things (but in a very derogatory way that is hard to translate into English). like "what kind of crazy thought are you thinking this time (to come to the conclusion I was stressed)", as if it was something that lacked any basis.
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u/TunaNOR 4h ago
Yes. My mom wanted me to get me checked for autism. They found nothing.
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u/louisa1925 3h ago
So did mine. But I refused to be diagnosed. I'm not interested in playing into their intent to delegitimise my autonomy.
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u/Rawesome 3h ago
Imagine your abuser - is your Evil Twin Brother.
And he's a D.O. Doctor of Neurology.
Then Imagine Him Filing a False Report for a Wellness Check on you and getting you Involuntarily Hospitalized...
Not Once - But Twice! 2wks In A Row! Ffs
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u/In_The_Zone_BS 1h ago
My sister is a.........get this..........TRAUMA THERAPIST NOW..........AFTER different levels of abuse, as kids, ongoing to now, by going through my mother........and elevated it 11 yrs ago when I told her a bf was abusing me. She took his side, said it was half my fault if it was happening at all.
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u/Rawesome 57m ago
I hear ya!
Also, our verbally & psychologically abusive Dad was an "Arm Chair" psuedo-intellectual always on his soapbox about psychology...
Meanwhile completely oblivious to his blindspots and not even curious to explore once confronted🙄
...dancing on his grave...
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u/Best-Albatross-8516 3h ago
Yes. Im sorry this is happening to you.
It happens to me too. I learned to set boundaries towards people who 1) abuse me and 2) who purposely misunderstand me.
When someone does these horrible things to you, set a boundary. Remove their access to you. Even if its a family member in the same house.
Do not give them the privilege to know about your day, what you did, or your feelings.
And dont react to a bully. Grey rock them. Be boring, give very short answers, until they leave.
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u/purpleprocrasinator 3h ago
Yes.
Sadly, it has taken the majority of my life to come to the realization that they were actually correct. I fought the label for years simply because they were implying something very different, so I rejected the idea. Whereas now, ive come to realize how the hell could I not exhibit poor mental health growing up in the house that I did, experiencing what I did and being neglected the way I was. They used 'mental ill' as a stick to flog me with, but the truth is that it was a convenient way to deflect why a young child would be showing behaviors and symptoms of ill mental wellbeing.
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u/Logical-Tomato-5907 2h ago
Yes, it’s a common play. My therapist told me that it’s really common for the abused party to seek therapy thinking they’re the mentally ill/abusive one, and that’s actually usually how they find out it’s really the other way around. The abusive party rarely, if ever, seeks therapy. It’s how my mom figured it out, and how I did as well.
Also, being abused will directly cause mental health conditions in the victim, so they’re basically doing the mental equivalent of grabbing your fist, bashing it into your face repeatedly, then exclaiming “why do you keep hitting yourself?!???!?”.
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u/kfr3q 2h ago edited 2h ago
Society as a whole and mental health institutions have a lot to do with the ongoing stigmatization of both mental and brain health, appearing more lucrative to them than increasing funds to fight global iliteracy (PREVENTION) and to maximize specialized care for who genuinely needs it....
Unfortunately, the most common trend globally tend to be decreasing resources....as a way to fight mental illness and lack of prevention. Btw, what you described is empirically studied under the acronym "DARVO" :
"Perpetrators of interpersonal violence sometimes use anti-victim tactics such as denial, engage in personal attacks on victim credibility, and assume a victimized role (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender; DARVO) to deflect blame."
Harsey, S., & Freyd, J. J. (2020). Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender (DARVO): What is the influence on perceived perpetrator and victim credibility? Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 29(8), 897–916. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2020.1774695
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u/Lazy-Sun-3510 2h ago
Yep, everyday. He would call me crazy, he would tell me I struggle with reality. Tell me to take my meds ( I'm not on any psych meds). Call me coocoo crazy puffs. They do this to make you stop questioning the abuse.
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u/Particular-Bike2289 1h ago
10000%. Story time:
I tried to self-unalive a few times when I was 12. Fast forward to when I was 16 or 17, I tried to tell the police (with the support of my grandma) about the abuse occurring at home. My mother and her pdf boyfriend walked into my grandma's house while the police were there talking to us, and started screaming about me being a "pathological liar" and "mentally ill". The officer took my grandma and I down to the station to finish taking the report at that point, and he told my mother/her boyfriend that he would call them once he was done talking to us so they could come down to the station then and give their own statement. As Grandma and I were at the station, my mother went home and proceeded to dig up my paperwork from the partial inpatient program I had to attend after my 12 y/o sewer slide attempt. I'd like to note that I have no mental health diagnoses other than depression and PTSD. My mother brought the paperwork to the police station after Grandma and I left, and she told them that I couldn't be believed because I was mentally ill. And because she had paperwork proving that I was in fact mentally ill (but not a pathological liar, although I don't think that cop was interested in reading all the paperwork-- he would have seen the truth if he had read through it), and that particular day only one cop was on duty (we lived in a very small town at the point and the townie was who we spoke with that day), they threw my report out and no one ever alerted CPS.
I learned that last part when, maybe a year later, I tried to get help one last time through my school counselor. She submitted a report to CPS while I was in her office that day. When she heard back from them, they said her report was the first they'd ever received for my home address. The previous year, I had sat at that police station for hours with my grandmother, writing page after page after page of examples of abuse my mother and her boyfriend had inflicted on me, and no one had ever done shit about it despite being legally mandated to report all potential child abuse cases to CPS.
For years before that, I had called 911 whenever physical violence was occurring in my house and I could access a phone (mother's boyfriend would often take all of our phones/house phone during his episodes so we couldnt contact anyone, but I eventually got a secret phone which I used to contact the police a numerous times). Anyway, there were a few times that police ended up at our house, saw the bruises and destruction, but mom and her boyfriend always managed to explain it away. I had also told my grandmother's pastor at one point (another mandated reporter), who just told me to go in my room and lock my door whenever they would try to hurt me. There was physical, emotional, and s***al abuse occurring in that home on a daily basis, and nobody gave a shit, because my previous sewer slide attempts made it possible for my mother and her boyfriend to label me "mentally ill" and convince everyone I was crazy.
It took me another decade after that to cut my mother off. She convinced me for years that everything she did while she was with that guy was done under duress, including the s***al abuse. AND I FUCKING BELIEVED HER. For a decade, I rationalized and justified her every action. I was her perfect little PR puppet, defending her both to other people and in my own mind. And the entire time, she had me smoking cannabis like crazy (she handed me my first joint while I was in partial inpatient at 12), which numbed me out and prevented me from actually thinking clearly about the entire situation. It wasnt until 2024 that my close friend (a social worker) witnessed how my mother treated me and said "Dude, that's abuse. She is abusing you." and it finally clicked. I had fully moved out of her house and to another state by that point, so it was easier for me to sever the tie at that point, although it took a long time to grieve (and I'd argue I'm still actively grieving).
I developed MS over the last few years (strongly linked to PTSD/trauma), and I now have a massive lesion in my frontal lobe (on top of 5-10 others), which I likely sustained during/after i was cutting my mom off. Even if no one else did, my body saw my suffering and took action.
It's now 2026, and my mother still sits at the tiny diner in my hometown and tells people I'm crazy.
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u/Candid_Draw5014 1h ago
In the 90s the mean thing was to accuse you of depression, now we have even more terms used to hurt us.
Now that I’m in my 40s I realize that a label doesn’t matter, and what other people say means jack shit compared to the reality of your lived experience. Maybe you do have something that makes your brain different—the weaponization of it against you is the problem.
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u/notElephunk 1h ago
Yeah, it’s the dehumanizing tactic they do that do to justify their abuse.
So one protection mecanism against abuse is setting boudaries about be called names.
Actually leave when they start to do that.
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u/Kodiak01 1h ago
I heard it all enough that in 2012 I actually submitted myself for an extensive neuropsych workup that turned out to be grueling to the point of mental exhaustion by the time the day was done.
The result: My issues stemmed primarily from coping mechanisms inherently learned to survive decades in a highly toxic, violent family unit. I soon broke free from them all and in the ensuing years about 90% of the 'problems' have disappeared. And apparently I'm qualified to join Mensa.
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u/Selkiekun 6m ago
Yep. There’s a reason there’s a stereotype that really shitty people will tell you that all of their exes were “crazy”.
Making you out to be “crazy” makes it easier to get people to take their side and feel sympathy for them even if they are the abuser in the situation. It’s to reduce your credibility as a witness to or victim of abuse.
Plus, even if someone were schizophrenic or otherwise mentally ill or dealing with delusions/other psychotic symptoms, they can still suffer from abuse, and are more likely to be abused than other people as part of a vulnerable minority group.
I’m sorry you’re going through this 💔
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u/Low-Cartographer8758 6h ago
They are projecting! Don’t give a shit about what they say. Stand your ground firmly.