Not only do we parents use mental illness as an excuse . . . our alcoholic/addicts do, too. My daughter used her "social anxiety disorder" as a reason that she needed benzos. She used the poor, poor me excuse of mental illness for years as an excuse for her addictions.
The truth is, once she got sober, she doesn't display the same mental illness symptoms that she did when she was using.
In fact, she takes great exception to being called borderline now which was one of her diagnoses. Her manipulative behavior was caused by her addiction and is gone now with sobriety.
You are right, RN. I kept thinking if it was mental illness it wasn't my daughter's fault and that I just needed to find the right doctor, the right medications, the right program and I could fix everything. Turned out my daughter needed to fix it herself.
