No. I’m not suggesting it makes it okay. I’m suggesting that IF she does have BPD or some other mental disease, she may not have been aware of how it was warping and driving her behavior. I’m suggesting that the stress of living with an addict may have really pushed her over thr edge and out of control in a manner that she hasn’t experienced before. I’m suggesting that addicts don’t like to party alone, they often push their friends and loved ones to get drunk or high with them. I’m suggesting that if she was on meds and/or he coerced or manipulated her into taking drugs or self medicating that could have really thrown off her treatment and damaged her. They would both be culpable in that scenario.
I know addiction is a mental disease as well. My point is twofold. One, that with addiction your behavioral choices lead to the disease. Like it or not, you know that’s true. Other mental diseases, like schizophrenia or BPD, sneak up behind you. You didn’t do anything that led to them. The behavior follows the disease instead of the disease following the behavior.
My second point is that there is a glamorization of drinking and drug use. Everybody wants to party. With addicts, they don’t want to give up the lifestyle as part of getting better and they can’t get better until they do. There’s always an excuse. It’s everyone else’s fault. More often than not when they get treatment it’s family members who are forcing the issue. They do it to get you off their back, not because they want to be well. They want to be high. Whereas people with other mental illness fight tooth and nail to have a chance at normacy. They don’t want to end up institutionalized. Like it or not, those are my observations and I’m from Appalachia, sir, so I’m not lying when I say I’ve seen more than my fair share of both.
All that said, my comment was not about Heard or Depp, but about peoples' perceptions around this trial and what fed in to their toxic spiral. I’ll say it again, I believe they were both equally abusive and both equally deserving of any compassion and empathy.
But only one of them is getting that. That’s troubling. If mental illness is the marker, they’re both suffering from mental illness. Why aren’t they both deserving?
People don’t even seem to realize that Johnny Depp is not on trial. He sued her in a civil case. He’s not the defendant, she is. And, neither one of them are or have faced criminal charges for assault or DV.
People have lost their damn minds over this.
