Dear Prudence

I Think you are all wrong about the young lady who dosnt want to talk to her step mother because she is not over her parents divorce. You say you think she has a personality disorder and i say your so wrong. Is it that hard to see. Maybe what shes telling you is right. Didnt you think that maybe shes realy not ready to move on because of the hurt her parents did to her when they divorced and maybe she dosnt trust this woman because her mom did have an affaire and than also this lady has a perfect advantage.Also anyone who deals with a divorce normally has some abandonment issues even grown adults it can lead right back to the childhood. I agree that is it rude and unfair for the daughter to treat the step mom and children liek that but my advice is give her time. Show her that your not leaving ur sticking around and that you truly love and care for her dad. Her father needs to also show that just becuase hes remarried dosnt mean hes going to stop being her father and that it changes nothing between them.And if all else fails know that you cant change her mind she has to do that and its not your respnsibility.

I think may be a lot of people are overreacting to what Prudence said about personality disorder.

I always understood personality disorder to be much milder than mental illness. People with personality disorders function perfectly well in the community and more often than not require no medication or psychiatric intervention, as is normally the case with mental illness. I believe the full term is "borderline personality disorder", which means the person functions perfectly normally except in one or two areas where they have reactions which seem unreasonable and/or extreme to their family and friends.

If you look at the explanatory link to the term "personality disorder" in Prudence's answer, it is clearly stated that around 15% of people have a personality disorder of some sort. I am darn certain 15% of the population are not mentally ill.

Perhaps it would have been better if Prudie and the rest of us who used the term "personality disorder" with regard to this stepdaughter had inserted the word "borderline" in front! However, it is not, and never has been, another way of saying "mental illness"

Maybe by the time you are 20, you will see just how much can change in 10 years, and recognize that a normal person would get over it by now. Both of the parents have remarried, so obviously they have. She wasn't married to either of them.

No one is asking the daughter to quit being her mother's daughter, only to be polite to her father's new family members.

Parents get over divorce much faster than the children of divorce. Many children of divorce (even and sometimes especially) don't ever "get over" it.

It sounds like the daughter was polite when she explained that she didn't want to have a relationship with the new wife. That means the new wife is the rude one imposing her will over a grown woman.

Felicity, I appreciate that you are trying to stick up for this woman in saying that she is probably not mentally ill - but personality disorders are mental illnesses, they are diagnosable psychiatric disorders so I don't know what else you'd call them. Borderline personality disorder in particular is not borderline in the sense that it's not nearly a disorder; it's more like borderline as in the person is nearly always on the border or on the brink. It's actually one of the worst kinds to have. (it is a type of personality disorder, not the full name for the term as you suggest)

Some people WOULD say that 15% of the population at any given time is mentally ill - but these are the same people who think all hyper kids are ADD and any rude or anti-social behavior is a personality disorder.

I think this just goes to show you that people shouldn't throw around terms like "personality disorder" because then no one really understands. It's a very loaded term - a diagnosis, in fact - and if Prudence hadn't wanted people to "overreact" to it, she shouldn't have used it.

This is factually incorrect. There are at least ten different kinds of personality disorder. One specific type, one out of the ten or more, is called "borderline personality disorder". It is a specific disorder, and differs from things like narcissistic personality disorder, schizoid personality disorder, and paranoid personality disorder.

Do not call all personality disorders "borderline personality disorder". It's sort of like calling all lung-related conditions "lung cancer" - factually wrong and very misleading.

And they are psychiatric diagnoses and are considered mental illnesses.