Borderline Campaign Disorder: The "B" Hoax

On a cold night in Pittsburgh, a disturbed young woman committed an act all too common--she called in an attack on herself, stating that she had been attacked by a black man who had robbed her, and, seeing the McCain sticker on her car, in a fit of social activism somehow compatible with his immediately previous psychopathy, slashed a "B" into her face. That the B was, in fact, backwards--as would be the case if one was putting it on themselves while looking into a mirror--was no doubt meant as a literary irony, such as the "Amerika" of earlier social radicals, while the lightness of the scratching--despite the "attacker's" cited "rage"--was no doubt a signal of his electoral ambivalence in this tight race.

Of course, the event, implausible as fact even to the most rabid fictionalists on the right-wing, was a hoax. Anyone who understands the diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder is well aware of what happened here. Extreme needs for attention combine with physically destructive behavior--most often seen in cutting one's own skin--in an act meant to bring outer love and attention as it attacks inner self-hatred.

The act is rarely carefully planned. One of the key features of Borderline Personality Disorder is impulsivity. The act is usually spurred by rage. As a result, they spring to action, in order to address the immediate need, without any consideration of how the behavior will later unravel. There is an intense desire to address a powerful sense of abandonment with an impulsive and ultimately self-destructive action.

In a supreme irony, these characteristics mirror the tactical efforts of the McCain/Palin ticket throughout this campaign: impulsivity, an emphasis on the grand and immediate gesture, and one that is poorly thought through and is ultimately self destructive.

Perhaps the act was wiser than it seems.

Perhaps it was meant as homage.

UPDATE: Woman has been identified as having a history of mental illness.
If this was used by media or by the campaign, it is reprehensible.

UPDATE: Police report, as predicted above, that they believe injuries may have been self-inflicted.