Have you ever had a friend whose mood would change drastically every little while? One week they are over joyful, energetic, happy, hyper and just spreading good vibes all around. Another week they are depressed, sulking over matters you cannot seem to get and just feeling very down. Have you asked yourself why the drastic change in their mood and behaviour?
Well, you might have been in contact with someone who has a personality disorder. But what are personality disorders, how are they recognizable and what do they look like? Let’s explore!
Let’s start simple, personality defines us, we each have our unique characteristics that make us who we are, but what exactly are those traits and why do we call them our personality?
Let’s think of personality as a big box that contains all the ways we deal with our day to day life, it is a compilation of the ways we act, we present ourselves and react to life in general.
What does this box of personality include? And keep in mind, each personality is unique to its own person, there are no two people that are exactly alike, and that’s the beauty of it!
You can look at it as a bundle of different notions all compiled together in a box that defines us, and this box has an open lid because personality is not rigid, in fact, it’s dynamic.
As you read about personality disorders below, keep in mind that you should strictly avoid diagnosing yourself! Personality disorders are very serious psychiatric disorders and are diagnosed by mental health professionals.
That being said, you can always consult a professional regarding anything you are worried about, for now, enjoy learning!
Personality is flexible! This means our personality changes as we grow and learn from new experiences, we develop new traits along the way, we can change the way we react to things and even our thought processes changes.
There is a wide range of personality disorders, each characterized by different disruptions in the self and behavior. Personality disorders have common traits but they can also differ on a multitude of levels.
There are 10 recognized personality disorders, however, for now we will focus on some more than others.
Let’s look more in depth into some of the different personality disorders:
This personality disorder is characterized by constant stress and suspicion regarding day-to-day interactions with others; a person will always be alert and in doubt of other people’s intentions toward him/her and will interpret them as malicious in most cases.
This disorder is characterized by shying away from social interactions, avoiding any sort of social activities and avoiding expressing feelings amongst interpersonal relationships (relationships with others).
Manifestations include:
This personality disorder is characterized by odd social behaviors, a reduced desire to have close relationships with others, discomfort in maintaining social relationships and misrepresentations in the perception of other people.
Let’s take a small break from the different types and look into the last two personality disorders, they have quite a lot of common points.
Below is a table that portrays the distinction between those two disorders to put everything more into perspective
| Schizoid | Schizotypal |
|---|---|
Less likely to seek treatment | More likely to seek treatment |
Does not feel odd in the condition and can be satisfied | Feel different and are usually depressed or anxious regarding their social life and want to get better |
Does not portray odd appearances or behaviors | Are distinguishable usually due to their odd appearances and behaviors |
Does not experience cognitive disturbances | Can experience cognitive disturbances such as hallucinations |
Does not desire having close friends or people | Has the interest in having close friends and connections but has difficulties in achieving them |
This disorder is characterized by constant deviant behavior paying no regard for the violations or the consequences that might follow. People diagnosed with antisocial also show no regard for others and do not account for their feelings or wellbeing.
Manifestations include:
This disorder is mainly characterized by being impulsive, having a pattern of instability in interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships – relationships with others and with one’s self respectively. It’s a highly emotional disorder and even affects self-image.
Manifestations include:
The serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was diagnosed with both Schizotypal Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder.
This disorder is mainly characterized by wanting attention, these people can go above and beyond just to get the attention they desire and they are usually highly emotional as well.
Manifestations include:
This disorder is mainly characterized by having a sense of grandiosity, a need for attention and admiration and a general lack of empathy for others, to some they come off as obnoxious.
Manifestations include:
This disorder is characterized by a sense of social inhibition, they tend to avoid others, they feel inferior to others and are highly sensitive to criticism or any negative valuation that comes their way.
This disorder is characterized by a need to be accompanied by another and taken care of, dependent diagnosed people are usually submissive and tend to cling tightly to a person and have a fear of that person leaving them.
This disorder is characterized by rigidity, being obsessed with order and perfection. It usually negatively impacts efficacy and openness.
Manifestations include:
After looking at personality disorders from a very diagnostic point of view, it can be tricky to imagine how those manifestations look in real life, so let’s have a little insight on a real story told from patients that live with those disorders.
Below find some brave people who shared their struggles to bring more awareness to the topic!
For the sake of privacy, the names in the example given will be a MADE-UP NAME.
This is the story of a 26-year-old girl in the USA, let’s call her Sam. She lives with her father due to her condition as she cannot live by herself and in her society this is something absurd as the norm is for young adults to leave their houses around the age of 18 and start the independent life.
Sam has suffered from BPD and was diagnosed with it seven years ago, even though the diagnosis helped answer all her questions on why she was feeling as though she was different from everyone around her, she felt alienated and wanted an answer to all her questions.
Despite all the difficulties and challenges that Sam has experienced and is currently still experiencing, society has not been easy on her, a lot of people do not believe in her diagnosis including her parents. She lost so many friends along the way due to the symptoms of her disorder especially her emotions and how she could not control them.
And you might think that her father who she is living with might be of support, yet this is not the case, they are barely on speaking terms and she sometimes loses her control interacting with him.
When Sam describes her emotions she asks you to think of the most intense emotion of sadness or happiness you have ever had and then imagine having that every single day of your life. Sam also explains that her definition of intense emotions is those explained earlier but multiplied by 10. Even though she tries to gain control of her emotions she still feels as though she is failing at it.
Sam is still losing friends to her case especially when she loses control over what she is saying and hurts others deeply but unintentionally, she feels as though no one should have to deal with that.
The stigma around mental health is real, and it is something that Sam is deeply struggling with, she longs for a sense of understanding and acceptance and when she tries to mend relationships or solve problems, her past actions haunt her and are used against her.
And so my message to you is
Be aware and spread awareness; try your best to let go of prejudice towards others when you feel like they are acting in different and odd says, you never know when you might encounter a Sam in your life, and it is your compassion, kindness and empathy that gives people like her a sense of hope.
Sam does not want to let go of the notion that there are good people in the world, and it is only up to you to start being a positive advocate for change in your community.
Let us divert a little from the bulk of personality disorders and look into how they can be associated with eating disorders. How does the relationship work and how are they correlated?
Comorbidity is a medical term that explains the presence of two or more chronic illnesses together, in simple words, it is being diagnosed with two diseases at the same time. Sometimes they come together and are related and many factors can lead to the presence of more than one illness together.
For instance, do you know someone who is above 70 that has both diabetes and heart disease?
This is the closest example to comorbidity and it happens most commonly with people of old age who start developing health problems.
It is important to note that those diseases can interact with one another but not always.
So let’s delve deeper into comorbidity in personality and eating disorders:
Researchers have found that personality disorders are found to be comorbid with two main eating disorders:
It is found more commonly in youthful age groups than older ones to have personality disorders and eating disorders together, this is mainly due to reasons related to perfection, constriction and impulsivity.
The main personality disorders that have been found to be comorbid with eating disorders are:
As you have just seen, comorbidity does not always mean there in an interaction between the two diagnoses, however, when it comes to this case, there is an interaction.
Let’s look at perfectionism; it can come here in the sense that one adheres to the beauty standards and wants to look “perfect” as in the unrealistic standards set by society where one a perfect body is thin or curvy with a flat stomach, patients here would constrict themselves from eating specific meals or types of foods or can adopt different ways in order to lose weight eventually developing eating disorders.
Other factors that can be traits within a personality disorder that can lead to the development of eating disorders are presented below:
Impulsivity | Unorganized eating patterns, binge eating, or purging |
Stress reactions | Binging food or losing appetite |
Novelty Seeking | Finding pleasure through new experiences with food which can lead to a loss of control |
Emotional eating | The inability to regulate negative emotions |
Some patients diagnosed with personality disorders who are on medication can face eating disorder problems due to side effects of medications which can sometimes increase one’s weight or in other cases suppress appetite.
A lot of personality disorders include manifestations that create disturbances in interpersonal interactions and this can create conflict in the way people with personality disorders perceive friends and in the way their friends perceive them.
So, to look more into the dynamic of those friendships, researchers looked into 3 different factors.
In some personality disorders, people have trouble trusting their friends even the ones closet to them as they question their intentions and doubt their loyalty. In some cases, they feel a sense of discomfort in interacting with friends or they fear they will embarrass themselves so they step away.This shows a low sense of security in the friendship and it happens in cases like borderline, antisocial, schizotypal and other personality disorders.Part of this low security is attributed to having a sense of inferiority, the fear of humiliation or just feeling unappreciated overall. Those disturbances caused by the personality disorders are a key reason in the failure to maintain long term friendships.
This refers to the difficulty in maintaining the friendships and keeping people in one’s life. Since many personality disorders include the difficulty to maintain social relationships and friends, this aspect was studied deeper and it was found that some qualities in friends can enhance the ability to maintain friendships.
Different qualities that can help with the maintenance of friendships from the side of friends and people with personality disorders are presented below:
| Friends | People with Personality Disorders |
|---|---|
Utilitarianism | Emotional control |
High self-affirmation | Being effortlessly persuaded by others |
The desire to please others |
Looking into the maintenance of friendships with people who are diagnosed with personality disorders, researchers found that they identified more closely with people who are of the same sex, however this did not stop them from having cross-sex friendships however they did prove to be more difficult to maintain in their cases; despite the difficulties, cross-sex friendships with people who have personality disorders were found to be more special, exclusive and permanent in different cases.
Have you ever wondered what happens after someone gets the diagnosis? Do they get admitted to a hospital? A psych ward? Therapy? How do they manage?
When it comes to personality disorders and how serious they are, there are two main approaches that help:
When it comes to therapy it is all relevant on what particular disorder one is dealing with, the severity and life events. Some people have individual therapy, others have group therapy, others have a mixture of both. It all depends case by case. Even therapeutic approaches can be different, sometimes behavioral therapy is used, other times psychoanalytic therapy, t is relative to the disorder and what works for the patient.
As for medication, it can help manage symptoms like anxiety for example, and it used a lot when the disorders cause neurochemical imbalances. There is still ongoing research on medication, how helpful they are for personality disorders; most research on medications for now focus on borderline.
As unfortunate as it is, there is no way around it, the mental health stigma is real and people who suffer from mental illnesses do not have it easy whether that be from their symptoms acting up or from society as a whole.
The treatment for personality disorders is mainly focused on psychosocial therapy and psychiatry (medications), however, those are not the only notions that help people with personality disorders, you, as a member of the society play a huge role.
Let’s look into ways you can help,
If someone you know shared with you their diagnosis of a personality disorder here are some tips on how you can help them and be of support:
Personality disorders are not easy cases to deal with or be around, so as hard as it may look from an outsider’s point of view, it is harder to be in the situation trying to deal with it especially given the society’s lack of acceptance and prejudice.
So I will leave you with one last message; be kind, compassionate and always remember:
We rise by lifting others.
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