Personality is something you’re born with. Anyone who has more than one kid (or who had even ONE sibling) knows that kids come out of the womb as unique little beings. Traits like shyness, curiosity, boldness, fussiness – these are often evident from the start. Take the basic, primary color emotions, attitudes and behaviors of anyone you know, dial it back to childhood, and you’ll find basically the same personality the person has now.
We’re all unique and we’re all entitled to our personalities. What we do with them, however, is quite another matter.
Personality becomes a personality disorder when your personality goes off the charts. Famous examples: Ted Kaczynski (narcissistic personality disorder), Ted Bundy (antisocial personality disorder). You don’t have to be named Ted to have a personality disorder, however. Most of us know several people who have disordered personalities – whether we know the label or not. A little over 14% of the population would fit the criteria.
Personality disorders are partitioned into three clusters. Dramatic, emotional and erratic is one. A second cluster is the odd and eccentric personalities. They range from the paranoid to those who believe themselves to be clairvoyant. The third is the anxious and fearful cluster. You know the guy who’s always trying to keep everything on his desk perfectly straight and the woman who always counts her steps? Those are signs of an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.
As much fun as it can be trying to label family and co-workers, what we usually end up describing are their idiosyncrasies. We all have those. Some are cute. Some are annoying, but none keep us from engaging in the real world or drive people away.
Personality disorders are most evident when what a person is feeling and doing long term does not match up internally (I hate you, don’t leave me) or externally (I’m waaaay more important than every single person in the world). If your behavior routinely ticks off the people around you, then you might get slapped with a personality disorder label. Narcissistic, Borderline, Histrionic, Anti-social are all good examples of such labels. If you fall into this cluster of personality disorders then most likely you’ve had conversation with loved ones about how you’re always dramatic, emotional and erratic.
The beater about personality disorders is that they are extremely difficult to treat – because personality disordered individuals think they’re the normal ones and the rest of us are nuts to think there’s anything wrong with them. The term for this is ego-syntonic. Everything they do seems perfectly fine to them. A differentiator: depression is ego-dystonic – meaning a depressed person knows there’s something wrong and wants to feel better.
Few people truly have disordered personalities. Determining if they do is something The LifeWorks Group can help with. We can help personality disordered individuals relieve the internal distress of struggling to engage in a world they’re constantly clashing with, or help you better cope with that person.
Either way, it’s a long slog. But we’re here. And we’re not going anywhere. You can hate us but we’re not leaving.
If you or someone you love is struggling with a personality disorder, we recommend the following LifeWorkers:
Please call or email Lifeworks for more information, or to make an appointment.
