Personality Disorders: More Than What The Eye Sees

Sometimes other people’s behavior can be confusing and completely incomprehensible from our own perspective. You’ve probably thought about other people’s personalities many times without finding answers.

The personalities are not carved in stone. Rather, they are full of various bumps and cracks. Sometimes, however, these cracks are so deep that they disintegrate a person and become the most remarkable features of their personality of all.

Sometimes certain distractions can occur in a person, not so much as exceptions, but as repetitive patterns in their behavior. These are known as personality disorders.

What are personality disorders?

Personality disorder is a behavioral pattern that occurs in late adolescence and early adulthood. Such behavior tends to change a person’s relationships with others.

What we see as personality disorders is that certain traits become completely central to someone’s behavior. For example, we all want to be the center of attention in certain situations, but some people will not be able to act if they are not the center of attention in some way all the time.

Some of the most common personality disorders

Some of the most inappropriate traits become conventional patterns of behavior that remain the same over time and in different situations. We explain some of these personality disorders that cause the most suffering:

Narcissistic personality disorder

People with this disorder are characterized as having a sense of greatness and a need to get admiration from others. They have a tendency to be complacent, and are often overwhelmed by fantasies of boundless success, power, splendor, beauty, and love.

Narcissists tend to have arrogant attitudes and a lack of empathy. They use relationships to achieve their goals. They think they are special and unique. They pretend and are prone to exploitation and envy.

Paranoic personality disorder

People with this disorder are prone to mistrust and suspicion of their environment and interpret other people’s behavior as malevolent. They constantly think that someone has a conspiracy against them, or that they are being subjected to unfounded insults and accusations. You recognize them by their way of receiving your intentions with suspicion and distrust.

This results in them being reluctant to build intimate and trusting relationships. In addition, if they think they have been deceived, they will carry resentment for a long time, constantly returning to these grievances. It is not uncommon for this behavior to be directed specifically at their partners, as they constantly think they are unfaithful.

Unstable personality disorder

This personality disorder sees a general pattern of instability in relationships and self-image, as well as marked impulsivity that begins in early adulthood and manifests in a variety of situations. They tend to blame others for their own suffering.

It is also called “borderline personality,” as these individuals may have extreme neuroticism that may lead to psychotic episodes in some situations.

In addition to depression, this disorder appears to be the fastest growing among the population, and for that reason we will explain it in more detail. Individuals with this disorder can be characterized by recurrent unstable interpersonal relationships. Everything is either negative or positive, without the possibility of anything in between.

The most disturbing factor of all in unstable personality disorder is the regulation of emotions. Therapy is most commonly focused on a person’s ability to strengthen and adjust themselves, accept, and regulate their emotions.

Many theories, such as those of Anthony Bateman and Peter Fonagy, say that these people are incapable of understanding themselves or others subjectively. It means that their anxiety immediately translates into action without passing through the filter of the mind.

Their distress and inability to understand things sensibly materializes into sudden action. The potential for suicidal behavior and suicide is greater in this disorder.  One popular therapy for this disorder is Marsha M. Linehan’s dialectical behavioral therapy.

Linehan himself suffers from this disorder and he developed the idea that there is a genetic predisposition to this disorder, but environmental factors trigger an outbreak. Some films that have filmed this disorder are called Girl, Interrupted (Finnish Year of My Youth) and the Spanish film La Herida (Finnish Disability).

Dependent personality disorder

This disorder is classified as a fearful and anxious personality disorder. These people have a pattern of behavior that occurs as a general, excessive need to be cared for by someone, leading to fears of submission, addiction, and separation.

Addicted people are afraid to make decisions for themselves, and they need reassurance and confirmation from others. Addicted people tend to desperately look for partners, even if they don’t feel really committed emotionally. They simply do not want to be alone or be rejected. Sometimes, if they feel rejected, they try to get attention by crossing certain boundaries and blaming others.

Attentive personality

Individuals with this disorder have a pattern of behavior that involves exaggerated emotions and attention. They behave seductively, dramatically and enthusiastically in their search for attention. Such behavior is associated with self-centeredness and an inability to accept unrest in their social interactions.

Attention-seeking people want to be the center of attention at all costs, be it importance, pomp, or excessive sacrifice.

They seem to have good social skills, but their excessive drama and theatricality often corrode their interpersonal relationships. They do not tolerate frustration well, and any kind of rejection or sign of indifference to them is an unbearable insult that causes them a lot of trouble.