A personality disorder is a mental disorder where instead of the problem being your brain setup, mood, disconnection from reality, or pointless habits, you simply behave in a way that makes adjusting to life difficult. Lots of people do this, so it's important to recognize that everybody has these traits to one degree or another. They're called personality styles or traits when they don't cause problems.
Note that personality is sometimes considered the psychological immune system. Indeed, those with personality traits like behaviors that are often antagonistic towards others or a tendency to take things too personally are more likely to show mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse. Such disorders are often the reason why someone with a personality disorder would seek treatment in the first place.
Any behavior can be justified depending on what situation you're put in. It's believed these people act the way they do because as a child they were overexposed to situations where the behavior had survival value, reinforcing it. So they never learned to shift gears when the situation calls for it. Genetics usually only ensure that the childhood environment doesn't have a blank canvas to work on, but sometimes people literally were born that way. If you really want a better grasp of these disorders, it helps to get a basic understanding of evolution and the process of natural selection. Thinking about how this behavior would (or could) be useful in a low tech hunter-gatherer society tends to help too.
Things to keep in Mind
The comorbidity of these disorders leads to confusion. Looking at a personality as a story and each disorder as a different genre that can overlap with other ones can help to understand it better. Keep in mind that even if somebody meets the criteria for one personality disorder they can still meet the criteria for a personality style of one of the other disorders. If two of the disorders look like they'll cause similar behavior, the underlying reasons for the behavior in each is different.No two people with the same mental disorder act exactly the same, and just because a behavior is reported to be common in a mental disorder doesn't mean everyone who has the disorder will behave that way. Hollywood Psych and SoYouWantTo.Develop Character Personalitynote are useful to keep in mind.
Also, although the specific personality disorders list traits, a personality disorder is more defined by the inability to get along with others than specific personality traits. When most people encounter a situation they will experiment with different things (some things they're reluctant to try and some things not so much) until they find something that works for them and everybody involved. People with personality disorders will keep doing the same thing regardless of results.
Disorders recognized in the DSM-5:
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(aka "DSM" – currently on its 5th edition, ergo "DSM-5"), the Universe Bible for abnormal psychology, groups personality disorders into three clusters. The first of these is Cluster A, which focuses on the "odd"-type personality disorders: Paranoid, Schizoid, and Schizotypal. The second is Cluster B, the "dramatic"-type disorders: Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic, and Narcissistic. The final cluster, Cluster C, encompasses the "anxious"-type disorders: Avoidant, Dependent, and Obsessive-Compulsive.Cluster A: "Odd"
Most of us know not to be offended when we see the Alpha Bitch, Jerk Jock, or Big Man on Campus walking down the street. Not so with these people. They're suspicious of everybody's motives and don't know who to trust. Those afflicted undergo immense emotional torment from failing to form close bonds with people. Their ability to appreciate the aesthetic value of something, such as the quiet and tranquility of a day at the park, is reduced or nonexistent because they're too busy examining every minor detail for nonexistent proof that others are trying to sabotage them.
People who were repeatedly backstabbed, or have a Humans Are Bastards perspective, can be prone to this.
Like the narcissist, they see themselves as the victim and have difficulty in recognizing their role in the discomfort of others. The difference is that narcissists want the company of other people, when they bring praise, and actively attract people to themselves. Paranoids don't like the company of other people because those people will more than likely take what little this unfair life decided to give the paranoid person. The way in which they cause discomfort is also different. With narcissists, people would rather spend their time and energy doing other things such as getting to the solution of the problem. With paranoids, people tire of the accusations and wish they'd be more of a team player.
Some studies suggest the paranoid personality disorder is part of the schizophrenic spectrum and some suggest PPD has connections to delusional disorder but not schizophrenia. Like delusional disorder, someone with paranoid personality disorder can be a high functioning case of The Schizophrenia Conspiracy. Cult leaders have a good chance of having paranoid personality disorder or grandiose delusional disorder instead of schizophrenia.
Schizoid personality disorder is caused by very potent needs for interpersonal safety. What happens is in early childhood (so the first 5 or so years of life), they are confronted with abuse, intrusiveness, neglect, or mistreatment, and develop a relational style of complete detachment from social relationships, making them extreme introverts essentially. On the outside, they may appear uninvolved and emotionless, but this is merely a protective façade, meant to hide their incredibly turbulent emotions, anxieties about relationships, and strong need for human connection and attachment security.
Of course, this extreme introversion stems from distress, as they view human relationships as too risky, too dangerous, and too potentially harmful to be worth engaging in. And since we live in a world where it is impractically impossible to be successful without holding sustained bonds with others, schizoid personality disorder also results in dysfunction and interpersonal difficulty.
Media often doesn’t show schizoid personality disorder, and if they do, not particularly well, since the public by and large doesn’t know that much about personality disorders, especially the more esoteric ones like schizoid. If you are seeking to portray this condition, it may be helpful to avoid the following common misconceptions:
Schizoids don’t have an interest in personal relationships
Most schizoids do have an interest in interpersonal relationships, they simply view them as too unsafe to be worth engaging in. Schizoids can form durable bonds with non-human animals, such as dogs, cats, or other pets, for instance, since they perceive those relationships as largely safe and less complicated or worrying compared to human relationships. This shows that if schizoids feel like they can meet their need for interpersonal safety in their relationships, they will pursue those relationships.
Schizoids are just autistic
Asocial behavior in autistic people is usually the result of rejection by allistic people. What happens is autistic people will be clearly autistic, infodumping, stimming, and being generally idiosyncratic, which will turn allistic people off and cause them to not want to associate with the autistic person, resulting in them being left alone. This may appear like asociality, but it is not by choice. Most autistic people want relationships with others, but it is hard to find people who accept them for who they are. This is a very different reason than we find in schizoids, who are so afraid of being harmed in relationships, that they reject them altogether. In a way, it’s not by choice, since this fear is something that requires psychotherapy to unlearn and is not something one can simply “will” themselves to do.
Schizoids are just schizophrenic
Some schizoids are schizophrenic, but by and large, schizoid personality disorder is not a schizophrenia spectrum disorder. Instead, schizoids have incredibly turbulent emotions (or high neuroticism) often caused by perceived or real issues with interpersonal relationships, and they overcompensate for these emotions by showing a behavioral pattern so inflexible and extreme that it causes dysfunction throughout their lives. This makes schizoid personality disorder conceptually more similar to borderline personality disorder and the rest of the Cluster Bs, than any kind of psychotic disorder.
Despite the prefix schizo- in schizoid, it doesn’t have an inherent relationship to schizophrenia. To suggest otherwise is an etymological fallacy. This isn’t to say there is NO relationship with schizophrenia, just that they aren’t intrinsically related.
Schizoids are emotionless
All of the personality disorders exhibit high neuroticism, that is turbulent, rapidly shifting emotions that are highly reactive to stress. Schizoid personality disorder is no different. The main source of this misconception comes from schizoids presenting themselves very stoically and plainly, but behavior is not the same as one’s inner experience. The mask is not its wearer. Schizoids will hide their emotions out of habit in order to protect themselves from harm, and will often have difficulties labeling or understanding their feelings, but they definitely have them. In fact, their emotional reactions on the inside are probably MORE extreme than the emotional reactions of neurotypical people.
Schizoids lack empathy
Schizoid personality disorder is not pathological narcissism, nor is it psychopathy. People with SzPD may appear unempathetic, but this is out of fear over being harmed by others. Because they retreat inward and withdraw from all relationships with people, they may appear like they don’t care about people’s feelings. Most actually do, they just prefer to hide it. Meanwhile, many pathological narcissists genuinely don’t care about people’s feelings, though be unaware that they don’t. Psychopaths genuinely don’t care about people’s feelings too, and usually are aware of that fact.
Other notes
Similar to Asexuality, this disorder rarely shows up in the media since it's hard to show a lack of something, though many characters would meet the criteria if they were less ambitious (which pushes them towards antisocial territory), weren't secretly shy (and thus veering more into avoidant territory), or weren't spiced up with the Rule of Cool.
Schizoid personality disorder is often conflated with avoidant personality disorder, though the motivations behind each disorder are different. Schizoids withdraw out of fear over being harmed in some way by others, avoidants withdraw due to low self-esteem or overall anxieties regarding social relationships. It's worth mentioning that the co-morbidity rate of avoidant personality disorder and social anxiety disorder is 80-90% depending on the study, implying that AvPD isn't a distinct personality disorder like SzPD is, but rather an extreme case of social anxiety disorder.
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Examples from various media:
Literature
- Jack Kerouac was diagnosed with this, which may explain his transient life and his spontaneous but emotionally understated Signature Style.
Unlike the borderline, these people are the true borderline schizophrenics. Like the borderline, they lack a stable sense of self, but while a borderline is more likely to feel like a hollow collector of personalities and passions that they lifted from other people, a schizotypal instead feels like a presence that occupies a human body but isn't really human. Nonetheless, the two disorders are often comorbid.
The defining characteristics of STPD are bizarre or eccentric beliefs and weirdly specific thinking. If someone mentions Easter, schizotypal sufferers immediately think the Easter Bunny's right ear, something else more specific than the average person would think of, or something only loosely affiliated with Easter. Symbols must travel down long and twisted corridors before reaching something the rest of us would find relevant, possibly not even making it anywhere at all. They often feel as if the body and mind are separate from themselves and have surreal experiences where random thoughts pop up, resulting in their making bizarre connections between things. They can go into Nightmare Fuel territory in their imaginations as at times bizarre images (often violent or sexual) will seem to pass in front of the mind's eye, almost like watching a movie. Like in many delusional disorders, pattern perception and recognition is a very common feature, and while higher-functioning examples are usually able to stay cognizant of reality, many lower-functioning sufferers can veer dangerously close to full-blown psychosis. [1]
Their speech pattern exhibits a Continuity Lock-Out with reality through the use of Vagueness Is Coming and Rule of Symbolism, though they may seem inordinately detached or unenthusiastic due to flat affect. This is believed to reflect a similar Magic Realism style perception of the world. Their appearance is often idiosyncratic at best and visibly disheveled and unkempt at worst (often with similarly poor hygiene), and people who interact with them frequently find them unapproachable, cold, aloof, and often creepy.
Variations exist where schizotypal eccentricities can be explained by avoidant nervousness or schizoid emptiness.
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Examples from various media:
Film
- Psychologists frequently interpret Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver as having schizotypal personality disorder. These readings cite his difficulties with socialization (for instance, trying to look charming but instead coming off as creepy), his stilted speech (both in dialogue and his inner monologues), his tendency to see others in black and white terms, and especially his apparent paranoia which morphs into a belief that he's on a mission to cleanse the world of filth.
Podcasts
- Serial: In Season 2, focusing on Bowe Bergdahl (the American soldier taken hostage by the Taliban): After several episodes discussing Bowe's sometimes bizarre rationalizations for his actions and a panic-attack like incident when Bowe enlisted in the Coast Guard a few years before joining the Army, Episode 8 reveals that an Army psychiatrist diagnosed him with Schizotypal Personality Disorder. When Sarah asked another psychiatrist who treated Bowe about this diagnosis, he firmly agreed. This plays into Sarah's mild distrust of Bowe's version of events.
Cluster B: "Dramatic"
Often referred to as The Sociopath, this person is the same as the narcissist except they won't take it personally if you kick them out, though they very likely will be angry about it. The only reason they'll stay in somebody's life is that that person is gullible and there's no need to reinvent the wheel. When in doubt, narcissists want others to take care of their needs and wants. They can appreciate friends— you can show off to friends or show off rich and attractive friends or go out with friends and show off to everybody— even if they do always put themselves first. Antisocials will simply take what they need or want, and don't think of anybody as a friend; everybody is a tool.
Antisocials have a reputation for rationalizing acts most would consider dog kicking, in the process shaming their accuser for standing up for themselves. Contrition and remorse are tools for getting what they want and nothing more; if they think or know that they can win their way back into someone's good graces by appearing to want to atone for their actions, they will, only to revert to their old ways the minute that they have succeeded. They take "wolf amongst the flock" narratives to heart; as far as they're concerned, playing by the rules is for fools, and if you are had by them, well, that's your fault for being too stupid and/or naive to see them for what they are. They are also notoriously prone to violent and aggressive behavior and will frequently seek revenge after a setback, and their general inability to experience guilt or appreciate consequences means that they are unlikely to view punishment as anything other than an undeserved injustice, something to bullshit their way out of, or as a score to settle. That's why many of them end up on the wrong side of the law and re-offend if they get on probation or parole.
Humans on average lean towards conservatism due to biological urges that make it as natural as breathing or having sex. People with antisocial personality disorder don't have these urges, or they exist in a diminished capacity. So if you want these individuals to be prosocial, the behavior will have to be learned which becomes harder to teach as the antisocial individual grows older; more traditional methods of teaching empathy are generally held to be useless with antisocials, as they typically just learn how to be better manipulators, especially when snowing therapists.
If treated while young, an antisocial can become very successful, pursuing goals that benefit everybody, albeit for selfish reasons. If untreated, sociopaths can become life-long criminals or otherwise live parasitic, going-nowhere-fast lives that typically involve jumping from provider to provider, bleeding them dry, and eventually getting kicked to the curb, usually with the victim much worse for wear (unwanted children and major financial commitments that the antisocial has neither the ability nor the desire to step up for being common occurrences). Successfully treated examples may still have their urges, but they have taken to heart the idea that while it may be easier to lie, cheat, steal, and mooch their way through life, the only way to live a satisfying existence that isn't ultimately going to end with them in prison, dead, or homeless after running out of couches to dive on and partners to shack up with is to play by the rules.
Antisocial behaviour is theorised to be nature's defence against leaders who don't have our best interests in mind, Obstructive Bureaucrats, and other situations where the disadvantages of being part of a group outweigh the benefits. When someone has a habit of obviously violating other people's rights and uses this as an excuse, they are said to have antisocial personality disorder. People with an antisocial style are action and adventure seekers or artists and scientists who have no qualms of violating established rules or disproving widely held theories. Precursors include Theophastrus's The Unscrupulous Man, Philippe Pinel's moral insanity, psychopathy, and sociopathy. Unlike other Cluster B personality disorders, ASPD has an explicit childhood pathway; conduct disorder is a necessary adolescent prerequisite, and oppositional defiant disorder usually progresses into conduct disorder as the child gets older. Female sufferers also tend to have a lengthy history of running away from home as adolescents, though it should not necessarily be seen as a precursor.
As far as gender-based differences are concerned, female sufferers are more likely to have other mental health issues and are also more likely to have repeatedly deceived others, gotten into violent altercations with partners where they were the aggressor, and harassed or blackmailed other parties or made false allegations, while male sufferers are more likely to have substance issues and are also more likely to have made money through illegal means, repeatedly gotten into trouble for road rage incidents or reckless driving, caused property damage (particularly through arson), deliberately hurt animals, and engaged in physically violent behavior with strangers.
Like the paranoid, they see everybody else as always out to get them. The difference is the paranoid has a set of standards they abide by. Paranoids are nice people trying to survive in a world where everybody else is a sadistic psychopath. Like the borderline, they are also often wildly impulsive and have poor judgment, but whereas borderlines typically seek relief from pain or a crippling sense of hollowness, antisocials just want what they want when they want it and fail to consider the consequences; the sky-high rates of substance abuse that stem from their inability to regulate impulses means that ASPD is commonly diagnosed after they have gotten tangled up in the legal system on drug or drug-related (usually theft) charges. Antisocials are sadistic psychopaths trying to survive in a world where everybody else is a sadistic psychopath.
It is theorized, however, that ASPD is a common misdiagnosis for male sufferers of borderline personality disorder, and like BPD with female patients, ASPD being a common "punishment" diagnosis for difficult male psych patients is unfortunately a thing and has created a reluctance in many professionals to diagnose people with it because of the very real possibility that it will create major barriers to receiving care and vastly reduce the quality of the care that they do receive. This is because "antisocial" in the psych world is often treated as shorthand for "scumbag", and a diagnosis often will bar or make it inordinately difficult for people to get into many helpful and/or necessary therapy and treatment programs (particularly substance abuse programs).
However, as noted above, they are incredibly difficult to treat under most circumstances and have extremely high therapist burnout rates. "They just don't get it" is a sentiment that has doubtlessly been held by most people who have had to treat antisocials; no matter how hard someone tries to get through to them and make breakthroughs, they often cannot keep the patient from thinking that they're a joke and that their therapy is just something that they have to do to get the court off their ass, and when the therapist realizes that the patient is playing them and that they quite simply could not give a fuck less about improving (because they don't see anything wrong, or just see consequences as people being out to get them), the growing tension between the patient and therapist erases whatever hope of successful treatment may have existed. While antisocials can change and be successfully treated, they have to want to, and the problem is that many simply don't want to or don't care.
Despite the popular image of the antisocial as always a criminal, the antisocial can be contrasted against most criminals, who will usually take precautions against getting caught.
Also sometimes known as the Psychopathic or Sociopathic Personality. See also Lack of Empathy and The Sociopath.
Mother nature creates mental defenses that aren't important for survival. Indeed, sufferers of this disorder often show chronic depression and anxiety disorders. Often times this disorder will be diagnosed after someone threatens or attempts suicide. Borderlines often report a history of childhood trauma. Prospective studies (those that interview people before the disorder starts) have shown that abuse correlates to the development of BPD, but is not necessary for its development.
BPD is sometimes confused with post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD (or "complex PTSD, C-PTSD"; DSM-V only has PTSD as diagnosis, there is no separate "C-PTSD" listed there). However, PTSD is another condition which is not a personality disorder and has both similar (difficulty with regulating emotions) and different symptoms (i.e. avoidance of relationships / alienation and sustained negative image of self in PTSD vs frantic fear of abandonment, unstable and intense relationships, impulsiveness and inconsistent image of self in BPD). It is also likely that many male sufferers are misdiagnosed with antisocial personality disorder due to the differences in manifestation; female sufferers are typically more self-destructive, with suicide attempts, self-harm, disordered eating, and sexual behavior, and dissociation being common, while male sufferers are typically far more conflict-prone, with aggression, physical violence, stalking and inappropriate contact, and substance abuse being more common than in women.
There has been talk about renaming this disorder to "emotionally unstable personality disorder" or "emotional (dys)regulation disorder" because it provides a better description of what's going on. The name "borderline" is an Artifact Title from when patients were thought to be borderline schizophrenic (which is actually more a trait of the schizotypal). As psychiatrists found out more about schizophrenia, they came to realize that only a portion of borderline patients suffered from bouts of psychosis; thus, a name change was in order. There is evidence to suggest it has connections to bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and dissociation instead.
The life of a borderline can be described as chaotic. They often report feeling empty or bored. Lack of self-image leaves the patient feeling baffled in any situation, with no clue how to feel or think. They derive little satisfaction from this juggling of identities or even personal achievements, given the lack of emotional connection to them; furthermore, they may genuinely not have any idea what they like or enjoy, and they may be skeptical about whether a new interest actually is a new interest or just something they unconsciously picked up from a new focus of attachment. This is often relieved by interpersonal relationships. Note that these can become unstable due to black and white thinking and their quickly shifting moods. They tend to have low self-esteem and desire social approval, becoming upset when they get the impression that someone doesn’t like them. The tendency of more self-aware borderlines to continually second-guess and question their perceptions due to their awareness of the realities of splitting make them great targets for gaslighting and other forms of manipulation by abusive partners.
They are also prone to nihilism, and have difficulty making and maintaining long-term plans; furthermore, they often see the world as a place full of evil and diabolical and nefarious designs, and events that most people would chalk up as coincidences or due to incompetence or inconsiderate behavior will often be interpreted as deliberate signs that they are hated or that someone wants them to suffer. Even with an understanding of what's going on, few people have the patience for the self-sabotaging nature of BPD, and the often-mercurial moods and idealization/devaluation cycles help contribute to the burned bridges and revolving doors of people that frequently mark their lives. Furthermore, even self-awareness does not guarantee a more stable life; as many sufferers will tell you, having their rational, grounded side scream at them to stop while they find themselves on an irrational, self-destructive tear that they seem to be carrying out on autopilot is a frustratingly frequent phenomenon.
The concept of a "favorite person" is also well-known to both sufferers and those close to them; this can be a romantic partner, but it is just as likely to be a friend or family member. In any case, a favorite person is the person who serves as the linchpin of a borderline's emotional health and wellbeing; their approval is typically sought for most life choices and decisions, and their role can generally be summed up as a confidante and advice-provider, just on a far more intense and personal level.
Their moods can be described as mercurial. They can go from happy in the morning to suicidal by lunchtime. It doesn't take much to shatter a borderline's good mood. Naturally, they seek to keep their mood 'up' with things that promise instant gratification. This includes use of addictive drugs, alcoholism, Self-Harm, reckless spending, dangerous sex, and disordered eating (anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating are common), as well as more innocuous vices like porn. However, borderlines have a tendency towards depression, frequently describing feelings of emptiness or brokenness. The vast majority of borderlines also meet the criteria of Major Depressive Disorder, and the less self-aware examples may also fulfill the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Contrary to popular culture's depiction, those with BPD are seldom Ax-Crazy or Consummate Liars; the image of the "classic borderline" who goes through a revolving door of extremely intense relationships that rapidly and messily collapse, regularly alienates friends and family, continually gets into physical altercations, makes extremely rash and ill-conceived life choices that can only end badly, threatens or attempts suicide, and generally lives a self-destructive and conflict-filled existence is sometimes Truth in Television, but it is definitely far from the only presentation, and most sufferers will take offense at people automatically assuming that "borderline" is synonymous with "batshit crazy and destructive". Less-affected sufferers can easily be a Nice Guy or The Stoic. Though they are terrified of abandonment and will take action to avoid it, they're much more likely to do so by hurting themselves to deal with the emotional rather than taking an If I Can't Have You… approach.
Note: Despite Self-Harm being listed in the criteria for BPD, Self-Harm is not necessarily indicative of BPD. However, it is estimated that 1 in 10 people diagnosed with this disorder will die at their own hands. Risk factors for completed suicide include previous suicide attempts, severe depression, substance abuse, and recent rejection. Any threats of suicide should be taken seriously; even if you suspect that it is manipulative, treat it as if it were legitimate and act accordingly. Penitent/intentional self-deprivation is also a very real issue; if someone with BPD is deliberately starving themselves, refusing medical treatment or deliberately allowing injuries or illnesses to worsen, or otherwise acting in a manner consistent with punishing themselves, you may have to step in as an emergency measure.
Despite all this, it should be noted that BPD is considered one of the most treatable personality disorders out there, with a high rate of remission over time with properly treated patients; dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) was created for the exact purpose of treating BPDnote and treatment-compliant patients almost always experience major tangible improvements from DBT. It is often called the "good prognosis diagnosis" because when caught early (ideally in the teens or very early twenties), it is extremely treatable, and it is because of this that the prohibition against diagnosing teenagers with personality disorders has been lifted for BPD; the older the person is, the more likely it is that they have secondary life issues (substance issues, legal trouble, financial woes, and badly strained or irreparably damaged relationships in particular) that complicate treatment.
Unfortunately, however, it still carries an extremely strong stigma in psychiatric and emergency medicine as a whole, where "borderline" is still often synonymous with "nightmare patient/lost cause", and there is a decided reluctance among many providers to diagnose people with it due to the very real possibility that the label will create barriers to receiving care (as many programs, particularly substance abuse programs, will either outright refuse to take anyone with that diagnosis or will give them a massive amount of hoops to jump through), reduce the quality of care that they do receive, and result in poor treatment by hospital staff, in addition to the sadly common phenomenon of the diagnosis being used as a punishment for difficult female patients. Like all personality disorders, borderline personality disorder runs on a spectrum; there may be Bob, who has been in and out of jail and various psych wards since he was a teenager, has multiple restraining orders out against him, can't keep a job for more than a few months before he has a meltdown and gets fired, goes through a revolving door of friends and partners, and is still living with his parents into his thirties because he is too unstable to care for himself. But there is also Alice, who may have had a few hospitalizations in her time and several friendships and relationships that have been, but manages to live a productive and happy life with an understanding partner and friends thanks to therapy and medication, whose low points may still be rough, but are more manageable and don't destroy her life.
Examples from various media
Films — Live-Action
- In Star Wars, Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader has been theorized to have this disorder. Psychiatry Research (Vol. 185) had a paper about him, proposing that lessons learned from the movie's portrayal of him, and demographic responses, could be used for public education about the disorder. Specifically, the researchers pointed out his unstable moods, fear of abandonment, impulsivity, and identity disturbances as key features of BPD and argued he met the criteria to be diagnosed professionally. BPDCentral, however, argues that he has no BPD as he meets only one criterion out of nine.
- Diane Selwyn in Mulholland Dr. exhibits the classic Borderline symptoms of suicidal ideation, intense anger, splitting, chronic feelings of emptiness, and excessive efforts to avoid abandonment.
- Heidi from the Australian film Somersault is another realistic version. She has an extreme fear of abandonment and engages in self-destructive behavior.
Literature
- The book Girl, Interrupted is based on its author's stay in a mental institution after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.
- Millie Roper from Borderline, an urban fantasy novel by Mishell Baker, is diagnosed with BPD and works in Hollywood.
- Bob Dracula from LoLo Apollo: I'm Afraid of Americans was written with a possible BPD diagnosis in mind. His self-destructive behavior originates from his severe anxiety over a lack of a concrete personal identity and he obsessively attaches himself to people or concepts that he believes he can build one around, ultimately ending up dissatisfied and restless.
Live-Action TV
- In-Universe Andrea speculates that Emily Valentine suffers from BPD on * Beverly Hills, 90210
- Law & Order: Criminal Intent features two episodes with suspects specifically said to suffer from BPD. Maya (played by Caroline Dhavernas) in "Love Sick" and Charlene (played by Missy Crider) in "Bedfellows." In each episode, their symptoms are listed.
- Dennis Reynolds on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, who has been diagnosed with BPD In-Universe, suffers from severe mood swings, bouts of anorexia, and a self-described feeling of "emptiness".
- Grey's Anatomy Recurring character Rebecca Pope was diagnosed In-Universe.
- Rebecca Bunch, the titular Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, is eventually diagnosed with BPD In-Universe, with her psychiatrist listing the symptoms as she remembers moments of her life that indicate such symptoms. The inciting incident of the show is her attachment and obsession with her old flame Josh, and throughout the series she flips between idolizing him and wanting to destroy him. She also has a history of suicide attempts and bouts of rage, depression, and disassociation (fading out into musical numbers). It's implied much of this behavior stems from her absent father and her emotionally abusive mother.
- Annie Landsberg of Maniac (2018) is officially diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder during the drug trial; true to form, she's aggressive, impulsive, self-destructive, and mercurial. Though she cares very deeply for those close to her, the thought of being separated drives her to devalue them to the point of emotional abuse, but actually being apart from them leaves her so devastated that she goes to unhealthy extremes to escape the sense of loss: by the start of the series, she's using experimental psychoactive drugs just to relive her last days with her now-dead sister, even though it's only causing more harm in the long run. During one patient interview, she admits to experiencing extreme self-loathing and believes that she doesn't deserve to be cured.
- Regina Mills aka The Evil Queen from Once Upon a Time grew up with an emotionally and physically abusive mother but a caring father. After she cast the Dark Curse she was suffering from a self-described feeling of "emptiness", and usually is reluctant to pursue actual relationships with people she cares about because of fear of rejection. She feels deep emotions but can't define them exactly, and to some extent lacks empathy but that probably due to her It's All About Me tendencies. She has a fluctuating self-image, for a little bit she saw herself as a hero but after a point, she started to see herself as a villain albeit one with a Freudian Excuse. Even after her Heel–Face Turn, she sees herself as a villain and firmly believes the world is out to get her. She suffered a lot of trauma in her childhood and adulthood. Sometimes she acted very impulsively and has signs of Hair-Trigger Temper has a control-freak streak. She has attempted suicide (kinda)and is definitely depressed.
- Special Agent Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter in Daredevil (2015) is diagnosed In-Universe with "borderline personality disorder with psychotic tendencies". Notably, Dex is very aware of his mental illness and makes significant effort to control his more dangerous and impulsive tendencies (tendencies which led him to murder his baseball coach for benching him when he was a child). However, his struggle with identity and strong attachment to his designated North Star are both manipulated by Fisk in order to turn Dex into his own personal hitman.
An evolution of the Victorian era concept of the Hysterical Woman, people with this disorder aren't looking for material wealth but attention and have developed an effective means of acquiring it. Being The Ditz or someone who Really Gets Around isn't a requirement for this disorder.
Despite popular conception, people with this disorder aren't always promiscuous, though they often are; it's more about compulsive attention-seeking and dramatic behavior, and a conception of self-worth rooted in the approval of others.
People with this disorder are highly emotional, charming, energetic, manipulative, seductive, impulsive, erratic, and demanding, often gullible, have low tolerance for frustration, and are overly concerned with their appearance. A lot of people with this disorder lead to successful careers where they're a valuable member of their company.
The problem with this disorder is those afflicted have difficulty sustaining romantic relationships and personal friendships because of their stormy nature and perceived insincerity. Interestingly, this is the only personality disorder directly connected with physical appearance— HPD is more prevalent among individuals with above-average looks. They are also unlikely to be diagnosed without a comorbid illness under most circumstances, as histrionics, by their very nature, seldom find themselves in a position where they need professional aid.
At worst, most of them will go through more friends than most people and have a bunch of colleagues who see them as fake and disingenuous, but their lives very seldom have the self-destructive chaos of borderlines, the burned bridges and constant pitting of people against one another of narcissists, or the numerous run-ins with the law and consequences of low-effort, low-reward predatory behavior of antisocials. The rare low-functioning examples are, on the other hand, trainwrecks— they are extremely impulsive to the point where their agency is debatable, are constantly getting fired from jobs, losing friends, and winding up in legal trouble, and cannot even find people to give them attention half the time because their reputations are so deep in the mud that no self-respecting individual would touch them with a ten-foot pole, which leads to increasingly desperate bids for attention that only dig them deeper (false accusations of serious impropriety, suicide attempts that they never intended to carry out, and a constant cycle of false "crises" all being common).
Dependents and histrionics are after the advantages of being part of a group. While dependents sit around and hope someone comes along, histrionics are go-getters.
Histrionic Personality Disorder is one of the more controversial diagnoses kept by the DSM-5, largely because of a large amount of overlap with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Critics of the HPD label describe it as nothing more than "Narcissistic Personality Disorder for women," noting its background in the Hysterical Woman stereotype, its higher rate of diagnosis in women, and concerns about lingering medical sexism. For now it remains an independent diagnosis, on the grounds that it differentiates itself from NPD with its greater focus on emotional reactions and a thorough belief in No Such Thing as Bad Publicity (compared to NPD, which emphasizes a desire for explicitly positive attention alone).
See also Attention Whore, Drama Queen, Glory Hound, Glory Seeker, and Femme Fatale.
The Narcissist is It's All About Me taken up to eleven. These people expect to be treated like a god in your life, despite the fact that they don't do anything and possibly make things worse. Be very careful when calling these people out on it. They've been known to use emotional manipulation to boost their enormous ego.
A healthy sense of narcissism helps us withstand criticism, insults, and spring back from periods of self-doubt and detrimental anxiety (especially the ones the paranoid, avoidant, and dependent are likely to suffer). It does so by telling us to ignore our own faults and the consequences of our actions. Pathological narcissism is when a person's need for admiration and special treatment is so extreme that it gets in the way of them forming close bonds with others. Too much narcissism causes people to procrastinate, become lazy, refuse to admit they made a mistake (and treat apologies as a formality to get people off their ass or as a means of saving face and shifting blame), become incapable of putting themselves in other people's shoes, base their actions around how much praise they expect to get, turn into a Know-Nothing Know-It-All who believes they are Surrounded by Idiots, see themselves as the Tragic Hero of their lives or an eternally-suffering martyr, or become a victim of Pride. People who display constant, excessive narcissism are said to have narcissistic personality disorder.
There is some controversy as to what type of childhood narcissists had. Some researches believe that narcissists were overvalued by their parents, while others think that they had a dismal childhood. The general consensus seems to be that it's a bit of both; it can indeed come from excessive praise and admiration that was never tempered with meaningful failure or constructive criticism, while it can also come from emotionally abusive and hypercritical environments and from overly inconsistent and unpredictable upbringings with arbitrary and overly frequent and/or severe punishments, and can also often be a learned behavior if their own parents were narcissists or had narcissistic traits. In other words, while it can be the end result of a spoiled child not growing up, it can also be the realization of "it's not you, it's them" in an abusive childhood mutating into "it's not you, it's literally everyone else".
People in a manic mood will also show a greatly inflated sense of self-esteem. However, a person in a manic mood will also have a lot of energy and will have an elevated mood, whereas a narcissist will be in a chronic state of depression. Also, a manic mood is by definition a state different from a person's normal mood, and the person will eventually return to an even mood, or possibly a depressed mood where self-esteem will come down.
The narcissist leans towards feeling they have an inalienable right to being privileged as opposed to the paranoid, antisocial, and passive-aggressive personality disorders who all try to rationalize their behavior away. How they see their conflicts with others depends on their life circumstances and other innate personality traits; the more arrogant and/or prideful ones tend to see themselves as paragons of humanity beset by spiteful and jealous "haters" who would be them if they could, while the more depressive and/or withdrawn ones tend to see themselves as good people who just want to live and let live, but are always being victimized by bad people and sucked into drama that they wanted no part of. In any case, the core issue is the same: their selfish, egocentric behavior created conflict and drama, and their general inability to recognize where they went wrong and tendency to disregard or rationalize away any genuine revelations means that they are prone to blameshifting and/or perpetual victimhood.
Like borderline personality disorder, narcissists are prone to splitting; people who are useful to them or who kowtow to them or otherwise do not challenge them or cause them any difficulty are good and virtuous, while people who are of no use to them or who get in their way or otherwise challenge them are purely worthless and terrible. Seldom are they without conflict in their lives, and they will let anyone and everyone know in no uncertain terms that they have the moral high ground; if even they know they can't believably spin a situation in a way that makes them look completely and utterly immaculate, they will nonetheless find a way to shift as much blame onto the other party as possible while making their own involvement look like a minor misstep in the face of grave injustice. It still wasn't their fault, they were just only human and faltered slightly but still handled it as well as they could have given the circumstances. When called out by a target in a way that completely destroys the narcissist's public persona and makes it clear that they are no longer capable of being controlled, an "extinction burst" may ensue, which is, at best, a major outburst of verbal abuse or attempts to make the target feel guilty, but may often progress into physical violence, manipulative suicide threats or attempts, or scorched-earth revenge campaigns.
A narcissist has some similarities to the Antisocial Personality in their selfishness, but they are not blind to others' emotions (although those emotions do come second to their own). While many of their actions are selfish in motive, narcissists can still be very friendly, outgoing, and generous people. They may, for example, offer to pay for a meal, anticipating compliments for their generosity, or thinking that they will be perceived as having more disposable income (thus making them a better person). However, if they believe they will not be acknowledged for good behavior, they usually won't make the effort. Low-functioning examples are typically marked by lives that are absolute dumpster fires; something in their lives is always collapsing or teetering on the precipice, someone is always getting sick of their shit and cutting them off, and while they may be cognizant of the fact that their lives are a mess, it is always someone else's fault.
They also feel friends and social activities are important. While friends are utilized mostly as ego buffers, this is not just through complimenting the narcissist, but also through the popularity perceived by having many friends. They can also come in handy for taking tiresome and strenuous tasks off the narcissist's shoulders, and when someone has cut them off or split with them, those same friends can also serve as "flying monkeys" who can relay messages to those people and/or harass them. Because they regard other people as extensions of themselves, they can be extremely controlling toward friends and family members.
Premodern concepts include the ancient Greek Hubris which meant excessive pride leading to or simply occurring before a fall. The contemporary view of narcissists is they're annoyingly unable to see this dynamic repeating itself in their lives. They're also notoriously difficult to treat (and unlikely to seek treatment to begin with; when they do, it is typically at the behest of friends, family, or the courts as part of an ultimatum) and it is not unheard of for therapists to shy away from attempting to treat narcissists, as it frequently takes years to get to the point where a therapist may have enough rapport with a client to even consider starting to plant the idea that some of a narcissist's problems may be due to their own behavior, and it's equally likely that all that hard work will be undone in one session when a narcissist takes something badly and abruptly finds a new therapist who will tell them exactly what they want to hear again. If they ever do enter therapy voluntarily, it is usually because they recognize that some problem in their life exists, but cannot see their role in it; "I'm a good person, why is everyone so shitty?" is an effective summary of the usual thought process of a narcissist seeking therapy.
Examples from various media
Fan Works
- With Pearl and Ruby Glowing:
- Daffy's mother had NPD that may have fueled abusive behavior, mocking Daffy for his subpar work in school and not caring at all about the abuse her husband puts him through. She also passed some "fleas" of hers onto him, so Daffy's not good at handling disappointment or criticism.
- According to Flim and Flam, Trixie also had NPD, though she's not abusive. She just reacts very poorly to criticism, to the point of running away from home after being heckled at a talent show.
- Mirabel is diagnosed with NPD which gives her an intense craving for praise and a Lack of Empathy, but she gives the entire group a "The Reason You Suck" Speech for treating her like that means she actively wants to hurt people, which she doesn't. She was fortunate enough to have a therapist who actually helped her, and is implied to have NPD himself, so she's pretty functional, and has been able to learn cognitive empathy.
Cluster C: "Anxious"
Racked with self-doubt, low self-esteem, and social anxiety. They can sometimes be so withdrawn that they look like Schizoids on the outside. The difference is that Avoidants desperately want to be with people but are too afraid to, while true Schizoids (usually) aren't interested.
Avoidants have been known to employ paranoid and passive-aggressive defenses, but there are a sizable majority of avoidants that don't. Narcissists may have avoidant traits, but whereas the pure avoidant buckles under social pressure and retreats into a fantasy world, the narcissist will get drunk off his fantasies and keep plowing forward.
Avoidant personality disorder can also be very similar to social anxiety disorder (it's a point of contention whether or not social anxiety disorder and avoidant personality disorder should be considered separate disorders or merely varying severities of the same disorder). A commonly used way to compare between the two is that those with social anxiety may have good self-esteem underneath their fear ("I bet they'd like me if they just knew me!"), while avoidants truly believe they are worthless and unlikeable ("Who would ever want to know me? I'm better off alone.") and are afraid of people "realizing it too" and rejecting them for it.
Having its origins as a form of constant anxiety, this disorder causes people to be afraid of doing anything on their own out of fear of failure and always wanting someone there to help them. When on their own, either through freezing up or lack of training, these people have difficulty functioning. When their emotional crutch is with them, they might be more competent, but they are still nowhere close to reaching their full potential. Under a certain age, this is to be expected, so it's a requirement that you must be 18 years or older to be diagnosed.
Both the dependent and narcissist want others to take care of their needs, but the dependent is able to realize that others have needs too. The dependent can become overly submissive, with dependents frequently remaining in an abusive relationship. Worse, an abuser will usually lower the dependent's self-esteem further to make them even more dependent.
Adaptive variations derive huge satisfaction from working as a team. They feel out of their element when having to go it alone but can stand on their own if they have to.
Surprisingly, this is an entirely different disorder than Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. In fact, it is more similar to the common perception of OCD; As The Other Wiki states: "These people are very anal-retentive about making sure everything is perfect. While there are situations where it's justified, your average person's motivations can only hold out for so long. People with Obsessive-Compulsive PD have a hard time grasping that their anxiety is too overwhelming to take other people's feelings into consideration."
OCD itself usually involves intrusive thoughts (called obsessions) of something terrible happening, often, but not always, accompanied by the need to perform rituals (called compulsions) as a defense from the thoughts coming true. OCPD tends to involve excessive perfectionism and interest in detail. An example of the difference between them is that people with OCPD tend to be all right with their behavior, while people with OCD often feel worse after performing the compulsions. That said, a person might have both disorders, since they both stem from anxiety.
Higher functioning suffers from Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder can be very effective team leaders or workers since their perfectionism drives them to get the job done. Lower functioning ones tend to have trouble getting projects in on time since they're busy making it juuust right or tend to focus on the task itself while losing sight of the overall goal. They can also be a pain to work with, either chewing out subordinates for not living up to their (universally applied) standards or just not entrusting any tasks to anyone at all (because they would only mess it up).
Disorders phased out from the DSM:
The following disorders were phased out in the DSM-5, and as such are no longer used as legitimate diagnoses. References to them may be found in works published before the DSM-5's publication in 2013, and consequently are listed here for the sake of understanding these defunct labels. afraid to tell you they have a problem with you but don't want to come across as selfish. The result is instead of the two of you talking through your problems the passive-aggressive lets one annoyance after another pile-up. While the fear of retaliation keeps the passive-aggressive from directly stating their opinion, they will find small things that can easily be overlooked but still cause annoyance to their target. Bothering by the Book is a well-documented method of doing this thus giving the passive-aggressive the appearance of the obsessive-compulsive at the times. However, if you look closely you'll see this behavior isn't consistent.Someone exercising authority or control over them, being dependent on other people, and having to compete with other people can serve as catalysts or amplifiers to the above-mentioned behavior.
This being antagonistic one moment but acting as if nothing happened the next can resemble the idealization and devaluation of the borderline but this resemblance is only superficial. Passive-aggressive people are simply afraid to come out and say what's bugging them and borderlines have an instability extending to many levels of their psyche. Passive-aggressive personality disorder also doesn't imply self-harming and impulsive behavior.
Also referred to as the negativistic personality disorder, focusing on their pessimistic outlook on life, due to excessive passive-aggressiveness being a symptom of many mental disorders including all the personality disorders.
Removed from the DSM-5 for weak evidence of its existence and diagnostic guidelines being too vague to be useful.
to dominate others and take joy from inflicting harm on them. Unlike the Anti-Social Personality where violence may be carried out For the Evulz, during a crime or other ill-defined reasons, a person with a sadistic personality uses violence for the purpose of dominating and humiliating their victim. Similar to the Narcissist, these individuals are afraid of appearing weak or out of control. Their behavior extends beyond merely being callous, with those around them often being subjected to harsh punishment for straying out of line. Unlike the Narcissistic and Borderline Personalities, violence is not merely an outlet for anger, but an acceptable method for controlling others.Interestingly in Real Life this disorder comes closer than the antisocial personality disorder to what people think of when they hear psychopath (sadistic serial killer) but it's still not an exact match.
Removed from the DSM-5 to prevent people from using it as an excuse to avoid legal repercussions.
