Personality Disorders
You are likely to:
- find it very difficult to trust other people, believing they will use you, or take advantage of you
- find it hard to confide in people, even your friends
- watch others closely, looking for signs of betrayal or hostility
- suspect that your partner is being unfaithful, with no evidence
- read threats and danger – which others don’t see – into everyday situations
You are likely to:
- be uninterested in forming close relationships with other people including your family
- feel that relationships interfere with your freedom and tend to cause problems
- prefer to be alone with your own thoughts
- choose to live your life without interference from others
- get little pleasure from life
- have little interest in sex or intimacy
- be emotionally cold towards others
You are likely to:
- find making close relationships extremely difficult
- think and express yourself in ways that others find ‘odd’, using unusual words or phrases
- behave in ways that others find eccentric
- believe that you can read minds or that you have special powers such as a ‘sixth sense’
- feel anxious and tense with others who do not share these beliefs
- feel very anxious and paranoid in social situations
You are likely to:
- feel that you don’t have a strong sense of who you really are, and others may describe you as very changeable
- suffer from mood swings, switching from one intense emotion to another very quickly, often with angry outbursts
- have brief psychotic episodes, hearing voices or seeing things that others don’t
- do things on impulse, which you later regret
- have episodes of harming yourself, and think about taking your own life
- have a history of stormy or broken relationships
- have a tendency to cling on to very damaging relationships, because you are terrified of being alone
You are likely to:
- feel very uncomfortable if you are not the center of attention
- feel much more at ease as the ‘life and soul of the party’
- feel that you have to entertain people
- flirt or behave provocatively to ensure that you remain the center of attention
- get a reputation for being dramatic and overemotional
- feel dependent on the approval of others
- be easily influenced by others
You are likely to:
- believe that there are special reasons that make you different, better or more deserving than others
- have fragile self-esteem, so that you rely on others to recognize your worth and your needs
- feel upset if others ignore you and don’t give you what you feel you deserve
- resent other people’s successes
- put your own needs above other people’s, and demand they do too
- be seen as selfish and ‘above yourself’
- take advantage of other people
You are likely to:
- avoid work or social activities that mean you must be with others
- expect disapproval and criticism and be very sensitive to it
- worry constantly about being ‘found out’ and rejected
- worry about being ridiculed or shamed by others
- avoid relationships, friendships and intimacy because you fear rejection
- feel lonely and isolated, and inferior to others
- be reluctant to try new activities in case you embarrass yourself
You are likely to:
- feel needy, weak and unable to make decisions or function properly without help or support
- allow others to assume responsibility for many areas of your life
- agree to things you feel are wrong or you dislike to avoid being alone or losing someone’s support
- be afraid of being left to fend for yourself
- have low self-confidence
- see other people as being much more capable than you are
- be seen by others as much too submissive and passive
You are likely to:
- need to keep everything in order and under control
- set unrealistically high standards for yourself and others
- think yours is the best way of making things happen
- worry when you or others might make mistakes
- expect catastrophes if things aren’t perfect
- be reluctant to spend money on yourself or others
- have a tendency to hang on to items with no obvious value