Day 5:

Personality Disorders:

There are 10 different personality disorders. 

These are: Paranoid, Schizoid, Schizotypal, Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic, Narcissistic, Avoidant, Dependant and Obsessive- compulsive.

You can have one type of personality disorder or if you're lucky like me, you can cross over into other types. When I was diagnosed, I was told I had personality disorder with borderline, avoidant and depressive features.

So I am a typical borderline with all the criteria of a borderline but I am avoidant.

Someone with Narcissistic personality disorder would have an inflated sense of self importance and someone with Antisocial personality disorder may be callous and cynical. These people may have that diagnosis alone or it may be mixed with one or more of the other disorders. To be a personality disorder, symptoms must have been present for an extended period of time ,are inflexible and pervasive and are not a result of drugs/ alcohol or another psychiatric condition. The symptoms can be traced back to adolescence or early adulthood and cause distress or negative consequences in different aspects of a persons life.

The Avoidant finds loss and rejection so painful that they will choose to be lonely rather than risk trying to connect with others. They feel it is better to keep silent than to tell others how they feel. I personally avoid everything. I don't like to go out, I don't want to socialise or have friends. I have a long pattern of withdrawal and self-hatred and sensitivity to criticism. I have social anxiety so remove myself from social situations to avoid being rejected or feeling ashamed. No-one would ever choose to live this lifestyle as it destroys virtually everything around them. I am aware that my behaviour is destructive but I feel unable to change it. I see danger in everything and I avoid things because of fear. I am scared of the world and the people in it. If I do have to meet anyone for any reason, they are scanned for any slight sign of rejection -a look, a sigh, anything at all. I will take it and see it as a sign that they hate me. Even the words they use in a conversation will be taken away and I will ruminate on them, over and over until I am convinced that I am hated. I feel unworthy and it is absolutely exhausting. These irrational thoughts then turn into self-hatred which makes me withdraw more. I have never even been able to post anything on facebook because I think I will be judged, or hated or it wouldn't be good enough or it will offend etc etc...I am a victim of my own mind.

Anyway I have no idea why I am going on about myself so much, it's meant to be about the illness. I'll behave myself tomorrow....