Personality Disorder - Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment

What is Personality Disorder?

As per the personality disorder definition, it is a way of behaving, thinking, and feeling that differs from cultural expectations. It causes discomfort and functioning problems that last over time. Similarly, such a disorder can largely affect how you deal with personal relationships and life.

A person suffering from this condition has different views and opinions in comparison to others. Moreover, they may also find their emotions confusing, and hard to control. It may also lead to other mental illnesses like depression or anxiety. Thus, such patients blame other people for the challenges they face.

Furthermore, personality disorders typically start in teenage or early adulthood. Nevertheless, it is not a character’s judgment.

Types of Personality Disorder

Following are various personality disorder types. They are categorized into three clusters based on the symptoms.

Cluster 1: Suspicious

• Paranoid Personality Disorder: People with this disorder are distrustful and suspicious of others’ motives. Therefore, they usually hold grudges against them.
• Schizoid Personality Disorder: Here, patients have no or little interest in forming personal and social relationships and seem emotionally cold.
• Schizotypal Personality Disorder: Those suffering from this misinterpret behaviors and avoid having intimate relationships.

Cluster 2: Emotional and Impulsive

• Antisocial Personality Disorder: Patients of this mental disorder manipulate and treat others harshly. Moreover, they may also be involved in drugs and alcohol.
• Borderline Personality Disorder: Individuals with such conditions may feel abandoned despite family support. Furthermore, they face difficulty dealing with stressful events and may engage in impulsive behaviors like drinking, gambling, or unsafe sex.
• Histrionic Personality Disorder: Here, people attempt to gain more attention by being dramatic or seductive. They get influenced by others easily and are emotionally sensitive to disapproval.
• Narcissistic Personality Disorder:Patients believe themselves more important than others. Thus, they often brag about their achievements but lack empathy for others.

Cluster 3: Anxious

• Avoidant Personality Disorder: Patients with an avoidant personality disorder may face an inferiority complex if criticized by others. Therefore, they often avoid participating in activities and social interactions.
• Dependent Personality Disorder: Here, the patients are highly dependent on others to meet their physical and emotional needs. Hence, they avoid being alone, need reassurance during decision-making, and are likely to suffer abuse.
• Obsessive-compulsive Personality Disorder:These people strongly follow the rules and regulations and feel uncomfortable if perfection is not achieved. For this, they even neglect their personal relationships.

Symptoms of Personality Disorder

Here the common symptoms of different types of personality disorders.

• Suspicious of other individuals and their motives
• The constant fear of getting harmed or deceived
• Hostile response to criticisms or disapprovals
• They hold grudges against others
• Lack of interest in social or personal interactions
• Being cold and indifferent to others
• Expressing odd beliefs, thinking, and thoughts
• Negative emotional reactions
• The belief that you can influence or manipulate others
• Disregard others feelings or needs
• Expectations of unreasonable favors and advantages by others
• Involved in activities like stealing, drugs, alcohol, gambling, or unsafe sex
• Repeated violations of laws and the rights of others
• Constant stress and mood swings
• Social anxiety and lack of discomfort
• Extremely high or low self-esteem
• Suicidal behaviors or threats of self-injury
• The constant fear of being abandoned and alone.
• Frequent episodes of paranoia
• Overdramatic or sexually provocative to gain attention
• Excessive concern with the physical appearance
• Believe yourself to be more special and important than others
• A constant fantasy to attain power and success
• Bragging about achievements
• The expectation of getting admired by others

Causes of Personality Disorder

The real cause of personality disorders is still not known. However, it is believed that it usually gets triggered because of the following factors:

Genetics

Researchers have recently identified some possible genetic factors behind personality disorders. These include a malfunctioning gene that causes the obsessive-compulsive disorder. However, more work is going on exploring the genetic links to aggression, anxiety, and fear.

Childhood Trauma

Studies have found various links between this type of mental illness and childhood traumas. These include examples showing that patients having borderline personality disorder had high rates of childhood sexual abuse.

High Reactivity

Researchers identify overly sensitive children as high reactivity because they develop shy, timid, or anxious personalities. Such individuals are even sensitive to light, noise, texture, or other stimuli. However, not all of them tend to develop social phobias.

Verbal Abuse

Children who have faced verbal abuse are three times more likely to have paranoid narcissistic, or borderline disorders in adulthood.

Environmental Influences

Certain environmental factors like society or peer pressure may also cause people to develop personality disorders. However, a single strong relationship can offset the negative influences.

Personality Disorder Risk Factors

Personality disorders can damage different areas of your life. It affects both the patient and the people around him. The following are some of the crucial risk factors associated with it.

Challenges at Workplace

People with personality disorders face many challenges at their workplace. This may often lead to the repeated job changes or losses. Sometimes, it can also act as a hindrance for them to complete their education.

Complicated Relationships

Those having this mental illness can easily get involved in abusive relationships. Consequently, they experience marital stress, divorce, unplanned pregnancies, and sexually transmitted infections.

Self-Harm

Patients with personality disorders also suffer from other mental health issues such as:

• Stress
• Eating disorders
• Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
• Anxiety
• Schizophrenia
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Bipolar disorders

These may cause suicidal behaviors or threats of self-harm, including burning, cutting, or frequent hospitalizations

Social Isolation

Such disorders can also lead people to avoid social interactions. This is how they become less connected to the world and get socially isolated. As a result, they involve themselves in drug or alcohol abuse along with impulsive behavior.

Involvement in Illegal Activities

A personality disorder patient can easily get involved in multiple illegal activities such as stealing or gambling. This results in violations of laws and the rights of other people along with uncountable criminal records.

Personality Disorder Diagnosis Test

Patients with personality disorders have to meet specific clinical criteria for a diagnosis. It has three main steps.

1. Physical Exam

   Here, the doctor will perform a physical examination by asking different questions related to your health. It is because sometimes the symptoms can also be linked to physical disease. Thus, the evaluation mostly includes the lab, blood, or screening tests for drugs.

2. Psychiatric Evaluation

   Here, the patient will be provided a questionnaire to analyze the exact symptoms. It involves the discussion of your thoughts, feelings, and behavior. In some cases, the health care team also discusses your mental condition with friends and family to get more information.

3. Diagnostic Criteria in the DSM-5

   Under this step, the medical professionals will compare your symptoms to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). The American Psychiatric Association publishes it to determine the type of disorder you are having.

   It demands the feelings, behaviors, and patterns to remain consistent in different scenarios. Similarly, it should cause distress and functioning problems in at least two of the given areas.

   • How well you can control your emotional impulses
   • How you consider yourself and others
   • How you act while dealing with others

Sometimes, it is difficult to assess the personality disorder type because of similar symptoms. However, it is worth the effort and time to get diagnosed correctly so that you can get proper health care.

Personality Disorder Treatment

People with personality disorders are usually treated with talking therapies or group psychological treatments. Here we have discussed some different types of treatments in detail.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)