Personality Disorders

The Implicit Emotional Roots of Psychopathology

Do you suffer from a crippling fear of rejection and humiliation? Do you struggle with severe social inhibitions and anxieties? Are you quiet, nervous and awkward, constantly scanning for danger and criticism? Do you have low self-esteem and never stand up for yourself? Do you avoid interpersonal interactions and social situations? Do you find it very difficult to trust and talk to people? Your heart starts pounding, your mind gets flustered, you feel overwhelmed?

Do you have rage episodes where you can’t control yourself and sometimes hurt those you love? Do you cut your self? Have you thought about, threatened, or attempted suicide? Do you have dissociative amnesia where you can’t really remember things you said or did? Do you idealize someone new as the best and then as soon as they disappoint you, you devalue them and they become the worst? Do you hate betrayal and abandonment?

Do you have a grandiose sense of self-importance? Do you need to be the center of attention and require others to admire you? Do you need to be perfect? Do you amplify your anger and aggression to dominate others, and use ridicule and blame to manipulate them? Do you find that this is damaging your most valuable relationships? Do you throw grown-up tantrums to get what you want, or whenever things don’t go your way?

Do you have a big problem with authority? Always getting into trouble with the powers that be, at home, at school, at work, wherever? Have you been in prison or in trouble with the law? You do what you want and don’t really care what anyone else thinks. You sometimes hurt others and violate their rights but you don’t really feel anything for them, no remorse and you never feel the need to apologize and make amends? 

Do you have this uncontrollable urge to be noticed and need to draw attention to yourself? Does it feel like you were always ignored and unimportant to everyone around you and now your self-esteem depends on your being validated by certain people? Do you find yourself doing and saying strange things just to be seen or heard, even making stuff up to create drama so you can feel important?

Do you have an uncontrollable all-consuming pre-occupation with order, structure and/or cleanliness? Things must be absolutely perfect and pure or else you can’t function and can’t focus on or do anything else? It could also include intense repetitive actions like washing your hands over and over till they are raw, because of this extreme fixation on cleanliness and disinfection…

Do you often feel fearful and apprehensive that something really bad is going to happen? Do you experience persistent excessive worrying about something, or everything? Is your concern out of proportion to the actual situation? Do you have difficulty sleeping and concentrating? Do you have panic attacks? Do you feel flustered, shaky, edgy, muscle clenching, nausea, sweating and shortness of breath, and heart palpitations and an overwhelming urge to escape?

Do you have long spells where you feel worthless and powerless? You struggle to get out of bed and do anything, even the things that you used to love doing? You have no energy and can’t really focus and concentrate, you feel depressed much of the time and often break down crying? You feel guilty for not doing what’s expected of you? Have you lost (or gained) quite a bit of weight? Do you have insomnia, that leaves you feeling like a zombie?

Do you swing between Manic and Depressive (Bipolar) episodes? During the manic phase you have unlimited energy, and a flight of ideas, everything seems possible, your self-esteem sky-rockets and you feel like you can do anything; you do some really impulsive, and creative things. You don’t even feel the need to sleep, you’re like the energizer bunny, on and on… then after a few days of this you crash and then you have a depressive episode (see above)?

Do you hear voices that criticize you and accuse you a lot of the time? Or perhaps you see things that aren’t really there, that others can’t see; auditory/visual hallucinations? You scare people when you talk or shout at unseen voices or faces? It feels like someone, or everyone is out to get you, but try as you may you can’t explain what you’re going through, it comes out all mixed-up gibberish, and no-one listens or understands?

Does it feel like your personality is fractured, like you have these different sub-personalities or quasidentities or self-states? You cannot control the switching between these alters and each seems to have its own way of thinking and behaving and also its own memories? Sometimes you can’t really remember things that you said or did, or how you got to where you are, or what you were doing? Does it feel like parts of you are trapped in different fragments of your mind?

Does your emotional state and the expectations of others affect how you’re eating, and is this negatively impacting your health and life? Do you sometimes binge eat then go to the toilet to throw up? Or have you stopped eating and lost so much weight that you don’t even recognize yourself anymore? Or do you often overeat when you’re stressed, upset, or sad and you’ve gained a lot of weight and feeling terrible about how you look, and about who you are?

Are you dependent on or addicted to a legal/illegal substance or drug? It could be alcohol, heroin, pharmaceutical medicines, cocaine, crystal meth, weed, tobacco etc. It was good in the beginning but now it’s not and you can’t control it and it’s causing problems? You’ve tried many times to quit but something always brings you back to it. Do you want to stop and get your life back on track?

Are you having difficulty with some aspect of your sexuality? Whether that’s addiction to porn, excessive masturbation, or using orgasm as a reset button on your stress-anxiety system; a temporary release and easy substitute for real positive emotions and relationships? Or maybe it’s something more serious like exhibitionism and/or sexually harming, molesting, abusing another, someone close to you, a family member, and you can’t stop yourself?

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