What Is a Personality Disordered Individual (PDI)?
As in all of medicine, psychiatry has its groups of diagnoses that define certain emotional problems that people experience. Among these diagnoses are problems called personality disorders.
A personality disordered individual or PDI has a deeply engrained maladaptive and inflexible behavioral style that firms up around late adolescence and continues throughout adulthood. This behavior is termed a disorder because it deviates from what we, as a society, consider to be normal.
'Normal' can have many definitions. We all have our own particular and unique personality traits that make us different from other people. For the most part, we all try to cooperate with each other, bend a little when it is required, and adapt in society. Personality disordered individuals (PDIs) do not. What distinguishes them from non-PDIs is their unwavering devotion to themselves . . . at our expense. PDIs are selfish users who do not change, regardless of who they are with or what the situation is.
Personality problems appear to arise from times that go awry in our mental development. For example, the terrible twos is a normal phase of development in which a child learns how to be assertive ('It's mine.'). Then, as a three-year-old, the child learns to become more sociable and to share. With personality disorders, the theory is that some people, for one reason or another, get stuck in a behavioral stage that carries over into adult life. Thus, PDIs are stranded in a childhood state of mental development and never grow out of it. As adults, they continue trying to elicit responses from people around them that replicate the responses they received in their childhood and teens.
While their behavior can be curious to us for a time, generally any mature adult relationship with a PDI is impossible. Do you know anyone whose behavior reminds you of a two-year-old's? They are stubborn and dig in their heels. They are sullen, and they brood and pout and are contrary. Rarely is it fun dealing with a two-year-old in a grown-up's body.
The PDI has a behavioral disorder because he or she does not adapt, is not flexible, and behaves in a way that says, 'It's all about me.' PDIs, although some might at first not seem so, are self-centered and very manipulative. They use others for their own ends and rarely have empathy or concern for other people. Relationships with them (whether in a professional, business, or personal area, whether short- or long-term) are always difficult. They cause problems and misery wherever they go, which is an immediate indicator of disorder, given that most people want to avoid causing problems.
Numerous factors shape our personalities as we develop. First, there is the hereditary factor: the nervous system with which we are born. Our nervous system determines how we sense our world, whether we filter things out or become overstimulated by them. Next comes our environment. Is it kind, gentle, and giving, or rough, demanding, and cruel?
As we grow both mentally and physically, we pass through stages in which we are supposed to learn new ways of adapting to life so that when we reach adulthood we are prepared to function in a mature way. In this context, 'mature' means having the ability to cope with life with minimal stress and to be happy.
Our personality—our temperament, our style, our beliefs, our morals, and our philosophy of life—defines who we are. Our personality contributes to what we believe about life and people, and how each day we behave toward others and ourselves. How you behave comes from what you believe inside and defines who you are.
Since PDIs are basically still children in their mental development, they are afraid of 'normal' adult relationships—with their ups and downs, the possibility of being hurt, and being asked to give, compromise, or share. They just do not have the mental equipment for it. Rather than participate in that experience, PDIs need to keep you under their control in a relationship that is solely on their terms. They see you in a certain light that is never good. PDIs treat you badly, and when you express some dissatisfaction, they see it as criticism and as your being hurtful, not constructive. Since people hurt (and cannot be trusted), PDIs then justify their continued aberrant behavior because of their self-centered belief that the world (you and I) is there for their own singular use.
Although psychiatrists presently identify a total of ten distinct and unique personality disorders, this book concentrates primarily on the five we most frequently encounter and who cause the most misery for us because of their very intrusive behaviors.
While it is no longer considered a distinct personality disorder, I have included in this list the passive-aggressive personality disorder because people with this behavior appear so frequently in our daily lives and can be so controlling.
These personality problems are distinguished by how each PDI relates to and controls people. In short, each is defined by the particular style the PDI uses to manipulate you. Most PDIs need to have you constantly close to them in their need to control you. These particular PDIs are very social and dramatic people who need to control others and thus must have that interaction.
There are two categories of PDIs separated by their behavioral styles. In the first category are the blamers, who are PDIs who provoke and control you with guilt. These people have passive-aggressive personality disorder. They are negative and attempt to push the blame for their problems on everyone else. This is Mr. Negative—the two-year-old in a grown-up's body.
The second category contains the dramatic and erratic PDIs who overwhelm and control you with the power of their personality. In this group of four, we find:
• The seductress, who is emotional and attention-seeking. This is the histrionic PDI.
• The smooth operator, who charms, beguiles, and captivates you, but who is actually quite cold inside. This PDI displays the antisocial personality disorder.
• The intense, demanding, extreme, and unstable PDI, who has the borderline personality disorder. Think Fatal Attraction.
• The egotistic and pompous, who exist to be adored and admired. These characteristics describe the narcissistic personality disorder.
Remember PDIs are rigid and inflexible in their behavior. They believe that you adapt to them. They do not adapt to you.
How a PDI Behaves
PDIs' behaviors can be charming, infuriating, alluring, endearing, stimulating, awe-inspiring, loathsome, entrancing, avoidable, strange, perplexing, a curiosity, or a pain in the neck. They play a gamut of roles to pique your interest and seduce you into their world—the world of 'me.' With several of the specific personality disorders, a pleasant and stimulating time with the PDI can occur . . . before the misery begins. PDIs are certainly challenging and high-maintenance. They are always memorable.
PDIs have their own agenda of what they need psychologically—for example, attention, domination, adoration, control, avoidance, dependency—depending on the period of emotional maturation in which they stalled. They have developed a time-tested way to behave, designed to suck you into dealing with them so they can get the attention they feel they need. They are often successful—since they are such good manipulators—in getting what they feel they need, e.g., attention from you or power over you. The PDI throws out the line and sees what new victim bites.
For example, an individual with the histrionic personality disorder goes fishing with her seductiveness as the lure while feigning neediness so a white knight will help her. The person with passive-aggressive personality disorder baits others with guilt and uses that to manipulate.
In a situation involving interaction with a professional, the PDI's goal can move beyond attention or power to something more concrete, such as medication from a doctor, extrication from legal matters from a lawyer, or permission from a social worker to do some desired action. Whatever they are looking to get from you, PDI's will still use their basic exploitative behaviors to get to their ends.
In business, PDIs always behave for their own personal ends and will use others only for their own advancement. PDIs bring the most misery to personal relationships. In these situations, PDIs can be incredibly selfish, self-centered, and demanding.
Remember
You can identify PDIs because they behave repeatedly in a way to provoke you in some manner (a pleasant or not-so-pleasant one) and get a rise out of you. They will use your reaction to manipulate you.
How PDIs Affect You
When we interact with each other, we may feel various emotions. We might feel pleased if we get our way with something or frustrated if we do not. We might feel good in being praised. We might be provocative in trying to elicit a response. We may do something in anger because another person hurt us. We all vary in our behaviors and generally work at achieving harmony and fairness with each other.
In contrast, the PDI's manipulative behavior is not confined to specific instances. PDIs always have some ulterior motive in mind, with their desired end being to provoke you (for example, by inspiring guilt, admiration, or sexual arousal), and then to use this feeling against you. PDIs at first behave by fishing to see what feeling they can elicit from you and then using it against you.
The important and frequently hard part is to recognize their behavior and to prevent getting ensnared in their behavioral style. Once we are hooked, the misery begins and does not change.
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