Difficult Personalities: It's Not You; It's Them

Difficult Personalities: It’s Not You, It’s Them

By William O’Donohue, PhD

Some people are very, very tough to deal with and can make you miserable. This is a sad fact of life. This book will help you identify, understand and develop strategies to deal with toxic personalities you encounter. Written by a prominent clinical psychologist and university professor it explains DSM diagnostic categories such as Anti-social Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder and others so that you can make a better determination of whether you are dealing with one of these kinds of individuals, what science and clinical experience says about these, and most importantly how to deal more effectively with these. This information can help you move from being poisoned by these individuals to regaining control of your life.

A Lucky Bat Book

Difficult Personalities: It’s Not You, It’s Them

Copyright 2011 by William O’Donohue

All rights reserved

Cover Artist:

Stefan Thamm | 3D-Illustration,

http://www.stefanthamm.de

Published by Lucky Bat Books

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Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the expert assistance of Dr. Kendra Beitz-Thompson, PhD, and Dr. Elizabeth Mosco, PhD, for their assistance on this manuscript. The author would also like to thank Cindie Geddes for all her expertise in producing this e-book.

About the Author

William O’Donohue, PhD, is a licensed psychologist and a Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. He has published more than 60 books and 150 journal articles and book chapters. He can be reached wto@unr.edu.

Foreword

I wrote this book because I wanted to help people understand toxic personalities in their lives. These individuals cause a lot of pain. They generally don’t get better—despite repeated promises and attempts—and thus cause a lot of problems for a very long time.

I have had a significant amount of professional and personal experience with these individuals. I co-edited a scholarly book that comprehensively covered each of the DSM-IVTR Personality Disorders: Personality Disorders: Toward the DSM-V (Sage, 2007). I have also assessed and treated a large number of these individuals in my 25-year clinical practice. And finally, unfortunately, I have come across these individuals in my personal life.

Nothing in this book is meant to demonize these difficult and toxic individuals. This book is meant to help you identify them—ignorance is not bliss when it comes to these individuals. This book also then gives some basic facts about these individuals—I want you to understand what you are up against. Finally, it gives some practical strategies for dealing with these individuals in your life. I hope you find this information helpful and would like to hear any reactions that you might want to share. I can be reached at wto@unr.edu.

This book is not meant to replace professional diagnoses or services. If you are wondering about whether a loved one actually merits a personality disorder diagnosis, you must encourage them to see a competent professional. And if your life has been so affected by one of these individuals that you feel overwhelmed, stressed, down, or some other serious negative emotion, I would also encourage you also to seek professional help.

Finally, you do not have to read this book from cover to cover. You can go directly to the chapter that may interest you. The first chapter does provide some nice general background information that may be useful. But if you think that you might have a particular type of individual in your life, by all means go to that chapter. However, one of the points this book makes is that often there is comorbidity—there is overlap in symptoms across specific diagnoses within the three general clusters of personality disorders. Therefore, it might be most useful to read all the chapters in a particular cluster.

Disclaimer

The ideas, suggestions, and procedures in the book are not intended to be a substitute for consulting with a mental health professional or your physician. All matters regarding your health require medical or mental health supervision.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Foreword

Disclaimer

Chapter 1: Difficult Personalities

PART I: Cluster B: The Dramatic, Emotional, and Erratic Personalities

Chapter 2: Antisocial Personality Disorder: Cons, Cheats, and Liars

Chapter 3: Borderline Personalities: Tuesday I Love You; Wednesday I Hate You

Chapter 4: Narcissistic Personalities: It’s About Me, All the Time. And Why Shouldn’t It Be? I Am the Greatest.

Chapter 5: Histrionic Personalities: Drama Queens (and Kings)

PART II: Cluster C: The Anxious and Fearful Personalities

Chapter 6: Obsessive-Compulsive Personalities: When Having Your Life in Order Is the Very Thing Out of Order

Chapter 7: Dependent and Avoidant Personalities: I Am So Incompetent. Please Tell Me I’m Not?

PART III: Cluster A: The Odd or Eccentric Personalities

Chapter 8: Paranoid Personalities: There’s Always Someone Out to Get Me; Is It You?

Chapter 9: Schizoid and Schizotypal Personalities: Odd, Alone, and Prefer It That Way

Excerpt of Dating 101

Chapter 1: Difficult Personalities

Understanding yourself and understanding other people are probably two of life’s biggest challenges. Understanding who you are, learning to take care of yourself, recognizing your weaknesses, and dealing with these successfully are hard enough tasks. Understanding and successfully dealing with others is even more difficult. Clearly, interacting with others is never entirely problem-free (the French existential philosopher Sartre famously said, People are hell), but there are certain kinds of people who give us more than their share of difficulty. They have what we will call difficult personalities. In fact, when we add up all the numbers of all the difficult personalities, 1 in 7 people qualify as a difficult personality. This is not according to me; it is according to the estimates provided by the American Psychiatric Association. In addition, countless more people have so many characteristics of these difficult or toxic personalities that they are close enough to count as difficult. This book is written to help you recognize, understand, and decide how to deal with these difficult personalities.

First, you need to know how to identify these people. You probably have some idea—a good and very important sign is that you see them causing you and/or others a lot of hassle. However, ignorance—even partial ignorance—in these cases, is not bliss. Ignorance can set you up for more pain and trouble. You also need to sufficiently understand these people so you can develop effective strategies for minimizing their negative impact on your life. This book will try to help you with these challenges.

I wrote this book to share important information that is well known by mental health professionals but not widely known by folks outside psychiatry, psychology, counseling, and social work. We believe that many people suffer needlessly—feel hurt, confused, or frustrated— because they don’t know or understand this information. I want to get this information out so the needless pain experienced by you and others you care about can be minimized. This is especially important because these difficult personalities can play key roles in our lives. They might be our spouses, bosses, parents, neighbors, employees, or someone in almost any role.

I have missed identifying a few of these individuals in my own life and I have needlessly suffered, too. For example, I once had a boss who was an individual with one type of difficult personality known as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (see Chapter 4). It was early in my career and despite being a clinical psychologist, I (foolishly) didn’t recognize that this person had a difficult personality. I was trained in both psychology and philosophy and learned to articulate weaknesses in people’s arguments and conclusions, and I believe I am pretty good at this. One time my boss decided that the department’s merit committee gave me too high of a yearly merit rating. My boss thought the merit committee missed something, and thus lowered the rating, which decreased the raise I was to receive in the subsequent year. My boss, in retrospect, was envious that I was doing better financially then he was (Narcissistic Personalities constantly need to see themselves in the top position, and thus want to suppress any further gains by others. They are envious of other’s success.). In a meeting with my boss and some other superiors I pointed out some holes in my boss’s argument of why my merit should be lowered. According to the others present I was doing a fairly good job—a debate coach would have clearly given me the lead. But suddenly my boss stood up and shouted, I’m going to kill you. He was so angry and disturbed his face was red, he was shaking his fists, and tears were streaming down his face. What I didn’t realize is that winning arguments with a Narcissist causes a narcissistic insult. It does not cause this kind of person to change his or her mind or to compromise. It is, in fact, one of the worst things to do in this situation. When Narcissistic Personalities feel insulted and attacked, they can respond very emotionally and very strongly. I realized then that I needed better ways of identifying these difficult personalities and dealing with them. This book is the result of years thinking, reading, and exploring this problem.

What is this information known to mental health professionals? First, it is the discovery that there are two types of people in this world. The first type is people with more or less normal personalities. These people are by no means perfect. They may worry too much, feel overly sad, not live up to their moral standards, exercise too little, eat too much, and even annoy others. They may even be a little vain, a little too dramatic, or even a little dishonest. But basically, despite these all-too-human imperfections, they have a normal range of personal problems and deficits. Our normal roommates, children, parents, coworkers, bosses, and mates certainly give us troubles and we certainly give them some, too. However, they are normal because they do not chronically and consistently behave in a manner that is very dysfunctional and toxic.

The second type of person is a difficult personality. The American Psychiatric Association in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV-TR (2000) defines these individuals as suffering from personality disorders. These individuals suffer from a serious mental disorder. There are ten of these personality disorders. They are (and I am quoting the official psychiatric diagnostic manual [p. 629] so please forgive for a moment some technical words—all will be explained later) as follows:

Cluster A Personality Disorders

Paranoid Personality Disorder is a pattern of distrust and suspiciousness such that other’s motives are interpreted as malevolent.

Schizoid Personality Disorder is a pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of emotional expression.

Schizotypal Personality Disorder is a pattern of acute discomfort in close relationships, cognitive or perceptual distortions, and eccentricities of behavior.

Cluster B Personality Disorders

Antisocial Personality Disorder is a pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others.

Borderline Personality Disorder is a pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity.

Histrionic Personality Disorder is a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy.

Cluster C Personality Disorders

Avoidant Personality Disorder is a pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation.

Dependent Personality Disorder is a pattern of submissive and clinging behavior related to an excessive need to be taken care of.

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder is a pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and control.

Don’t worry if you don’t understand these terms now; that is precisely why I am writing this book.

Why are these people regarded as abnormal?

One method mental health professionals use to identify psychological abnormality is when people report that they feel disturbed or distressed. For example, they feel anxious in certain situations such as public speaking (speech phobia) or asserting themselves (assertion deficits). These people may not feel comfortable in their own skin. They may bother others a bit (it is somewhat painful to watch someone who is extremely nervous giving a speech, but it is much worse for the anxious public speaker). A second method mental health professionals use to identify psychological abnormality is when people’s behavior disturbs others. Individuals with personality disorders suffer both ways, but mainly they are dysfunctional because they disturb others so much.

A former president of the American Psychological Association and colleague of mine, Dr. Nicholas Cummings, PhD, has graphically divided mental illness into Onions and Garlics. Imagine the differences between eating onions and eating garlic. Onions suffer inside—just like when you eat onions. Others can’t smell it, but the onion eater may have a bad case of heartburn. The vast majority of the suffering is inside the person who ate the onions. Garlics, on the other hand, don’t suffer all that much themselves, but make others suffer, just like when you eat garlic. The common reaction maybe slight discomfort, but even your own garlicky breath does not bother you. But when you eat garlic, it bothers others—maybe a lot. This book is about Garlics. Garlics will tell you how they are suffering inside, and this may be true. But what is unique about Garlics is the degree to which they cause others to suffer. In this chapter I will attempt to tell you why they deserve compassion, but I also will help you make some decisions and plans on how you can minimize any of their negative impact on you and your loved ones.

Take a look at the Healthy Relationships Pyramid versus the Cluster B Difficult Personality Relationship Problems chart. As you can see, a relationship with Cluster B personality disorder may not only be irritating, but may cause devastation through lawsuits, divorce, or long and difficult custody battles. Each part of this book will illustrate the type of relationship imbalance personalities in each Cluster may cause.

I also want you to realize that just because these individuals have difficult personalities does not mean that they are not necessarily successful in life. Some of these individuals certainly have serious problems that cause major life disruption. Many with Antisocial Personalities are in jail. Many individuals with Borderline Personalities may have many failed relationships, divorces, and other such problems. However, sometimes there are individuals who are successful with their difficult personality. Narcissistic Personalities think big (I can be a senator or a major money manager) and often accomplish big things—for awhile. Antisocial Personalities can move up the job ladder while hiding most of their wrongdoing (although as the recent Enron, Madoff, and other scandals show, eventually things catch up with them). In other words, don’t think that just because this person appears successful, then you are safe. I have met a good number of high achieving people who have personality disorders. (However, in many cases, they are not complete successes. They can become a CEO or president and do well for awhile, but inevitably they tend to have some sort of downfall when enough people catch on to their difficult personality).

Healthy Relationship Pyramid

Examine your relationship using these categories. Like a pyramid, there ought to be many more items on the bottom of the list than on the top. If you see a lot of your experience with an individual fitting into the top categories (wars, battles, hurts, and disagreements) then it is a good preliminary sign that you may be dealing with a difficult personality.

Examples of Cluster B Difficult Personality Relationship Problems

Why is it important to understand if you have a difficult personality in your life?

The first reason is because these individuals can be a source of pain and frustration—maybe even a lot of pain and suffering. Even when you try to improve things, the situation seems to go nowhere. Usual ways of dealing with problems—reasoning, bargaining, compromising—just aren’t working. You feel that you are not being treated well, yet the same damn thing keeps happening over and over.

Basically, this is because dealing with difficult personalities is very different from dealing with other people. This is a difficult idea to accept. You can’t reason with them the same way. You can’t expect the same kinds of things that you can from others. They will treat you very differently. They have different values and interests, and you need to come to terms with these basic differences between you and them. You need to understand these differences so that you do not keep trying futile, ineffective ways of dealing with them. With these difficult personalities, usual ways of interacting with people just won’t work as they usually do.

And sadly, what you have seen is what you are going to get with difficult personalities. There are not many effective therapies for them. Promises to change will generally not be kept. They may stop a certain kind of behavior, but other disturbing behaviors will generally take their place. Or, therapy might take the edge off or help the problems improve in some limited circumstances with some people, but the underlying problems will not disappear. Unfortunately, you should not hope that these people will reform or keep their promises to change or be changed in psychotherapy. It is unfortunate, but generally we don’t have effective therapies to change difficult personalities. As a profession, we want to develop these, but so far we generally haven’t (there is some limited hope for those suffering from Borderline Personality, which will be discussed in Chapter 3).

Some difficult personalities never even admit they have a problem—or will not admit to the real problem. (They would rather blame you or other life circumstances). Thus, they will not even enter into therapy. Or they seek therapy for their stress or sad feelings (and these may be a reaction to all the problems they cause) but not work on the root problem—their personality disorder. Finally, therapy may help some difficult personalities a bit, but will rarely move them into the normal range. As we will talk about next, personality is an enduring way of behaving.

What is Personality?

Personality is defined as stable and general ways of behaving. Sometimes it is easier to recognize these traits in others but not in ourselves. Stable also means that it is difficult to change. Let me say that again: Personality is very, very hard to change. General ways of behaving means that the person behaves in similar ways across situations, and they have been doing this for a very long time. For example, extroverts, a normal personality style, are generally outgoing in most situations—at parties, in the office, in the home, etc.—and they have been this way for years and will likely remain this way for many years in the future.

Personality classification is not precise, such as in chemistry’s Periodic Table of Elements. There is more gray area. For example, some mental health professionals believe it is more useful to clump these ten personality disorders into three broad Clusters. This book will be organized according to these Clusters, beginning with Cluster B because this group of difficult personalities is particularly difficult:

Cluster A (odd