Cluster B is dramatic,
emotional and you'll probably have heard of a couple of these, if not all of them.
Antisocial Personality Disorder.
Disregard for the rights of others. Fundamental disregard for the rights of
others.
Now most of us make mistakes in our lives. Sometimes we treat people
in ways we know we shouldn't have treated them them and we
feel bad to some degree about having done that to the degree we admitted to
ourselves.
A person with Antisocial Personality Disorder does not feel bad for having
done somebody wrong
because they seem to lack empathy as a core construct.
Empathy being another basis for human relationships there doesn't seem to be
a lot of empathy
for the person who suffers from Antisocial Personality Disorder. And I say
suffers from Antisocial Personality Disorder where other people go, "Yeah, well
they make other people suffer",
and that is correct, but it's because something is fundamentally wrong.
So these people can con you and they don't feel bad about it. They can
manipulate you
and I don't feel bad about it. They can possibly do violence to you,
no remorse. It's a hard thing for other people to stomach that somebody can hurt
a person.
We have a lot of forgiveness typically as a species. We don't always show
it on Facebook,
but a lot of times we will forgive people if they show
remorse. Right? If they go, "I am so sorry that I did that."
"I realize now what I did hurt that person in a way that I didn't
consider it then and I'm really sorry and I ask for forgiveness."
But, to ask for forgiveness you have to want it and the Antisocial Personality
Disorder
doesn't seem to have the ability to empathize with people
in a way that makes them connected to other people.
So hurting other people doesn't hurt them like it does other people who make
mistakes and then
what to have some kind of opportunity
for redemption. So it's got an asterisk beside it because
more diagnosed in males. So
noting that let's also look at
Borderline Personality Disorder which you've also probably heard about.
Unstable relationships.
Unstable self image.
Unstable affect or emotional state.
Now as I've hopefully made clear to you Bipolar
Disorder when properly diagnosed as not many people bounce up and down all day
long with the emotions,
right? It's a departure from baseline and the manic phase
of at least a week unless hospitalization is needed and it goes up
and it stays up until treatment happens or
the whole syndrome abates or the episode abates. The depression is a
departure from baseline.
It goes down, it stays down and it stays that way for a couple weeks
until it's treated or goes away on its own overtime.
Up and down all day long is not
likely to the bipolar, but it might be
a symptoms of borderline. Unstable affect means
inability to control one's emotional state.
So they might be up, really up and then way down
and their really pissed off and then really sad
and then hopeful and those things occur
very rapidly sometimes depending on what the situation is that they're
experiencing.
That's hard for other people to deal with.
It also has kind of a hallmark symptom of
over idealization of people.
Right? And very quickly getting very close to people
who are just, you know essentially stranger, just met them
and them really putting them up on a pedestal and not too long beyond that
trashing them like they're a piece of crap and they should have never met them in their life.
Way up, way down. Going from
reasonably self-assured and maybe even cocky,
to a hole in the soul that can't be filled because maybe I'm worthless and
I'm not good enough for anything.
All that speaks to instability, but it also speaks to an inability to empathize
with what that does
to other people who tried to engage in relationships with these people.
Family, friends, lovers, co-workers, etc.
People who are trying to engage in relationships, that might look fine for a
few days
or maybe in a few weeks, possibly a few months, but the other
shoe is coming and something's gonna trigger
a real instability in that person's ability to
keep a relationship going. So oftentimes
a history of burning bridges so to speak
is what you see with that. Now, asterisk there because
diagnosed more in females. Now there's a theory that basically these are the
same thing,
but they are different gender expressions. Gender stereotypes we're talking
about gender sex role
as opposed to biologically male or female. Right? Males are socialized to be
more
outwardly expressive. Right? More aggressive,
more assertive. Right? Acting out
on average that's more of what you would see out of males who are
suffering internally, acting out as a response to it. Where as females are more
socially stereo typically socialize towards
relationships and different kinds of aggression. Not that physical aggression is not a
possibility,
but relational aggression and things of that nature and
internalizing. So an internalization of the same thing
through a stereotypical kind of female gender role might give you relationship problems,
where a stereotypical male expression of the same thing
would be aggressiveness towards others.
And the ideas that they may be related in some way they, certainly fit the same
cluster,
but the the symptoms are quite different.
Histrionic Personality Disorder sounds like what it is.
Histrionics is drama, drama, drama, drama.
Excessive emotionality and excessive attention seeking.
Now all of us like attention. Some of us more than others.
Some of us stand on big stages and we talk to people and big group and we like that.
But then we go hang out with just a family and were quiet and we don't do
much of anything to draw attention to ourselves.
In other words, most of us have situations where
we're more or less the center of attention or we're not and we're okay
with that based on whatever the situation
might be. The person with Histrionic Personality Disorder
has to be the center of attention and if they aren't the center of attention
they will create some drama to become
the center of attention. So it's not a positive attention necessarily
that they're getting it's any attention. It might be achieved through excessive
sexuality and flirtation
or provocative dress. It might be engaging in outrageous storytelling,
or lying, or manipulating of situations.
It might be setting people up against each other in a way that kind of creates
drama where that person is the hub around which all this drama
oscillates. And so in that sense you have
a pretty normal impulse which is we all like attention,
gone to the extreme where the person cannot seem to function
without attention being on the most if not all the time.
Creating again havoc for people who try to hold relationships with them.
Because after all they are people and they're just like you and me and
many respects except that these quality of personality
make it very difficult to sustain relationships over time
which makes it very difficult to stay employed.
Self-sustaining is what most other strive for.
You've probably heard of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Most people call it narcissism, but narcissism
is just term. "Oh, selfies are narcissistic."
Well, all of us kinda of like ourselves hopefully to some degree, right? I mean
is it really narcissistic if I go click,
post. Is that Narcissistic Personality Disorder?
Hardly. This is not your run-of-the-mill braggadocio.
Right? This is not somebody being cocky. Right? This is somebody that is
the shit. They are the shit
and you need to recognize that and if you don't recognize that, it doesn't
surprise me
because you ain't that bright anyway and you're not worth being around
me.
They are number one and everybody else is number two.
Right? They are next down if at best.
So these people require excessive admiration
not in the same sense of the attention seeker, but in this idea that they
should just get what they request
without question. People should be automatically compliant and that they
shouldn't be necessarily held to the same rules as other people.
So this is a level of grandiosity
that is pervasive across their life and becomes very problematic in terms of
holding
relationships. Now in any of these groups your talking about people
that might be able to function. Some cases you might even be able to use some of
these qualities
to some good ends. So being able stab people in the back because you don't really care
much about them will
take you fairly long way up some corporate latters. Right? Because the lack
of empathy
is what you see here. Don't care about you.
It's about me. Lack of empathy. Don't care about your attention, I need my
attention.
Lack of empathy. Don't care how my,
my, very erratic behavior is affecting you so much because it's about my erraticness
and instability, lacking empathy and
I just take what I want from you because
it's mine and and I don't to need to worry about you.
Lack of empathy being kind of a core construct running through
Cluster B. So these are again not common.