Personality Disorders... does everyone have one??

The high emotions have subsided from the pervious blog.  I am fine, although my ego is still bruised from not being good at something.  And that is when I found the silver lining- I need to humbled.  I needed to know that I am not perfect, and I don't have to be.  I have to ask for help, something that I have never been very good at.  Especially since Aaron.  Asking for help was something that I just can't do.  But now, I am working on it.

So in my abnormal class we are going over personality disorders (PD), and I was shocked at how I knew someone that could fit into almost each one.  For those of you who don't know, a personality disorder is defined as rigid, persistant character traits that cause great distress in life.  And due to the nature of PDs it is easy to see yourself and others in them.  But then I really thought about it.  We focused on borderline today and when we went over the DSM criteria for boderline, I was shocked at how many people in my life fit the criteria.   

A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following: 

1. frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.

2. a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation, know as "spitting". 

3. identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self. 

4. impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). Note: Do not include suicidal or self- mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5. 

5. recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior 

6. affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days). 

7. chronic feelings of emptiness 

8. inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights) 

9. transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms

So why do I draw them to me?  Four people in my 23 years have fit this, and when only 4% of the entire US population has borderline, how can I find 4 of them?  (All of which have been diagnosed with this by a professional).  Granted that I only talk to one of them on a regular basis, and she is improving.  While the others, are well either exactly the same or I have not seen enough to know.  But the one that sticks in my mind the most is Marie.   

If I had read about this when I was so close with her, it may have helped me to understand her better, and maybe not pull away the way that I did.  She pushed me away to prove that I would abandon her, that I would give reality to her false beliefs in being alone.  I know that there is more to her complexities than this one disorder, but it makes this class even better when I can look at a list of symptoms and see it my life.  It lets me know that I am going into the right field.  That I understand people.  I don't need the experimental science, I just need to pass the class and then I get to the stuff that I do enjoy.  The abnormal, the addicts and the complex people, the people that can't be put into a box of numbers.

Oh by the way, I can see the dependent PD and the avoidance PD in myself.  Which apparently is normal according to my teacher.  And since I don't feel that it hurts my life, I guess my traits are not as rigid as the needed criteria.