In any case, after seeing the picture accompanying the article, it occurred to me that I'd never seen a picture of O'Donnell where she's wearing a normal smile. In every situation where she's supposed to smile, she's wearing a weird forced grimace instead. Here are a few examples of that:
Rosie with adopted (and now estranged) daughter Chelsea:
Rosie and first wife Kelli Carpenter (their marriage was annulled the year they got married):
Rosie and second wife Michelle Rounds, to whom she was married for three years:
Google-image "Rosie O'Donnell smiling" and you won't find a single picture of her actually doing that.
I've seen people with Aspergers who, when they're supposed to smile, just open and widen their mouths instead. But O'Donnell doesn't have Aspergers.
I've also seen sociopaths who never smile. But that tends to be more of a dominance thing, a statement that everyone else is there to please him, and show him they like him, not vice versa.
But O'Donnell's not a sociopath, either. She's not charming, nor is she a skillful liar, nor is she a con artist. And if she were a sociopath she'd have more self control, and would know how to simulate, at least for a short while, decency.
Nor is she an ordinary narcissist, since she never appears happy with herself -- witness her inability to smile.
But she obviously has some identifiable syndrome. The way she flies into rages, her never-ending, countless spats, and the fact that none of her relationships last for any length of time all point to an extremely difficult personality.
It has to be borderline personality disorder.
She's just constantly in a rage, and it appears to be something she has no control over. (The Left tries to apply the label "hater" to the Right all the time, but if you want to see what a real hater looks like, look at the pictures above.)
She was an extremely demanding boss, as former staffers on OWN's The Rosie Show seem to be more than willing to attest. She constantly belittled her staff and changed her mind about what she wanted.
Before that, in 1996, she had her own daytime TV talk show on NBC. When it started, she announced that she wanted to be known as the "Queen of Nice" (in contrast to Leona Helmsley, the hotelier who at the time was known as the "Queen of Mean"). But that didn't quite square with the fact that O'Donnell fired four separate executive producers in her first year on the show.
If she had fired just one, it would be possible to believe the producer was incompetent, or otherwise lacking. If she'd fired two, it still might be possible. But once the number got to three, it became pretty obvious that the producers weren't the problem. At four, there was no room for doubt.
What really made that galling was her public pose as the "Queen of Nice." That was about as credible as the crush she claimed to have on Tom Cruise.
According to Wikipedia, there is a "strong correlation between child abuse, especially child sexual abuse, and development of BPD." O'Donnell claims that she was sexually abused as a child.
One of the hallmarks of BPD is fear of abandonment, and O'Donnell's mother died unexpectedly of cancer when Rosie was 11.
Neither of these things are her fault, of course. But that doesn't help the people she regularly lashes out against.
Borderline Personality Disorder is an ugly syndrome, and Rosie is its poster child.
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30 comments:
Can you do one about a histrionic?
-Ga
Ga --
Honestly, I can't think of any famous histrionics off the top of my head.
Actually, I just looked it up on Wiki to refresh my familiarity with it, and one person occurred to me: Jim Carrey. I'll get to him sooner or later. (Two-thirds to three-quarters of people who are diagnosed with it are female.)
Ga --
PS -- Just Googled "famous people with histrionic personality disorder" and one list included Megan Fox, Marilyn Monroe, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, and Anna Nicole Smith. I guess the whole widely despised "famous for being famous" crowd is far more likely to have it.
In my opinion, the #1 sign of narcissism is an inability to tolerate criticism, and the #1 sign of sociopathy is unprovoked malicious behaviour.
Based on involuntary field research, I'd say that the #1 sign that someone is borderline is willingness to talk about (alleged) mistreatment. Borderlines will readily tell all and sundry about how badly they were once abused, even to people they barely know. I'm sure abuse does happen tragically often, but normal people keep it between themselves and a few trusted confidants. The borderlines I've known seem to relish talking about it, just as much as I enjoy picnics on warm summer days. They love thinking of themselves, and being thought of, as victims. They twist stories, too. Investigate a borderline's story closely enough, and you'll sometimes find details added to spice up an otherwise mundane tale.
My involuntary 'field research' as taught me to spot Cluster B types early. Basically, take note of how people talk about others. How they talk about others behind their backs is how they'll talk about you when you're not there. The Desiderata says "avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit", and I think its author was referring to Cluster B types, whether he consciously knew it or not.
- Gethin
I think that Rosie is doing the best that she can. She's had quite a lot of traumatic events in her life, especially the loss of her mother.
- birdie
Gethin --
I agree with you about the number one sign of narcissism. As far as sociopathy, that's definitely one of the leading indicators; I'm not so sure that constant dishonesty doesn't rank ahead though.
Regarding BPD, I just haven't known enough of them (knowingly, at least) to be able to say. What you say sounds plausible, but of the two I've known best, neither talked about having been abused in the past. (I suspect both may have been, though not necessarily sexually.) I agree completely about the twisting of stories; one would always twist things so that she was the victim, and then she would use that twisted version to work herself up into a rage that would last for days.
I hadn't been familiar with "The Desiderata of Happiness," had to look it up, thank you for turning me on to it. What a beautiful poem. (I think I've heard parts of it before.) When you mentioned it, I thought it was a part of the Bible. Agree, he was referring to Cluster B persons, though they weren't called that back in 1927. The Bible actually makes reference to sociopaths, too, though of course it doesn't use that term.
Birdie --
You're a lot more sympathetic than me. I acknowledge that Rosie can't help but have BPD. But her behavior makes it awfully hard to sympathize with her, and I've been reading about her in the news for a long time.
Here's one example you may not be familiar with: she actually forbade her first wife, Kelli Carpenter, from breast feeding her own biological daughter after the first month or two, because it angered Rosie that those two were having that bonding experience. what kind of woman forbids another woman from breast feeding her own baby?
Histrionic disorder is heavily based on the older diagnosis "hysteria". I see that word pop up 100x of times in old Freudian aged books or diagnoses. Hitler was diagnosed as a "hysteric/histrionic" dozens of times and the psychiatrist who treated him in WW1 I think gave his opinion he had "hysteria". It sounds histrionic was thrown around a lot.
I imagine a lot of disruptive prankster types on youtube, the ones like this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH3CkZ99Y0I
Are either pretending to be histrionic/hysteric for stupid fun or are a little bit histrionic.
I don't know much about Jim Carrey, but if he puts a little bit of himself into his movies or shows, I can see he is a bit of an attention seeker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZDeAMNIXg8
He is like Nicholas Cage, an actor that plays "himself" in almost every movie.
And I googled and found this clip of him on Ellen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAwD_9XY5CA
I wonder what his relationships romantic and platonic are like, if he is histrionic/hysteric.
-Ga
Gethin, what is the no. 1 sign of histrionic in your opinion?
-Ga
Ga --
I've heard a lot of different analyses of Hitler, I'm not sure what to believe. To me, he's a little like Kim Jong Un in that he really doesn't fit into any of the standard molds all that well.
The guy in that Youtube clip would seem to be histrionic, and maybe he is, but that clip was only a small snapshot, and he was obviously hamming it up for the camera. Plus, t's my impression that black people don't always fit into the same categories for the same sets of reasons the whites do.
I've always found Carrey to be intolerable. And yes, he acts like that all the time. Now that I think of it, Robin Williams was the same way, and was always maniacally trying to be the center of attention even when off stage. I wonder what would have happened if those two had ever met, both needed to badly to be the center of attention.
I realize that Rosie has a difficult personality, that she can be aggravating. People with BPD struggle with jealousy (correct me if I'm wrong). She might have seen the baby as competition with her love interest, Kelly, at the time that the child was being nursed. I suspect that my mother had this disorder and she would sometimes get jealous if my dad was just conversing with a family female friend. They're difficult personalities to say the least.
- birdie
Birdie --
Must have been hard of you growing up with another with BPD. Did your mother eve go into rages that would last for days?
She would go into rages, but they didn't last days. Once she blew up, stewed a bit, she was back to her usual self. She had zero remorse over her blow-ups. My mother could explode on anyone.
- birdie
Birdie --
So you must have grown up with some amount of Stockholm Syndrome. It's my impression that people who have to deal with BPD people have to essentially walk around on eggshells all the time.
Ga: probably making stories up, or adding false details to true stories *on a constant basis* (not just maliciously like borderlines, but also for fun - like sociopaths do). Histrionics are drama queens; they gossip *all the time*, and they tend to have poor concentration spans. I love the chick flick 'Mean Girls' for its (somewhat exaggerated) portrayal of the condition. I'd argue that the histrionics are the biggest loud mouths of the whole Cluster B family, and so the easiest to spot and avoid. As such, they're less able to hurt others because people see through them early.
John: I've also heard all sorts about Hitler, and I can't place him. He lied in 'Mein Kampf' about doing better in school than he did do, but I'm not sure whether that's significant for diagnosis. The book is frustratingly disjointed: he meanders and doesn't seem to be able to think clearly. Before publishing, someone with a PhD tried to edit it to make it more readable, but Hitler just changed it back. This reminds me of the sociopaths who defend themselves in court, as though they can do better than trained lawyers. But he didn't have the superficial charm common in sociopaths, hence why he's an enigma.
- Gethin
Gethin --
I'm reluctant to just say Hitler was a sociopath because his mother adored him, he was fond of animals, in fact was a vegetarian, and he seemed to have a long-term, stable relationship with one woman (Eva Braun). I'd always meant to read Mein Kampf, but never got around to it, after hearing your opinion, I'll take it off my list.
Someone like Josef Mengele is far easier to pigeonhole as a sociopath.
One of the best portrayals of borderline I've seen recently is Kylo Ren from the sequel Star Wars trilogy. His grandfather Darth Vader was diagnosed by professionals as being a good fictional example of very accurate Borderline. So maybe there is a hereditary component.
I do want to muse, I suspect there is a character defect borderline, and something else more organic. The former seem to enjoy hurting and manipulating, don't seem out of control but know well what they are doing, the latter would be the group that wishes they were normal which I've seen in a few youtube comments about the condition, are self aware, it could be a problem with neuroses and the psyche or something like that, problems with the amygdala or wherever, a brain condition, not a personality, more primal, less complex, manifestion of symptoms.
The former type, I believe many engage in behavior to justify or create a narrative. Since BPD makes a person sensitive to emotions around them, they may misinterpret this as being a very "sensitive" or "deep feeling" person. You can find on their facebook walls pictures of flowers, art they draw, and they put up a display of being a "free spirited" deep person, they then claim their attacking behavior is them "crumbling under the pressure of this world" or "I am such a sensitive person, I've been hurt in the past, it's so hard when people are so cruel in this beautiful world". They choose to be open and nice to someone, acting very civil, while ranting and spitting vitriol behind a persons back later because they showed up 5 minutes late.
Where do I get this? I know a person who is like this, I suspect these are all borderline signs, and her other behaviors make sense to me if you factor them in like that. Now is she
a stereoptypical female borderline? Do many of them act this way?
Of course this is just one person I know about. A male borderline? I never met one, but Kylo Ren or Darth Vader/Anakin Skywaler seem to be what I imagine.
-Ga
Ga --
I wonder if the "character defect" variety of Borderline you see aren't actually sociopaths. The things you quote them saying remind me a lot of some of the Prison Pen Pal advertisements you see. But you make a good point about those kinds of quote, they do come from people who aren't criminals as well, and what does it mean? I hadn't thought of those statements as being reflective of a particular syndrome before, merely as a sort of pretension; but you could be right, maybe they do hint at borderline. One thing I do know, people who tell you that they have a "high emotional IQ" not only have average regular IQ's, but the emotions they're in touch with are generally only their own.
I've heard a theory that Hitler might not actually have known about all the stuff that went on in the concentration camps. He certainly hated the Jews (he says enough about that in 'Mein Kampf'), but it's unclear about whether he meant for them to be treated as they were, as his (initial) plan was actually to deport them to Madagascar. The theory goes that his underdogs might have misinterpreted his antisemitic rants and implemented what they did without his direct approval. When the Soviets captured Auschwitz, his reply was "oh" and then he immediately started asking about something else. Had he known more detail about Auschwitz, the theory goes, he'd have expressed more concern ("oh no, I hope they didn't find anything incriminating", "I hope the guards destroyed the evidence" and not just "oh"). I'm not saying I necessarily buy the theory because there may be alternative explanations for his behaviour, but it's food for thought. So, if there is any weight to this theory, the fact that he was a vegetarian and animal-lover might not be too inconsistent.
I've heard rumours that he was an Aspie, though! Could there be any truth to that?
- Gethin
Did you see the recent Star Wars films? I really think Kylo Ren is the epitome of borderline, even moreso than his grandfather Vader.
If you haven't seen it, well...c'mon you gotta treat yourself to some popcorn flicks once in a while. Just switch off your brain sometimes and watch something fun.
-Ga
Gethin --
I've heard that theory too.
I have a hard time believing that an Aspie would have been as successful as Hitler at bending the German people to his will, at stirring up crowds the way he did with his speeches, and at leading the nation for as long as he did.
Ga --
I like switching off my brain as much as anyone, but sorry, even with my brain switched off, I just don't consider Star Wars fun.
Gethin,
Maybe Hitler had something we have not yet discovered. People didn't know about Polio hundreds of years ago, they just though people for no reason couldn't move all of the sudden, but then someone discovered it exists and it has been causing people to lose control of their limbs.
We've barely scratched the surface, someone once said psychology/psychiatry is like a bunch of medieval scholars being presented with a computer (the brain) and trying to figure out what makes it tick, they have no clue how a computer would work, but they could figure out some cause and effect from it, they could use the monitor to crack walnuts and pass that off as an amazing discovery.
They don't even know where or how memories are stored, if they are even "stored" as if they are made up of some substance.
https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer
Or you can go with what almost everyone said back in the 40s about Hitler "paranoid hysteria". Did you read the OSS report on him by Walter Langer?
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hitler-adolf/oss-papers/text/profile-index.html
It's all over the place, it says he is this and that instead of giving a diagnosis of one modern condition.
"A neurotic who lacks adequate inhibitions" "A hysteric, not a paranoiac as commonly believe" "learned or acquired, not natural, schizoid (not schizophrenia, it means a lack of appreciation for objective reality) behavior" "not insane, but not fully in touch, rather he is trying to adjust his enviroment to stay in touch and is aware of his actions but supresses it" "inverted sense of morality rather than lacking one altogether" "not a natural brute, but role playing as one to satisfy his narrative" "will commit suicide in the final year of the war when the weight of his actions catch up to him and his grandiose plans crumble (he predicted this correctly)."
So yeah....in other words no straight answer from him even. But not everyone fits into a neat category, ever person develops in a unique direction, we have categories based on whether we can group some people together for convenience, but if we look at the organic aspects, it becomes blurry. The genes for numerous disorders overlap, some people with genes never develop any, some without do somehow, even identical twins differ despite identical DNA. One can be gay, other straight, so many factors we are blind to.
In the future, we may lose many categories, and gain new ones. Dwarfism is over two dozen conditions unrelated resulting in short stature. Each one has something in common to be called dwarfism, but the individual manifestations differ greatly in certain areas.
And there are people who occupy areas between our currently named disorders, whose behaviors don't fit any one.
Like schizoaffective, given to people who have bipolar symptoms but not enough for bipolar diagnosis, and schizophrenic symptoms but not enough for a diagnosis. They give off a different vibe than a person with diagnosed with both conditions though. And it's likely many people bridge the gap for numerous disorders which leaves us confused since they have a different air about them than someone with two disorders.
I'm on the autism spectrum, but talking to one other person on it, she has told me "You aren't so vanilla like me or other's I've met. You are a bit less stereo-typically autistic in some ways but have more problems in other mental health areas. You can be paranoid. You are sorta different even among other people on the spectrum."
To sum it all up: We don't know that much yet. There are unique people, outliers, everywhere. We barely have scratched the surface, people 100 years from now will look back and think we were ignorant.
-Ga
I met someone yesterday with BPD (she told me) and her smile was exactly the same as these pictures! She said that she had been discharged from psychiatric care for being too aggressive. I have personal contacts with some of the staff at that hospital and I know they'd never do that unless the patient really was uncontrollably vicious. So I asked her whether the psychiatrist was right and she replied "well, I wasn't any more aggressive than usual". Not sure whether that reflects self-awareness or a lack of it!
Regarding the aetiology of BPD: borderlines frequently falsely claim to have been victims of sexual abuse. These women have no qualms about ruining innocent mens' lives with false accusations. If they claim to have been victims in childhood, their claims become even harder to verify. I take any such claim by a borderline with a pinch of salt. Actual victims don't usually end up becoming borderlines, so I don't think abuse is BPD's aetiology. A psychiatrist I know personally told me borderlines are usually the most privileged girls of all. They usually had the best upbringings imaginable.
Also you're right about Hitler and Aspergers. Becoming a top politician requires charm and charisma, so I'm not sure where the "Hitler had Aspergers" rumours come from.
- Gethin
Gethin --
Yes, never producing a normal smile is usually a giveaway of something. I've heard that some clinical psychologists refuse to treat more than on borderline personality at a time, simply because they're so draining. I know a married couple where the wife has BPD; I get the impression that the husband has gotten so used to constantly mollifying and assuaging and gentling (to use an equestrian term) the wife that he thinks it's normal now. (Which is sort of the definition of Stockholm syndrome.) And ha, yes, that response to your question could be interpreted either way.
I suppose it's possible that a Borderline could level false claims of rape (though I'd generally associate that behaviour more with sociopaths). From what I've seen, one difference between Borderlines and sociopaths is that borderlines aren't as wilfully dishonest as sociopaths. Borderlines actually think they're in the right no matter how ridiculous that may be at times; sociopaths don't care whether they're in the right, they merely want to get their way no matter how much they have to lie or manipulate or connive.
Obviously I don't know this for sure, but it's my impression that a lot of borderlines were in fact molested as small children. (And it makes sense, intuitively, that that early feeling of helplessness would lead to later rage.) The two most prominent BPDs I can think of are Rosie O'Donnell and Rose McGowan. O'Donnell claims to have been molested, and that sort of rings true: a lot of women react to such by ballooning up and making themselves unattractive and therefore no longer a target for molesters. And McGowan, though she says she was not molested, was brought up in a cult where they encouraged sex with children, so despite her denials I'd guess she probably was molested.
John
Borderlines are devious and manipulative but for different reasons to sociopaths. Whereas sociopaths gain glee out of destroying others' reputations, borderlines invent false rape charges to get sympathy. They're also mildly psychotic. Borderlines are called "borderline" because they were initially thought to be on the borderline between neurosis and psychosis. Contemporary psychiatrists have revised their opinion, hence the renaming of BPD to EUPD ("emotionally-unstable" PD). Having dealt with borderlines, I think the 1970s psychiatrists were right. Borderlines are at least sometimes delusional.
When I was at university, I knew a girl (then aged 18-19) who would go around telling anyone who would listen that she was raped at 16. It later turned out that her ex-boyfriend was merely playing around, and stopped what he was doing as soon as she unambiguously asked him to (this was discovered through reading the girl's diary, which she had left lying around). Aged 19, she accused another person of rape, and was much more specific about what "he" allegedly did: that he drew blood during the attack and left his sperm on her face.
Poor thing, right? What a horrible experience! Except there is a major plot twist: the alleged perpetrator was a biological female* who was physically much smaller than her, had never had any form of forensic history, and was actually very docile and meek. A year later, the borderline emailed the alleged perpetrator (whose reputation, by now, had been trashed - leading to a suicide attempt) to apologise for the lies that had been spread. The email confessed that all the alleged perpetrator had done was kiss her and gently try to pull up her gown, then stop as soon as it was clear that sex was unwanted.
*with a transgender identity, but without having taken any steps to medically transition. The alleged perpetrator was thus, at the time, physically 100% a girl - with breasts and a vagina. *Even if* she had been guilty, it would have been a lesbian assault - statistically very rare as women are seldom physically violent, and in a different league to male-on-female rape because female victims of other women have a better chance of defending themselves.
When borderlines accuse girls of leaving sperm on their faces, they're clearly delusional. They equate the clumsy and inappropriate behaviour of their incompetent partners with heinous violence.
The borderline in question later, after university, went on to accuse several others of rape.
After doing unwanted field research with someone like that, I cannot help but take every rape claim made by a borderline with a pinch of salt.
RE your comment about an early feeling of helplessness: I have met several people from Afghanistan and Syria who underwent extreme horrors as children (one was forced to witness the Taliban decapitate her father's head) then moved to Europe to start new lives. These refugees are not filled with rage, even though it might arguably be justified, in their cases. To the contrary, they are some of the most pleasant people imaginable.
Gethin --
I suspect, though I obviously can't say for sure, that the woman you're describing is a sociopath, not a borderline. I've gone on at length in this blog about how Munchausen's is merely an offshoot of sociopathy, and false rape charges levelled with the aim of getting sympathy fit that profile perfectly. In my experience, borderlines take a situation and perceive it in a way that makes them feel the victim, whereas a sociopath will simply lie about the situation to make themselves appear good (or the victim, as the case may be). Claiming that a biological female left sperm on your face is just an outright lie, not a possible misinterpretation. And that's not the type of thing a borderline would do, in my experience.
If that woman actually thought that sperm had been left on her face by another woman, then she's psychotic. But it doesn't sound as if she is, since she later confessed in an email that she had lied. And it would be awfully hard to graduate from a university if you were psychotic. Again, I'd be willing to bet this woman was a sociopath.
There are plenty of victims of early trauma who emerge unscathed, or at least not borderline personalities; I didn't say all victims of molestation became such. But most borderlines did suffer from molestation. They are a subset of those who did.
Regarding the early psychological take that borderlines were on the border between neurosis and psychosis, I think that's totally wrong. These days borderlines are one of the four "Cluster B" disorders: narcissistic personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, and sociopathy. These are collectively known as the "character disorders," meaning, the people who "suffer" from them have bad character. They are neither psychotic nor neurotic; in fact, neurotics are in a way the opposiite of sociopaths, as much of th literature on sociopathy states now "non-neurotic" they are. (For instance, sociopaths almost never suffer from performance anxiety, a common neurosis.)
Anyway, sorry to disagree with you so diametrically; the topics you bring up are always interesting.
I welcome disagreement, provided it's justified! You're right: that email and what she wrote in her diary makes it clear that she knew she was lying.
Her psychiatrist diagnosed her with BPD because she had self-harm scars all over her wrists. She's previously been in a mental hospital for over a year. As a teenager, she had anorexia nervosa. Her school grades were straight As, but then she started drinking at university and it all went downhill from there. Since then, her alcoholism means she's only done menial jobs - far below her potential. She accused her parents of mistreating her, which is implausible. Her parents were very prim and proper. They were probably too strict, but physical or sexual abuse is highly unlikely. They took her on holidays abroad, sent her to the best school, gave her the nicest clothes, etc. Not sure if anorexia nervosa is really a sociopath illness?
AIUI, borderlines, histrionics and narcissists invent false allegations too. What you wrote about sociopaths having a reduced repertoire of emotions seems to apply to the other Cluster Bs too. Their default emotion appears to be anger, which is unjustified, so they invent tales to rationalise it. At least, that's what I've gathered by involuntarily spending time with Cluster Bs.
Cluster Bs wreak havoc in other people's lives. The only way to deal with them is to stay away from them and, if you can't, 'grey rock' them: present yourself as the most boring person ever. Don't reveal anything juicy about your personal life, in case they use it against you.
Do you reckon Cluster As and Cs wreak havoc too, or do you reckon they keep themselves to themselves?
Gethin --
To tell the truth, I wasn't even familiar with Cluster A and Cluster C disorders, had to look them up. (I had somehow assumed that "Cluster B" was somehow just a random name they chose to group the character disorders.) But, having looked them up, I find them all a little confusing because there seems to be a lot of overlap. The Cluster A's are "unusual or odd behaviours." Many (if not most) of these are basically descriptions of Aspergers, or even full blown autism: prefers to be alone, no interest in keeping up family relationships or friendships, lack of emotional expression, can't read normal social cues, among others.
And the Cluster C disorders are "anxious or fearful behaviours." These include avoidant, dependent, and OCD behaviours. (And also, not wanting to throw away broken or discarded items, i.e., hoarding.) But from what I've seen, those behaviours tend to be co-morbid with Aspergers Syndrome as well. But autistic people can't be both Cluster A and Cluster C -- or can they?
And frankly, I see items in both Cluster A and C that could apply to me. From Cluster A: tendency to hold grudges, doesn't enjoy activities that others think are fun (hometown backyard barbecues), and social anxiety (in my case, fear of public speaking). And from Cluster C: focusing on details and order, being a perfectionist, being frugal, being single-minded. (All, to some extent.) So which am I? Or am I neither? The problem with a lot of these psychological descriptions is that they're so broad, and vague, that the encompass (snare, if you prefer) a lot of relatively normal people. We all get these ways from time to time. For instance, "doesn't enjoy activities that others think are fun"; people enjoy (and don't enjoy) a very wide variety of activities, including hunting, sky-diving, reading about history, Moto-cross racing, going to rap concerts, mountain climbing, fishing, listening to big band music, etc. But obviously, not everyone enjoys all these activities. And I daresay that no one enjoys ALL those activities. So does that make them Cluster C? Fear of public speaking is supposed to be the number one fear of people worldwide. affecting 73% (I just looked it up) of all people. Are they all Cluster C? Again, the breadth of the definitions of Clusters A and C, especially C, make them sort of meaningless.
My experience with narcissists is that, as noxious as they are, they generally don't invent false allegations. That tends to be more the province of sociopaths. I've had limited personal experience with borderlines, but from what I've seen, while they twist everything around in their own minds, they don't purposefully lie. I've also had limited experience with histrionics, but it's my impression they don't create lies out of whole cloth, either.
I'd also never heard that expression "gray rock" either; I love that phrase, and it's good advice for dealing with sociopaths.
There are a few differences between SzPD and autism, mainly "apparent indifference when praised or criticised" in the former. Aren't autistics infamous for lashing out when criticised? You're right that there are overlaps, though. Psychiatrist Allen Frances complained that PDs are under-diagnosed in favour of autism these days.
In oder to be diagnosed with a PD, the patient would have to meet the criteria for a general PD, including "An enduring pattern of inner experience and behaviour that *deviates markedly* from the expectations of the individual's culture". Not enjoying barbecues or fearing public speaking are behaviours too normal to count. Responding to friendly or neutral comments with hostility, and doing so consistently, *would* meet that criterion.
Cluster Cs are driven by extreme fearfulness rather than an inability to understand how others tick. Someone with Avoidant PD might have difficulties leaving the house due to fear of being shamed and ridiculed. They might resort to only going on walks at night, when no one can see them. AFAIK, Aspies don't quite go to those lengths to avoid others out of fear of being judged.
I imagine "doesn't enjoy activities that others think are fun" would mean they don't enjoy any social activities at all. These patients wouldn't partake in any activities, other than drug abuse and similarly maladaptive things. If someone doesn't like book clubs, but goes kayaking every Saturday, I doubt they'd meet that criterion.
Cluster Bs don't normally invent allegations wholesale, but they do twist real ones until they barely resemble the truth.
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