It is not like you feel depressed or anxious all the time, and you can’t quite pinpoint an event “after which everything went downhill.”
However, all your life you seem to have it harder than others, you felt different than everybody else, a little too sensitive, a little too shy or too emotional.
Or maybe people around you tend to complain about some of your behaviors that appear to be totally normal to you. People leave, and then new people complain about the same thing, and then they leave, too. If it is very difficult for you to build and keep relationships with others, and in the relationships you do have, you feel used and unhappy; it may signify that you have a problem on a level of your personality structure.
People who have personality disorders did not get a chance to develop a functioning personality structure, because from early on, their development was compromised in some ways. We are not going to play a game “blame the parents,” because parents usually try to do their best while raising children.
The problem frequently lies in the area of “goodness of fit” between what the child needs and what the parents were able to provide. Even with the best parental intentions, a child can still feel misunderstood and unsupported. It is perfectly normal and healthy for a child to feel this way occasionally, but if it becomes a constant struggle, it is bound to have a negative effect on the child’s personality structure.
The same personality structure where core abilities to grow, develop, adjust to new situations, and form trusting relationships take roots.
If a child or teenager was in a situation where she had to become a parent to somebody before she had a chance to be a child long enough, her resources may be taxed, and, as an adult, she may have difficulty coping with the role of a caregiver.
Often times, professionals tend to shy away from people with personality disorders, pronouncing them “too difficult to treat”.
These personality problems tend to be more chronic due to the fact that it took a long period of time for an individual to develop them, therefore, it may take a while for a change to take place. In this case, we will do our best to be by your side and help you through the turmoil of short- and long-term problems, all the while creating a safe environment for you to try new developmental paths.
