There are many destructive myths about personality disorders and the people who suffer from them. At the heart of personality disorders lie difficulties in emotional processing, self-image, and interpersonal attachment. Feelings can be so overwhelming and intense that they physically hurt, and can be activated by small, sometimes trivial-seeming, triggers. This can lead to extreme behaviours, such as emotional outbursts, sudden onset of rage, lack of empathy, delusions of grandeur, overly seductive behaviours, or threats of self-harm and suicide. Such behaviours are typically not deliberately attention-seeking or manipulative, but rather a result of an intensely chaotic inner world at the time. Quite often, triggers are more present with loved ones, which can result in unstable intense romantic relationships. 

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Some symptoms of personality disorders include:

• sudden extreme distress or rage, for example when a loved one withdraws 

• quickly changing emotions

• overly seductive or intimate behaviours

• a chronic sense of emptiness

• uncertainty around sense of self

• constant fear of abandonment

• engaging in extreme behaviours when in an emotionally triggered state, which afterward seems completely different to usual self or values

• inflated sense of self

• fixation on success, control, power, or appearance

• desire for admiration or attention