Where lies the line between mental illness and personality?

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So yeah, as someone who takes brain meds this is a pretty big matter to me and I occasionally give it a good think. I was wondering what sort of opinions this forum has on this matter.

Personally, I feel like there might not be a line at all. Mental illnesses are just personality "quirks" with so profuse a negative effect on one's life that they are worth going to therapy over. I've not done much research on this topic if I'm being honest but I'd like to see what people think.

highlighting my aut crew because im sure they have good inputs: Oddish. RODAN Ullar Rugi
 

B R A I N L I C K E R

Banned deucer.
I don't believe that there is much of a correlation between either. I see personality as a permanent being, something attached to your identity while mental illness is a temporary veil covering that personality.
 
Yeah sure brain meds and all sorts of mental problems alter your personality but so does what kind of breakfast you ate as a child and what country you were raised in. The amount of factors that go into making you are a little more classifiable than saying that your personality is your pills. You could give the same 100 people similar pills and similar problems and they would all respond to it differently regardless of having the same problems. They are still distinct people and their problems are a factor in what makes them distinct.

In short retardation is not you, rather, you are retarded
 
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GatoDelFuego

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I mean, everyone is "on the spectrum" in some way, right? Like that's why autism is a spectrum and not some well-defined exact thing, because it's a sliding scale. So everyone is "autistic" in some way. Does it work the same way for mental illness? I think that our brains all interpret the world differently due to the way we were raised and the fact that it's basically impossible to copy that on different people. So by the same logic I think we all might...have a little bit of mental illness in us? But I don't really know if that is "personality". I don't think that your personality and some amount of mental illness are comparable, because I don't see your personality as how your brain works, but rather as the way you choose to portray yourself. So apples and oranges. So I agree with you on the fact that there isn't a line between mental illness and something in every person, just not their "personality".
 
mental illness is arbitrary and mostly a symptom of someone's natural personality clashing with society's conventional behavior and expectations.
 
Here is the line: depending on the illness, some part or parts or the whole brain system is impaired. This goes for the usual depression, where you cant generate enough serotonin by yourself, or something like a psychopath with no empathy etc because you are missing some vital links that get you those 'moral' and 'just' decisions.

To say mental illnesses are just petty quirks is very overly generalized and naive way to look at it. Mental illnesses are a harm, they cant be brushed off. When someone is clearly not right in the head, its a false signal to say youre just you nothing wrong with you. To understand yourself better you need to acknowledge it, and it helps you maybe get over it better.

As youre with a diagnosis as well, how long did it take you to know that you have what you have?

thats it for me for now busy gotta work
 

chimp

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I think the question is whether or not our 'personality' is literally just how we act or are inclined to act or if its deeper and more intrapersonal and defined within our soul.

If its the former than any quirks that come from your mental disorder are your personality, because the disorder is what determines how you act. Like an autistic person not being good in social situations, for example.

If its the latter then, no, your mental disorder is just barrier preventing your actual personality from showing.

For example, I am a pretty shy person, I dont often introduce myself to others and I'm generally pretty bad at social interaction. But, my personality is completely different with the few close friends that I do have, where I am much more talkative and expressive. Do I consider my shyness a part of my 'personality,' despite it being different from how I really act with my friends? In my opinion, yes.

Dunno if this makes any sense or helps clear up your question at all, just figured I'd share what I thought.
 

OLD GREGG (im back baby)

old gregg for life
This line you speak of may or may not be real but surely it is fleeting, regardless. Trying to observe, validate, or measure this line is fruitless because this line is not palpable in the sense that your vision or hearing may be measured; this is on top of that fine line existing primarily in our minds.

With all that said where the line is drawn is a difficult question and I think a more interesting question is does this line truly exist?

Are serial killers really messed up in the head or are they just sharing their personality with the world?
Interesting topic internet would like to see what others have to say because this is something I am not very familiar with, at all.
 
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Pyritie

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stop using mental illnesses as an excuse for your personality quirks like "oh I'm a bit blunt sometimes lol xd"
 

Soul Fly

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But its usually just societal norms.You are quite right about your notion of there not being any such objective line. We have always redrawn lines if any with the progress of science and discourse.

Just plugging Neurodiversity as a concept for the uninitiated. Its not without its criticisms but its an interesting way to think about the world.
 
I believe mental health illnesses help shape our personalities. I have found this to be the case personally, at least. I was always described as shy growing up but eventually got diagnosed with GAD, with social situations being very difficult for me, which didn't come as a surprise to me. I've noticed similar things with battling depression.

Honestly, I just tell folks to accept the issues they have and take the necessary steps to tackle them. Whether they choose to or not could give you an idea about their personality.
 

Tera Melos

Banned deucer.
I would say the main difference is a diagnosis. I wouldn't say there's a line between someone having an "out there" personality and them being mentally ill. I would say someone who's never diagnosed would most likely always assume it was just their personality or something natural to them. When a Dr comes in and provides a Diagnosis, change begins and there forms a separation from the individuals Mental Illness and Social Life.
 
I think about this a lot question a lot myself. I was diagnosed with bipolar II and disagreed with the diagnosis for months because I didn't feel "crazy". I had my ups and downs but I assumed everybody else did as well. But what I didn't realize is that the illness aspect only comes into play when it affects your daily life, health, or the wellbeing of those around you. So while I think mental health is a spectrum, the only time mental illness should be used is if it affects your ability to function on a daily basis.

I won't elaborate here, but I looked back at some of the risky situations I put myself and others in and had to think very hard if a rational person would do those things, and I couldn't convince myself that they would. I've been pretty reckless in my ups and pretty destructive in my downs, and I can't necessarily say that those actions were simply deviations from the mean.

I don't feel like my illness is part of my personality. I can say this as someone taking "brain meds" who has remained the same person but is far less reactive and impulsive. I've met people with schizophrenia who are completely themselves when they're on meds and say that the meds help them feel like they did before they started hearing voices. Same for people who get out of depression and feel like they're "back to normal". These are conditions, not states of being.
 

Martin

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It ultimately depends on what you are considering to be a "mental illness" really. If you are considering something like autism, it is definitely more on the personality side of it because the autism spectrum can be depicted as a series of personal strengths and weaknesses arranged in a circle (or maybe sphere is more accurate here to account for multiple spectrums in alignment with one another) like a colour wheel, including learning speed, ability to focus, fine motor skills, inherent ability to pick up on social cues etc. If you are talking about something like depression, then that is much further towards the illness end of the personality-illness spectrum because it is both a temporary thing which is much easier to combat with medication and therapy.

I don't think you can really view something like this in a black-and-white manner; just like most things, it is more accurate to picture it as a spectrum rather than a Venn diagram, with certain things sitting further towards one end than others. "Mental illness" is a term which gets stapled onto so many things due to a combination of ordinary reasons and societal reasons that it is just way too broad to classify something in as clear-cut a manner as "personality," "illness" or "both," especially when society and certain medical circles have a history of plugging it onto more things than just the classic set of autism, depression, PTSD, schizophrenia, psychosis etc. but also onto other, more subjective things like psychopathy, sociopathy, pedophilia, gender dysphoria etc.; hell, homosexuality not being considered a mental illness in the eyes of the law is still a relatively recent development, with people in the UK who wanted to avoid imprisonment being forced to undergo hormone therapy for it until as late as 1967 (England and Wales), 1980 (Scotland), or 1982 (Northern Ireland).

I agree with the sentiment shared by a few people in this thread in that something should only be considered an illness when it negatively affects your day-to-day functionality in a direct manner. This means that depression, PTSD, schizophrenia, and psychosis are all clear-cut mental illnesses, meanwhile the distress element of gender dysphoria (i.e. not the social element that comes as a result of this distress) is a factor which means that medical circles (e.g. the NHS) typically classify it as an illness/condition. As for the rest, either they are not mental illnesses or, in the case of autism, whether they are viewed as one depends on both the type and severity of what the person has. However, something to also consider is that a lot of these things, such as psychopathy, do have neurological roots which mean they can also be considered mental illnesses. (Speaking of which, I've found a good blog post about this aspect of psychopathy.)

Faint also brings up an excellent point; you are shaped by your experiences, so whether or not something is considered a "mental illness" as opposed to pure personality it is going to have knock-on effects which do, in turn, cause them to shape your personality. Personalities are multi-layered and evolving, and it is important to just take these things in your stride rather than dwelling on them, and like Faint said you should take the necessary steps to combat any issues that may be caused by your condition.
 
Agreed there isn't an actual line. Everybody is mentally ill in some way or another, in as much an illness is anything that causes discomfort from within ourselves.
Of course, in some cases the discomfort can be quite big and interfere in what is considered the "normal" behavior in the society. In these cases, most often due to remarkable chemical anomalies in the brain which follow patterns, they get a label such as one of the many disorders listed in the DSM.

From this line of thought, it follows that any set of characteristics that splits the "mentally healthy" from the "mentally ill" has two sources: the current social rules/protocols, and the state of the art in neurological research. However, from an holistic viewpoint, illnesses are part of people's personality.
 

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