Axis II traits - how much can you change?

[tryinghard]

This system I think comes from the US but I find it easier to understand than the ICD.

To explain Axis I/II - Axis I is neurotic conditions (anxiety, depression, OCD, eating disorders, BDD, SA); and Axis II is characterological conditions (BPD, OCPD, AvPD, DPD etc.) The idea being that Axis II traits (your personality) can be the root cause behind Axis I conditions in some people.

My Axis I conditions have changed so much over the years and morphed from one to the other that I've started to find it easier to view myself on the second Axis and concentrate on those things - I.e. which personality traits could I probably tone down/change to make my life easier. It just makes more sense to me.

I have not self-diagnosed with PD because I don't believe I have a full-blown PD (would have fit the full criteria ages 11-13, but not since then). But I think I have significant OCPD traits and that these are the driving forces behind pretty much everything I struggle with. The problem is, I have known which traits I need to tone down for....well over a year...but I can't seem to change. It's like I notice them, I try not to go down the same path, and yet I inevitably do.

My pattern is to focus so much on work and strive so completely towards work that I exhaust myself and end up either physically or mentally ill or both. In addition, I tend to focus in on one tiny part of the whole - a flaw - and lose sight of the bigger picture, wasting a lot of time and energy trying to get everything perfect. On top of this, I don't have a suitable strategy for dealing with the emotion this brings up, with my only real strategy to be to ignore any emotion and hope it just goes away. I find that when I experience an emotion, I'm just left with the thought: Right....so what do I do with this? And the temptation is just to ignore it again. I find it difficult to trust emotions and I find their messages confusing - for instance, "I'm angry. That's a waste of my time, it doesn't help me in anyway, so I guess I just ignore it." If it doesn't have a practical purpose or there is not a practical change to be made, the entire experience of emotion seems wasteful to me. But eventually all of this ignoring emotions leads me to bad places.

Over the past year I have been both trying to fight against my tendencies AND monitor how they affect me. I have exhausted myself to the point of illness three times in the last nine months, and have physically collapsed twice. This is probably not great, especially as I have been deliberately trying to change!

I just wondered from others how much success you feel you've had combatting those traits which feel like they are more part of your personality and how much change you've managed? Is it equally frustrating for you to see yourself landing in the same patterns and not feeling like you truly know the alternative? It really should be such a small change - a tweak - stop focusing completely on work, don't take your computer on holiday with you, stop measuring yourself entirely by achievements and find other things in life. It couldn't be more simple. But when I try to move away from those things, there's nothing to replace them - it's kind of like, I don't know any other way to be. I don't know if that makes sense...

[tryinghard]

^I know what you mean, actually, and previously I didn't like labels. I think the only times I've thought of something as 'being me' has been more the work/perfectionism stuff and emotional inhibition. I guess it's stuff I haven't spent my life thinking 'this bothers me, I should change it', like I have the symptoms. It's been more 'who I am' and it's only recently really come to my attention that I need to change it. Working a lot, being a perfectionist....none of this stuff really bothers me. I would rather work and be productive than anything else, it feels like the core of my entire life and identity. It's more the symptoms that come out of that that bother me, and I guess the idea is I have to change in order for the symptoms to stop. It's not good enough for me to simply say 'well don't worry about that'. If I want to stop getting exhausted, I have to try and stop working and find other things to value....it's less like changing a symptom, more like changing my way of life. I dunno if I explained that well...

The same would go for emotional stuff. I spoke to a friend last night about some things that have made me angry and that I'd been ignoring because I don't like to be 'petty'. He told me he'd be furious in my circumstances and that I needed to speak up. As I said to him: I like being like this. I don't want to talk about my emotions, I just want people to behave themselves or allow me to get away from them if they refuse to behave themselves. But life doesn't work like that. Sometimes you end up in a job with someone who isn't going to 'behave' as I think one ought to, and then I will actually have to speak up. Yet I resent it, because I like being laid back and I don't want to have to moan that so and so hurt me, it pisses me off that I have to do that. So it's more this stuff I don't really WANT to change but kind of have to. If I could have no human needs (for rest, e.g.) and were a machine, I would be happy to dedicate my life to work completely, but my body won't let me. I have to change because I have limits. If everybody else just behaved properly, I wouldn't have to be assertive about my emotions, but I can't just ignore everyone who disrespects me anymore because I'm older now and sometimes you're trapped with these people, and then you have to be assertive. You can't always just walk away.

[firemonkey]

http://pro.psychcentral.com/dsm-5-ch...ii/005008.html

The first three axes have been combined into one axis.

[tryinghard]

^Goddamnit! I'd just grasped that damn system!

Ah well, you know what I mean...

[umm]

I think there needs to be a measure of acceptance of certain traits. Obviously with things like depression, it benefits no-one and is more than a trait, but with the desire to throw oneself into work, or the desire to avoid certain types of people, are those things really so bad? Our traits can be managed rather than denied, or tried to fit some other thing altogether, because I'm not sure that way leads tohappiness. If these traits inform all we ever do, then maybe, and then we might want to stay on top of them a bit and take a day off or go out where there may be people we'd rather avoid. Be ourselves, but in moderation. Otherwise, in my view, we run the risk of overcomplicating things, paralysis by analysis. But there again, that's just how I see matters.

[tryinghard]

Originally Posted by umm

Our traits can be managed rather than denied, or tried to fit some other thing altogether, because I'm not sure that way leads tohappiness. If these traits inform all we ever do, then maybe, and then we might want to stay on top of them a bit and take a day off or go out where there may be people we'd rather avoid. Be ourselves, but in moderation.

I think that's exactly right actually and I guess that's the position I'm in (although generally analysis paralysis describes me to the ground can't stop thinking!) But yeah I guess what I'm aiming for is not a total reversal of the traits that are making my life difficult - I do want to throw myself into work because that's a big part of who I am, but not at the cost of my health, so I need to work on toning that down; and I don't want to be around certain people - there isn't going to be some time in my life where I'm going to become an emotionally reactive person or a person who can cope with others' reactions all that well - but I'm going to have to find a way to deal with them because I'm going to come across these people sometimes (as my friend pointed out last night: There isn't going to be some time in my life when I stop meeting *****. They're always going to be there, so you've got to find a way to deal with it and just ignoring reality won't work.) Maybe I'm just more frustrated that I keep somehow managing to do the same things over and over even though I'm making a conscious effort not to. I have made some changes I'm proud of so perhaps if I focus on those I'll get that feeling that I'm going somewhere instead of being stuck in some self-made rut. I'm sure I can learn to tone this stuff down as I go along, and you can't learn unless you make mistakes.