# Cluster B personality disorders

Cluster B [personalities](people-personality.md) represents a large subset of society. The behaviors wildly differ, but come from the same mental basis.

- These include antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, and [narcissistic personality disorder](mind-neurodivergence-clusterb-narcissist.md).

## How they think

The process that builds Cluster B thinking is somewhat straightforward:

1. They have a completely empty sense of self-worth, to the point of feeling deeply unloved and unfulfilled.
   - "I'm worthless."
   - "Nothing I do matters."
   - "Nobody can love me."
   - "I'm only good for what I do."
   - "I'm not good enough."
   - "Everyone hates me."
2. They mix up other people and thoughts in their mind ("objects" in psychology terms):
   - Outside experiences (i.e., other people and what they say or do) are beyond their control.
   - Inside thoughts (i.e., memories of others) should be seen as the fully controllable elements of themselves.
   - They don't distinguish the two:
     - They'll think their thoughts are others' responsibility.
     - They'll expect they can control others' actions and thoughts.
   - This comes from [early childhood](maturity.md), where they never distinguished their "self" from their "mother" like typical childhood development should have created.
3. They have to harmonize the discrepancies that arise, which determines how their mind configures the information from early childhood:
   1. Avoidance: Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) creates a barrier between the conflicting values. This creates discomposed [images](people-image.md) of identity and self that can manifest as alter egos.
   2. Engagement: Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD) concludes they can earn their attention through outward performance. This makes them excessively seek attention and endlessly crave stimulation.
   3. Acceptance: Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) disregards others' [rights](people-boundaries.md) in the pursuit of their own. They seek stimulation, but the focus is for inward satisfaction instead of the outward focus of HPD.
   4. Dissatisfaction: [Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)](mind-neurodivergence-clusterb-narcissist.md).

Due to this, the severity of their mental illness often comes through how intelligent they are.

One noteworthy and potentially controversial view is that BPD is the same thing as covert NPD.

- While it may be a minor detail, the practical distinction is certainly close enough that clinical psychologists have diagnosed the symptoms similarly.
- Part of the confusion is that a borderline, when facing [narcissistic collapse](hardship-abuse-narcissist-stages.md), will express covert NPD.

## Difficulties due to their mental state

Their shattered ego means their mind has trouble with articulately maintaining [memory](mind-memory.md) related to strong adverse feelings towards themselves.

- This wobbly mental state yields legitimate delusions about actual events and circumstances.
- To function in society, they tend to find social roles that are either vastly within their range of talent (so they can be near-immaculate at something) or requires maintaining constant [uncertainty](understanding-certainty.md) (which permits them to conveniently redefine their story as they need).

Since they have a shaky value system, they will often have trouble with a few specific things:

- Self-deprecating [humor](humor.md), though possible with HPD. However, HPD will *not* take a practical joke or teasing well.
  - Their humor will often express as unusually dark, and can sometimes be sadistic.
- Admitting failing or [sin](theology-sins.md):
  - BPD will use it to intensify their "shame" states and will typically vacillate between overreaction and completely ignoring it.
  - HPD will often accept failings on the condition that it's shared with others.
  - ASPD will entirely ignore failings, though will often learn from their mistakes.
  - NPD will learn better [image management](people-image-distortion.md) skills from their mistakes, but won't fundamentally change.
- Blunt truths regarding their failures:
  - They're unable to cope with their failings, so they behave erratically and unreasonably when approached with failings, irrespective of how polite or nonconfrontational the accusation was.

## Conflict style

Cluster B personality uses three major approaches, in approximate order.

First, they will deny absolutely everything.

- The [core of their personality](people-personality.md) is rooted in denial, so it's a survival strategy.
- They're constantly pushing reality out, then swapping it for a delusional fantasy where they are the hero or victim, but never the antagonist of every one of their mind's [stories](stories-why.md).

Next, they will engage in some form of attack.

- This varies heavily on the Cluster B archetype, since each one has their own form of abuse.
- However, one of the more notable distinctions is the fight-fawn response within narcissists:
  1. Fawn - very charming, giving, and codependent
  2. Fight - become aggressive and viciously attack others
- There can be others, such as fawn-flight.
- Irrespective of the approach, their response will be very inappropriate for the context of the situation.

Finally, all of them, when pushed to [an unavoidable conflict](people-conflicts-crucial.md), will engage in a 3-step process (DARVO):

1. Deny: Alleges the harm or abuse never took place. This can go as far as gaslighting.
2. Attack: If they suspect the person doesn't buy their denial, they'll directly assault the person they harmed. This can include harming family or friends or using family or friends against that person ("triangulation").
3. Reverse Victim and Offender: If the attack doesn't sufficiently suppress their victim/opponent, they will still feel unsafe. As a safety mechanism, their mind will rearrange their [memories](mind-memory.md) to indicate that *they* were the victim against the offender.

The reversals come in various forms, but tend to be successful in proportion to several factors:

1. How much that attacker can use social stereotypes (e.g., white female is an entitled person, black male is violent, poor person is stupid, etc.). This perpetuates the [lie](people-lying.md)
2. How little information other people have about the other person. This permits the lie to take hold.
3. How effective the attacker can be at hiding further information. This perpetuates the lie.

In general, [conflicts with Cluster B](people-conflicts-narcissist.md) can be complicated.

## Their ultimate end

Not including [their post-life end](https://theologos.site/false/), Cluster B will slowly create a predictable circumstance for themselves.

- Eventually, they will develop [a reputation](people-image.md) of being unkind, [manipulative](power-influence.md), and [evil](morality-evil.md).

The consequences will be disastrous for their personal life:

1. Immediately, the narcissist will lose control and feel a sense of emptiness and exposure.
   - In effect, the [stages of narcissistic abuse](hardship-abuse-narcissist-stages.md) end badly for the abuser as well as the victim.
2. The narcissist will rewrite history over and over to validate their views.
   - However, since it's all an [image](people-image.md) and not based in [reality](reality.md), they'll never heal from it or learn to [change](people-changes.md) in any meaningful way.
   - The consequence of this is that they'll end up repeating the same actions in a different context, then continue blaming everyone but themselves.
3. The narcissist may be surrounded by people but still be alone through a lack of deep, lasting connections.
   - This is the standard situation, but that surface-level behavior gets worse as the narcissist keeps needing to rewrite the story to make her look entirely like the hero or victim in every social context.
4. The narcissist will repeat the same relationship cycle with others.
   - This will mean [the same exact stages of narcissistic abuse](hardship-abuse-narcissist-stages.md), but with a different appearance and with someone else.
   - However, their increased [anger](mind-feelings-anger.md) means their patience threshold will be lower, so they're more likely to move through the stages faster when the other person reacts to their impulsive behavior.
   - This can compound across multiple relationships, and a narcissist can move to cycling very rapidly between relationships to compensate.

Eventually, a narcissist will run out of people to abuse:

- Close [friends](people-friends.md) will drift away.
- Their [partners](relationships-marriage.md) will leave.
- Even their [children](parenting-children.md) will estrange themselves from their parent.
- Most narcissists will [die alone](hardship-death.md).