For years, I was branded with one ‘personality disorder’ after another. At 41, I learned the shocking truth that had been staring me in the face the whole time: CORRINE BARRACLOUGH

The first time I walked into a psychiatrist’s office, I was 22 years old.

My first marriage was falling apart and I was drinking far too much. Of course, those two things were inextricably linked – I just couldn’t see it then.

Nor could the shrink.

When therapy couldn’t save that relationship, I drank my way through the divorce too. During my separation, my life continued to spiral and I found my way back to the therapist’s couch.

Still I didn’t make the connection between my alcoholic drinking and my chaotic personal life – and neither did the so-called expert sitting before me. 

Instead, we discussed many potential diagnoses: anxiety, depression, other various personality disorders that, in hindsight, almost sound like insults.

Bipolar, borderline, antisocial, histrionic. The list goes on.

Never mind the fact I was drinking myself into oblivion every night. That was the real problem that I wouldn’t address for decades. For these psychiatrists and psychologists, there had to be something inherently wrong with me, something I couldn’t control. A label they could slap on my chest, one that would make sense of the lethargy, the aggression, the hypersexuality, the irresponsibility, the mayhem.

I was 22 the first time I sat in a psychologist’s office. I’d be in and out for the next 20 years

I remember vividly the first time I begged a doctor to ‘fix me’. After the session, I wiped away my tears, walked out of the office, found a bar and got hammered.

By the time I was 41, I had spent nearly 20 years in and out of therapy while also drinking heavily. During that time, pretty much every disorder you could pluck out of the DSM – the psychiatrist’s bible for mental illnesses – had been offered up as a possible explanation for the mess my life was in.

No one thought to ask about my alcoholic drinking, which wasn’t exactly a secret.

In my despair, I’d latch onto these labels, relieved to have an explanation and, let’s face it, an excuse for my poor choices. 

Ironically, it wasn’t a psychologist who finally figured it out. It was me who found the courage to admit I was powerless over booze and give myself the only label I ever really needed: alcoholic.

The rest? Those ‘diagnoses’ enabled my shambolic behaviour, gave my alcoholism a shadowy place to hide. They allowed me to believe my mental health was the reason friends had fallen away, why relationships never stuck, why my body was weak and so often covered in bruises.

They gave me a reason to keep running away, to never sit with my own s**t, to think ‘woe is me’ as I poured another wine and sank deeper into the abyss of my own making.

There are at least ten major personality disorders – and psychiatrists are diagnosing them daily, handing out prescriptions like candy. 

Over the years, I was given many diagnoses but found them to be self-fulfilling prophecies. When I finally realised I was an alcoholic and stopped drinking, order was restored to my life

Cluster A includes paranoid personality disorder, which is characterised by distrust and suspicion of others, and schizoid personality disorder, which is marked by preference for solitude and lack of interest in relationships. Then there is schizotypal personality disorder, which encompasses all sorts of odd behaviours.

In Cluster B you’ve got antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder (BPD), histrionic personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder.

In Cluster C, there’s avoidant personality disorder, dependent personality disorder and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.

Over the years, I’ve received diagnoses from across the board. 

But, unlike my alcoholism, which it was crucial for me to surrender to, I’ve just let them go.

I don’t want to be medicated up to the eyeballs and I don’t want to use a list of disorders to excuse poor behaviour.

While I don’t doubt that personality disorders are very real and a nightmare to cope with, I suspect that for many they can become harmful, self-fulfilling prophecies.

Some people, when diagnosed, empower themselves with knowledge and learn how to manage their conditions more effectively. Others use their disorders as an excuse for being loathsome humans.

‘Sorry for treating you like s***. I have a personality disorder that makes considering the feelings of others impossible for me.’ 

To that I’d say: Well, have you tried considering other people’s feelings? You don’t have to understand exactly how a person feels to know when something is right or wrong. If you are so self-centred, why not imagine it was happening to you instead?

‘Sorry for yelling at you and scaring the life out of you, it’s because of my BPD rage.’

My question would be: where is your list of strategies for de-escalating this rage? Because it is actually possible – I know people who manage it quite well. 

In medicine, The primary purpose of a diagnosis is to identify an issue and therefore allow for appropriate treatment and management.

The best thing you can do with a diagnosis of this kind is to book a series of sessions with a psychologist and work on actively addressing your behaviour.

Don’t get comfy sitting in the problem and use it as an excuse like I did. Rather, jump into the solution, take responsibility and try your hardest to make positive changes.

‘Most people find the meaning in their lives through taking responsibility,’ says the controversial psychologist Dr Jordan Peterson.

Love him or hate him, he’s right, isn’t he?  

‘Woe is me’ is the worst self-fulfilling prophecy of them all.

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