While individuals with a personality disorder demonstrate rigid adaptations to daily challenges that cause significant impairment in relationships those without impairment exhibit flexible adjustments to the world that provide enduring relationships with family, friends, and coworkers. Here is a description of my wife, a person who is about as “normal” as anyone could hope to be:
She listens more than she talks, her green eyes intense and sparkling. She makes everyone feel special because she believes they are. A master of directness, she tells you what she thinks in way that makes you feel good about yourself. Her pleasing counsel, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones, comes from a discerning heart. She avoids nagging and guards against quarrelsome words. She speaks the truth from her heart, respects everyone, and casts no slur on anyone. She looks for the good. She understands and forgives. She’s as steady as an incoming tide. Once she makes up her mind, she almost never changes it. Because our strengths are, in excess, our greatest weaknesses, she’s hard-headed and prone to perfectionism. She’s intolerant of overabundant exuberance and excessive enthusiasm. I must curb my unembarrassed tendency to improve a story by expanding the truth. Her upturned eyes tell me that my free use of gesticulation and theatrics have overextended her tolerance for a good story well told. She covers her eyes during crucial parts of an exciting basketball game and at the scary parts of a movie. She doesn’t like football, mice or getting her finger pricked, but when malice attacks her grandchild, she comes to the rescue firm chinned and determined. She’s centered on each day, treasures time and wastes no hour. She abhors regret and believes the future will work out the way it’s been planned. She’s as radiant as the sweet-seasoned sun on a spring day and soothing as a downy pillow.