I’ve been doing some interesting work of late, looking into a particular type of personality disorder, that I have had up close and personal experience with.
The DSM would see this as Anti-Social Personality disorder. However, in my experience, it’s not as “severe” as ASP, but can be pretty detrimental to the people that are in relationship with these people as partners, friends or even parents.
ASP folks are the HItlers, and the like. What I’m talking about here are folks that have often been called: “Suppressives”, At their core, these folks are essentially afraid of others, but most especially, they cannot stand the notion that others will be better at anything than themselves. They are bent at squashing or attempting to destroy anyone they perceive as a threat. Oddly, they are often perceived by others as being kindly, caring, and may even be popular, or the life of the party. Yet, if you look at the people they keep around them, those people are most often wounded, sickly, weak, or deeply lacking in self-esteem.
In spiritual communities, we might see these folks as “vampires” people who drain the energies of others. In doing so, they create within others a sense of feeling incapable, lowly, and lacking in the qualities necessary to create a good life for themselves.
I heard a story about a person like this who is a group leader, who has amazing folks in her group, but will not allow them to shine, or to reach their fullest potential, or even to contribute to the group’s activities. The result is a group of people who are kept from shining–hence a group that is fraught with problems, ineffective leadership, and lack of cohesion.
In my experience, people around this person do not often feel what is going on, they just know that they feel stifled at the least, depressed at the worst. People who supress are some of the most damaging people I’ve known. So, the question becomes, what can you do if you are in some sort of relationship with someone like this?
As always, in any sort of healing, the first step is always going to be awareness. I will post a chart that might give you some clues to the behaviors these folks might exhibit. If any of these look or feel like yourself, you may wish to get some help. It is also possible to have these characteristics rub off on you if you are around someone like this on a regular basis. What can you do? Get some help. It is very likely you may not be aware of how to work with this person in your life.