#Currently Watching: Personality Disorders in Dramaland

Graziella Sigaya
Aug 6, 2021
5 min read

Halin kauna may fascination gid man ako sa neurodiversity kag mga "quirky" characters. Basta gani may "quirky" tag ang movie ukon ang drama series, madasig ako mag click. Quirky does not necessarily mean disorder... basta lain sya sa iban ah. Ang akon latest watchlist tana tulad, mga may personality disorders in dramaland. Ang iban nga mental health issues kag other neurodivergent characters sa dason nga post lang hay they deserve a different list.

According sa American Psychiatric Association website, a person’s personality typically stays the same over time. A personality disorder is a way of thinking, feeling and behaving that deviates from the expectations of the culture, causes distress or problems functioning, and lasts over time. Personality disorders affect at least two of these areas:

Way of thinking about oneself and others
Way of responding emotionally
Way of relating to other people
Way of controlling one’s behavior

Without treatment, these disorders can be long-lasting. There are no medications specifically to treat personality disorders. However, medication, such as antidepressants, anti-anxiety medication or mood stabilizing medication, may be helpful in treating some symptoms. Family members can be important in an individual’s recovery and can work with the individual’s health care provider on the most effective ways to help and support.

Types of Personality Disorders
Antisocial personality disorder: a pattern of  disregarding or violating the rights of others. A person with antisocial  personality disorder may not conform to social norms, may repeatedly  lie or deceive others, or may act impulsively.
Avoidant personality disorder: a pattern of extreme  shyness, feelings of inadequacy and extreme sensitivity to criticism.  People with avoidant personality disorder may be unwilling to get  involved with people unless they are certain of being liked, be  preoccupied with being criticized or rejected, or may view themselves as  not being good enough or socially inept.
Borderline personality disorder: a pattern of  instability in personal relationships, intense emotions, poor self-image  and impulsivity. A person with borderline personality disorder may go  to great lengths to avoid being abandoned, have repeated suicide  attempts, display inappropriate intense anger or have ongoing feelings  of emptiness.
Dependent personality disorder: a pattern of  needing to be taken care of and submissive and clingy behavior. People  with dependent personality disorder may have difficulty making daily  decisions without reassurance from others or may feel uncomfortable or  helpless when alone because of fear of inability to take care of  themselves.
Histrionic personality disorder: a pattern of  excessive emotion and attention seeking. People with histrionic  personality disorder may be uncomfortable when they are not the center  of attention, may use physical appearance to draw attention to  themselves or have rapidly shifting or exaggerated emotions.
Narcissistic personality disorder: a pattern of  need for admiration and lack of empathy for others. A person with  narcissistic personality disorder may have a grandiose sense of  self-importance, a sense of entitlement, take advantage of others or  lack empathy.
Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder: a  pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfection and control. A  person with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder may be overly  focused on details or schedules, may work excessively not allowing time  for leisure or friends, or may be inflexible in their morality and  values. (This is NOT the same as obsessive compulsive disorder.)
Paranoid personality disorder: a pattern of being  suspicious of others and seeing them as mean or spiteful. People with  paranoid personality disorder often assume people will harm or deceive  them and don’t confide in others or become close to them.
Schizoid personality disorder: being detached from  social relationships and expressing little emotion. A person with  schizoid personality disorder typically does not seek close  relationships, chooses to be alone and seems to not care about praise or  criticism from others.
Schizotypal personality disorder: a pattern of  being very uncomfortable in close relationships, having distorted  thinking and eccentric behavior. A person with schizotypal personality  disorder may have odd beliefs or odd or peculiar behavior or speech or  may have excessive social anxiety.

Mental health can be an abstract concept for those who are neurotypical, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to understand it. Pasalamat kita hay raku dun gawa media representations nanda bisan romanticized kag pahapyaw lang ang iban.

Love Script (2020)

This 24 episode-Cdrama has an interesting premise. After his car accident, CEO Zhu Xuan Wen (Wan Yan Luo Rong) believes he is Emperor Jianwen of the Ming Dynasty and prefer to manage his thriving fictional empire rather than his company. Ang ana family gin indulge man ang fantasy in cosplaying in traditional costumes. Dugang pa nga sa set kang historical drama/movie nanda ginpatinir si Xuan Wen. Luo Kai Huai (Sabrina Zhuang), a mental health professional becomes a part of his world when she joins the emperor’s harem. Constantly clashing with the would-be emperor, Kai Huai must find a way to help Xuan Wen.

So far daw nasadyahan pa man ko ka dalagan ka estorya nanda. Asta episode 5 pa man lang nalantawan ko. Angayan man si delusional ML sa ana acting. Cutesy and fluffy lang ang anda take sa personality disorder kag somehow may kaangtanan ang anda past life sa phobia ni FL. Ano ba past life, lagi na lang ikaw? It's also nice to see some familiar faces like Sabrina Zhuang, ang may crush kay Dijun nga taga Fanyin Valley kag si Dai Xiang Yu, ang demon lord nga ka duel ni Dijun during the Bingcang Ceremony. Obviously tanan sanda connected in one way or another kay immortal crush Donghua Dijun of Eternal Love of Dreams.

You can watch this drama on Viki.

It's Okay, That's Love (2014)

Buhay dun dya naka bookmark garing indi pa ako makabuylo maglantaw. But now that I'm into personality disorders, isa dya sa mga recommended. Ang tandem lang ni Jo In-sung kag Gong Hyo-jin is hatak enough nga must-watch dya nga kdrama.

Jang Jae-yeol (Jo In-sung), a popular mystery novel author and radio DJ, suffers from schizophrenia – he has repeated instances of compulsions and obsessions, as well as episodes of auditory and visual hallucinations. Childhood abuse caused him to develop an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Ji Hae-soo (Gong Hyo-jin) on the other hand, is a psychiatrist who suffers from genophobia due to her mother’s extramarital affairs, which causes her to have an irrational fear of sex. When the two meet, their strong personalities clash. But soon, they start to fall in love and try to heal each other’s wounds.

You can watch this drama on Netflix, WeTV, and iQIYI.

Kill Me Heal Me (2015)

The drama depicts the healing journey of Cha Do-hyun (Ji Sung), a chaebol who has dissociative identity disorder due to a traumatic childhood experience. Despite undergoing years of therapy, his symptoms do not improve. His existence gets threatened when one of his stronger and violent personalities, Shin Se-gi, constantly takes over his consciousness.

Cha Do-hyun meets Oh Ri-jin (Hwang Jung-eum), a resident psychiatrist, and realizes that she can control Shin Se-gi. He hires her to be his personal psychiatrist to help him recover his lost childhood memories, but little did he know that she is also part of his childhood trauma.

Ang dissociative disorder lain man sa mga personality disorder although masami masal-an nga schizophrenia ang symptoms. I have always been interested in multiple personalities ever since I got my hands on Truddi Chase's When Rabbit Howls (1987), a personal account of her abusive upbringing and her struggle with dissociative identity disorder.

Dissociative disorders are mental disorders that involve experiencing a disconnection and lack of continuity between thoughts, memories, surroundings, actions and identity. People with dissociative disorders escape reality in ways that are involuntary and unhealthy and cause problems with functioning in everyday life.

Commendable gid ang acting ni Ji Sung gya nga drama. Although makadlaw kaw sa mga personalities na (especially Ahn Yo-na), your laughter is laced with darkness knowing that these personalities were born out of trauma and abuse.

You can watch this on Viki.