Paranoid Personality Disorder (PPD)

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PPD, though more common than NPD,  is often ignored or overlooked and I think can be (and often is) mistaken for Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).   The symptoms are remarkably similar and resemble the way a narcissist acts when in defense or attack mode. These are not very nice people. Someone with PPD acts like narcissist who is perpetually suffering narcissistic injury (must be fun!).   They are combative, controlling, envious/jealous, unforgiving, and quick to project blame onto others.  Also like narcissists, they are unlikely to think they have a problem so they rarely try to get help.

I wonder if PPD should actually be classified as a Cluster B personality disorder, since it involves a weak sense of self, hypersensitivity to real or imagined slights, and resultant abusiveness toward others and lack of insight/inability to accept blame.  Other then a tendency to avoid social interaction, PPD doesn’t seem that much like the “odd/eccentric” (Cluster A) disorder it is currently classified as (it’s in the same subcategory with Schizoid and Schizotypal Personality Disorders, neither of which bear much resemblance to PPD).

I’ve known people who I thought were narcissists and who were definitely abusive, but their behavior actually more closely resembles PPD than NPD.

One thing that’s unique about people with PPD is that they are more likely than others to have a parent with schizophrenia.

PPD2

Source:

http://www.mentalhealth.com/home/dx/paranoidpersonality.html

 

 

6 thoughts on “Paranoid Personality Disorder (PPD)”

  1. I can really identify with this. It may seem these are not nice people, but think of the injury suffered. Ideally you’d hope in time a realisation would come and they could sort out injuries in the past that led them or us to be that way and so stop projecting, but I still feel compassion because paranoia always comes from somewhere and paranoia is such a bit part of the schizoid defence that to have a parent suffering in that way would be very confusing.

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    • What you say is true. People with PPD (or any personality disorder) are mentally ill people who are suffering terribly. It may be best for others to be “no contact” but that doesn’t mean they aren’t deserving of help or understanding (if they want it). Even if they don’t, it’s better to try to understand than to judge.

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      • I think the not wanting it relates to having felt the pain was too bad to ever risk being open, hurt, doubting or vulnerable again. Its a sad choice (perhaps so deeply unconscious) with a huge cost.

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  2. Reading this I have to wonder if it’s what the problem was with a university housemate who was really so terrifying and difficult to live with at times that the rest of us in the house applied to have him expelled from the campus. I first met him when he was telling a security guard that he’d seen me hanging around the house and assumed I’d stolen his money … From his locked bedroom. At that point he didn’t know I was his housemate but still. I should’ve known it was just the beginning of half a year of trying to live with his psychosis.

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  3. PPD AS pathological disorder? interesting …sounds more like the classic very real damage that psychopathy causes than an instance of a pathological disorder, the type of histrionics is everything…is the person being invalidated in extremis? ppd reads as vague as the definition of bpd

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  4. Wow, so very similar. My nex was also very paranoid what others thought of him and he would take things I say the wrong way. But I always tied it to his narcissism. I can’t say for sure he had PPD because it didn’t sound like him. But he was also very self conscious and very private and didn’t want anyone knowing about his life. I figured that was to keep people from finding him out. He also didn’t want people googling him so he had some feature on his computer that kept google from catching his usernames and posts. So that was why I was very surprised to see her Facebook public and her posting about her disease she has now and whining about not having trans rights when in the past she was bitching about gays wanting rights and called it shoving it in their faces and here she was doing the same with her transgender. Not that I am against it, it was the irony.

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