Is it just me or has everyone been psychoanalyzing and diagnosing their ex?

[annxxdisaster]

I've noticed that a lot of people have been diagnosing their ex with all sorts of psychological disorders: bipolar, boderline personality disorder, and the most drastic one (in my opinion) as a sociopath (aka antisocial personality disorder).

 

I am a undergrad majoring in Psychology (go figure!), I'm almost done. I don't claim to be any sort of expert on this topic but, from what I've learned I think someone with bipolar is easier to recognize than someone with any sort of personality disorder. I had a psychopathology course, and my professor worked in a health care center. He had a patient with boderline personality disorder who was taken to the hospital on several occasions for shoving the inside of a pen so far into her arm that it had to be surgically removed. She would do this for seemingly trivial reasons, like the nurse was on the phone and couldn't pay attention to her when she wanted them to.

 

But, it's the sociopath diagnoses that I truly, truly don't understand.

http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html

That site seems to have a pretty good definition of how a sociopath acts and how that is diagnosed. Maybe I'm really off with how I define a sociopath, but I think of that guy from American Psycho when I think of a true sociopath.

 

I'm not saying that EVERYONE who makes these claims is way off the mark, I just noticed a trend of people saying, "Oh my ex has this and that, and boy they are heartless". Some of the time, it seems more like the person saying that is refusing to accept that maybe they had something to do with a break up or the bad behaviors in their relationship and blaming it completely on the other person by making claims that their brain is messed up.

[ADF]

I think it is perfectly natural for people to try and diagnose their ex's after a breakup, especially if they are the ones who were dumped.

 

Keep in mind how often dumpers are dishonest and evasive in their words and actions. Dumpers often go to extraordinary lengths to avoid conflict, to make the breakup as easy as possible on themselves. The dumpee's feelings often don't count. Rather than be honest, dumpers lie. They withhold information. They cheat. They blurt out stupid, phony lines ("It's not you, it's me"). Anything but the simple, honest truth.

 

Dumpees often totally blindsided by this behvaior. It just isn't consistent with what they know--or think they know--about the dumpee's personality. Sometimes the only sense they can make of it is that the dumpee must be crazy.