Major depressive disorder

Edward Munch: "Melancholy" (1894)

Symptoms of Major Depression:

• Difficulty getting up in the morning and difficulty falling asleep at night (therefore, a tendency toward circadian rhythm inversion),
• Decreased physical energy and a marked reduction in the need for physical activity,
• Tendency to turn to food and/or alcohol and/or smoking, used as a form of self-medication,
• Decreased sexual desire but increased paraphilic behaviors,
• Seemingly unmotivated anxiety peaks that occur repeatedly throughout the day,
• Decreased perception of goals and objectives (strategic collapse),
• Perception of irreparable existential failure (of not having performed up to one's potential in romantic, parental, and/or work life),
• Operational slowdown,
• Ease of crying,
• Tendency to avoid social interaction or to use it unilaterally and non-reciprocally,
• Increase in episodes of uncontrolled anger, including self-harm,
• Onset of the aforementioned symptoms (or most of them), especially at the beginning of spring or, more rarely, at the beginning of summer or autumn (and, in any case, with a seasonal frequency that is essentially fixed for each individual).

Borderline

 

Marc Chagall: "Over the town" (1918)

The Borderline:

1) is excessively emotional, often experiencing very high and very low emotional peaks,

2) rarely has a stable, intermediate emotional state,

3) oscillations between high and low emotional peaks are very rapid,

4) while consciously and desperately desiring a stable, intermediate emotional state, unconsciously manifests a recurrent need for very strong positive emotions and gratifications, even accepting the associated and obvious risk of experiencing very frustrating and painful negative emotions,

5) is highly impulsive in behavior,

6) is subject to sudden, vehement, and fleeting outbursts of anger,

7) has rather frequent and marked oscillations between idealization and devaluation of others, especially of their partner,

8) often has a concurrent Avoidant subpersonality,

9) like Avoidants, has often suffered from an early illness of his or her own, an early illness, or an early family bereavement,

10) often has a concurrent, minor histrionic component.

11) Almost like Histrionics, they may engage in mostly unconscious (and to a lesser extent conscious) somatizations designed to make them feel cared for or to boost or protect their self-esteem, blaming their illness for their failures or demonstrating heroic resistance to adversity.

12) They recurrently have an unmanageable fear of abandonment by their partner, a fear that evokes bleak scenarios.

13) They have a rather unstable self-image, oscillating between high self-esteem and a sense of failure.

14) This condition is predominantly female.

15) Like Avoidants and Histrionics, they often tend to be unconsciously attracted to introverted partners, whom they perceive as capable of marked emotional self-regulation and, therefore, likely to produce the same effect on their Borderline partners.

A striking example of a clinical Borderline personality is that of Anna Karenina in the novel of the same name by L. Tolstoy.