What is the difference between a personality disorder and a mood disorder?

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I have already searched for the question on this sub but ironically, I did not understand the answers.

I would like to know how a person with a mood disorder behaves/thinks/feels day-to-day as opposed to a person with a personality disorder. Please don’t respond with the key differences between Bipolar disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder because that is not what I am looking for. Thank you in advance 🙂

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4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Mood disorders mean that someone’s brain isn’t able to regulate their emotions the way that a “normal” (or neurotypical) brain does. Personality disorders are more diverse and complex (and, probably fair to say – less understood), and a bit harder to explain.

Say that three people are on an airplane and the flight attendants are handing out ice cream. By the time the flight crew reaches row 32, they give the last one to a passenger in 32A.

In 32A is a passenger with a mood disorder that causes “too much” reaction. 32A was excited for ice cream, but they get the package and realize it’s strawberry – and they hate strawberry. The feeling they experience in that moment could be something akin to how the “normal” mind processes the death of a loved pet or family member.

32B has a “normal” brain and is disappointed – strawberry is their favorite! – but they move on.

But not 32C. 32C could be diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and believe that they are deserving of special treatment – no ice cream triggers extreme rage. 32C was already upset when the check-in desk wouldn’t let them carry 51 lbs on board – it’s just 1 lb over!, and the check-in staff should recognize that they are special and only overpacked because they had to – but this ice cream is where they draw the line. 32C prepares an attack, makes a snarky comment at the flight attendant, and starts pooling allies that they can manipulate hoping to garner some sort of special recognition from the flight crew and airline. “Don’t you know who I am?”

31B, on the other hand, has Avoidant PD. They hear the storm brewing one row back, and they know that they could probably settle things in row 32 by turning around and giving up their ice cream (they’re allergic to strawberry – they only took it from the flight attendant because that seemed like it wouldn’t draw further attention or questions, as flying is already traumatizing). But the thought of doing so – actually standing up and interjecting – triggers a feeling of intense fear and panic – like looking over the edge of a cliff. 32C’s rage fit is only making things harder on 31B, so they crank up their noise-cancelling headphones and hide under a blanket while the ice cream melts.

Meanwhile, 32A now feels on top of the world. They just saw one of their favorite scenes during the in-flight movie, and the ice cream is long forgotten.

Anonymous 0 Comments

From what I understand after dating people who had both (ugh, do not recommend), people with personality disorders have fundamental things wrong with their personality. I.e. the way they think on a daily basis and the way they act is fundamentally different than someone without the disorder. For example, my ex with a personality disorder was abusive and blamed everyone else for anything that went wrong. He literally could not see how he could be at fault, he wasn’t just ignoring the fact that it was his fault. Additionally, he would take out his anger on the people around him and seemingly could not comprehend how to handle anger or see in the long term when he was angry; he only saw short term. So, it’s hard to understand but someone with a personality disorder will be fundamentally different and their personality may make it difficult for you to understand why they do things.

Someone with a mood disorder, on the other hand, will think the same way a “normal” person would but goes through different moods than normally expected. So for example, they may not seem to have a reason to get angry but would get angry anyway, but unlike the person with the personality disorder they would still think like a “normal” person would while they were angry (but their reasons for the moods may be tough to understand).

I’m not a doctor, but that’s my perception/understanding of the differences. Hope that helps.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Well, our perceptions and definitions of mental illness definitely change and morph over time as we learn new things, so a lot of this stuff isn’t exact, but in general:

The official understanding of mood disorders is what it says: A disorder of moods. It’s generally about “abnormal” emotional reactions, like having major, life-altering mood swings, going back and forth between horrid, soul-crushing depressive episodes and ecstatic, manic highs. Or in situations where something negative happens, and a “normal” person might feel bummed for a while, or get a little stressed and then it’s over, whereas a person with a mood disorder might just come completely unglued and fall into a suicidal depression, or get overcome with mindless rage.

A personality disorder is more all-encompassing, it’s the person’s entire personality, and how it deviates from what we consider “normal”. This covers a whole range of things, like how they see, value, and treat other people, how they form relationships with others, how they perceive themselves. People with personality disorders are often seen as difficult, confusing, extreme, etc, because their behaviors are so different from what we consider normal and appropriate. Symptoms of personality disorders can include things like being generally paranoid and seeing other people’s behaviors as some sort of deliberate secret plot. Sometimes the person’s life is ruled by fears that the rest of us would consider weird, like being obsessively fearful of germs, contamination, diseases.

While some personality disorders can cause mood swings (like in mood disorders), this is only one of many symptoms that a person with PD has, whereas the mood disorders are generally about mood and emotional responses only.

Current thinking is that mood disorders have a biological origin, like there’s something going wrong with the brain chemistry, whereas personality disorders are thought to be a response to severe trauma in childhood. But again, we’re learning new things all the time, and this is an inexact science, so we may well find out that there are completely different causes at some point in the future, or that the causes are far more varied and complex than we thought.

Anonymous 0 Comments

A personality disorder influences you to think, act respond, think and otherwise be different.

A mood disorder keeps you the same however you feel different, grumpy, moody, tired, happy.

In the first the change is more drastic and even beliefs can change. People often say it’s like speaking to a different person

In the latter it’s kinda like a constant steam of bad days