Psychological Testing: August 27, 1991

This is a summary of the findings of the psychological tests that I took during my hospitalization in August 1991.

MMPI:

Answers were open and conscientious. Extremely high degree of anger that is not expressed, high degree of hostility, and express passively, quiet, cold passive-aggressive. When I don't understand the cause, I blame myself in a punishing manner or blame others. Strong sense of rejection. Think about acting out, impulsively.

CONFLICTS: need for approval versus need to rebel and approval versus avoidance (push-pull). When I lack insight into my own emotiongs, I go all "bad" and fault myself instead of finding out why; signal versus judgement. I use over-control to make sense of my world.

RORSCHACH: Purpose for determining how one processes unstable ambiguous things like emotions.

I had a high number of responses, so results may be elevated. Depressed, but not major. Unusually good capacity for control and ability to access resources for control. High tolerance for external stress, I remain steady and solid. Less adaptive for internal stree or being a patient.

At the time, experiencing lots of demands from outside, but not on overload, but a sense of pressure. On the verge of disorganizing. When stressed, I diffuse my thinking/feelings; exert energy to make sense. Response style is to try to simplify (black/white). I become economical about energy and am prone to missing pieces of information for internal conflicts.

Hypervigilent which uses energy, always prepared which effects ability to process. Process energy seems up and down, so I appear inconsistent with attention span. Process of own emotions is childlike. Have strong ability to scan information efficiently.

Conventional thinking: less structured, can make minimal less conventional responses and be spontaneous if given permission. Capacity to do the unconventional such as burning, cutting and bruising. Not antisocial. Reflects individuality. May result from severe early emotional alienation.

Need to be strong individual and have safe distance from people. I do self-destructive things to protect my safety. View world as threatening, demanding, ungiving. Disregard any social expections from others. Attend to world; think of others. With these two, I can become distracted/disassociate. Style is to use fantasy extensively to fill in gaps which happens more when stressed. Denial to help relieve this and dependency on fantasy ideal world.

Great potential to modulate emotions - over controlled or out of control (impulsive). Avoid anything loaded with uncomfortable internal emotions. Ability to check in and out. Same goes with awareness. Angry and negative evaluation of the world which influences decision-making and coping style. Draws self image from fantasy world, rather than input for others; others are discounted.

Very hypervigilant. Marked mistrust of the environment. Most of the time feel terribly exposed and threatened, so uses great caution.

Most important values: 1) personal safety; 2) distance.

Need to feel in control when in intimate relationships. Don't expect others to feel close to me or myself to feel close to others. When it does happen, I become suspicious.

Do not experience need for emotional closeness like others. Less comfortable with intimacy especially involving touch. Prefer distance, feels safer. Marked interest in people. Willing to participate with people; overly emotional-back out.

Note: Looking at this now, I totally agree with the findings. I did then also, but did not understand the depth that it was implying. I still struggle with all of the same issues, just less intensly and I don't act upon the impulses. Disassociating continues to be difficult as I integrate more of my history into who I am. (I will need to do a post on disassociating.) I also understand the depth of what the results were implying...*SIGH*. Who really wants to look, deal or feel that all again. Flashbacks (another post) and triggers (another post) are difficult enough, but the work of integration is even more painful. But, it is the difference between feeling in pain and bad and just being in pain. When I tell my therapist, I feel relieved and then pain and badly versus I'm a bad person.