The “problems” neurotics experience often stem from emotional conflicts that rage deep within their unconscious minds.  They’re typically unaware of what’s at the root of the “symptoms” they report.  If a woman already knew that the unexplained funk she’d been in lately was related to her suppressed feelings of grief and loss that just happened to be re-surfacing on the “anniversary” of her mother’s death, she might not even need to see a therapist to help her sort out why she was suddenly feeling so blue.  If the man with an ulcer already had awareness that his obsessive worry over losing his job, which was in turn fueled by his deep-seated mistrust of authority figures based upon his experience with his abusive father, he might never have needed to knock on the therapist’s door.  In short, neurotics often have little awareness about the reasons for their problems. 

The problems associated with disturbed characters might be so engrained that they occur “automatically,” but the disordered character is fully conscious of them.  He knows exactly what’s going on, what he’s doing, why he’s doing it, and even why others consider his behaviors problematic.  Lying is one of the more common of his problem behaviors.  Sometimes the disordered character lies so “automatically” that he lies even when the truth would have done just fine.  That doesn’t mean he doesn’t know he’s lying.  He knows – he just does it so often and readily that he does it without even thinking about it.

A fair amount of the time, when disturbed characters are confronted about why they did something hurtful, they will reply:  “To tell you the truth, I don’t know.”  In my experience, this is most always a lie designed to manipulate and impression-manage others as well as to evade responsibility.  “I don’t know” doesn’t  really mean that the disordered character is oblivious to his motivations (i.e. has no conscious awareness of his intent).  Instead, it often means “I’ve never really thought about it;” or “I don’t want to talk about it now;” or “I don’t want to tell you because they you’ll have my number, the con game will be over, and you’ll start holding me more accountable.”  I get weekly testimonials from readers of my writings and former workshop attendees that often attest to how much their lives changed once they stopped taking “I don’t know” for an answer when confronting the disordered character they’d been dealing with.  In contrast to neurotics, disturbed characters do the hurtful things they do intentionally, albeit habitually. 

Disturbed characters are ever so different from most of us.  I’ve posted on how they differ from neurotics on issues like anxiety, conscience, and the ability to experience genuine shame and guilt.  In the coming weeks I’ll highlight more of their key differences. 

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