Years ago, I was told that I was a Type A personality.

But more recently, I find myself intrigued by the idea that I might be a Type D. It's come under increased scrutiny lately because of a spate of medical research correlating it with high cortisol levels and numerous health problems. From an LA Times article in India Express:

In boardrooms, classrooms, bedrooms and the playing field, we all recognise the classic signs of a "Type A" personality. And most of us know that these hard-chargers seem to be at higher risk of heart attacks and strokes.

But who has ever heard of the Type D personality? Depending on whom you ask, D stands for distressed. Or it follows sequentially from Type A; Type B (A's opposite -- laid-back, cooperative, slow to anger); Type C (a martyr -- compliant, eager to please, and prone to hopelessness and depression; studies have shown Type Cs to be vulnerable to cancer and other malfunctions of the immune system).

In any event, Type Ds are notable for negative thinking, worrying, suppressed anger and a tendency to respond to stress by withdrawal and denial. They stew. They simmer. They blame themselves -- and others.

And when it comes to feelings, they're given to stoicism: They rarely give voice to strong emotions, such as anger, and are likely equally disinclined to acknowledge them, say, in daily journal entries.

Perhaps it would behoove me to say "FUCK YOU!" more often, and maybe start obnoxious blog feuds. (Might be good for traffic too....)

Except if I am a true Type D, imposing such unnatural behavioral changes on myself would hardly improve my health, as we're not talking about a disease or disorder; despite the distaste the description evokes in persons who insist that only happiness as they define it is normal, Type D is considered a normal personality type:

The wide range of negative emotions characteristic of Type D patients may have led to the common misconception that Type D is nothing more than negative affect or 'old wine in new bottles' [8]. However, due to the inclusion of the social inhibition component the construct is clearly more than a measure of negative affect or depression, as it also points to how patients cope with this affect. Only those patients who score high on both traits (the Type Ds) form a high-risk group, suggesting that social inhibition moderates the effect of negative affectivity on clinical outcome [3]. In addition, studies have shown that Type D still predicts adverse clinical outcome when adjusting statistically for measures of negative affect, such as anxiety and depression [4, 5]. Table 1 summarizes the differences between depression and Type DThe Type D personality construct further distinguishes itself from other psychological measures currently being studied in the context of CVD, such as depression. Whereas depression reflects psychopathology, Type D represents a normal personality construct [2, 6].

According to the Wiki entry on the subject, "the prevalence of Type D personality is 21% in the general population," which is nothing to sneeze at.

Hell, that's one-fifth of this blog's readers, so I should probably be careful what I say about this, lest I drive them away.

And now that I think about the relatively few comments that these posts draw considering the number of hits that the blog gets, perhaps my readers are so "disinclined to acknowledge" what they think that they are also disinclined to leave comments! (FWIW, I love you for it, whoever you are.)

Even if my normal reaction is supposed to be along the lines of,

"Fuck you and I don't want to talk about it!"

AFTERTHOUGHT: Type Ds of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your privacy!

(Hey, should those who would psychiatrically diagnose people online be denounced as enemies of the people?)