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In my personality development class, we are learning about the “dark triad” and people with those traits. These traits include but are not limited to a willingness to exploit others, playing the victim, lack of empathy, “mate poaching”, and impulsivity. They are very manipulative, so people with these traits are used to easily being forgiven without really having to adjust any behaviors. They lie a lot and make up stories to make other people look bad. Sometimes far-fetched stories. This means they have a very hard time keeping friends and keeping romantic relationships intact. They also have this issue in their careers; they find it difficult to maintain jobs since they cannot maintain healthy respect and boundaries for others, even in the workplace. The only way people can get past these traits is to seek out a mental health professional to work through them. I found this to be interesting because these traits start to develop and become nurtured at a young age. It makes me wonder if adolescents could avoid these traits becoming dominant when entering puberty if there was therapy available in both middle school and high school. DBT skills to regulate emotions and how to cope with rejection, and other discomforts of life. The truth is so many kids have a neglectful home life since the family dynamic has shifted to more time spent apart. The personality we develop is linked to physical issues as well. People who have these qualities are riskier and more willing to try dangerous things. They are more prone to anxiety and anger when not getting their way. They are overall more unhappy. Anger can be linked to inflammation in the body that can be linked to issues with heart disease, high blood pressure, and lack of self-care. Self-care means that they are less likely to see a doctor annually to check on all these things, but more likely to self-medicate with substance use. This is why I think that kids should learn the skills needed to self-regulate at a young age. Mental health needs to be part of education!