Hot Take: Knowing Your Core Personality Might be Able to Help Your Mental Health

You choose to walk in your strengths or your weaknesses.

I am by no means a therapist. A degree in Social Work doesn’t get me that far.

But I’ve been thinking about the Color Code and mental illness a lot the last couple days and Taylor Hartman’s instagram account pointed something out.

Yellows are often misdiagnosed as having ADHD and are put on meds for it, (I might be one of them here soon. #contributingtotheproblem)

However he said that people have dealt with ADHD for years successfully without meds, it just takes behavioral structure and we’ve gotten lazy.

Not sure exactly what that means, but it got me thinking… What if mental health issues are just unchecked limitations of each color?

Think about it. I’ve known perfectly healthy Reds who, as the years went on, started developing massively narcissistic traits. Blues who started developing OCD, Whites with depression. The list can go on. While any personality trait can suffer from any mental illness, I believe that certain personalities can be more prone to different problems. I also believe that by knowing and understanding our limitations fully, we can take preventative care of ourselves and avoid spiraling into our core limitations and ruining our mental health.

For example, as a Yellow I need to create structure and spaces where I can operate freely. This looks like weekly meetings that I choose to commit to (I have to think of the great fun I’ll have in order to actually stay committed to it.) It also looks like deleting all social media from my phone. It’s common in ADHD to be addicted to scrolling, but also as a Yellow it doesn’t help that I like instant gratification and entertainment. So am I fighting against ADHD, or am I simply working on strengthening a Yellow limitation? What sounds easier to achieve?

Reds, you gotta practice swallowing your pride every now and then and having a little humility. If you’re going to write that off as impossible, uh-oh, you might be on the road to narcissism. And no amount of being right is worth that.

Blues, break some rules every now and then, do something just for the sake of doing it, start the project knowing it’s only going to look medium good instead of perfect. It’s okay to not give 110% every single time! You can still do it quickly and do it well (just ask a Red!)

Whites, push yourself a little bit to get out of your comfort zone. Have an opinion and engage in friendly banter with someone who disagrees. Yes, rock the boat a little and feel/express some emotion! Pick something you’re going to commit to and DON’T GIVE UP ON IT.

Yellows, slow it down for a moment. Practice having a conversation where you don’t speak. If you have to, only ask questions and do NOT interrupt at all for any reason. This is actually a really fun game I play without people knowing that I’m playing it. It’s called, “How Many Questions Can I Ask Before They Notice or Ask Me a Question?” Also try doing a hard or tedious service project, try to remember something your friend has once told you and bring it up in your next conversation.

I’m not at all saying these things are going to cure your mental illness. But if I could give you homework, I’d say sit down and think about where you might lie on the spectrum of different mental issues. Once you’ve identified a couple, relate them to different weaknesses your personality type naturally has and the strength you can develop to combat it. If you look at it that way, it appears less daunting than “stop anxiety I can do nothing about.” I’d much rather frame it as, “My Blue makes me a perfectionist, so I should just try something with the intention of giving 90%.” And then go for it.

By challenging ourselves and our core limitations, we can develop a stronger character, more self love, and a sense of actual achievement. Not every limitation a person has is mental illness, and I’m nervous we’re in the age of over-diagnosing. Sometimes we just need to kick ourselves in the pants and practice self improvement.

And, I have literally 0 sources to back any of this up. This is just a hot take, Thursday morning musings, simple observations I’ve made in the last few weeks. But you know what? I also don’t believe that everything has to have a “credible source” backing it up for it to still be true.