Does PCOS affect your personality? #43
Does having PCOS affect my behaviour or personality?
Happy Sunday,
How are you guys doing?
I think you will love today’s newsletter. I have always wondered if having PCOS alters my personality and character. I would love to know what you think about yourself:
If you said yes, I would love to know HOW in the comment section below.
Does having PCOS affect my behaviour or personality?
You can imagine that research on this is scarce. However, I did manage to find an interesting study showing some differences in personality traits in women with PCOS compared to others.
A study looking at 99 women (49 women with PCOS and 50 without) found 3 out of the 24 character strengths to be significantly higher in women with PCOS: judgement, hope and perspective.
Judgement = Possessing such character trait gives the person the ability to examine, evaluate, and weigh evidence from all sides before jumping to conclusions. Indeed, judgement is described as a core strength of the mind. Well, this explains why I am writing this newsletter.
Hope = Expecting the best, working to make it happen, believing good things are possible. It facilitates adopting an optimistic approach towards events and an action-oriented attitude towards the future. A friend of mine recently said to me: you are a glass-half-full kind of girl, aren’t you?
Perspective = This allows the individual to have an eye on the bigger picture instead of being consumed by all the little irrelevant details.
I recognise these in my behaviours. Potentially, having PCOS, by default, makes you want to be more inquisitive about things so you understand what is going on. As you find things out about PCOS, you require hope that you can manage this condition and a bit of perspective to realise that, whilst it is not great to have it, you can live a happy life with it.
Do you recognise these traits in your personality?
In addition to the above, women with PCOS scored significantly higher in transcendence = the development of a better connection with the outer universe and its meaning. I am pretty spiritual and always curious about why we are here.
Why might these be higher in women with PCOS?
The main culprit might be testosterone. Given women with PCOS have higher levels of testosterone, it could mean that their behaviour changes. At least that’s what I thought. However, no study demonstrated a causal relationship between testosterone and behavioural traits of both genders, but some noticed differences. One showed higher basal testosterone levels positively correlated with self-direction and decisiveness among women.
So, it doesn’t seem to be the testosterone. I don’t think there is a clear explanation to justify the results but I am sure it exists. I am hoping more research develops in this area.
Whilst researching, I have noticed quite a few studies on the effect of PCOS on personality and psychiatric disorders. I struggle to write dark narratives about this condition as I don’t want this newsletter to scare you or bring you more anxiety about this condition. However, I think it is essential to stay informed, so I will aim to write another newsletter later on some of those.
I hope you enjoyed this newsletter, and please let me know in the comments below if you relate to these personality traits and if you think your PCOS impacts your personality.
See you next Sunday,
Francesca
Ghazeeri, G., Ibrahim, N., Khalifeh, F., Beyrouthy, C., El-Taha, L., & Bizri, M. (2022). Character strengths of women with polycystic ovary syndrome in a single center. PloS One, 17(4), e0266398. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266398