Character Personality Disorder

By Nikki Wilson

Character Personality Disorder: A disorder in which a writer takes on some personality traits and characteristics of one or more characters he or she is writing about.

Ok, so this isn't actually a real disorder, but it should be. For the month of November, I've been so immersed in my novel and my new main character that I have taken on many of her traits. Which would be wonderful if she was an organized, happy, emotionally stable character. Unfortunately, she tries to act like she has everything under control when in fact she is a mess underneath her calm, cool manner. She meets a man who suddenly brings out the worse in her and he sees her for the emotional wreck that she is. Which of course pisses her off and makes her even worse.

See my problem? I'm becoming an emotional mess and every little thing is setting me off. I'm over analyzing conversations and becoming defensive over the smallest things. This is not good! Now I know why I'm behaving this way, because I am in my character's head, or rather she is taking over mine. What I can't figure out, however, is why my husband is acting like the annoying love interest in the book! He knows exactly which buttons to push to set me off, just like in my book.

I told my husband this theory and he thought about it for a moment before giving his reply: "Can you hurry up and write the part where we settle our differences and live happily ever after?"
My thought: "AMEN!"

If ever there was motivation to write THE END, this should be it, right? But I can't help but wonder if that will fix my problem or if I will need to go to therapy for my character's issues! Is there a help group for this? I wonder if other authors have ever had this problem. For instance, did J.K. Rowling get extremely curious and nose into other people's business when she was writing Harry Potter? Did J.R.R. Tolkien suddenly crave 2nd and 3rd breakfasts and want only to sit around and smoke his pipe?

Have any of you experienced anything like this? Is there a cure? What author do you think would have the worse character personality disorder if this was a real thing??