Looking to understand

[no_hypocrisy]

I know a woman who acts like she's two different people. She can be unassuming, sociable, able to perform employment responsibilities. And then she can without warning start to scream (I mean SCREAM!) without provocation for events that don't warrant such a trigger.

Example: At the wedding of her daughter, she told her husband to help a young woman who had fallen due to intoxication. When he helped her up and the young woman started pawing at him due to the intoxification, this wife started screaming that her husband was a pathetic, sex-starved womanizer who was so desperate to be intimate with a woman that he selected only drunk ones to make his move. Fifteen minutes later, she warmly greeted mutual friends at the wedding, cozying up to her husband with initimate endearments "Honey" and "Sweetie", hugging him, etc.

The fact that she can be under control one minute and not under control of herself the next is disconcerting for her husband and her children. Lately, it's like she's a spighet that can't be turned off. She's even yelling/screaming at her supervisors at work, earning her a warning.

Can mental illness be "managed" upon will or is it intermittent? What kind of condition does she have? I'm sure it isn't Aspberger's. Can bipolar be a possibility?

[elleng]

1. Sounds bipolar to me

but I'm not an expert, just an observer. Others here will probably have better answer.

[Neoma]

2. It's her choice to seek help if needed.

Bipolar is going high in mania then low in depression. She could have rapid cycles I suppose. But depressed people usually want to be left alone, it isn't usual to scream their head off about something. And mania is a high that gives bliss... Sometimes. It depends on the person. This sounds like an outburst problem. Anger management issues.

She might have something, but leave the diagnosis to doctors.

Mental illnesses can be either intermittent or managed. It depends on the illness.

[HereSince1628]

3. I agree with Neoma, diagnosis is for the docs.

Behaviors are outcomes of complex functions. In addition to mental illness, per se, the possible pathologies include various underlying 'medical' problems.

With respect to mental illness and inappropriate behavior/misconduct... It can be quite distressing to family, coworkers, and others who share the moments.

There is no denying that. Moreover, we are taught from early age by family, school and social institutions "to behave" and evaluate misbehavior as wrong. Being in the presence of misbehavior makes many people uncomfortable.

Yet, in trying to understand a situation possibly involving mental illness, it's necessary to fight the urge to see the person with inappropriate behavior as bad.

Congratulations, I think you're post pretty well skirted that.

[jeffrey_pdx]

6. I've been to a 1000 weddings (no joke)

People always act crazy, get too drunk, hurt themselves...

[HereSince1628]

7. How does this work?

I'm not so good at reading between the lines, and I admit to struggling with understanding popular notions of being supportive.

Is the hidden principle of support in that reply the concept of minimizing a concern to a place where it may/can/should be dismissed?

In my posts, or in those of others, how could I distinguish comments that are supportive but on their face seem patronizing or dismissive from those that are truly invalidating?

[jeffrey_pdx]

8. I guess I was patronizing

My point was that people act weird at weddings. It's stressful, it's a weird day. I apologize.

[HereSince1628]

9. IMO, being supportive isn't easy in a public chatroom

And it's not just because creeping condescension is often a component of how people formulate comfort. By that I mean statements that in often more subtle ways take the general form 'this problem is no big deal'.

Such replies are invalidating of both the problem and the distress the problem is causing someone.

More generally, in a forum like this where posts are read by both those who are ill and those experience the illness of another, a really good supportive post somehow navigates a narrow space without invalidating either side. We live in a time when advocacy deeply divides politics and it promotes a 'we are good-they are bad' chauvinism. We're well practiced at taking sides and we do it casually.

It's part of why I find being supportive a really tricky business, here are two ways things go awry.

The most obvious hypothetical first... It's easy to read a post and slip into a role of empathizing with a person complaining about something.

For example: "Oh, my mother was __________ and she made our lives miserable. ________ are just awful to be around, get that person out of your life!"

That may sound sort of like it endorses another persons suffering and it seems to set up a communication that speaks to shared experience and possibly empathy. But on the other side, if abandonment is a huge fear of people who are plagued with ______, it is going to be dreadfully painful to hear comments that disparage persons with problems similar to _______ as a class. And hearing advice that urges the action that hammers on exquisite fears for them will terrorize them. I can see how that is a bad outcome of what was meant as support.

With respect to the perspective of others, sometimes the others are in the mainstream of group thought. It's easy to slip into the flow of a thread that's endorsing mainstream ideas of the group. For example, someone uses trigger words or suggests a practice such as arm-chair diagnosis that has a group gestalt and the replies go off topic dealing with that side issue (which is simultaneously a group main issue) becoming increasingly distant from an underlying real concern of a poster. I can see how that is a bad outcome of what was meant as support.

I'm not innocent, I do these things, too. I've done at least one of them here. I think they are mistakes, and I make them. That's why I say I struggle with the task of being supportive. I do.

[No Vested Interest]

4. Just guessing - a form of Tourette's syndrome? nt

[postatomic]

5. I don't understand what I'm going through

Even though I have a decent understanding of the science of Mental Health I would never even take a guess at an event described in one paragraph. Who was the dumb ass republican that made a quack (and he was an actual M.D.) "diagnose" on a brain dead woman based on watching a little video?

Is this woman a friend of yours? If so, then talk to her.