People with mental illnesses can be unpleasant to be around and certainly difficult to live with. It’s practically a symptom of their illnesses.
I would never ignore threats of suicide though – even when I’m fairly sure it’s done for attention. They may kill themselves by accident. Also, suicide can be a very impulsive thing.
I once dated a woman prone to manipulative threats of suicide similar to the person CaerieD mentions. As freaked out as I was by this, it’s worth noting that such behavior was not unheard of in the past: Ronald Reagan’s first wife Jane Wyman is rumored to have gotten him to marry her by feigning suicidal feelings. Such gestures played on archaic, sexist notions of women as ‘the weaker sex’.
And yes, as soon as I was convinced there was no real chance of her actually trying to commit suicide (after consulting a shrink friend), I got the hell out of that relationship.
My mother sort of does this in reverse. She spent the 1980s watching Donahue and Oprah, and today she watches the Discovery Health channel.
Whatever disease was on TV recently, she will suddenly start seeing symptoms of it in everyone around her. Especially if she is mad at them.
One of my brothers was bipolar. Since he died, it’s her default diagnosis. If you do something she disapproves of, you must be manic. If you don’t do something she wants, you must be depressed.
I don’t disagree Zoe, which I why I broke my promise to him not to speak to anyone about it. I didn’t know him well enough to just ignore it. I can say I’ve never met anyone who said that he was going to kill himself, at least not in an obvious joke/humor situation. And the one person I know who did commit suicide, didn’t say a word to anyone.
However, I think it is contemptable of him to feign his “epic depression” (as he calls it) and suicidal ideation just to pick up women. When I told him that I wasn’t qualified to deal with his depression and that he needed to discuss it with someone closer to him, he tells me to call him on cell phone and that the two of us can just chat it up. I finally told him I wasn’t going to call him, nor was I going to discuss his depression anymore. Now he’s become maniuplative, posting a thread in our guild forum: ‘<my character’s name> - My dad is dying. Happy now?’ Of course when asked by others specifics on this unknown blood disorder killing his father, he refuses to acknowledge those posts and only addresses the posts giving him condolances, and only those who he knows are female.
I’m done with him. He’s been instructed not to talk to me in game (which is my only avenue of communication with him) or I’ll report him for harassment. Although calling Blizzard telling them that this guy just said he was going to commit suicide might be the ticket as well.
Indeed, there’s something about MMOs that seem to bring out the crazies. I can’t recall any particular stories off the top of my head, but all I know is that if Drama Queen Syndrome was in the DSM-IV, a good chunk of Final Fantasy XI would have qualified.
Is there such thing as hypochondria by proxy? (Sorry about your mother, by the way-I meant no disrespect).
Cat Fight, it was a few years ago-it was a long time poster who suddenly “came out” as a MtF, and saying that his wife accepted it totally. He gave himself a brand new name, telling us elaborate stories about a new job, etc. Only someone remembered in a former post that he changed his age, there were various differences in the stories he told, and he used pictures of himself and his wife that turned out to be Korean models.
(And the reason I say “he” is because the guy was a total fraud. And fucking nuts.)
Some of that is Power of Anonymity +Power of Stupid + Low Integrity.
People get this idea in their head that since they’re anonymous on the internet and no one can (supposedly) check up on them, they can fuck with people by telling outrageous stories. Then they sit back and cackle with glee at the “idiots” who believe them. It gives them a transitory feeling of power in their pathetic little lives.
Usually, as you have seen, their lies get too outrageous and/or contradictory, and they get caught.
I think CaerieD, Chimera, and I know somebody in common.
Bottomless pit of emotional need? Check.
Overwhelming fear of abandonment? Check.
Weak sense of self? Check.
Allrighty then. Cue the suicide threats!
Or the false attempts.
My (now ex-)wife made a big one, obviously fake, then made a Huge Dramatic Production™ out of checking into the Mental Hospital for 3 days and blaming me for the whole thing. My crime? I was closing on the sale of my house, which was very stressful, and didn’t have time to pander to her usual bullshit for a couple of days. For that, I was a Horrible Abusive Monster, as she made sure to tell anyone and everyone who would listen.
She took -4- pills. Now I don’t remember the name of the drug, but it was being proscribed as a sleep aid, and she took one pill before going to bed, two if she was really stressed. The drug was also used to treat anxiety and depression, and in that mode, the ‘therapeutic dose’ range was as much as the equivalent of 12 pills per day. The toxic dose was a couple dozen pills.
Now, if you’re going to commit suicide, you do not take four fucking pills. You take the entire bottle. This is how I knew the whole thing was a fraud. But she blamed me because I hadn’t checked on her (I had, actually), and because I hadn’t counted her pills. Something which, if I had done, she would have been busting down hysterical because I didn’t trust her.
Sounds like you’re talking about my oldest daughter (about whom I’ve posted a number of threads). She’s diagnosed bipolar and borderline personality disorder, as well as borderline schizophrenia.
I have some chronic health issues (mainly, my kidneys suck) and any time the family’s attention is focused on a current health crisis of mine, instead of being focused on her, she has a “crisis” of some sort. About a month ago, I had to call my urologist. I had a serious kidney infection that was not clearing with oral antibiotics. Turned out that the bug I was infected with was non-responsive to oral drugs, and I needed three days of IV antibiotics. Not a huge deal, by any means. But focus shifted to: getting me to and from the doctor’s office/hospital for the IV therapy (I was on pain meds and couldn’t drive myself) while taking care of the younger kids, etc. while I was out of commission. This is the same time oldest daughter calls and says she’s going to have herself committed to the local mental facility because her “borderline multiple personality disorder has become full-fledged”. WTF? She was never diagnosed with borderline multiple personality disorder!
She tracked me down three days later as I was leaving the doctor’s office from my IV therapy and said “Good news! I don’t have multiple personality disorder!” (duh) I said “I’m not surprised; so what’s the problem?” she said her psychiatrist diagnosed it as a side-effect of too many hallucinogenic drugs. I think she labeled it “drug induced schizophrenia” or some such.
The point is, if she’s not the main focus of the family, she’ll do something to try to change that. And anyone new she meets gets to hear about how mentally damaged she is, but her family is “non-supportive” because we “just don’t understand”. In fact, she’ll tell anyone who listens that I’m a “fucking bitch”. :rolleyes:
Same shit, different person. See my post above yours. If anyone dares to have their own events and needs the focus/help/sympathy of others, those people are a threat, need to be villified, and a new and greater drama needs to be created in order to regain focus. :rolleyes:
It’s been just over four years since my divorce was final, and every day I move further from the pain and closer to uncontrollable laughing with joy at not having this shit in my life anymore. It really is “Wow, how did I ever tolerate this shit destroying my life?” More than that, it’s personal growth and understanding that make me see that I am not the person I was made out to be, that I’m no longer the person that enabled that shit in her life or in mine.