What mental illness (if any) does this describe?

Factual Questions
1

I had a roommate some years back who exhibited what was, to me, some strange behavior. He would drive me nuts, and I’m curious as to what his problem was. Some examples of Doug’s behavior:

– When watching spectator sports on television (specifically baseball and football), his favorite teams (the Cleveland Indians and the Dallas Cowboys, or whichever team he happened to be rooting for if neither of those teams was playing in the game currently being viewed) never lost a game because the other team honestly beat them. In every case, the team’s loss was the fault of crooked — not faulty, but crooked — officiating.

Anecdote: At one point Doug rented a big screen TV to watch football on, and put it in his bedroom since I already had a TV in the living room. A previous roommate stopped by to visit one Sunday afternoon, and when he saw that big TV he said, “I’m gonna go watch the game in there!” He lasted about fifteen minutes. When he came back out to watch the game in the living room with me, he was shaking his head in disbelief at Doug’s behavior (yelling at the screen and cussing the officials). He said, “That guy is unfuckingbelievable!”

– Doug liked to play video games. I had a Super Nintendo system, and Doug liked to play the baseball video game I had. And of course, the video game always cheated. When he was pitching and the computer-controlled batter hit a home run, he would shout, “Oh BULLSHIT!” If he was batting, and the computer-controlled outfielder caught his high fly ball at the wall, or if he struck out, he would shout, “Oh BULLSHIT!” He constantly complained about the way the game “cheated”. And not just on sports games. Super Mario Brothers cheated, too. And every other video game he played. I told him once, as a joke, that I’d found out that all video games come with a special “Doug chip” that can tell when he’s playing and make the game cheat against him. I’m not sure he realized I was joking.

– The police were always “harassing” him. At that time, neither one of us had a driver’s license (I’d lost mine to a DUI a couple years earlier, and Doug never had one), and so we were walking to work together one evening. Doug spotted a city police car sitting in a parking lot driveway, waiting to pull into traffic. The most direct path on our route to work would have been to keep walking the direction we were going, passing in front of the police car. That would have been good enough for me, but Doug was having none of it. As soon as he spotted the police car, he announced, “I’m going this way!”. He made a quick left to take the “back way” to work so that the “damn cop” wouldn’t see him. Mind you, Doug had no criminal record. I strongly suspected that any actual “harassment” he was experiencing was the direct result of his tendency to flee every time he spotted a police officer. You know, “So, why did you run?”

– At work, he won a baseball cap embroidered with our company logo in one of the various “incentive contests” the company would run every now and then. So he started wearing the cap while he worked. The manager told him he couldn’t wear it while he was working, since it wasn’t part of the dress code. No biggie, right? Wrong. Doug’s response was to take the cap outside, stand in front of the front door, and set the cap on fire right in front of customers who were entering the building. Needless to say, that was Doug’s last day on the job.

I should add (though perhaps it’s obvious) that Doug was not especially bright. I think he may have been in the “special education” program when he was in school, but he wasn’t noticeably “retarded”. He was self-sufficient and quite capable of working a full-time job and taking care of himself.

So, what do you think Doug’s problem was? Paranoia? Major persecution complex? Too much childhood drilling on how things should be “fair”, resulting in anything that didn’t go his way being interpreted as “unfair”? What?

2

Not every unusual person suffers from mental illness. Sometimes, people are just kinda dicks.

3

Could have been a disorder. Here’s a whole catalogue of personality disorders. You can read up on them all and see which one fits.

4

I am not a therapist. Mental illness is really complicated and it takes a professional meeting with a person over a period of time to diagnose that person. Sometimes it is a combination of things or it might be a personality disorder instead of an illness. Or maybe your friend just has poor impulse control.

I compliment you on your ability to describe behavior.

5

Psychologist here, although not clinical.

I dont think any reputable health worker would be willing to make a diagnosis on the basis of indirect info like this, particularly given we dont know what will be done with the info. What I will say is its important to realise that there can be an awfully big gap between ‘behaviour that annoys or worries me’ and ‘clinical disorder’.

So if anyone does take a crack at it, Id be cautious about putting too much weight on it.

Edit: That link on PD’s is a good example. Generally when people read these kinds of things they tend to hugely overdiagnose, because they dont realise how high on the scale you generally need to get with some of the behaviours to count as ‘clinical’.

Otara

6

IANA etc., etc., but here’s an interesting link that talks about people who have mild forms of serious personality disorders. It’s also possible to have mild forms of more than one disorder, so they exhibit some of the behaviors of several.

7

Can’t someone be an asshole without it being due to disease? (Seriously)

8

He suffers from chronic dougitis.

Seriously, when you state that someone has such-and-such “mental illness”, you aren’t explaining what causes the described behavior, you’re merely providing a simile that means the same thing (in an aggregate, categorical way) as your description of the behavior.

If (let’s say) professional psychiatrist Dr. Shrinkwrap says Doug suffers from ‘schizodependent schizophrenia’, all that means is that Doug’s behavior fits into the general descriptive category called ‘schizodependent schizophrenia’. Dr. Shrinkwrap, however, does not know what causes the behavior any more than you do. No one knows yet. The state of the art of comprehending human behavior isn’t there yet. We don’t even know for sure how much of it is organic as opposed to situational and contextual.

9

Psychologist here.

Of course. But as Otara noted, diagnosing (or chalking it up to non-clinical factors) can’t be done at a distance, and shouldn’t be attempted (at least, by those functioning under ethical and legal codes) because even in the context of an anonymous message board, it potentially has the weight of that person’s authority.

10

Man, there’s more waffling in here than an IHOPs on a Saturday morning.

Can’t someone just say "Well, you understand this is a non-professional diagnosis, and it’s done with far less information than would be required, including a personal consult, bla bla
yak yak
etc. etc.
but it sounds sorta kinda like it could maybe be a case of intermatriculative subjunctive pluperfection???

See if I ever tell you guys what hardware issue I think your PC has. :rolleyes:

11

While I agree, of course, that one can’t diagnose anything without a proper examination, it is surely not a bad thing to be aware of symptoms such that you can perhaps suggest someone showing them might avail themselves of medical assistance.

If you had a friend who suddenly lost or gained a bunch of weight, started drinking lots of water, and was in the restroom all the time, is it not valid to suggest that they are exhibiting some symptoms of diabetes and should consider visiting their physician for an evaluation?’

The person in the OPs description actually lost a job because of his inability to control his reactions and temper and it wasn’t just a one-time occurrence. I think the reason why we get Columbines and other awful events is that people let obviously aberrant behaviour pass unremarked-upon because they are scared of ‘over-diagnosing’ someone. Tragedy ensues.

I can’t imagine any situation in which repeated instances of angry reaction in disproportion to the cause would not be a warning sign that something is amiss with someone. Could be anything from depression to a brain tumour but it would be worth looking into.

12

Sure, a non-professional can say anything s/he likes. A professional can offer some tentative ideas. The tentative idea offered by** Otara** was that (1) there wasn’t enough information to venture a reasonably possibility; and (2) that not every bad behavior is associated with a clinical diagnosis.

If you look at my post history, you’ll see that sometimes I describe a possible diagnostic consideration, or potential actions, but with the caveat that I have not evaluated this person. The less proximate the person in question, the more it is a guessing game, whether one is a professional or not. Could it be something paranoid? Maybe. Could it be poor impulse control? Perhaps. Could it be something I think of that’s not already named in the thread? Sure. But the question is “What mental illness (if any) does this describe?” and my answer as a professional is, I don’t have enough information to answer that, and I’m not going to ask for more because I can’t diagnose people whom I have no opportunity to evaluate directly.

Please don’t hear this as “waffling” or holding out on you. It’s illegal for medical and psychological professionals to diagnose from afar. We can lose our licenses.

13

That’s what I was thinking. Sounds like he’s just an ass with way to much of a sense of entitlement.

14

An excellent point. Most assholes don’t have a mental illness. So their extremes of behavior are best treated by the criminal justice system rather than the mental health community.

And if one strains and stretches hard enough, one can ascribe some sort of personality disorder to nearly everyone. But personality disorder ≠ mental illness, as has already been noted.

15

I don’t think it’s too far afield to say the setting on fire of the cap was at least one instance of poor impulse control. If he had controlled that impulse, he probably wouldn’t have lost that job, at least for a while. OTOH, most of us can probably remember at least one instance when we personally demonstrated poor impulse control. If that was all someone had to go by, they might try to diagnose us. So there’s a question of degree and frequency, for sure. Also, I don’t believe poor impulse control is a diagnosis of any type, but maybe a symptom of several things.

The first 3 behaviors sound to me like examples of “external locus of control,” which is a characteristic, not a diagnosis of mental illness. External locus of control means attributing things to forces outside oneself, and when taken to extremes can be a sign or symptom of mental illness. Internal locus of control, where you believe things that happen are attributable to your thoughts or behavior, can be a problem in the extreme, also (the sun will not rise tomorrow unless I do my chants…). But Doug here does seem to be on the external side, from the examples given.

AHunter3, I think you are understating the progress of understanding human behavior a little bit. For example, we now have knowledge that injuries to some specific parts of the brain can be associated with specific behavior patterns. Psychology is not as clear as orthopedic surgery, but it’s beyond the merely descriptive.

16

(bolding mine)

Good point. All I can say to that is that I haven’t seen Doug in almost 12 years, and I have no idea where he might be or what he might be doing with his life. The only use for any information I get here is to satisfy my own curiosity. Memories of Doug surface in my brain every now and then, making me chuckle and ask myself, “What was up with that guy?” In this case I think it was the I’ve found the most addictive game ever thread that made me think of him. I was trying out (and have since become hooked on) one of the games mentioned in that thread. The game can get frustrating when you’re learning it, and that made me think of Doug.

I guess I’m not really looking for a diagnosis, just a general idea. Quiddity Glomfuster, thanks for that link. I’ll check it out.

Yeah, I suppose that sometimes, a dick is just a dick. It’s just that in this case, he seemed so emotionally invested in all of his “persecutions”. Outwardly, he got “angry”, but there was always this underlying feeling of despair and helplessness behind the anger. I’ve worked in several bars and witnessed plenty of guys hollering at the TV while watching sports; Doug’s behavior in this area had a completely different ring to it.

One possibility I can think of is “learned behavior” instead of “mental/personality disorder”. I mentioned that he wasn’t very bright. He was also a bit undersized. I find myself wondering if his behavior was partly the result of an overprotective parent. I can use myself as an example: in elementary and junior high school, I got picked on quite a bit by the other kids. When I would complain about this to my mom, she would attempt to make me feel better by telling me, “They’re just jealous because you’re so smart!” Now, it’s certainly true that I’m smarter than most people - I have an IQ of 138, according to the most recent test I took. However in hindsight, my mom telling me that my brains were the reason I was getting picked on was not helpful at all. When you’re a young kid, you tend to believe the things your mom tells you. My response to what my mom told me was to start doing poorly in school so that I wouldn’t look so smart (though I think that was more of an unconscious response; I never actually said to myself, “I’m gonna do poorly!”)

The ultimate problem, though, was that it took me a very long time to finally realize that it was my behavior, not my intelligence, that was prompting the other kids to pick on me. I admit it: I was a goofy kid. I was always trying to be funny. But I usually picked the wrong time and place to be funny, which caused problems. Once I figured this out and modified my behavior, I stopped getting picked on.

But it makes me wonder if, every time Doug had problems in school, his parents blamed it on somebody else. “The teacher doesn’t like you!” “That test had trick questions!” etc. etc. I can easily see where hearing enough of that as a kid would convince somebody that the system was crooked.

Huh. I did not know that!

17

Sounds like he was just raised to by parents who didn’t particularly encourage personal responsibility.

I knew a guy like that in high school, Eddie. Eddis was a good kid really, but socially awkward and always really insecure. He’s the kind of guy that would hang out with the “bad kids” in the smoking pit because he thought they were cool and they just barely tolerated him. Picture a guy offering another guy a cigarette: “Hey, Dave, want a smoke?”, then the cool guy, Dave, says “Shit, no those are menthol!” then the first guy would suddenly be tramping on his own smoke saying “Yeah, sucks man. Someone gave 'em to me! Crappy smokes!” That would be Eddie.

He was always really insecure, so I got the impression that he really did truly have a lot emotionally invested in living vicariously through others. He also would make a big dramatic deal about cops. (But had never ever been in trouble.) And when general things in life didnt work out for him, it was because “It’s the Man. The Man is always keeping me down. A good guy can never get a break, you gotta fight the Man.”

“Who exactly is ‘the Man’, Eddie?”

“You know. The Man!” :rolleyes:

ETA: Eddie also came from a really bad home. He and his brother were adopted. He was basically a good guy, but kind of had mixed up priorities emotionally, IMHO. His adopted parents were really good people. His brother turned out alright. I always kind of wondered what kind of guy Eddie grew up to be.