What's wrong with my friend? (Mental condition..)

In My Humble Opinion
1

What’s wrong with my friend?

I am convinced my male friend has some sort of mental condition that has never been properly diagnosed. I want to help him, but I don’t know exactly how to explain what is wrong with him. It’s like there’s many things wrong with him, but I wonder if there is a single source for all the strange behaviour he exhibits. Here’s a summary:

Lack of personal responsibility
Everything that goes wrong in his life, he readily and continuously blames other people, or circumstances outside of his control, even when the connections he tries drawing to absolve himself of blame are well beyond tenuous.

Asks incessantly for advice
Could be linked with the lack of personal responsibility - has been known to blame people for their ‘bad advice’ when he takes it and things don’t work out. But he constantly, constantly asks other people for advice…

Emotional immaturity
He’s 31, but has very child-like ways of dealing with certain situations. Eg, often when he gets in a fight with someone, he’ll say that he’s never speaking to them again.

General immaturity
As I said he’s 31, but often when I am talking to my friend, it’s like talking to someone who is only 14 or 15 years old. He sometimes argues with his sister because she “dobbed” on him (to their parents) for something that should be trivial for adults, but standard for young teenage siblings to fight over.

Extremely impulsive
Will often say and do things without giving them considered thought. Eg, he’ll announce to all his friends and family that he’s decided to move overseas, only to never mention it again. He’ll be in a conversation with some he’s only just met, about say… housing prices, and 5 minutes later he’ll be telling everyone in the room that he’s going to buy a house this year. In the space of 10 minutes, he can go from telling people that he’s not going on some holiday, to ringing the agent and paying for the trip.

Cries wolf
Eg, he has rung me in the past to tell me that he just quit his job. He hasn’t quit his job, but won’t tell me this until later in the day.

Has been diagnosed with depression
And is on medication for it.

Struggles to maintain close relationships
Has never had a girlfriend (99% sure he isn’t gay), and often cuts off all contact with friends.

Other quirky behaviour

  • Recently when his family was overseas, he rung them up and made out like he was going to quit his job (again). He then told me he’s not going to quit his job, but he just likes the idea of upsetting his family. He couldn’t explain why he likes upsetting them.

  • Seems to genuinely believe that he’s going to be successful in the Finance industry, despite starting out in the industry over 5 years ago, and still working in a graduate role.

  • Complains that at all his places of work, individual performance and productivity are valued over and above tertiary qualifications (he has a Masters). This is probably just a manifestation of his lack of personal responsibility - when things don’t go well for him, it’s not his fault.

I want to help him, but don’t know how.

What’s wrong with him? Aspergers? Sociopath?

2

Seems like a regular 21st century guy… Men: they don’t make 'em like they used to.

The only thing that I would find concerning is he has never had a girlfriend. Some of your described adjectives don’t have examples, and it’s hard to know what level they’re at.

I think he should come off any medication he’s on, anti-depressants are known to risk severe violence and suicide.

3

Do you have a cite for antidepressants being known risks for severe violence and suicide, in the general population? Because I’ve always been aware of the increased risk of suicide for children using SSRI anti-depressants but that is a small subset.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=10&ved=0CHoQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ahrp.org%2Frisks%2FSSRI0904%2FBreggin.php&ei=79GTTumuKer20gG-vJiRCA&usg=AFQjCNHKxtCM64FjIoIWrEObGh7_a3t0dA

This seems to confirm the risks of violence and suicide for children, but that’s it.

4

You’re definitely going to the wrong bars.

5

I’m happy to elaborate with more examples if it can help identify what’s wrong with him.

6

Totally armchair, he should get a proper diagnosis, etc. (and in any case unless you can convince him to get an eval you’re SOL anyway – you can’t fix him, only he can do that):

Sounds pretty close to borderline personality disorder. If not the full-blown disorder, perhaps borderline tendencies, and perhaps co-morbid with other mood disorders.

Again, he’d need a professional evaluation to be sure. Free internet advice is worth what you paid for it. I’ve had my share of well-meaning unqualified relatives attempt to “diagnose” me long-distance based on second-hand hearsay, and it’s annoying (particularly if you’re already trying to get a valid assessment from a qualified professional).

7

Sounds like your standard drama queen, except he’s male.

My question for you - even if you were able to give your friend’s personality a ‘label’, how would it change your relationship with him? Do you think you’re going to change him?

8

If people like this have friends who care enough about them to worry about them, there’s hope for me yet. :slight_smile:

On a more serious note, does Dependent personality disorder fit him?
But really, HE is the one with the problem and HE is the one who should initiate and seek help.

9

Yeah, but if everything is everyone else’s fault, he’s not going to do that.

10

I think that emotionally immature explains a lot of it. What the cause of that is, I have no idea.

11

Wrong.

No.

Wrong, but close. None of the examples have shown evidence of “splitting”, which is the hallmark of borderline personality disorder. He is most certainly cluster b though.

The traits which you have described as consistent with histrionic personality disorder. These individuals exhibit at least 5 of the following from early adulthood:

  1. Uncomfortable when not center of attention.
  2. Inappropriately seductive of provocative behavior.
  3. Uses physical appearance to draw attention to self.
  4. Has speech that is impressionistic and lacking in detail.
  5. Theatrical and exaggerated expression of emotion.
  6. Easily influenced by others or situation.
  7. Perceives relationships as more intimate than they really are.

I could also buy narcissistic, but you really didn’t convey that feeling in your description. Either way, my differential would be histrionic vs borderline vs narcissistic personality disorder. I’d analyze him as:

Axis 1: Major depressive disorder
Axis 2: Histrionic personality disorder
Axis 3: IDK
Axis 4: Problems with social support structure (almost everyone does).
Axis 5: GAF 70-80

12

I’d rule out external causes first.

Every single thing you listed reminds me of my alcoholic and drug addicted ex.

13

Sounds like a textbook case of “douchebag”.

14

What are his good qualities?

15

Yeah, I’m going with not so much a diagnosable medical or psychological condition as “just kind of a jerk.”

16

The behaviors you’re describing are definitely in the Cluster B of personality disorders (antisocial, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic) but diagnosis of personality disorders is complicated.

First, of all the DSM-IV diagnostic categories, personality disorders have the lowest reliability. Second, many of the criteria of personality disorders are exhibited by perfectly healthy people at some point - the consideration then becomes at what point do the behaviors become disordered (in the sense that they disrupt the person’s functioning)? Finally, a lot of people exhibit personality-disordered behavior under stress, but not outside of stressful situations.

You don’t have to have a diagnosis for everything. “Jerk” or “annoying drama-filled person” is fine.

17

My mother has had mental issues longer than I’ve been alive. She has been diagnosed by psychiatrists as being bi-polar, schizophrenic, uni-polar depressed to whatever mental illness is on the front page that week. I’ve had psychiatrists tell me she’s not mentally ill, she’s just a Malingerer.

And I’m talking psychiatrists, actual physicans that supposedly know their stuff. As you can see this inability to diagnose someone doesn’t do my confidence in mental health a lot of good.

If one psychiatrist can say “A” and you take that same person to another psychiatrist right down the street and he says, “it’s not ‘A’ it’s ‘B’,” and yet another psychiatrist says they’re both wrong. well psychiatry cannot be an exact science.

Your friend sounds a lot like my mother. Which means he’s very ill or faking it or something in between :slight_smile:

18

What a giant load of bull.

As for the OP, I’m going to second others’ guess of maybe histronic personality disorder. He has a few qualities that remind me of a true psychopath/sociopath I know, but it just doesn’t seem spot on with those symptoms.

I find it funny that he thinks that just because he has a Master’s he should be valued more than those that work harder. That would bug the hell out of me.

Good luck with the friendship, I guess.

19

Way way way back, as another poster once said - when the Earth’s crust was cooling…

I had to take an Adolescent psychology course. IIRC, they had a description for adolescent personalities.

There was a sidenote which said about 10% (I can’t remember for sure) of adults stay in this state all their lives. Sounds like it could be what the OP is dealing with.

20

I really don’t think there’s any way for us to know this, one way or the other, based on a second-hand non-professional assessment over the interwebz. I could see “sometimes likes to upset his family” as a behavior that comes from splitting, while he’s in the devaluation phase of the swing. “I hate them, they’re the worst people ever, so I’m going to lie to them to upset them because they deserve it.”

There’s just no way to know this from a second-hand retelling of his behavior. There are very likely details missing, distorted, misinterpreted, etc… and I’ll reiterate that sticking an armchair interwebz diagnosis on him won’t accomplish anything unless he himself decides to get help (and a real diagnosis).