The Psychos Among Us

A friend of mine posted this on another site:

"Wikipedia says: 'The prevalence of this disorder is 3% in males and 1% from females, as stated in the DSM IV-TR.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociopath

So 3 out of every 100 people you meet on the street are likely sociopath.

When you go through the rest of the Wikipedia entries and look at the percentages, there's 1 to 2% Borderline, another 1 to 2% Histronic, and so on and so on... which means about 17 to 20% of the population is nucking futz."

Whoa, that's high.  So, almost 1 in every 5 people you meet could have a personality disorder of some kind.  That doesn't make me feel too sane myself, but it's even scarier knowing that so many of the people out there could be literally, professionally, diagnosed as having a dose of bad crazy.

How does this happen?  And why are there so many people in need of mental drugs these days?  Not enough vitamins?  Too many McDonald's pink-slime burgers?  Carbon monoxide emissions in the environment?  I wish I knew.  I bet a lot of people wish they knew.  Although one thing I have come across is that the personality disorders are often learned.

Of course the one disorder I've done the most research on is Borderline Personality Disorder.  I'm no mental health professional, but from the data gathered for my armchair diagnosis, that's what I think Stella has.  The DSM-IV says this about BPD:

Borderline Personality Disorder DSM IV Criteria

A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:  
  1. frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
  2. a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
  3. identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
  4. impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
  5. recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior
  6. affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
  7. chronic feelings of emptiness
  8. inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)
  9. transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms

....and the explanation goes on.  For more information, go to http://www.borderlinepersonalitytoday.com/main/dsmiv.htm

But for now, I'll give a truncated version of the explanations.  BPD is learned behavior, not natural behavior.  It stems from a fear of abandonment experienced as a child or teen (or thereabouts) and really kicks in during early adulthood.  It never presents by itself and almost always is accompanied by the presence of a substance abuse problem, eating disorder, or gambling problem.  BPDs love conflict because of the attention they get, and they're known LIARS, among other things.  They love drama and often do things to create drama.  They're charming at first and then once they start to fear that they'll be abandoned and that their charms have worn off, they become really difficult to deal with because they play the "I hate you, don't leave me" game.

So, the question is, why the hell do people keep associating with these crazies?  No, really?  Why?  When I think someone is nuts, I distance myself.  I'm nice to everyone, but I keep the psychos at an arm's length.  It's all I can do not to think of Steve Buscemi's character in "Billy Madison" and how Billy apologized for picking on Steve's character in high school...and Billy was saved later by Steve's crazy character.  See?  Always be nice to the crazies because you never want them against you.  But date them to keep them quiet?  No thanks.

I've had several conversations with Guy about how/why/WTF he was thinking when, he got together with Stella.  Many of my other friends who have significant others with similar crazy exes have asked these questions, too, and the common answers are basically, "Well, she was FUN!  And DIFFERENT!  And so SPONTANEOUS!"  To my friends and me....these are not bad qualities.  But when someone is on a never-ending quest to make everything fun, different, and spontaneous, maybe it's because they're incapable of maintaining a status-quo for more than a couple of days?  Maybe they're always anxious to move onto the next thing because they've fucked up the last thing and are too lazy, or don't know how, to fix it.

Stella moves pretty frequently.  Every couple of years.  Mostly it seems because she believes she deserves more than she has, but then after she makes a move financial circumstances whack her in the face and she has to move to a place she can actually afford.  For example, during the divorce, she moved the kids to a house with three bedrooms, got them a small dog, had a yard she never kept up....she was getting a pretty good amount of child support arrears accrued from the separation period before the divorce, and was getting child support.  Then a year later the arrears stopped, and Guy lost his job, and child support went down, so she moved into a townhome that was more appropriate.  Then a year after that she had met Skeezer and decided they should have a house again, even though the only income she had was child support and her job and Skeezer was unemployed.  Then a month later Skeezer was kicked out of her house by court order and she realized again that she really couldn't afford the house and moved into a two-bedroom apartment 4 months after that.  See?  Complete instability.  And there were kids being moved with her every freaking time and yes, they did change schools after the townhome, but all of the moves happened within 2 years.

Stella also has maybe 1 close friend who's consistently been around for the last 15 years.  The rest of her "old friends" are people from school growing up who only talk to her occasionally on Facebook.

During her marriage to Guy she drank like a fish, and now it seems she's replaced most of her alcohol consumption with love for Jesus Christ.  That's another ball of wax to go into...but basically, she's addicted to the idea of forgiveness no matter what.  Dear Lord, save us from her sins.

I see some of those qualities in Marsha sometimes and it scares the crap out of Guy and me.  Marsha takes after Stella a lot.  She's a little scatter-brained, looks like her mom, and can be a complete bitch like her mom (yes, I just called an 11 year old a bitch, and who hasn't wanted to do that!  It's something I would NEVER do to her face, but since I'm here with you online friends, I think it's appropriate).  Marsha also has a tendency to try and use people up and spit them out...just...like...her...mom.  The only trauma Marsha has been through has been trauma caused by her mom in the form of lots of moving, switching schools, and being exposed to domestic violence because her mom had a shitty boyfriend move in who liked to scream at the kids and beat on Johnny.  But otherwise, Marsha hasn't been exposed to any trauma that would bring on some of those behaviors.  None.  So it looks like we're dealing with some adjustment issues and we're working with her on being nicer to other people, apologizing for the things she does wrong, and learning to have more empathy.  It's the empathy that's really the key.  And the stability.  For the first time, she's living a life where she's been reassured that she will not be moving on in a couple of years.  The people she knows now are going to be with her a while, so she'd better maintain strong bridges.

Now, getting back to what makes us pick these crazy partners in the first place, once when I was single and forlorn, a friend told me to start using the "power of positive thinking."  Sounded extremely cheesy, but what she said to do was to picture the way I wanted to feel in a relationship.  Something realistic.  Like, feeling loved, respected, appreciated.  Then picture the kind of PERSONALITY qualities I wanted in a mate.  Someone who made me laugh, was smart, sensible.  Then start picturing what, realistically, my "must haves" and "dealbreakers" were for a relationship.  Forget about physical characteristics.  Biology takes care of that.  But mentally, that's what I needed to look for.  When I met Guy, I had a feeling he was what I was looking for, and hey!  I got lucky.  Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things about him that drive me nuts (he smokes...yuck, and he's a REPUBLICAN...oy vey) but all of the stuff I wanted was there.  My specific criteria, in addition to all of the mental and emotional stuff, was that any guy I dated had to have a job, a car, and have gone to some college.  Check, check, and check with Guy.  Unfortunately he also came with a lot of actual and emotional baggage, but he's worth it.  I just wish I had known better about his ex-wife's crazy...not that I would have run screaming for the hills, but I could have been better prepared.  Still, though, I went into my relationship deliberately and with forethought, and avoided being roped in by a crazy.

These guys who marry/impregnate BPDs and other forms of crazy don't know what they should be looking for in a relationship before it's too late.  They get trapped and then later messily divorced or dragged to court.  Just keep in mind before you date that if someone seems too good to be true because they're all over the place, chances are they're crazy.  If they don't have any friends who they've known for more than a couple of years, they're probably nuts.  If they don't speak to their parents or have bad relationships....well, that one's complicated, but definitely a red flag worth exploring.  If they're moody, find out before you have sex.

It's not hard to spot the crazies among us.  As in, the really harmful crazies.  They don't have to walk around with signs, or be screaming.  It's all about the kind of lives they live - are they constant attention-seekers?  Why?  Are they kind?  Why or why not?  Are they respectful?  Yes or no?  I'm not saying to banish those people altogether.  I believe that we were all put on this planet for a reason, even if that reason is just to help other people be stronger by learning how to contain a mentally crazy person.  But, it pays to know exactly what you're getting into, before you get into it, or have sex with it, or introduce it to your friends.