Midlife Crisis: Support for Left Behind Spouses
Archives => Archived Topics => Topic started by: kikki on March 21, 2015, 04:51:32 PM
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Ready2 alerted me to the fact that John Gray (men are from mars) has a new book out and was giving away free starter guides to the book (e-version).
Couldn't believe my eyes when I read page 77 as he mentions mid life crisis, and the steps that he believes happen to get there.
Starts with something called Oxidative stress, and as I have always suspected, ends in dementia including alzheimers and parkinsons, to name a few things (if left untreated).
In the book he outlines the reasons he believes the Oxidative process occurs, and how to rectify it. (researched based).
An excerpt below, and here's the link to his website to get a copy of the book.
http://www.marsvenus.com/
The Many Stages of ADHD
Throughout life our brain continues to grow and develop. Complex
brain changes continue into old age, which reflect our degrees of maturity.
At every stage of life, ADHD interferes with our normal development and
the expression of our inner potential for success, happiness, love and good
health.
Let’s take a brief overview of the new challenges caused by ADHD at
six major stages of brain development and maturity:
Stage 1. Children experience different degrees of trauma related to
learning, behavior and social challenges. The inability to excel in the
classroom or form supportive friendships can seriously limit one’s
happiness, self-image and self-esteem along with his or her ability to trust.
Stage 2. Teens experience new social challenges including isolation,
bullying, body image, obesity and addictions. While violence and video
addiction is increasing in boys, girls are experiencing more body image
problems and bullying. Boys experience late puberty and girls experience
early puberty.
Stage 3. Young adults experience increasing degrees of depression
and anxiety and commonly return home after college to live with their
parents. More young men and women are unwilling to make lasting
commitments in intimate relationships. Divorce continues to be high,
shorter relationships are the norm and there are now twice as many single
people.
Stage 4. Adults experience an increasing inability to manage stress
levels, which in turn leads to dissatisfaction in relationships, overwhelm,
exhaustion and divorce.
Stage 5. At midlife, aging adults face some version of the “midlife
crisis” which includes boredom in relationships, depression based on
regret, and/or boredom with work and a longing to quit and retire.
Stage 6. Elders today experience unprecedented levels of modern
diseases that were previously not common including diabetes, heart
disease, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
All of these challenges arise from the same condition that gives rise
to ADHD but go unrecognized as such.
previous thread: http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=1786.0
other neuroscience/neurochemestry threads:
http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=1522.0
http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=3669.0
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Thank you so much kikki for posting that! I know we have brought John Gray to this thread before, and I really can't say enough about his description of hormone and neurotransmitter research for us lay folk (and I was not a fan of his before, but it all won me over). Highly recommend the download of this book for insight into both this MLC process AND for a great GAL book, too.
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So interesting. I remember writing(or thinking ::)) on here about things that seemed to be brought up often by LBS's, and one of those things was ADHD, that and military service, addictions, etc. My H was all of the above and so much more....
The other thing is that many are/were workaholics, which my H was, and which I put down to him finally finding his niche and after all the years of rejection and failing (due to ADD/ADHD - never treated or investigated), all of a sudden he found his passion and something he was good at, and which attracted much attention from peers and industry and many pats on the back. It became the place where he was praised due to his talents and ability to fix things. In contrast, at home he didn't get put on a pedestal like he was at work, so he saw that as us not caring. He would go from high when he was at work to low when he got home, although he worked long hours in his home office too, and away from everyone else - another addiction followed by online games to "relax", another addiction which isolated him from his family. Just before BD he was working so much and I could see his exhaustion but he ignored my suggestions to take a break.
Starts with something called Oxidative stress, and as I have always suspected, ends in dementia including alzheimers and parkinsons, to name a few things (if left untreated).
How very sad. What a dreadful existence if they have lived such a life and through no fault of their own, spent their lives dealing with challenge after challenge, only to experience MLC and possible dementia. Heartbreaking.
My apologies if I am off topic.
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I couldn't believe how many conditions we LBS have noted, that are mentioned in this book either Snowdrop.
On page 16 of the book it mentions the workaholism.
For married men, an unrecognized symptom of ADHD is the gradual
shift of focus from their intimate relationship to their work. Their partners
often feel ignored, unappreciated and excluded. ADHD may cause a man
to have a kind of tunnel vision or hyper-focus on his work, which in turn
decreases his ability to focus on his wife and family.
How very sad. What a dreadful existence if they have lived such a life and through no fault of their own, spent their lives dealing with challenge after challenge, only to experience MLC and possible dementia. Heartbreaking.
My apologies if I am off topic.
Not off topic at all :)
It is incredibly sad, and is why many of us have felt quite passionately about finding the medical reason for MLC. We just knew by looking at our MLCers that something seriously had gone wrong in their brains, for them to be behaving in this way.
If the reason is found, then hopefully word can get out there, and this destructive crisis can be halted or mitigated before the worst occurs. That is my hope for the future.
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Just did a big reply and lost it :(
Will try and make this brief.
Was looking at ADHD for S and reading how they often hyper-focus on one thing ie video games, and can play them over and over again yet have problems focusing on day to day things.
H had problems in school which were put down as him being inattentive, lazy, disruptive etc., and he was always berated for it as a child and not supported. Back then it was common to be seen as "that" kid and thought of being "bad".
As he got older, he found his passion in work and it became his identity. I used to say to him that he got his identity from him job. That is what he loved to do and got praised for doing. I was independent and coped very well at home, and he was a good fun dad but not too capable of offering help with decision making or discussing the kids. Nothing in depth at all, but would do surface fun stuff. Of course on his time off. he would be happy at first and then his need to work would be right back and if he couldn't do that he would go and play his video games ad nauseum.
Me being able to manage and run things without needing his input was good, but over time I got used to not even talking to him about things anymore as what was the point, I had 30 seconds before he started walking away or getting distracted. I told him that once and he laughed.
Before BD he was exhausted and kept working, never turning down new jobs. I think he found something he could excel in, which was his work, after being told his whole life he was "stupid", but there was no balance. He had no friends (told me I was the reason for that), just worked and came home. Work and exhaustion caught up with him and he snapped.....BD!! I see it like a taught elastic which has being pulled and pulled and doing a great job and then snap, nothing.
I think H was that band and had that snap, and then wanted to get back to being taught and can't, so seeking other highs to replace what he had.
I wonder if he will ever come out of it. I don't see him ever coming home or even wanting to. He has moved to a nicer climate and way of life, then again I always have to remember that even when people with addictions seek geographical changes as a solution, they only last so long, as the problems went along with them.
It seems that only at rock bottom or acute pain will they seek help as hard to see when you are living the high life and any problems are everyone else's fault. Blaming was always huge for H, he would never take responsibility.
Maybe that is why they seek needy OPs as they are Disney Dates with no depth, and they give all the praise once given by co-workers, but not at home. After 20+ years of being together, no I didn't put him on the pedestal he wanted (or maybe needed) to be on. He was loved and knew I had his back. During his visit just after meeting OW when he couldn't stop talking about her/them, I told him I loved him and he said, "Oh, why didn't you tell me that".
Makes a lot of sense how he hit a wall, felt unappreciated at home, then found someone who thought he was great and enjoyed all that he had to give. I told the kids that dad isn't good for our family right now, but his new wife might be just right for him. You know, in a way, as long as they don't interfere with us and he gets his cr@p together re supporting us financially, he can carry on and live however he chooses.
Breaks my heart to think that after all this might come dementia or parkinson's. If that is the case then I hope he goes for it and has the best time in replay that he can, and then some...
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I'm not too sure John Gray has the science to back up what he claims. Also ADHD is recognized to be way over diagnosed. Children in pre-teen & teen years are being prescribed drugs much less now as it seems ADHD might be a developmental stage rather than a condition.
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I haven't read the book, so can't say anything regarding what he says. I have always wondered if there is a connection with H and his life up until BD, with his behaviour since.
Also ADHD is recognized to be way over diagnosed. Children in pre-teen & teen years are being prescribed drugs much less now as it seems ADHD might be a developmental stage rather than a condition.
Agreed with it being over diagnosed. A teacher at my son's school who observed him literally for 20 minutes said he should be on medication. Another teacher made a bold statement and said "he has epilepsy". New school and a little older and we have heard nothing from teachers about anything being wrong. Great to read that you said it might be a stage. Very comforting to me.
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I guess with all 'disorders', there are going to be many theories and ideas and approaches.
This is just one possibility, and I'm open to hearing about them all.
His book is littered with research, but I haven't read the studies themselves, but he does claim to have the science.
I think it's a rapidly developing area, and this information is coming from many angles and is being used to treat inflammation and stress in all body areas, not just the brain.
We certainly are living different lives than our grandparents.
Guess we'll all just have to wait patiently while the knowledge of the future reveals itself.
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I'm not too sure John Gray has the science to back up what he claims. Also ADHD is recognized to be way over diagnosed. Children in pre-teen & teen years are being prescribed drugs much less now as it seems ADHD might be a developmental stage rather than a condition.
Also do not think he has the science to back up what he claims. And some of his advise for supplements, etc. are dangerous. And they are also advertise for his company. He is on the business of selling books, supplements, and so on, not exactly on the neuroscience camp.
ADHD is, I think, in many cases nothing more than children's and adolescents normal energy without an outlet.
And nor he, not anyone can claim that things like Alzheimer's, Parkinson, Heart Attacks, ADHD, mental illness, cancer, are higher now than in the past. In the past many people died very early and often the cause was not known. Alzheimer's (and other dementia) was called senility, there was not as much information as it is now, many people never saw a doctor in their lives.
Also, diets were, in many case, very poor in the past. Are our diets another sort of poor these days? Often, yes. But not until that long ago, many in western countries had poor diets. Just think of working class 1970's Britain and you get the idea.
In the past people would die of syphilis, tuberculosis, malnutrition, women giving birth and they would not live as long as we do.
As for the ADHD and MLC and MLC and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's I don't really see the correlation.
For oxidative stress and antioxidants as supplements see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxidative_stress#Antioxidants_as_supplements (I know, wiki, but wiki is actually pretty good when it comes to neuroscience. So good that it is often used in the courses I took).
Stage 5. At midlife, aging adults face some version of the “midlife
crisis” which includes boredom in relationships, depression based on
regret, and/or boredom with work and a longing to quit and retire.
Does a 35/36/37 years old person is na aging adult? Or is an adult of the Stage 4? Several MLCers are not aging adults in the sense he is giving to it, yet, they are having a MLC. Clearly, if is not an issue simply of the aging adult, but also of the adult.
The stess MLCers are full of is the one that comes from cortisol. That, for me, plus other hormonal imbalances, is the cause of MLC.
Not MLC related, but related to gluten free food. One of the things we learned in this current neuroscience course is that gluten free foods do not have folic acid (folate). Folic acid is essential for memory and it is extremely important for pregnant women. So, sometimes, we need to be a little careful with the supplements, the special foods, etc.
Not everyone can take them and some of them can lack necessary things.
The other thing that was talked about in this course is that many scientists think that mental illness are connected with problems of the gastrointestinal track. That is something I have heard in previous courses and have read about in sciences magazines.
Are they right about that correlation? I don't know. Some think schizophrenia may have several origins, including a bacteriologic infection. It is possible, but I do not have enough knowledge to know for sure. So far, no one does. Scientists are still looking for answers on many issues.
Kikki, would you be so kind to start a new thread for Biochemistry, neurotransmitters and brain research? Thank you.
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At its roots, science is creative. Scientists are creative (or at least that's the idea hopefully).
Differing view points and differing approaches are par for the course.
I was excited that someone actually mentioned MLC instead of pretending it doesn't exist. That has to be a positive.
Whether or not his theories (and others) are correct, only time will tell.
Bearing in mind that university courses cannot by their very nature be completely up to date, as it's a huge process for the information to be deemed correct and then for the courses to be updated.
They're usually a few years behind the latest research.
But back to my first point - I'm just glad that someone is not brushing MLC under the carpet.
Yay to that.
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I was excited that someone actually mentioned MLC instead of pretending it doesn't exist. That has to be a positive.
I agree. But I have a lot more faith in Robert Sapolsky mentioning mlc [& he does, so often that I wondered if he was having one!]. Anyway much of the brain research is new--I was in university 15 years ago, studying a course in developmental psychology & no mention of all this at that time. We were still going with life & developmental stages of what's his name [my 'stage' is forgetfulness...] Erickson!
It is all food for thought tho. Becoming aware of all this, it will be difficult for my d & nieces & nephews to be unaware of mlc. Little by little we will educate the world. Really, my d said, her & her friends were discussing their families--2 dads with mlc & 1 father in law [& very little chance it is anything but mlc I swear]--all girls who realize that they have to be & remain always, independent in all respects.
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As for the ADHD and MLC and MLC and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's I don't really see the correlation.
I was also questioning this. But I can see the following being related to MLC.
Stage 1. Children experience different degrees of trauma related to
learning, behavior and social challenges. The inability to excel in the
classroom or form supportive friendships can seriously limit one’s
happiness, self-image and self-esteem along with his or her ability to trust.
My wife is dyslexic and I wonder how much that has contributed to her MLC if only because of the damage it would have done to her self-esteem. When we were in school she would have just been considered stupid. Pair that with a physically and emotionally abusive father and I think the stage is set for midlife problems due in part to a traumatic childhood.
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;D Calamity, yes many of us are up to that same stage of forgetfulness.
I too am a big Robert Sapolsky fan but find it incredibly frustrating that he bandies the words MLC around without ever explaining what he believes it to actually be.
Or at least I haven't ever heard him explain it.
There are other studies that have been done that link long term untreated depression to increased amounts of dementia (think I may have posted something on one of these threads).
My wife is dyslexic and I wonder how much that has contributed to her MLC if only because of the damage it would have done to her self-esteem. When we were in school she would have just been considered stupid. Pair that with a physically and emotionally abusive father and I think the stage is set for midlife problems due in part to a traumatic childhood.
MBIB. There's a study on one of these threads that I posted about a british scientist/Dr who is researching the impact on young brains from trauma etc. He is working in Australia.
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It is always good when someone mentions MLC. Even if, at least now, if one googles MLC there will be many articles about it. However I thing most of them confuse midlife transition with MLC. Or, at least, few address the type of MLC we deal with.
Robert Sapolsky does talk a lot about it, but like Kikki said, he never really explains what he believes it to be.
Yes, I think it is possible for untreated depression (or at least some kinds of depression) to lead to dementia.
My wife is dyslexic and I wonder how much that has contributed to her MLC if only because of the damage it would have done to her self-esteem. When we were in school she would have just been considered stupid. Pair that with a physically and emotionally abusive father and I think the stage is set for midlife problems due in part to a traumatic childhood.
Those could be contributing factors. But I'm not convinced that childhood issues alone are the cause of MLC. Many people have terrible childhoods and never have MLC. Others have nice, or ok childhoods and have MLC. Kikki will say that it depends of how the adults handled the trauma the child suffered.
For me the thing is, unless with the obvious things that are considered trauma, abuse (the case with your wife), rape, a violent accident, etc, it is impossible to know what each child will consider trauma. So, it really is not possible for the adults to respond if they do not identify something being a trauma for the child.
I still think excessive stress (the cortisol induced one) and all it causes, is, if not the one cause, one of the main causes of MLC. Depression probably follows stress. Then it all becomes a giant mess.
MBIB, given your wife's age, it is possible that her dyslexia had also contributed to her lack of self-esteem. I'm dyslexic, but mine is very mild. I was a bright kid, so, it pretty much passed unnoticed (it only tends to show when I'm very tired. I will write "write" instead of "right", will change the order of the letters in some words, etc). My younger sister is also dyslexic. She is 15 years younger than I am, and when she was a child it was severe. She had special classes (when she attended school teachers and parents were all already alert for the needs of dyslexic children), but, unlike for me, languages remain very challenging for her.
I've split the previous thread and put the links to the former one as well as the ones to the other neuroscience/neurochemistry threads on the bottom of the first post of this thread.
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I've split the previous thread and put the links to the former one as well as the ones to the other neuroscience/neurochemistry threads on the bottom of the first post of this thread.
Great, thank you Anjae.
I completely forgot :)
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Anjae, I don't know how severe my wife's dyslexia is because I have nothing to compare it to, but her spelling is awful. She would often ask our 13 yo granddaughter how to spell words. Reading is kind of difficult for her and occasionally, when excited about something, she'll fumble for words when she's trying to talk. She also has a difficult time with basic math.
My D31 and I were discussing whether my GS6 who will be 7 in a few weeks might be dyslexic. He's still having a lot of trouble with writing some letters backwards and he does the same with some numbers.
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As for the ADHD and MLC and MLC and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's I don't really see the correlation.
My MLCer has ADD and I can see how it can correlate if they go untreated as children. Mine was a naughty child, impulsive, didn't pay attention, always seeking attention. His mom was embarrassed by him and ended up being abusive because she did not understand his needs or how to handle him with patience. He thinks his mother does not love him. He has low self-esteem because she never approved of anything he did, but everything he did could've been prevented either with meds or her at least knowing what he had and finding out enough about it to understand his behavior. She still does not accept that he has ADD and that it is the cause of how he acts. She is disgusted by him most of the time. He has probably the lowest self worth of anyone I have ever met because of how he has been treated by his mom. Low self worth, depression, all of it for him stems from his childhood and untreated ADD. In his case, it really is a natural progression now that I know more about it.
Knowing what I know about ADD, I would say that if it has been treated or the person has the awareness of it and has coping mechanisms in place, then just simply having ADD is not going to automatically lead to MLC. I have also read that there are various types of ADD and some are worse than others. Of the 6 or 7 types, I did the online quiz and he very strongly qualifies for 5 types, compared to me, who barely has 2. He's on Adderall....I manage mine as needed with an occasional caffeine and a lot of alarms & things set up so I don't forget or lose track.
I can also see where the ADD could eventually lead to a dementia situation. I have an aunt who has been diagnosed with dementia. I'd be willing to bet she had ADD as well. Looking back, she had to have gone through an MLC when she divorced her husband of 25years and immediately married another man, which lasted a few years and then she divorced him too and moved from CO to SD. She was seeking happiness she hadn't found. She drank a lot of beer as well, which I have read can lead to a form of dementia.
So I can see it happening. I'm sure it's not happening to everyone with ADD or ADHD, but I can see a correlation easily with my MLCer.
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MyBrainIsBroken, from what you write your wife's dyslexia is more severe than my sister's one. Or it may be the same but my sister received treatment and that has made a big difference.
My sister can spell workds and she is an avid reader (sometimes she even manages to read a little English - we're Portuguese). But, at times, especially if she is tired, she has to go back and re-read a sentence, paragraph or page. My sister either fumbles for words or misspel them if she is very tired or angry. Basic math is not a problem for my sister. And she manages to understand a bit of English and French, and speak a little, especially of basic English.
My MLCer has ADD and I can see how it can correlate if they go untreated as children. Mine was a naughty child, impulsive, didn't pay attention, always seeking attention.
But your MLCer had ADD that was not treated. Most of us have MLCer who had no ADD or ADHD. So, it may correlate for someone who had it when he/she was a kid and it was not treated, but that correlation does not make sense for those who did not have it.
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My MLCer has ADD and I can see how it can correlate if they go untreated as children. Mine was a naughty child, impulsive, didn't pay attention, always seeking attention.
But your MLCer had ADD that was not treated. Most of us have MLCer who had no ADD or ADHD. So, it may correlate for someone who had it when he/she was a kid and it was not treated, but that correlation does not make sense for those who did not have it.
It would seem that there are many triggers for MLC, but I took the article to mean that if they had untreated ADD/ADHD, that they would eventually have a MLC, not that all MLCers have ADD. There are also many adults out there who have it and do not know they do because so many people think it is just a focus thing. There are also the people who think it's overdiagnosed and don't want to believe that it even IS a thing. I have read several books on it and just from that amount of reading, I can spot them from a mile away...kind of like we can all spot a MLCer from a mile away now. I would guess that there are more ADD spouses here than you think. They are just undiagnosed and probably not as ADD as mine is.
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I absolutely agree, patience. I definitely feel it was a contributing factor for my own breakdown, but had never been diagnosed. As a kid there were many parent/teacher conferences to discuss how I was a bright kid who "spaced out" during class a lot, and I remember being very frustrated by it - would try to concentrate but before I knew it the teacher would be talking and I'd lost a few minutes in a daydream. As I got older I would beat myself up over not meeting goals because of distractions - but it felt very compulsive. I am clearer minded now than I have ever been and can easily get lost in an activity where I lose hours (in a good way). I have a very solid and stable nutritional regime including supplements and whole foods, meditation time, and exercise. Couldn't do it without that. Even taking one day off, I start to revert back.
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It would seem that there are many triggers for MLC, but I took the article to mean that if they had untreated ADD/ADHD, that they would eventually have a MLC, not that all MLCers have ADD. There are also many adults out there who have it and do not know they do because so many people think it is just a focus thing. There are also the people who think it's overdiagnosed and don't want to believe that it even IS a thing. I have read several books on it and just from that amount of reading, I can spot them from a mile away...kind of like we can all spot a MLCer from a mile away now. I would guess that there are more ADD spouses here than you think. They are just undiagnosed and probably not as ADD as mine is.
I would agree Patience.o.a.s - Looking back, I do believe my H showed signs of ADD too, but was undiagnosed. I remember discussing it with him many years before BD, and he didn't want to know about it. It showed to me in his ever increasing work obsession and distractability.
The official symptoms of ADHD, as diagnosed by doctors, primarily include inattention and/or
hyperactivity and impulsivity.
Adults also can have ADHD; up to half of adults diagnosed with the
disorder had it as children. As ADHD persists into adulthood, symptoms
change. For example, hyperactivity may turn to restlessness;
impulsiveness may turn to risk-taking; and distraction may turn to
overwhelm. As a result, adults with ADHD often have problems with
interpersonal relationships and employment.
ADHD is now the most commonly studied and diagnosed psychiatric
disorder in children and adolescents. Addressing this modern challenge,
new discoveries about the brain have been made that can benefit everyone
at all ages and stages of life. With advanced technology, researchers have
found that the brains of children with ADHD are actually different from
children without ADHD.
It is a real condition.
Yet, with so much research, there is still much confusion. The term
itself prevents many parents and adults from recognizing or relating to this
condition. In some ways the term ADHD (Attention-Deficit Hyperactive
Disorder) is actually very misleading. The list of common symptoms is often
varied and even contradictory and as we will explore later, many symptoms
are yet to be defined. While some children are distracted and disorganized,
others are restless and impulsive and some are both.
In most cases, there is not an actual deficit of attention at all. Instead,
there is an inability to allocate attention appropriately. ADHD children that
are inattentive, distracted or “spaced out” are unable to allocate their
attention to what their teachers are saying; instead they are focused on a
daydream. Other ADHD children that are hyperactive, impulsive or restless
are also unable to focus on the teacher but for different reasons. They are
simply not that interested in what the teacher is saying. They would rather
be somewhere else. They can’t sit still in class but they can certainly sit still
in front of a TV or video game.
If this all above in bold is not a descriptor of the bizarre behaviours of replay, then I don't know what is.
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There is some interesting information in this article about MPD regarding how memories are stored during early childhood in the presence of trauma, chronic stress, and disassociation.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro99/web3/Sancar.html (http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro99/web3/Sancar.html)
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That is really interesting MBIB. More information than the dissociative articles we've posted before.
My MLCer has said to me on a few occasions that he's a completely different person 'over here' (in his new life, while talking to me on the phone).
When in person, he often uses 'we' extensively. He seems to have zero sense of self.
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The official symptoms of ADHD, as diagnosed by doctors, primarily include inattention and/or
hyperactivity and impulsivity.
Adults also can have ADHD; up to half of adults diagnosed with the
disorder had it as children. As ADHD persists into adulthood, symptoms
change. For example, hyperactivity may turn to restlessness;
impulsiveness may turn to risk-taking; and distraction may turn to
overwhelm. As a result, adults with ADHD often have problems with
interpersonal relationships and employment.
I am not sure if any of this changed in my MLCer. He was not hyperactive then or now...more like an unmotivated slug. He is impulsive AND a risk taker, and from the stories I've heard, always has been. He is distracted easily. And, I learned really fast to keep him out of crowds because he'd get so overwhelmed, which in turn, would make him so mad. Oddly enough, he has kept the same job for over 15 years, where many ADDers do not. His lack of motivation keeps him there, even though he does not like it. He even works a ton of overtime to get the big paycheck to justify working at a job he dislikes.
I've always thought the ADD + MLC combo was quite the double whammy, but it makes perfect sense to me that the undiagnosed ADD would lead to the MLC. Too bad nobody hands out a manual on the other person when you decide they are the one for you. You end up writing the manual on them instead.
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I absolutely agree, patience. I definitely feel it was a contributing factor for my own breakdown, but had never been diagnosed. As a kid there were many parent/teacher conferences to discuss how I was a bright kid who "spaced out" during class a lot, and I remember being very frustrated by it - would try to concentrate but before I knew it the teacher would be talking and I'd lost a few minutes in a daydream. As I got older I would beat myself up over not meeting goals because of distractions - but it felt very compulsive. I am clearer minded now than I have ever been and can easily get lost in an activity where I lose hours (in a good way). I have a very solid and stable nutritional regime including supplements and whole foods, meditation time, and exercise. Couldn't do it without that. Even taking one day off, I start to revert back.
I am somewhat the same way. I can remember days of being in class and having no idea what the teacher said because I doodled and daydreamed. I just read it later and was fine. I graduated 3rd in my class so apparently I worked with it. I can totally get lost in a task for hours, called hyperfocus. I know I do it, especially if I am researching something. Buying something with reviews kicks the hyperfocus into days and days of reading. If I get on a subject, I will need to read every single book I can find, but I don't remember most of it in detail because my brain kicks into overdrive when I read. I don't medicate for it, but am aware of when I start to drift or hyperfocus and those are my biggest ADD issues. I will use caffeine if I really need to focus, like on driving, but mostly, I go with good food and supplements.
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I am somewhat the same way. I can remember days of being in class and having no idea what the teacher said because I doodled and daydreamed.
I'm a little bit the same Ready and patience.
Big time on the day dream spectrum would be my mother and our eldest son.
I wonder whether the childhood trauma needs to also be a part of the picture of MLC and this all adds up to making the brain less resilient, hence the MLC?
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This is just a working hypothesis so it's pretty thin but I'm starting to think something happens during early childhood such as ongoing abuse, trauma, or chronic stress related to undiagnosed conditions like dyslexia or add/adhd. This causes dissociation to occur as a coping mechanism and results in fractured memory storage during dissociation. This fracturing results in the feelings and emotions being stored without a connection to specific details, rendering them inaccessible by the conscious mind.
At some point a trigger occurs that causes these fractured memories to begin surfacing. The self tries to integrate these memories but the ego resists, leading to denial, chronic stress, depression, and brain chemistry and structure changes. This begins the MLC process of Escape and Avoid with Replay actions to self-medicate.
Some more interesting articles. The third article discusses the theory that excessive amounts of the stress hormone cortisol may have a shrinking effect on the development of the hippocampus, leaving the person more vulnerable to depression due to having fewer serotonin receptors.
What Are Traumatic Memories?
http://www.sidran.org/resources/for-survivors-and-loved-ones/what-are-traumatic-memories/ (http://www.sidran.org/resources/for-survivors-and-loved-ones/what-are-traumatic-memories/)
Dissociation Isn't a Life Skill
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pathological-relationships/201211/dissociation-isnt-life-skill (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pathological-relationships/201211/dissociation-isnt-life-skill)
Causes of Depression
http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/causes-depression (http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/causes-depression)
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I'm liking the hypothesis MBIB.
This causes dissociation to occur as a coping mechanism and results in fractured memory storage during dissociation. This fracturing results in the feelings and emotions being stored without a connection to specific details, rendering them inaccessible by the conscious mind.
Explaining the amnesiac style attitude towards us from our MLCers
The last straw appears to potentially be the mid life changing hormones, which they know can cause depression as per your article and reduced blood flow to the prefrontal cortex and reliance on other areas of the brain.
The perfect storm.
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MBIB: I think you are on to something. I can relate much of what you say to my H. Thanks for explaining that.
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The third article discusses the theory that excessive amounts of the stress hormone cortisol may have a shrinking effect on the development of the hippocampus, leaving the person more vulnerable to depression due to having fewer serotonin receptors.
Yes. Excessive amounts of the stress hormone cortisol (normally combined with adrenaline) also leave the amygdala in overdrive and a person is in continuous fight of flight mode. That, for me, is a big part of the MLC mania/depression.
Sometimes I used to daydream in class. Mostly when classes were boring and I already knew the subjects. But I also manage to know what the teacher was saying. Doubt there is anything wrong with normal daydreaming.
Ego is a word I leave out. It is not from the domain of pure neuroscience. It is from psychotherapy. Even if I found the board my googling Jung + MLC, I separate things. One thing is pure neuroscience, the other the poetic, dreamy, Jungian theory (Freud is far less poetic of dreamy).
I don't see so much disassociation. More a mimic of bipolar, and, at times, psychotic. As said in one of the articles, dissociation is a normal coping mechanism. Our MLCer were not suffering form dissociation for 20, 30 or more years. They may be using it during MLC as a coping mechanism, but they do not suffer from a full blown dissociative disorder.
Many things in the brain could explain the loss of memory. Or in the body. Tiredness being one of them. It may also be a protective mechanism in order to allow the MLCer to survive the crisis.
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I am somewhat the same way. I can remember days of being in class and having no idea what the teacher said because I doodled and daydreamed.
I'm a little bit the same Ready and patience.
Big time on the day dream spectrum would be my mother and our eldest son.
I wonder whether the childhood trauma needs to also be a part of the picture of MLC and this all adds up to making the brain less resilient, hence the MLC?
My guy definitely had childhood trauma. His sister told me about what it was like growing up and their mom would beat them, send them to bed without supper, yell at them. His sisters both got their hair pulled. I can't imagine that kind of abuse. Both of his sisters have mental issues, and at least one of them has to be in a MLC herself.
I have also read that there is a type of ADD that is affected by temporal lobe injuries, and he played football in high school and got knocked out with a concussion. He has ALL the symptoms of that type of ADD.
Here is a link to the doctor who came up with all the types.
http://www.amenclinics.com/conditions/adhd-add/ (http://www.amenclinics.com/conditions/adhd-add/)
Whether or not these types contribute to MLC, I do think the ADD is connected to the troubled childhood, which in turn has led to the MLC.
Now, on the other hand, I also have an exH who has been in MLC for over 10 years and I know his mom did nothing traumatizing because he worshipped the ground she walked on. His parents divorced when he was small and he did not have much to do with his real dad. I worry that this may be the cause of his MLC because then it would be very possible the same could happen with the kids too. I sure wouldn't want history to repeat itself.
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I think the dissociative state occurs as a coping mechanism during childhood trauma or as a coping mechanism during prolonged periods of stress during childhood. It's during this dissociative state that memory storage becomes fractured. As Anjae pointed out, prolonged stress can also affect the brain in other ways.
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poas
he did not have much to do with his real dad. I worry that this may be the cause of his MLC because then it would be very possible the same could happen with the kids too. I sure wouldn't want history to repeat itself.
There is a psychiatrist/ologist, don't know which, at our drs and I drop in from time to time, maybe 3x a year to check in and talk about the kids. I asked the same question and he said the difference being our children are supported and cared for and listened to, in contrast to their father when he might have gone through his childhood trauma.
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poas
he did not have much to do with his real dad. I worry that this may be the cause of his MLC because then it would be very possible the same could happen with the kids too. I sure wouldn't want history to repeat itself.
There is a psychiatrist/ologist, don't know which, at our drs and I drop in from time to time, maybe 3x a year to check in and talk about the kids. I asked the same question and he said the difference being our children are supported and cared for and listened to, in contrast to their father when he might have gone through his childhood trauma.
Thanks Snowdrop, that is good to know. I do know exH's mom never had a nice thing to say about his dad so there may have been issues with that too. I may THINK exH is an idiot, but the kids don't know a thing about how I feel towards him. They can figure the idiot thing out for themselves...and maybe already have.
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Just a thought.
Having navigated (still navigating) this with three (then) young teens, I think it's important to be able to discuss any behaviours that come up.
Having a parent do a 180 in personality and behaviours is mighty confusing for kids.
I think it's important to not carpet sweep behaviours that are affecting everyone, but we can do this without putting down the MLCer themselves.
I used to say that their Dad loved them all very much, and a counsellor pointed out that that wouldn't be very helpful for the boys because their father had abandoned them, and it wouldn't feel to them as though he loved them at all at that point.
As with our MLCers, it's important that our children also feel validated and heard. Their experience is not ours. I think that's the key.
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Both children witnessed the behaviour of H and were in the room at BD as he left. As awful as that was, in some ways it "helped" as they saw for themselves first hand. We talked more at the beginning when he left, but now the kids don't want to invest any time talking about him as he has gone. S has the odd moment where he wishes his dad would just leave "like other dads do" and live close by. How sad is that.
The one thing I have said over and over to them from day one is: "dad didn't leave because of us, dad left because of dad". I really think that those few words stuck with them. I hope so. The more bizarre behaviour they recall, the more it confirms that to be true.
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Snowdrop, our children too witnessed the out of character behaviour, and as awful as its been, as you experienced, I do think it helped them accept that their Dad is really struggling right now.
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Snowdrop, our children too witnessed the out of character behaviour, and as awful as its been, as you experienced, I do think it helped them accept that their Dad is really struggling right now.
As awful as it is/was, in some ways it was a "gift" (for lack of a better word) as how could we even begin to explain any of this to them. Our kids bring up their own memories of H and his irrational behaviour and some of the things he said. When I look back there was lots of love, but lots of unnecessary meanness which the children should have never experienced.
We are very real in our house and don't sugar coat things, but the thought of ever trying to explain H's departure if the children hadn't witnessed it for themselves would have been a never ending mountain to climb. How could I explain what I don't even understand myself.
They see it isn't like other divorces or families who live apart, and after being away for so long, he is now a stranger and not the dad they knew, for many reasons.
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I haven't read through this entire thread, however as R2T knows, as I reached out to her in the very beginning of my nightmare. My son was diagnosed with ADD and dyslexia. In fact, my h flew over the cookoos nest when this son was preparing for a state wide test ( grade 3) I already knew that my son was dyslexic. I did not know about the ADD. I diagnosed my h with dyslexia when we were still in college. I rewrote all of his essays and I helped him study, because he could not grasp the literature , he had a hard time reading accurately.
His parents, siblings to this day insist that he was retarded ( yes this is the word they use) because he had the cord wrapped around his neck when he was born. This is not the case however , I have done my research.this is hereditary...hence my son. He is a twin, his twin brother does not have this diagnosis ( for lack of a better word)
My h , still deep in MLC with many false returns is now taking meds for ADD.
Just wanted to post this...as I have noticed that so many of the MLCers seem to be ADD and/ or dyslexic.
Jagger
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I have noticed that so many of the MLCers seem to be ADD and/ or dyslexic.
That does seem to be the case.
My MLCer is dyslexic, as is one of our sons.
Never diagnosed, but think we could add ADD for my MLCer as well.
Keep us posted on how your MLCer is doing on his meds.
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Interesting. My H is horribly dyslexic and I'm sure ADD......S12 has ADD with Tourettes.
Can anyone say brain chemistry?
I rewrote all of his essays and I helped him study, because he could not grasp the literature , he had a hard time reading accurately.
I did this for mine when he was studying for tests and sending in applications.......
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Just wanted to post this...as I have noticed that so many of the MLCers seem to be ADD and/ or dyslexic.
To me, at least while in Replay, MLCers look more like bipolar people on a very long high with huge deeps.
I'm the dyslexic one, not Mr J. I can tell you that on days like yesterday and today, that I'm mentally very tired (and also a bit physically tired), things become a little strange.
By now it is probably easy for most of you to know when I'm quite tired because the words start to be written with "mistakes". My brain reads one thing, what is written is another.
But what kicks my dyslexia in high mode is tiredness/stress/exhaustion, not the other way round. So, for me, MLC is stress, plus several other hormones/brain chemicals out of control.
Brain chemistry indeed, but I still don't think dyslexia means someone is going to have a MLC and I still have big reservations about all those ADD and ADHS diagnoses.
Let alone the fact that we LBS tend to, in hindsight, start to attach lots of conditions to our MLCers.
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My wife is definitely dyslexic. I tutored her through high school.
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Brain chemistry indeed, but I still don't think dyslexia means someone is going to have a MLC and I still have big reservations about all those ADD and ADHS diagnoses.
I don't think dyslexia leads to MLC, but if the majority of MLCers (not just referring to this thread) have dyslexia, that would be a vital piece of data in finding underlying clues to treatment or prevention, I would think.
Anyone else ever notice from following stories here that there are a disproportionate amount of MLC/LBS couples who parented twins, in comparison to how many you come across in day-to-day life? Now I wouldn't say, "Parents of twins are more likely to have MLCs" but it's still a bit odd that so many here have. Just an observation.
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Read this today. I know that exMIL smoked during exh´s in utero experience. Guess that makes it a true FOO issue. That would mean that his CNS was altered from the get go. Add some football hits to the head and you´ve got some ongoing damage.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/24/smoking-while-pregnant-_n_6930678.html?cps=gravity_2425_4227198342822706450
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I too have noted that there seems to be a disproportionate number of twins born to people on the board Ready.
Those pics of the babies reacting to cigarette smoke is pretty sobering.
That is a good point. Not sure that my MIL smoked, but my FIL smoked like a trooper.
Wonder if they'll further investigate with other substances - alcohol for instance. The effects of that in utero are better known and understood, because the effect can be more obvious if it's great enough (fetal alcohol syndrome).
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I don't think dyslexia leads to MLC, but if the majority of MLCers (not just referring to this thread) have dyslexia, that would be a vital piece of data in finding underlying clues to treatment or prevention, I would think.
It would. But I doubt the majority of MLCers, on the board or outside of it, have dyslexia. I'm still to meet a real life one who had it. And even on the board, I don't get the idea that most MLCer have dyslexia.
What I see is LBS over analysing any "odd" behaviour their MLCer may have shown in the past, even if not permanent. Forgetting that we, LBS most likely have also had our share of "odd" behaviour.
The twins things I have never notice. I have notice that many MLCers and their LBS have children with special needs and that some LBS had very small children (or were pregnant), when their MLCer left.
FTT, not those many decades ago lots of women smoke during pregnancy (more than those current 10% in the US) and men were heavy smokers. It may have some impact in the brain, but I also do not think it leads to MLC.
My mother smoked before and after I was born (after she stop breast feed me). And it is fare to assume that she smoked in the first weeks of pregnancy when she did not knew she was pregnant. She has stop smoke either in the late 70's or early 80's. Don't recall, but is was long ago.
My dad, on the other side, even if he had a degenerative illness that become worst and worst if one smoked, never stop smoke. And he died a horrible death because he did not stop smoke.
Of the 7 of us, the children, only 2 of the boys smoked. Those 2 have almost, if not totally quit. Even because the boys can inherit dad's disease and they know it.
MIL, to my knowledge, never smoke. FIL, I only recall a very occasional pipe. Maybe the odd cigar, but not regular cigarette smoking.
Alcohol while pregnant/breast feed may have some effects. Other than that, a glass of wine or a beer once in a while don't seem to cause much harm. Other drugs we know that if the mother is an addict the child may born an addict. And of course we know children's of alcoholics have a bigger chance of becoming an alcoholic.
But none of those addictions seems to be a prerequisite to MLC.
On another note, has anyone read the news about that Germanwings pilot that, apparently, lead the plane to crash on purpose and who is said to suffer from severe depression? The lastest news say he was on sick leave for mental issues/depression but never said so to the company.
How depressed/stressed to you have to be to lead a plane full of people to crash? That horrible tragedy start newspapers articles, tv news debates, etc about mental illness, depression, stress, etc. It always seems that something truly horrible, and very visible, needs to happen for people to start to pay attention to mental and psycological issues.
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I would like to respond to Angae ,
You do not have dyslexia...not the way I see it in my husband or my son. I could give you examples of how they write....suffice it to say, they can spell a word correctly 3 times out of ten and when they do not...it is written in phonetics. You are not writing on this website in your mother tongue, Yet you can write in English better than most of the American population. My husbands first language is French. He can speak it rather well but he can not for the life of him string a coherent written sentence in French.
My husband had/has a learning disability. Technology has helped him somewhat but believe me, you would as I do still see that he is illiterate.
I have spent the last 3 years of my life researching and conferring with experts in the field of learning disabilities...for My son...something that my H's mother did not do because of ignorance and lack of resources.
ADD is exactly that...attention deficit disorder...it does not go away...as they once thought as children age. It is a lifetime affliction that destroys relationships and careers. Confused thinking , impulsiveness and lack of focus.
My h has always been impulsive as a child , his mother has many endearing stories of his impulsiveness as a child. It is not so endearing when he became a man , husband and father to 3 children.
I have been In a relationship with my h for over thirty years, my inlaws thanked me profusely for helping him through university, we spent 27 years together, as as strong couple. His cultural and religious upbringing matched my own.
I had no firetrucking idea what I was in store for at midlife.
I had the fortune to have twins as well as a 4 yr old daughter . So many people told me...my kids are like twins, they were born 22 months apart...no, I am very sorry, it is not the same. 2 babies at the same time is extremely stressful. I did not sleep more than 3 or 4 hours a night of interrupted sleep for 4 years.
Having twins is an extremely stressful event. The pregnancy is brutal and high risk. I went into prelabour at 28 weeks, spent a week In the hospital pumped up on meds and away from my daughter. I spent the remainder of my pregnancy on bed rest which was very taxing on our family.
What I am trying to say is...having twins is an extremely stressful event, people who struggle with ADD have a hard time with normal life events.
I am not looking for excuses to justify my H's behavior , but I do believe that his preexisting dyslexia/ add made him weak and ripe for a midlife crisis of incredible proportions.
We had two other set backs in the same time period...my father died unexpectedly and my h was conned out of a lot of money in a business deal that he made shortly after my boys were born.
The perfect storm :P
Jgger
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I have to agree that normal things can be stressful, and anything stressful is MORE stressful to someone with ADD. Mine can't be in crowds for very long or he will start to panic. Anything with pressure sends him off the deep end. And the pressure may just be what he perceives as pressure, like the speed in which you go once a light turns green...he will freak out that others behind him will get mad if you don't go fast enough...paranoia. He told me once that there are so many voices in his head, all talking at the same time. There is so much more to it than most people will ever begin to understand unless they have seen it firsthand. I would also say the depression and MLC magnify all of it.
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As a side note...when my son was finally diagnosed with dyslexia by both a psychiatrist and the school board, separately, they both then said we have to test him for ADD as usually they go hand in hand.
They were right , my son is now on meds for ADD and he is doing very well in school.
Jagger
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I have seen that too patient of a saint,
I always saw him as a drama queen. Disproportionate reactions to events. My h also told me that his head is so full of chaos. He feels like he has mice running around inside his brain.
Midlife is not pleasant for normal people, it is hell for those who have demons.
Jagger
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Hoss had the same reaction with crowds. Even restaurants that were too full would be times when he would start to withdraw and sit in silence, as close to a corner as possible. Even though we are both huge music fans and musicians, concerts in general were rarely any fun with him, but once we were back in the car, he would be a fun chatterbox.
Seeing him able to socialize and be coherent in large group situations in reenacting I believe is directly related to how deep he would create the "persona" he was portraying. I think that's why he never had a problem with me not going - this was where he became someone else all along - someone who could cope.
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Yes R2T, my h also took on a larger than life persona at the restaurant. He played the big charismatic restauranteur. I have known him forever, he is not that guy. In fact he was socially inept. I was the sociable person, always making friends. Before we moved to where we are living now, I had Dinner parties almost every weekend. My family and friends.if I am to be honest, he had a hard time really connecting with anyone.
I Loved him for who he was though, now that we closed down the restaurant, he seems lost and is trying to recreate that world. It's not really working out for him, I have gone NC , he just keeps trying to Hoover me back in. I'm not there anymore, after three years of replay, clinging boomerang and false returns. I think I am the one empty if any kind of feeling. ???
All we can hope for is that they get the help and do the work that they need too. Again, I really don't care anymore >:(
Jagger
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I consider that a :) moment. After everything you have done for so long, the detachment is sweet relief. Not that I don't hope they all dig deep and find the man inside that doesn't need someone to help carry their burdens, but until that time arrives, the cleared head and heart space is a great gift.
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Oh gosh, nodding my head here in agreement and recognition of the same behavioural style for my MLCer too.
He was definitely an introvert, which is fine, because the world needs all sorts of people in it, but over the years, I too saw him take on a far more extroverted role, especially when he was 'playing' the big man at work.
I guess one day, this new persona became his full time replay mask.
How exhausting. I really don't get how they manage to pull it off for so long.
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It does have to be exhausting. I know mine has a work persona and one that apparently only I ever saw. Since he works with OW, I think that's the one she probably gets because his son says he acts way different with her. I knew him in high school and he was more like the one I saw. I'm pretty sure the work one is all fake so he can keep it all together in front of everyone else.
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I too saw him take on a far more extroverted role, especially when he was 'playing' the big man at work.
Saw that when he was discussing something he was good at, which was his job.
Outside of that he was socially awkward, as well as paranoid. If he crossed the floor of a restaurant with a tray coming to the table I could see he was besides himself with paranoia.
He would say irrelevant things out of the blue when around other adults :o ::) which had nothing to do with the conversation, and then he would throw me under the bus and say to them, "snowdrop says I am this, I'm not am I" :o :o Or he stopped a neighbour once who we hardly speak to as he wanted to show them the bag of groceries "snowdrop made him take back"....only because he bought things we would never eat in a hundred years. What an idiot!
I know this has been mentioned before on the board but he would pick on clerks, cab drivers, guys staking fruit and vegetables in the store ::) :o >:( which used to cause a fight (with me as I hated it). He seemed to do it in order to feel "superior", he would always be, "You need to get your manager to......... or why don't you do this or that...... Mind you he often picked fights over nothing anyway then go to the kids to get them on his side and bad mouth me. How horrible is that. Poor kids would just sit there. >:( :( :'(
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Jagger, I do have dyslexia. Dyslexia, like any other condition/disorder, has different grades/intensities. Mine is very, very mild, but it is there. My dad also had it, exactly like mine. I also have epilepsy. Again, a very mild form of it. No seizures, nothing that people connect with epilepsy. But epilepsy has many forms and grades.
My younger sister have a more severe form of dyslexia. She would not be able to be here on the board writing in English. Even in Portuguese it would be challenging for her. Not because she cannot write Portuguese, she can, but because it would be too much information for her to process, let alone have to answer or debate it.
She is an avid book reader, but that is done at her pace and does not require interaction or replies. And when she is more tired, agitated, anxious, she will have to read and read the same sentence or paragraph until she manages to comprehend it.
My sister had learning disability and required special attention in class, speech and literacy therapy during at least her first fours years of school. I think it lasted for more years, but I'm not certain. To this day she remains the one of the seven of us who has more difficulties with comprehension, writing, understanding written words.
From what you write your husband's dyslexia is even more severe than my sister's one. Fortunately, my sister had a good support system at home as well as at school. And so did I, of course, even if I did not require the school support. Since my dyslexia is very mild, and it shows in misspelling, rather than in learning disability, I did not require therapy.
Mr J does not have dyslexia or ADD (what he may have is hyperthyroidism. Both MIL and SIL had it. SIL, when Mr J start to say he was depressed and acting manic wanted him to do thyroid tests. He refused). Nor does my cousin who had MLC. MLC hit both of them. Having dyslexia and/or ADD/ADHD, or certain forms of those disorders, may be more conducting to MLC, but MLC happens to people who have none of those conditions.
Like I've said several times, the one common denominator that, so far, I manage to find between all MLCer I know from real life and the stories from the board is stress. An out of proportion stress. In fact, they are in overdrive and always on fight or flight mode. That leads to no good. Confusion, euphoria, mania, deep scary downs, psychotic episodes and several other things come from that excessive stress.
Yes, having twins is not the same as having two kids 22 months apart. And for someone with ADD it must be really difficult. It is not a question of having an excuse for your husband's behaviour, it is a fact that he was already a person with a certain condition. That condition may, or may not, have lead to his MLC, but certainly the stress that MLC brings did not help his ADD.
Glad to know your son is doing very well in school.
Think the extroverted role for Mr J is the DJing. Not that he is that introverted. I always thought he was more extroverted than me, and, yet, I'm also pretty capable in social occasions. What I require is a lot of alone time.
Like, I believe SongandDance had written in another thread, introvert and extrovert have more to do with the way things are processed (internally or externally) than being inept at social occasions or withdrawn.
And if there is one thing my cousin who had MLC is not is introverted. He is super social, an absolute social butterfly.
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Interesting article.
'After the germanwings crash 7 lessons about mental illness'.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-creativity-cure/201503/after-the-germanwings-crash-7-lessons-about-mental-illness?utm_source=FacebookPost&utm_medium=FBPost&utm_campaign=FBPost
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Thanks kikki for that article.
This stood out to me in my husband's persona:
But just because someone is conscientious, intelligent, charming, and high functioning does not mean that their inner life is in harmony. Fears, paranoia, intrusive thoughts, and even delusions can haunt private moments. Trying to dismiss, mask, or will away biochemical phenomena may work for a time, but it is difficult to maintain
I know that this is how the world sees him. He is so good at wearing a mask of honesty, integrity and truth (all of which he is not!) and people have always seen him as a really likeable and dependable guy.... and that continues.
It is always helpful for me to read something that makes sense from a theoretical point of view...wish I could figure out something that would make sense that would cure my own brokenness. :'(
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Nodding my head along to everything you said above xyzcf.
I feel exactly the same way :'(
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xyz, kikki, reading you I know you're far from broken, just carry a scar that underlines your (inner) beauty. And it's still healing, slowly, fading away.
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Thank you Lost for such lovely words :)
To feel this heartbroken (some days) about the loss of who they were, is a little overwhelming I guess.
Other days it's not so bad and I feel complete acceptance.
Who would have imagined that after so long that this would be the case.
I read this the other day about some botanicals, and it reminded me of us all.
Maybe this establishment of the tap root system is akin to our emotional/spiritual growth.
There are many species which depend on wild fire to regenerate. Many conifer cones will not even open to release seed unless they reach a certain temperature.
Some Eucalyptus species act in the same way and its seems a fairly common characteristic of plants which have adapted to live in very dry and hot conditions.
One of my favourite trees is Pinus palustris which spends its first few years looking like a grassy mound. In this time it develops its long tap root and a fairly good root system underground, avoiding all the forest fires. The foliage may be totally destroyed several times but because of the established root system it always re-sprouts and then eventually grows very quickly to make a mature tree.
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:)
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I know that this is how the world sees him. He is so good at wearing a mask of honesty, integrity and truth (all of which he is not!) and people have always seen him as a really likeable and dependable guy.... and that continues.
My H is the same, and such a "life-saver" to many at work. I wonder that if and when the mask drops, will it just be accepted by those around him because he is on such a pedestal. I for one fell for it and stood by him for many years when he started to show huge changes in behaviour and I would never have walked away. Maybe OW and others he is with now will stand by him too.
I don't think much about it these days, but when I do, it is all so surreal and as if H was never part of our lives, ever. You know when someone dies and you vow to never stop thinking about them every day and remember their scent, then all of a sudden you realize you don't think of them daily and you can't remember how they smell anymore. :(
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Found this tonite:
If stress and altered hormone levels are not for you and if you agree with Peter Wolf that "Love Stinks" there may be hope in the form of pharmaceuticals. The Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac and Paxil may suppress the feeling of romantic love and attachment in at least some people.
Dr. Helen E. Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers, presented findings that suggest, she says, that common antidepressants that tinker with serotonin levels in the brain can also disrupt neural circuits involved in romance and attachment.
The timing of ex´s use of meds lines up with the withdrawal- great, just great. So, the LBS should take the ADs and the MLCer should stop?
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The Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac and Paxil may suppress the feeling of romantic love and attachment in at least some people.
The timing of ex´s use of meds lines up with the withdrawal- great, just great. So, the LBS should take the ADs and the MLCer should stop?
Romantic love is infatuation. It would be good to suppress this in the MLCer. They should be force fed these if they suppress romantic love.
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The Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Prozac and Paxil may suppress the feeling of romantic love and attachment in at least some people.
The timing of ex´s use of meds lines up with the withdrawal- great, just great. So, the LBS should take the ADs and the MLCer should stop?
Same with mine, FTT. He started taking them at the beginning of 2010, and I know his serotonin was already low from just having had diverticulitis and a blocked kidney at the same time (both can be symptoms of B6 deficiency, with B6 being a serotonin creator in the gut). Of course, at the time I had no idea of that - apparently neither did his doctors. ::) I suspected the pills long before I knew anything about MLC. He went off of them cold turkey which adds a whole other bag of worms to this mess. Their brain chemicals go all over the place.
Personally, complete lay person with an obsessive interest in this stuff - I think the ones that get most affected have low serotonin before taking them due to nutrition, genetics, or other meds (some birth control pills can cause it). Add a drug trying to reuptake something your body isn't making enough of, and bam! Done.
I've followed other boards and sites that talk about their spouses having the most negative reactions to SSRIs like this - and it looks just like MLC. If it's any consolation, just like MLC, it's rarely permanent, but I have no idea what happens with the marriages. Like in daily life, very few people are standers. There was a story I remember though from a woman who was a lawyer. Tried cases she couldn't remember! After 4-5 years she woke up one day with no legal practice, no marriage, rock bottom. Had to rebuild her whole life. Sounds familiar.
Romantic love is infatuation. It would be good to suppress this in the MLCer. They should be force fed these if they suppress romantic love.
It wouldn't make them stop chasing after OPs. It's just not about emotions. I know it's somewhere on these threads already, but check out Dr. Joe Carver's descriptions: http://www.drjoecarver.com/clients/49355/File/Chemical%20Imbalance.html
Very low levels of Serotonin typically bring people to the attention of their family physician, their employer, or other sources of help. Severe Serotonin loss produces symptoms that are difficult to ignore. Not only are severe symptoms present, but also the brain’s ideation/thinking becomes very uncomfortable and even torturing. When Serotonin is severely low, you will experience some if not all of the following:
· Thinking speed will increase. You will have difficulty controlling your own thoughts. The brain will focus on torturing memories and you’ll find it difficult to stop thinking about these uncomfortable memories or images.
· You’ll become emotionally numb! You wouldn’t know how you feel about your life, marriage, job, family, future, significant other, etc. It’s as though all feelings have been turned off. Asked by others how you feel – your response might be “I don’t know!”
· Outbursts will begin, typically two types. Crying outbursts will surface, suddenly crying without much warning. Behavioral outbursts will also surface. If you break the lead in a pencil, you throw the pencil across the room. Temper tantrums may surface. You may storm out of offices or public places.
· Escape fantasies will begin. The most common – Hit the Road! The brain will suggest packing up your personal effects and leaving the family and community.
· Memory torture will begin. Your brain, thinking at 100 miles an hour, will search your memories for your most traumatic or unpleasant experiences. You will suddenly become preoccupied with horrible experiences that may have happened ten, twenty, or even thirty years ago. You will relive the death of loved ones, divorce, childhood abuse – whatever the brain can find to torture you with – you’ll feel like it happened yesterday.
· You’ll have Evil Thoughts. New mothers may have thoughts about smothering their infants. Thoughts of harming or killing others may appear. You may be tortured by images/pictures in your memory. It’s as though the brain finds your most uncomfortable weak spot, then terrorizes you with it.
· With Serotonin a major bodily regulator, when Serotonin is this low your body becomes unregulated. You’ll experience changes in body temperature, aches/pains, muscle cramps, bowel/bladder problems, smothering sensations, etc. The “Evil Thoughts” then tell you those symptoms are due to a terminal disease. Depressed folks never have gas – it’s colon cancer. A bruise is leukemia.
· You’ll develop a Need-for-Change Panic. You’ll begin thinking a change in lifestyle (Midlife Crisis!), a divorce, an extramarital affair, a new job, or a Corvette will change your mood. About 70 percent of jobs are lost at this time as depressed individuals gradually fade away from their life. Most extramarital affairs occur at this time.
· As low Serotonin levels are related to obsessive-compulsive disorders, you may find yourself starting to count things, become preoccupied with germs/disease, excessively worry that appliances are turned off or doors locked, worry that televisions must be turned off on an even-numbered channel, etc. You may develop rituals involving safety and counting. One auto assembly plant worker began believing his work would curse automobiles if their serial number, when each number was added, didn’t equal an even number.
· Whatever normal personality traits, quirks, or attitudes you have, they will suddenly be increased three-fold. A perfectionist will suddenly become anxiously overwhelmed by the messiness of their environment or distraught over leaves that fall each minute to land on the lawn. Penny-pinchers will suddenly become preoccupied with the electric and water consumption in the home.
· A “trigger” event may produce bizarre behavior. Already moderately low in Serotonin, an animal bite or scratch may make you suddenly preoccupied with rabies. A media story about the harmful effects of radiation may make you remember a teenage tour of the local nuclear power plant – suddenly feeling all your symptoms are now the result of exposure to radiation.
· When you reach the bottom of “severely low” Serotonin, the “garbage truck” will arrive. Everyone with severely low Serotonin is told the same thing. You will be told 1) You’re a bad spouse, parent, child, employee, etc., 2) You are a burden to those who love or depend on you, 3) You are worsening the lives of those around you, 4) Those who care about you would be better if you weren’t there, 5) You would be better if you weren’t around, and 6) You and those around you would be better off if you were totally out of the picture. At that point, you develop suicidal thoughts.
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Personally, complete lay person with an obsessive interest in this stuff - I think the ones that get most affected have low serotonin before taking them due to nutrition, genetics, or other meds (some birth control pills can cause it). Add a drug trying to reuptake something your body isn't making enough of, and bam! Done.
Very interesting, especially the part about birth control pills causing low serotonin. My wife was placed on birth control pills shortly before BD due to "female" problems but by that time her affair had already started. However, she had been severely depressed before the affair started so she may have been low in serotonin.
One comment. SSRIs inhibit reuptake, leaving more free serotonin available to receptors, so SSRIs should help relieve all of the problems described here.
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One comment. SSRIs inhibit reuptake, leaving more free serotonin available to receptors, so SSRIs should help relieve all of the problems described here.
Not necessarily:
http://www.neuropsychotherapist.com/is-the-low-serotonin-theory-of-depression-wrong/
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Thank you for that link, LL. Bookmarked!
I had a psychologist who specializes in PTSD tell me she believes if Hoss had been given a mood stabilizer along with his meds, it could have been different. She also said (and I've read it other places), giving an SSRI to someone who actually is bipolar, as he'd been diagnosed, will throw them into mania if they're not already there. There's just a lot more to them than, "take this, cheer up" - which is what we both naively thought would happen.
MBIB, I had been on bcp's for many years, but when my doctor switched me to a monophasic instead of a triphasic one in my early 30's, my hormones immediately went out of wack. I was so scared to come off of them though, because I felt comfortable taking a pill! Dumbest reason ever. Lots of symptoms including swelling, weight gain, hair loss, and fits of anger. 2008 was the last one I was "switched" to in order to see if brand made a difference, and that's when my crisis started. I used the generic form of a drug that has since been taken off the market and has class action suits against it. I took myself off of it in 2010, but my crisis didn't end until 2012. I feel like I have my life back but it threw me into early menopause, so there are some parts that are permanent.
We trust our doctors, and I do think most really do want to help, but the pressure toward pharmaceuticals and the minimization of the risks involved is just so great. It's scary to be a patient of anything, because they hold our lives in their hands far more than we have realized in the past, in my opinion.
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I don't trust most doctors, and I don't trust any pharmaceuticals. There is too much disconnect between doctors and pharmacology, and no concern in pharmacology for whole humans, IMHO. And if I wasn't jaded before, my sons false cancer diagnosis put me there, for sure. I could tell the whole long story, but if I were not the person I am, and did not become the person it forced me to be (which I also think DID force exH into his crisis and definitely to OW), I would have lost a son. I do not believe MOST humans are sick and I do not believe that even most sick people need drugs. I think that is our biggest problem, as a society, that we think we are all broken and in need of adjustment.
I have ADHD, and I do self-medicate, a bit--there is a reason I am almost never without a Coke, BUT I could have worst vices... I think it is what makes me successful, in many ways. Are a lot of people depressed, for sure, but I argue, in most cases, we choose it, and there is so little patience for just getting over stuff and accepting the bad. We have become a weak and entitled people, in so many ways. We are impatient, anxious, depressed, hyperactive and so many other things as a result of the way we live and the expectations we have for ourselves... And we allow people to think we are WRONG because they make money from those beliefs. Most of the things I buy are supposed to fix me--make me smarter, richer, more popular, healthier, better, faster, stronger, prettier, thinner, or have more time to be those things. Anyway, stepping down from my soapbox, but read these, too...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/abilify-is-top-selling-us_b_6282684.html
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sacramento-street-psychiatry/201503/americas-top-selling-drug
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One comment. SSRIs inhibit reuptake, leaving more free serotonin available to receptors, so SSRIs should help relieve all of the problems described here.
Not necessarily:
http://www.neuropsychotherapist.com/is-the-low-serotonin-theory-of-depression-wrong/
Thanks for the link. This is an interesting article. The first part of my comment is valid, SSRIs increase the amount of available serotonin. I wasn't aware of the controversy over whether having more available serotonin is a good thing or a bad thing. The article does make a lot of interesting points. I know I haven't had much luck with SSRIs. Last fall my doctor had to take me off an SSRI because it greatly increased my suicidal ideation. I'm taking bupropion (Wellbutrin) which is not an SSRI. It affects neurotransmitters other than serotonin. I haven't had any problems with bupropion.
I don't believe in mindlessly following doctor's advice, but I do think some doctors and some medications can be useful.
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I don't trust most doctors, and I don't trust any pharmaceuticals. ... I do not believe MOST humans are sick and I do not believe that even most sick people need drugs.
Gentle defense of docs here (well, I do have a vested interest ;) ) Most of what we know about the workings of the brain (or other parts of the body), come from research by interested, earnest but fallible docs (people like everyone else). Hence insulin, chemo, antihypertensives, etc etc. The same substances exist in nature; some chemo comes from plants, aspirin from willow bark. No kickbacks from pharma for prescribing btw, whether you chew on aspirin or willow.
But the study of brain chemistry is fraught with problems - a lab rat can't tell you it feels happier, and a mouse can't tell you its romantic inclinations are suppressed. So the drugs affecting mood are terribly hit and miss, and the brain side-effect profile of most drugs is completely unknown. Relies completely on people reporting back on what drugs don't work for them, and red-flagging side-effects that nobody expected. It's not intentional harm; but it's a grave limitation of the ways in which we can understand the body (but not the mind). Treatment of even depression is still largely on the Alice-in-Wonderland principle ("the left side of the mushroom makes you bigger, the right side makes you small; try one, then the other"). The brain chemistry of something so complex as MLC is mind-boggling; don't think there will ever be a treatment.
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The brain chemistry of something so complex as MLC is mind-boggling; don't think there will ever be a treatment.
I think one day there will be a treatment. But brain chemistry, in fact brain neurology is very complex. The brain is much more than its neurotransmitters.
Neurologists also research the brain. But, like with doctors, their mice don't tell them how they are feeling. Studies are also conducted by dissecting the human brain, but, since on that case, the person is dead, also nothing about how they are feeling.
But we already know that, for example, Alzheimer's patients brains become different. Among other things, in the brain of an Alzheimer's patient the colour of the substantia nigra will change and their hippocampus (that is necessary for instances for episodic memory) is diminished or nearly vanished.
However, like with many other things regarding the brain, we still do not know enough/that much. We know much more than what we used to, but there is still a long way to go.
MLC seems to be more connected with out of order hormones than strictly with brain chemistry. Out of order hormones, will affect the brain chemistry, as well as other things in the brain.
And another thing that alters the brain is the ambient a person is in/live in/works at. Many of our MLCers lead lives who, while they are leading them, will provoke brain changes.
For those interested, Cousera has some very good short term courses on the brain/neuroscience/neurobiology and also on genetics.
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A very interesting article on More Intelligent Life about dopamine and a scientist who has been researching it for 30 years, Dr Kent Berridge - http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/features/wanting-versus-liking
His views were not accepted at first. In fact, for many years, but have now become to be seen as making sense.
These are just highlights from the article, it is worthy ready in full.
So, dopamine is linked both to desire (wanting) and pleasure (liking), but we may desire something that we do not like. One thing to always have in consideration that Dr Berridge says:
«He says is not a reductionist who believes we can explain away our minds by these brain mechanism's. "Its just I think these brain mechanisms are part of our minds"» I happen to agree with him. We cannot explain our minds only on the basis of whatever brain mechanisms, let alone a person, its actions or soul.
Another important thing: «There are few certainties in this game. Berridge views science as a cacophony of ideas shouting at each other. “You place your bets, the wheel spins...” »
His views regarding addiction:
«Together with his Michigan colleague Terry Robinson, Berridge has sought to understand why addicts crave drugs, even after years of abstinence, and how this overwhelming desire could be separate from liking the drug of choice. They have found that addictive substances hijack the dopamine system, altering it permanently by a process they call incentive-sensitisation.
We now know, he says, that “when exposed to addictive substances—cocaine, amphetamine, heroin, alcohol, nicotine and even sugar—neurons are releasing more dopamine, and also sprouting more receptors for a transmitter that makes them release the dopamine.” This is a permanent physical change, which remains even if they stop taking the drug (although dopamine production in general slows as we age).»
Can we see some similarities with our MLCer and what is going on with them?
Also:
"What’s more, brains become sensitised to cues. If you use Pavlovian conditioning on rats to link a certain cue to cocaine or sugar, the rats will eventually end up wanting the cue more than the substance. This behaviour is also common in humans. For many addicts, scoring drugs becomes part of the ritual, eventually rendering the anticipation more pleasurable than the drug. The same may apply to checking our phones."
«Dopamine is a powerful motivator, and itself a high, of sorts. When it is stimulated, subjects have reported that everything and everyone seems brighter and more desirable. “There are notions”, Berridge told me in Washington, “that dopamine’s anticipatory joy is a wonderful thing, and certainly it is, when you think of Christmas morning, window-shopping and things. Even if it’s all by itself, without the pleasure coming, people do become addicted to it.”»
«Some brains are more dopamine-reactive, and thus prone to addiction. “Roughly 30% of individuals are very susceptible.” Genetics, traumatic stress during childhood, gender (women are more prone) and other factors are all implicated. Along with pleasure rewards and their cues, novelty also activates dopamine. Even something as simple as dropping your keys once will fire dopamine neurons. Drop them a few more times and the neurons will get bored and take no notice.»
And this very interesting part on free will, self-control:
«That’s not to say that self-control alone doesn’t stand a chance. Take the most extreme form of wanting: addiction. There are two main schools of thought on its hold over us, which Berridge and the Cambridge philosophy professor Richard Holton outline in a chapter of a recent book, “Addiction and Self-Control: Perspectives from Philosophy, Psychology and Neuroscience”, edited by an Oxford neuroethicist, Neil Levy. The first is the disease model: addicts are driven “by a pathologically intense compulsion that they can do nothing to resist”. The second is that addicts’ decisions are no different from normal choices, and are dealt with intellectually.
Holton and Berridge call for a middle ground. The strength of dopamine/wanting in an addict’s brain is so fierce that it is hard to conquer. Addicted pilots and anaesthetists, who have to take blood and urine tests to keep their jobs, are remarkably good at avoiding drugs and alcohol when they have to. But not all addicts have such clear incentives, and people in these fields may have been disciplined in the first place. For the rest of us, there are ways to give self-control a leg-up.»
Like Holton and Berridge I also call for a middle ground.
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Alterations to gut bacteria as a result of stress in early life may play a key role in the development of anxiety and depression in adulthood, according to the results of a new study published in Nature Communications.
Researchers say stress in early life may trigger gut bacteria alterations that lead to the development of anxiety and depression in adulthood.
Increasingly, researchers are investigating how gut bacteria impact health. In November 2014, for example, Medical News Today reported on a study revealing how gut bacteria influence weight, while another study associated gut bacteria with Parkinson's disease.
According to senior study author Premysl Bercik, associate professor of medicine at the Michael G. DeGrotte School of Medicine at McMaster University in Canada, and colleagues, it has long been known that gut bacteria can also influence behavior.
However, the majority of studies investigating this association have used healthy, normal mice, says Bercik. For their study, the team used two groups of mice; one group had normal gut bacteria while the other group had no gut bacteria.
Some of the mice in each group were subjected to early-life stress, triggered by separation from their mothers for 3 hours daily from the age of 3-21 days.
Neonatal stress changed gut bacteria in mice, inducing anxiety and depression
In mice with normal gut bacteria, the team found stressed mice developed abnormal levels of the stress hormone corticosterone, alongside anxiety and depression-like behavior. What is more, these mice showed impaired gut function.
However, while stressed mice with no gut bacteria still experienced a rise in corticosterone and impaired gut function, they did not develop anxiety and depression-like behavior.
The researchers then colonized stressed germ-free mice with bacteria from stressed mice with normal gut bacteria. They found this triggered anxiety and depression, but this was not the case when they transferred gut bacteria from stressed mice into non-stressed germ-free mice.
"This suggests that in this model, both host and microbial factors are required for the development of anxiety and depression-like behavior," explains Bercik. "Neonatal stress leads to increased stress reactivity and gut dysfunction that changes the gut microbiota which, in turn, alters brain function."
Speaking of the importance of their findings, Bercik says:
"We are starting to explain the complex mechanisms of interaction and dynamics between the gut microbiota and its host. Our data show that relatively minor changes in microbiota profiles or its metabolic activity induced by neonatal stress can have profound effects on host behavior in adulthood."
The team says it is important to determine whether the observations made in this study apply to humans. "For instance, whether we can detect abnormal microbiota profiles or different microbial metabolic activity in patients with primary psychiatric disorders, like anxiety and depression," adds Bercik.
In April, MNT reported on a study published in the journal Cell, in which researchers identified specific gut bacteria that may play an important role in the production of serotonin - a neurotransmitter believed to be responsible for maintaining mood balance.
Written by Honor Whiteman
Copyright: Medical News Today
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/297382.php
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More genetics than neuroscience, but still interesting. Must be taken with a grain of salt since the sample size is only of 32 people who were all Holocaust survivors.
That is, the sample size is small, and it is not know how it would affect non Holocaust survivors.
But it is not too far fetched to consider that trauma can, much like stress, can be genetically passed. In the case of stress a child of a genetically stressed mother, if raised by a non genetically stress mother will not be genetically stress, because genes alter with ambient.
In the case of the Holocaust survivors, the researchers do not tell us (or have no way of telling us) if the trauma was already there before the Holocaust or was added during it. It is plausible that during it. So, we can assume that the parents did not born with genetic trauma.
However, since genes change with ambient and life events, it may also be possible that the children who were born with a trauma gene may, under certain circumstances, loose it.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/21/study-of-holocaust-survivors-finds-trauma-passed-on-to-childrens-genes
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Just in case the Dr. Joe Carver link didn't appear anywhere prior, here it is:
http://www.drjoecarver.com/clients/49355/File/Chemical%20Imbalance.html
Huge amount of information with the most important (IMO) being the effects of low serotonin.
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I posted this in the Gut Health thread as well, but I read that upwards of 95 percent of body's serotonin is stored in the gut:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-second-brain/
Another article of interest that was posted elsewhere on the forum by another member challenges the idea that low seratonin causes depression and instead posits that homeostasis is key:
http://www.neuropsychotherapist.com/is-the-low-serotonin-theory-of-depression-wrong/
My husband had his MLC in the wake of starting Paxil. I recently learned SSRIs can trigger manic or hypomanic episodes in people with no history of them but with a family history of bipolar (which my husband's family has). I believe my husband was hypomanic or manic around bomb drop and that many of the spouses on this forum were likely as well.
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It truly is frightening, Velika. Thank you for posting those links. Certainly too, for any of us who consider an anti-depressant after BD in order to cope, the risks are real and should be fully understood before taking anything. There is no "magic pill." :(
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(Apologies if there is already a thread on this. Feel free to merge!)
To start, I don't think my husband has frontotemporal lobe dementia. However, reading this article has me convinced that MLC is in fact some type of syndrome affecting the frontotemporal lobe. When you read about the personality changes -- especially in regards to inhibitions and impulsive behavior -- it's very interesting.
A Lesser-Known Dementia that Steals Personality (The Atlantic)
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/a-lesser-known-dementia-that-steals-personality/282661/
One thing that really struck me was the part about humor and sarcasm. I noticed as well how my H has a very different sense of humor since this started. Very drawn to chidike or adolescent type humor.
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Awesome article. I truly believe that one day it will be possible to identify what has caused these catastrophic changes in our spouses and I will not be at all surprised to see areas of the brain affected.
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Awesome article. I truly believe that one day it will be possible to identify what has caused these catastrophic changes in our spouses and I will not be at all surprised to see areas of the brain affected.
I absolutely agree xyz, and thank you for posting this, V! I will never not believe there is a brain-science connection to this, even in less aggressive cases. Even in my own case!
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Interesting post, V. I also agree that there is a brain-science connect to this. In my situation, I have a lot of reason to believe that.
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Hi Velika
I am looking forward to reading the article.
I'm another that thought the changes were so extreme there had to be brain changes involved.
We have threads relating to the brain, neurotransmitters etc and somewhere in there I posted about frontotemporal lobe disorders too and how it affects the personality first, vs something like parkinsons and alzheimers, where the personality is one of the last things to be affected.
Also the fact that with depression, the blood supply to the fronto temporal lobe is reduced, which also can drastically change personality.
I just want to be able to scan all of these guys. Wish it was a legal requirement.
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"Most are expected to live only 10 years after the initial onset. In the meantime, their symptoms only worsen."
I guess we will eventually be able to cross this off as a potential if we don't see the other physical decline that goes along with this disorder.
Think what this proves though, is that something extreme has affected the fronto temporal lobes. ? severe depression, ? inflammatory processes ?
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"Most are expected to live only 10 years after the initial onset. In the meantime, their symptoms only worsen."
I guess we will eventually be able to cross this off as a potential if we don't see the other physical decline that goes along with this disorder.
Think what this proves though, is that something extreme has affected the fronto temporal lobes. ? severe depression, ? inflammatory processes ?
Yes, as I said I am quite sure my husband doesn't have frontotemporal lobe dementia per se. But reading the article made me think that very likely something is going on with that region of the brain.
I asked myself, what else is going on around this time of life? And it is andropause, a decline in testosterone levels and high stress. (Given that anecdotally a stressful event can trigger MLC and is more prevalent among men with high-stress jobs.)
1. Andropause and Frontotemporal Lobe
I Googled andropause and frontotemporal lobe, and found this interesting post on an acupuncturist blog:
The Testosterone-Brain Connection
http://laurelacupuncturesd.blogspot.com/2010/10/testosterone-brain-connection.html
"The frontal lobe of our brain in particular is rich with testosterone receptors, and it is this part of our brain where we process much of our sense of reason. So when we see, hear, taste, smell or touch something our brain decides how to respond to the stimulation based upon how well our frontal lobe is firing. If for example we are low in testosterone our frontal lobe will not fire well and we will begin to lose the response of what we have all known as typically male. Included in this concept could be things like low libido and/or poor motivation for other activities such as work or relationships. This could even include wanting to put positive energy towards the children, or how you interact with your wife. Significant stuff! Remember, our hormones greatly effect how we view and respond to our surroundings. We understand things only as much as what comes through the testosterone filtered actions of the frontal lobe."
Low testosterone in men is also a common cause of depression and is mostly associated with the Dopamine pathways. So these men are often on medications like Wellbutrin or Abilify. Depression from a neurological perspective can be described as a low firing rate of the frontal lobe. And without adequate exposure to testosterone the firing rate will decline rapidly. So you must ask yourself if you are taking these medications if you are treating the core problem or just the symptoms. And at what cost? It is an important concept to consider because without working on the core problem you might be required to take the symptom masking medications indefinitely."
2. Infidelity and Frontotemporal Lobe
If testosterone affects dopamine levels, then it could also explain why MLCers resort to dopamine-seeking activities:
From "Infidelity Lurks in Your Genes," New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/24/opinion/sunday/infidelity-lurks-in-your-genes.html?_r=0
"In a 2010 study of 181 young, healthy adults, Justin R. Garcia, then at Binghamton University, found that subjects who carried a variant of one dopamine receptor subtype, the D4 receptor, were 50 percent more likely to report sexual infidelity. This D4 genetic variant has reduced binding for dopamine, which implies that these individuals walk around at baseline feeling less stimulated and hungrier for novelty than those lacking this genetic variant."
From "The Biochemicals of Love" post:
http://www.marriageadvocates.com/2012/09/20/anatomy-of-an-affair-the-chemistry-of-love/
"Increased levels of dopamine also cause a decline in serotonin in areas of the brain related to a sense of well-being or stability of thoughts. Low levels of serotonin lead to depression, but also to other reactions as time goes on. Studies using functional magnetic imagining to measure areas of the brain that light up or react to reduced levels of the chemical found them to be the same areas involved in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This may be the cause of the lovers obsessing over one another and all the other symptoms of this disorder that manifest themselves during the infatuation phase of a relationship."
3. Stress and Frontotemporal Lobe
From Stressing Out, Outing Stress, Indiana University
http://www.indiana.edu/~rcapub/v30n2/stress.shtml
This article made me think that it is very important how the spouse reacts to the MLCer so as not to create additional stress. In trying to get through to them we may be actually biochemically making the situation worse.
"These branches can grow--with rest and exercise, and by stimulating the brain through such activities as reading, doing crossword puzzles, and, yes, writing. They can also retract for many reasons, including when we are exposed to stress. Wellman has learned that dendritic shrinking in the prefrontal cortex can result in significant behavioral changes. Repeated exposure to stress can result in longer term damage to the brain's frontal lobe.
"My research has shown that exposure to stress--either over the long term, such as three weeks or even one week or just one day--can produce structural changes in the neurons of the prefrontal cortex," she says. "A neuron's shape is critically important to the way it processes information. We have seen profound changes as a result of stress and changes in behavior that the prefrontal cortex is directly responsible for."
* * * * *
I'm not a scientist at all, but I agree with others that something physical is going on. My number one reason for thinking is that my husband's father and grandfather both suddenly left their wives. My husband was always disgusted with his father's behavior. Therefore it does not follow that he would do the same.
I also believe that in a normal split, the behavior of the man would not change toward his children. I know from my experience and from reading others' on this board, this is not the case with what we are witnessing.
(By the way, I'm sure this territory is already covered here on the boards ... So for those of you familiar with this site, my apologies!)
With all this, it makes sense that someone under a lot of stress who may be going through andropause and starts an affair would have a hard time quitting. It also explains why we all are witnessing personality changes.
My question is, then, why for some is this change so sudden? Or is it that some are just more biologically susceptible to affair addiction and so if they do take up with someone else they might be unable to quit, whereas someone less prone to this addiction would confess to their mistake?
I would also like to find more information about the frontotemporal lobes and eye appearance, as I know I and others have witnessed a very "flat" look in our spouses' eyes.
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I think someone said that the 'shark eyes' are seen during depression. Or it's caused by a ton of guilt & shame? Who knows but most of us have seen it.
Here's the previous discussion link: http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=6315.0
That's just for your information. The new thread is interesting & there's always something new in brain research so carry on.
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Actually I am not entirely sure my xH isn't FTD. The personality change is quite profound. He is 4 years in, I suppose that with time I will eventually be certain one way or the other.
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Has anyone looked into the possibility of mini strokes in this brain region? (E.g. "silent strokes.")
I'm wondering because I was out of town and returned to a completely different H. But I have read accounts of people saying their spouse changed "over night."
Has anyone experienced this? Like fine one day, not the next?
I guess if you look at the stages of grief, forming theories is a type of bargaining. But I do feel that many of us have witnessed radical changes to the whole personality, not just the spouse's urgent desire to leave.
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Actually I am not entirely sure my xH isn't FTD. The personality change is quite profound. He is 4 years in, I suppose that with time I will eventually be certain one way or the other.
Had you suspected this? Is he in decline still?
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Great article, Velika.
I think that there is far more than just the Frontotemporal Lobe at play in MLC. For a start, there is the huge release of cortisol (stress) and how it affects the pituitary gland. Then it is necessary to factor, adrenaline and other out of order hormones, the effects those provoke in the brain and body, other parts of the brain that are affected, etc.
And the other thing to remember is that, often, MLC is temporary. So far, dementia, personality and some mood disorder (well, all but for depression, depending of the type), are not. They are permanent. MLC seems to go away once the MLCer is out of crisis.
I doubt that all male MLCers are in andropause. I don't think that applies to MLCers in their mid 30's. I know testosterone starts to decay earlier than mid 30's, but that is not the same as andropause.
Does testosterone play a part in MLC? It is possible. We do not know how the levels of most MLCer are before, during, and after crisis. We know their stress level at BD is huge, and it remains very high during the crisis.
As for female MLCers, menopause also does not seem to always be the factor. Like the male ones, some female MLCers are only in their mid 30's.
Something is going on. That is for sure. And that something is very related to high stress levels. Other than that, none of us knows much more. Some of us, like myself, did some neuroscience short courses.
We learned a lot, but there are so many things to take in, the brain, and the body are very complex. I'm not certain that, with our current knowledge, we can say exactly what causes MLC. But I maintain stress is a big factor.
I think I would exclude mini strokes. Not saying they do not happen to some MLCers, or that they do not happen during the crisis, but that does not seem to be what leads a person into MLC.
I have merged the threads. The current Biochemistry, neurotransmitters and brain research has not reached its limit.
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Thanks Anjae!
Here is some info on strokes if anyone is interested. Again, I would love to know if anyone witnessed a real day/night change in MLCer. (I can't say because I wasn't in the country.) This is pretty shocking!
Silent Stroke, What You Need to Know, via Web MD
http://www.webmd.com/stroke/silent-stroke-you-need-to-know
"A study of middle-aged people with no apparent signs of stroke found that about 10% had brain damage from one."
Can Personality Improve After a Stroke? via Scientific American
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-personality-improve-after-a-stroke/
"Friends and relatives may report a personality change that is hard to pin down. Some of these changes, such as low mood and anxiety, are more likely to be related to a person's feelings about having a stroke than to any harm to the brain. A genuine shift may occur, however, when the frontal lobes sustain damage. The frontal lobes play an essential role in regulating emotion, decision making and judgment. Strokes that affect the frontal lobes can lead to a range of problems, such as apathy or emotionalism (an overflow of emotion without necessarily feeling that emotion)."
"A stroke that hits the cerebellum can also trigger a personality shift. This brain region is vital to many aspects of executive function. Damage here can bring about disinhibition, which often manifests as inappropriate behavior. Other “negative” personality changes include poor decision making, aggression and irritability."
Some Antidepressants May Raise Stroke Risk
http://www.webmd.com/stroke/news/20121017/some-antidepressants-stroke-risk
"Overall, he says, "the additional bleeding risk is 1 per 10,000 people treated with SSRIs for one year."
(Of interest to me because both my husband's and sister in law's MLC kicked off while on an antidepressant.)
Stress, Depression May Boost Stroke Risk
http://consumer.healthday.com/mental-health-information-25/anxiety-news-33/stress-depression-may-boost-stroke-risk-study-finds-689675.html
"The study found that depression seemed to raise the risk of a stroke or a transient ischemic attack (TIA) by 86 percent. It also found that stress apparently raised stroke or TIA risk by 59 percent. And hostility doubled the risk, the researchers said. A TIA is a mini-stroke caused by a temporary blockage of blood flow to the brain."
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The day/night change is the reason why it's called Bomb Drop. It comes completely out of the blue.
Some of us could feel some detachment in the weeks/months prior to BD, but not all. I kept asking my MLCer what was going on. He was silent or said that nothing at all was a problem. Next thing BD, and he was apparently leaving. (He stayed on the sofa for the next 5 months before actually leaving).
As calamity said, most of us have experienced the shark eyes. Dead and dull. Can't remember where I found it but the eyes apparently indicate brain function. (or lack of it).
A bit long winded, but explains that males can suffer exactly the same symptoms at mid life, as women do during menopause.
Also, instead of a natural decline, stress can lead to a huge drop in testosterone - which then has a domino effect on the whole biochemistry of the body.
http://holyhormones.com/mens-health/andropause/menalive-author-jed-diamond-phd-supporting-men-and-the-women-who-love-them-on-holy-hormones-honey-october-8/
previous thread: http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=1786.0
other neuroscience/neurochemestry threads:
http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=1522.0
http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=3669.0
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https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_zak_trust_morality_and_oxytocin?language=en
The moral molecule - oxytocin
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23441.Heroes_Rogues_and_Lovers
Testosterone and behaviour
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Wow, so my sister accidentally ran into my H last night and commented that he had strange circles around his eyes. I have mentioned on my own thread about how my H's eyes look "off" and I have seen this over and over again on other threads. I looked at his eyes again today and realized yes there is something strange about the eyes. Not just the flat look I see at times but the circles under them.
I then remembered reading about palsy to extraocular muscles eyes due to oxygen starvation from small strokes. This can be very obvious but it can also be minor. Sometimes it corrects and sometimes it is permanent. Not to introduce a controversial topic about this, but there was a doctor who researched vaccine injury and Gulf War illness and was able to demonstrate through before/after photos how muscles changed around the eyes. (If you are interested you can see here: http://healthimpactnews.com/2015/dr-andrew-moulden-learning-to-identify-vaccine-damage/. I don't want to start a discussion on vaccine damage but this is the only place I could find this research.)
The photos are striking and some remind me a little of my husband's eyes. He doesn't have an obvious palsy but there are subtle changes.
For me, this is very sad. My husband was a truly loving, funny, affectionate guy. How sad to think that what we are calling MLC is in fact a very tragic illness and possibly even a stroke. I guess the stroke theory might also explain why some recover and some do not. (As I know spontaneous recovery from a stroke is possible.)
Anyhow, I am sure I am not the only MLC conspiracy theorist on this board (I have had quite a number of theories posted to my own thread), so I wanted to share.
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The dead eyes come with the depression. Once the depression lifts the eyes go back to normal. Former MLCers do not have the dead, or shark, eyes.
And current MLCers, can, at times, have their eyes go back to normal for a while.
The circles under the eyes are most likely tiredness and/or lack of sleep.
I think you are trying to grab to the small strokes view, but that does not match what we know happens to MLCers. If the case of their dead eyes was small strokes, then the eyes would never change back to normal. And they do.
MLC is a tragic event. It is probably a illness, albeit a temporary one. That is what you need to remember, it is temporary. When it ends, people go back to normal. A thing that would not happen with mini strokes, dementia or a mental illness. With mental illnesses, depending of the severity and if the person is, or is not being treated, the person can go back to look normal, but the illness is still there.
There are former MLCers in the board. They have got back to normal after their MLC.
Here is a thread about the dead eyes: http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=3630.0 - Dead Eye Look- what is it?
And one about MLC and the Medical Community http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=3602.0
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Going to agree with both of you, in a sense. I think V's research is good. There are some of us (and I know I'm preaching to the choir with you, Anjae, as you've been deep into the study yourself) who heal and focus by finding the possible paths "why" this happened. I was definitely, and continue to be, one of those people. I could have never just said, "Oh, it's MLC" and left it at that.
I know what V is referring to with the shark eyes and the circles (and I think she probably knows the difference between someone who has tired circles and something different). Even if it's just depression that causes the shark eyes, there's a chemical reason behind that. There's always deeper to go. It's interesting, if nothing else (so long as you're not trying to force a diagnosis on the MLCer, as they are grown and must pick a path of healing for themselves).
But I agree with Anjae too that this is likely temporary for most, from the anecdotal evidence we have here. Mine was diagnosed bipolar and I have mixed feelings on that (as did he, at least the last time we talked about it), but if that's really the case, it's not temporary, but it is treatable. But he has to be in charge of that, and after almost five years, it's so much easier than it was in year one to keep my hands, and my thoughts, off of it. But that's a process, too.
I liked this article and saved it in my bookmarks because one of my eyes has gone a little weird since my crisis, and I sometimes still see the asymmetrical appearance of that eye and one corner of my lip in pictures. It's not as noticeable in normal conversation, I'm told, but my Dad has asked me in pictures why I make a certain face and I'm not doing anything but looking square on. It was more pronounced several years ago, though, and I'm now remembering around 2008/2009 I had my first tetanus booster in many years. Makes me wonder if there is a link. Not going to obsess on it, but certainly, it's worth digging into a little more.
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Thank you Anjae and R2T. I find these discussions so interesting and once again think of all the intelligent, curious people on this forum who I think are truly on to something about this umbrella category we call MLC.
Sometimes I think that there are a lot of things going on on this forum, and some people are having a true identity crisis, others a type of PTSD, some personality disorder, some affair, and/or others neurological/chemical. There are probably even a few who were truly unhappy and walked away, barring any other changes.
I think there are some people who come out of it and some people who will likely never come out of it. I would suspect in the latter category, if the person was truly nice and the crisis entails a total personality shift or got progressively worse, something more serious has happened — like a stroke or dementia.
R2T, there is a fantastic documentary that you should watch called Trace Amounts. The film is very well made, many respected top-level scientists interviewed. It was made by a man who had a reaction to (like you) first tetanus vaccine he had in many years. He eventually traced the reaction to the mercury still used in it, which has been known for decades to be hazardous at parts per billion.
If your crisis followed a tetanus shot, this documentary might convince you that you may have had an adverse vaccine reaction and not a psychological breakdown: http://traceamounts.com/
My husband did not to my knowledge have a recent vaccine. He is on an SSRI that he started last winter. But I do know someone who suffered a mini stroke after getting a flu vaccine for the first time in years.
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I was writing while you posted, Velika. Here is what I was writing.
My mother had several mini strokes. They went undetected for years. Until her personality started to change, she started to forgot things, etc. The symptoms were the same ones a person with early Alzheimer's would show.
Mum did the Alzheimer's tests, it was not Alzheimer's. Then she did more tests. They reveled it was Vascular Dementia, cause by the several ischemic mini strokes. Mum does not have dead eyes nor the circles under the eyes.
And her personality change, when it changes, is not similar to what I have witness with Mr J, my cousin who had MLC or the real life MLCer I know.
As for the evidence, I have my cousin and the former real life MLCers I know. They went back to normal. No more dead eyes, no more circles, or bags, under the eyes.
Mini strokes can be the cause in individual cases, but they are not the cause for most MLCers. If they were, MLCers would not go back to normal.
Do MLCers brain cells die because of their crisis? I do not know. They may. But the reason may be different than interrupted oxygen to the brain because of blockage or rupture or a brain artery.
Grandmother has had serious/big strokes. Her personality did not change, but one of them left her the right side of her body impaired, meaning the stroke was on the brain's left side.
Stokes was one of the things we studied in the neurobiology course. Nothing of what was studied, nor my real live experience with people with both mini and major strokes, and MLC, makes me think the cause of MLC changes is related to mini strokes.
Like I said above, that can be the cause for an individual, but not for MLC as a whole. What we seen happening to MLCers once the crisis is over, as well as several of their behaviours, does not point for mini strokes to be the cause.
There may be a chemical reason behind the shark eyes, but stokes are cerebrovascular accident , they are not chemistry related. They do not happen because of imbalance brain chemicals. Nor because of hormones.
As for the brain itself, one thing we often forget is that the brain also has an eclectic part. The brain has a circuit that is similar to an electric one. Neurons use electrical signs.
The brain is very complex, and there are several issues/illnesses/disorders that can seem one thing and are another. But the main thing to have in consideration with MLC is that, MLCers that come out of crisis go back to normal. That sets it apart from many mental and neurological issues. It makes it more similar to hormonal issues.
Hormonal issues that can cause personality changes, think thyroid, for example, when corrected, will allow a person to go back to normal.
Personally, I can only go with what is observed in most MLCers. Since we are not conducting tests, the one things that stands out in all MLCes is high levels of stress, along with depression. The causes of the depression can be hormonal, imbalanced brain chemicals, etc. The high stress levels is in itself a hormonal issue.
You may indeed have an adverse tetanus booster reaction, Ready2. But nearly ten years have passed. Not sure if the reaction would still be felt so many years after. Do you not need to have a tetanus booster every ten years in the US? Here we do.
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Thank you for that link, V! I will definitely be checking that out. I think I mentioned before my MLCer was also on SSRI drugs pre-BD that I suspect had an impact on this. And I agree too on the umbrella nature of "MLC". Great convo!
Anjae, I hadn't had a tetanus shot since my teens, I believe. Definitely not in my adult life until that update. I'm not a real "doctor" person (shocker there! LOL), so I usually only went for my yearly female exam through my 20s and 30s, with rarely anything else even discussed. The "eye thing" for me started around that time in 2008 or 2009 - I can't remember which year I got the shot, but those were the two years I know I had the doctor that administered it.
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I too always wondered about vaccines. My MLCer had a whole range of them prior to a work trip to India. Recommended were Hepatitis A; Tetanus; Typhoid, Cholera; Diphtheria; Hepatitis B; Japanese Encephalitis; Rabies. Yellow fever.
The only thing he didn't have out of that list was Cholera. He declined, as he'd had a terrible reaction to it prior to our travel overseas when we were in our early 20's. He started a few months prior to the trip, as a few of them require repeat doses.
I remember feeling concerned about the volume, and it was after this trip that he really had well and truly detached.
I don't think these caused his crisis on their own, but always thought they were one of the many puzzle pieces that all reached a tipping point.
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Kikki, I haven't read your story, but if my H had had that many vaccines, knowing what I know, I wouldn't look much further. If he was taking a malaria drug this may have further exacerbated. There are a lot of good vaccine safety advocacy groups out there, and one of their main points is that vaccines are only safety tested individually. When an adult or a baby receives multiple shots at once, there is no way to tell how he or she will react.
I don't know a lot about strokes, but it did seem to me that a silent stroke could cause different changes depending on where in the brain it occurred. If it occurs in the prefrontal lobe it could, as the above articles suggest, impact personality but not memory. My husband often reminds me of my grandfather when he had dementia, down to his eyes. Depending on how this plays out I guess I will have a better idea of what might be going on, whether he had a depression or a lasting event.
I know some people come out of what we are calling MLC, but do all, really? When I read some accounts on this board I have to think that the person as their loved ones knew him/her is unlikely to return. This is very sad but I've had to think that I may just never know what happened to my husband.
R2T, which SSRI was your H taking? Mine is on Paxil, which contains known neurotoxin fluoride. His sister also had a MLC after having an atypical reaction to an SSRI. I don't think my H should have been prescribed for that reason, because his sister was later diagnosed possible bipolar. SSRIs can trigger this and I suspect my H may have been manic or hypomanic at bomb drop. However like many people, he received the prescription off label by a general practitioner, not a psychiatrist. He likes the calm feeling it gives him and won't visit a psychiatrist with me. As soon as he started taking it he began to get migraines for the first time. Migraines can also increase stroke risk.
I wish we knew more.
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Hello
Wow, ADD/ADHD, vaccines, hormonal imbalances - the lengths we go to, to find an explanation or justify a MLCer’s behaviour. We are far, far more than our chemical make up – in fact epigenetics shows that our thoughts may very well determine/alter the expression of a gene and therefore the production of hormones. So really a MLCers behavior is tied into his unconscious belief system some of which he may be consciously aware of, but I think like all human being including us, the LBS, most of our background thinking that we identify with is unconscious.
We have all been in a place where we react emotionally before we think but always in retrospect we know that we behaved in a way that fills us with guilt and possibly remorse. Yes our hormones can sometimes get the best of us but really our hormones would never push us to behave against our unconscious beliefs, our own sense of right or wrong. At the end of the day no mental anomaly other than a socio and/or psychopath would ever lead you to murder. While this is an extreme example it is being used to illustrate a point which is no hormonal or other mental disturbance that is experienced during a MLC would ever make you do something that you would not have done anyway.
I think as an LBS we are often in denial about a lot of things, we don’t want to accept that our Ex is capable of some of the things they have done and so we try to use logic to explain it – it makes us feel better that the person we married is who we thought they were – to admit that we may never have truly known this person seems so wasteful and it taints our memory of the moments we shared.
When I met my ex he was the OM in a one night stand. He also didn’t think the fact that his girlfriend who cheated on him with his brother was a terrible person for having done this to him, he still admired her ambitious nature – doesn’t matter that by the age of 21 she had been engaged 5 times to 5 different men – when I met her she was dismissive and very rude to me – at the time I was a shy so I didn’t react to her rudeness – I did not want a confrontation but I remember thinking at the time that she was a self-centred know-it-all. Back then when I was being presented with some real warning signs I dismissed them and excused that he was going through early adulthood, trying to experiment as he tried to find his identity.
In retrospect (pity that’s when you see things 20/20) I realise that I would never have done what he did – I know I would never, ever (I can say this with utmost certainty) have an affair – simply because I have more respect for myself, plus I had a solid moral upbringing built on empathy and compassion, in spite of a low sense of self-worth that stems from childhood issues that were then compounded by ex’s affair.
My ex was always capable of betrayal I just chose not to see that. Bearing in mind that while ex has married OW he was cheating on her during their “in-love” phase. So how much he loved her raises a big question mark. Having said this I do not believe he ever loved me either, he loved what I brought to his life.
Bottom line we have to accept what is and not try to always find some kind of explanation – the truth is there is no explanation for unkind and deceitful behavior other than the person was always capable of behaving in this way not because of some chemical imbalance but because of their unconscious belief system (to them affairs, betrayal are to a certain extend acceptable) and thought patterns and therefore in their inability to be compassionate and empathetic - we just did not see it because our love was blind.
I know this may sound harsh and please this is not my intention – its just that what I would like for all of you is that you move on to a place of acceptance that you invested yourself in someone who was not capable of doing the same for you – there is no real explanation or reason for it, it just is. I truly hope you can all move on with your lives in peace and joy.
moment
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At the end of the day no mental anomaly other than a socio and/or psychopath would ever lead you to murder. While this is an extreme example it is being used to illustrate a point which is no hormonal or other mental disturbance that is experienced during a MLC would ever make you do something that you would not have done anyway.
This is false. Bipolar mania, dissociate fugue, and schizophrenia are just a few mental disturbance examples that have nothing to do with choice. I'm sure the parent of a child with ADD would argue that they're not just trying to justify their child's behavior as they look for the best treatment, so their child can function and have a good life.
I know this may sound harsh and please this is not my intention – its just that what I would like for all of you is that you move on to a place of acceptance that you invested yourself in someone who was not capable of doing the same for you – there is no real explanation or reason for it, it just is. I truly hope you can all move on with your lives in peace and joy.
My BD was almost 5 years ago and I have a great deal of peace and joy in my life. Acceptance? You bet. But I saw a 180 flip that was deeply out of character (and he and his psychiatrist agreed, which was why he was in treatment). We all come here with very similar situations at the onset of BD, but we didn't all get there the same way. I'm sorry your H was not the man you'd believed him to be. Mine was my best friend, who knew something was 'wrong' and voiced that, sought treatment, struggled...and I'm the type that cares greatly for why this happened to him. THAT also gives me peace (as I'm assuming RCR was as well, since she didn't take his words at face value, did the research, and created this wonderful site that has benefited us all so much). I'm glad you've found your own way to acceptance. The rest of us have as well, and our thread here is clearly marked, so if you disagree, maybe just let us be? No harm meant, but certainly, I think we all get enough of the "move on" stuff, don't you?
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R2T, which SSRI was your H taking? Mine is on Paxil, which contains known neurotoxin fluoride. His sister also had a MLC after having an atypical reaction to an SSRI. I don't think my H should have been prescribed for that reason, because his sister was later diagnosed possible bipolar. SSRIs can trigger this and I suspect my H may have been manic or hypomanic at bomb drop. However like many people, he received the prescription off label by a general practitioner, not a psychiatrist. He likes the calm feeling it gives him and won't visit a psychiatrist with me. As soon as he started taking it he began to get migraines for the first time. Migraines can also increase stroke risk.
Nodding. This is exactly what I've been told by the professionals I've spoken to since my H left. He was initially prescribed Seroquel XR, which is an antipsychotic, but the psych changed him to I believe Celexa first, then Lexapro (there may have been another in there as well). He was NOT given a mood stabilizer at the same time, which I'm told would have at least mitigated some of his problems, but it's still likely if he is bipolar that any of these would have triggered mania. He then went off of them cold turkey, which his psych begged him not to do - told him that he would help him taper if he was really set on doing it. But by that time he was making rash decisions, and I of course had no clue what the long term ramifications could be. I just thought the drugs made him sick (he had a ton of physical symptoms as well) so it was better that he not be on them, and I supported his decision. I just didn't know (which is another reason this research gives me peace now).
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Moment, I'm not trying to be flippant, but if my MLCer had been the OM in a one night stand when I met him, I wouldn't have been all that surprised at BD either.
As it was, my MLCer's behaviours were so outrageously out of character, I thought he had a brain tumour. My boys and I have lived through far more than abandonment and an affair.
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Mine has told me he is wired wrong. Works and sleeps and is barely alive.
He was not like this when I married him and did not choose this way to be.
I believe it was stress which depleted his serotonin and led to depression. Stress raises cortisol and lowers testosterone and oxytocin hence no attraction or connection despite 18 years of the complete opposite.
Xxx
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Hi R2T
I certainly was not trying to minimise psychological disorders that have existed for most of a person's lifetime and that these disorders may determine what their actions/behaviours - i just used socio/psychopath as the two most obvious ones. I was simply trying to say that things like ADD or ADHD or schizophrenia or reactions to vaccines do not suddenly manifest in MLC, for the most part, and therefore do not necessarily explain why the MLCer behaves in the way he does - his reasons for doing what he does may truly just be his unconscious belief system.
This is not to say that the MLC is not accompanied by depression but how they choose to behave can stem from an unconscious belief system and therefore what they find acceptable. My ex did not judge his ex-girlfriend for her cheating as much as i did - at the time i found this so admirable - now i realise that he was quite accepting of this because he did not find this to be wrong for himself either. We all have our own barometer for what is right and what is wrong and to the MLCer maybe a do -over is not seen as the "BAD/WRONG" thing we as the LBS see it as. We all have our own level of what is acceptable.
I know of several people who have suffered chronic depression but have never chosen to act out in the way a MLCer chooses to act out. And sometimes i think to try explain a MLCers behaviour via disorders like ADD and ADHD etc minimises a person suffering who truly has these conditions. All i was trying to say is that sometimes and certainly not in all cases, a MLC is just a man bored with his marriage seeking a do -over. nothing more nothing less and when we are bored and dissatisfied - we act out in ways that seem to indicate a psychological issue because their behaviour is so contrary to the person they have appeared to have been. Please understand that this is not said to minimise that some MLCers may suffer psychological condition however these conditions would have been present prior to their MLC and not suddenly appear in MLC. I just think that sometimes we make MLC into more than it actually is because we need to believe it - not because that is actually what is going on.
anyway just my two cents - whatever i say is never said to offend but maybe just to express a different perspective and a simpler one - sometimes people will behave in a terrible way when they want out and don't have the courage to say as much and when a marriage breaks down there is a lot of pain and hurt that leads us to try find answers as to why this happened but maybe there are no answers - it is what it is - that's all i was trying to say.
be well
moment
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Hi Kiki
I am so sorry for you and your boys suffering - i certainly was not trying to minimise anyone's experience of their MLCer's behaviour - i was simply offering a different perspective. My greatest flaw i think is my naivety - unlike some LBS's here i refused to see the signs in terms of who my H actually was. I was simply trying speak to those LBS's on this forum who like me may have been naive and in denial about who they truly married.
To finally be honest with yourself and see the wood from the trees is no easy journey. it is filled with self doubt and a lack of confidence that you are able to perceive things as they are. And in the beginning it was so easy for me to accept some of the theories about MLC because to believe that my ex was depressed meant that i was not a failure to have married and invested myself in someone who was not who i believed him to be and who in the end was living up to his belief system nothing more nothing less
take care
moment
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I do think MLC is an umbrella term. I think each LBS tries to examine as honestly and intelligently as possible what led up to bomb drop, as well as family history, external factors, possible medical issues. Likely you are right that something in the MLCer allowed them to cross a line. What tipped them over? This may be different for each person.
I think we have to look at clues such as how quickly our MLCer changed, if their overall personality and behavior is consistent with previous personality and behavior, and how consistently they behave post bomb drop.
In my case, I think that a person who is previously very calm, pragmatic, rational, good sense of humor who is suddenly running out of the house, making paranoid statements, and threatening to call the police -- something very serious is happening neurologically/psychologically. Many of these MLCers do not act in their own best interests, financially or emotionally. Their behavior to their children changes suddenly and radically as well.
I think through trial and error and an individual look at our own situation we can try to sense what we are dealing with and then respond in a way that feels healthiest to us.
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I know some people come out of what we are calling MLC, but do all, really? When I read some accounts on this board I have to think that the person as their loved ones knew him/her is unlikely to return. This is very sad but I've had to think that I may just never know what happened to my husband.
Velika, the change in my MLCer has been so extreme, and BD was 6 years ago for me, that I too wonder if coming out of this and being anything like the person that he used to be is even a possibility. I pretty much doubt it.
Haven't given up hope entirely, but it's no longer seeming all that possible, or all that likely. This really is an enormously cruel disorder. (or cluster of disorders).
Only those who have witnessed such enormous personality and behavioural changes in their loved one, seem to understand our loss.
Moment, thank you for your words. I can completely understand that this has been an enormous journey for you to get to this place of acceptance. To realise that we may not be perceiving things as they actually are would be enormously challenging and disconcerting. Keep going, you are on the right path.
I agree with Valika. Each of us must examine and take apart our own lives and history, and deduce what is going on. Each situation is unique.
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... Sometimes i think to try explain a MLCers behaviour via disorders like ADD and ADHD etc minimises a person suffering who truly has these conditions. All i was trying to say is that sometimes and certainly not in all cases, a MLC is just a man bored with his marriage seeking a do -over. nothing more nothing less and when we are bored and dissatisfied - we act out in ways that seem to indicate a psychological issue because their behaviour is so contrary to the person they have appeared to have been. Please understand that this is not said to minimise that some MLCers may suffer psychological condition however these conditions would have been present prior to their MLC and not suddenly appear in MLC.
I think this is an interesting perspective, but really goes against what we now know about how the brain works. Psychiatric conditions are the product of many discrete changes in neurotransmitter function and brain pathways. You can get the same symptoms in completely different diseases - that doesn't mean that someone who's depressed and starts hearing voices has suddenly become schizophrenic, but that a non-schizophrenic individual can also suffer hallucinations by virtue of being depressed. Or to put this properly into context, someone who is undergoing MLC (which I'm guessing might be a form of dissociative disorder, or some other disengagement of the thinking frontal cortex from the feeling amygdala, resulting in a flight-or-flight resposne) can also present as having depression, or alcoholism, or a personality disorder, or some other biological mess. But unlike some of the latter messes, MLC seems to have a time-course and may revert to 'normal'.
I think it's not 'wishful thinking' to blame MLC on a suddenly dysfunctional brain. But what we LBS's do with that information will vary. Some will try to form and medicate the MLCer, some will walk fast away from them, and some will try to wait it out but protect themselves from the fallout. None of these are wrong approaches, it's just how each individual happens to perceive their choices.
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Nodding to all. I think we've all reached common ground on this. It's a two-parter: what happened, and what do we do now that it has? Unique in each way, but certainly it's great to have support along the way for whichever path we take.
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Moment stated:
Yes our hormones can sometimes get the best of us but really our hormones would never push us to behave against our unconscious beliefs, our own sense of right or wrong. At the end of the day no mental anomaly other than a socio and/or psychopath would ever lead you to murder. While this is an extreme example it is being used to illustrate a point which is no hormonal or other mental disturbance that is experienced during a MLC would ever make you do something that you would not have done anyway.
I disagree with your statement. Indeed, in postpartum psychosis which occurs in 1% of all pregnancy's, a totally normal woman has been known to murder her own child. There is nothing in that woman's previous existence that indicated that she would do this, and the same woman, not experiencing postpartum psychosis would be horrified at what she had done.
I think as an LBS we are often in denial about a lot of things, we don’t want to accept that our Ex is capable of some of the things they have done and so we try to use logic to explain it – it makes us feel better that the person we married is who we thought they were – to admit that we may never have truly known this person seems so wasteful and it taints our memory of the moments we shared.
Understanding the pathophysiology of disease is an important way for the LBSer to heal and accept what has happened to their life. There are many theories and research and as with others things we can identify certain pre conditions that might have caused the MLC.
I have no doubts about the morals and values of the man I was married to for 32 years. The person he is now is not at all the person he was. So for me, acquiring knowledge about causation is the way to accept him as he is now without "blaming him" for something that is out of his control.
Bottom line we have to accept what is and not try to always find some kind of explanation – the truth is there is no explanation for unkind and deceitful behavior other than the person was always capable of behaving in this way not because of some chemical imbalance but because of their unconscious belief system (to them affairs, betrayal are to a certain extend acceptable) and thought patterns and therefore in their inability to be compassionate and empathetic - we just did not see it because our love was blind.
This may be true in your marriage but for many other people on HS, they were not blind for years of their lives. The do know what kind of marriage they had, other people close to them knew too and they did know who their spouse was. Many chemical imbalances will cause abnormal behavior. For example, Diabetics whose blood sugar levels drop too low may act and appear drunk. Low potassium can lead to muscle cramps, hypoxia (decreased oxygen) at high altitudes causes altitude sickness (headache, fatigue, loss of appetite, vomiting) and the list goes on and on.These are facts so why is it difficult to think that a chemical imbalance can and does cause symptoms that are totally out to the norm for any individual?
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OSB and XYZCF, this is so interesting and helpful to read.
I think what you mentioned about postpartum psychosis is so important. I am following a thread on HS by a man whose wife had MLC. He, his doctor, therapist, support group, and her parents are all aware something is wrong with her.
His wife is behaving almost identically to my husband. Why, then, am I the only person in my husband's life who has tried to get through to him that something is wrong? (Don't worry ... I now know not to attempt this.) Why aren't his parents calling, concerned, or coming to stay with him?
Sadly, it's sexism. When a man abandons his loving wife and cherished child and the home he knew for years all of a sudden to run to the arms of someone he barely knows and give up everything, we somehow think he is doing what is natural to him.
This same sexism applies in the case of an LBS man, who may be forced to move from his home, lose his children, and his wife when she has an MLC.
I think it's great we're speaking up here, asking questions, pushing the envelope. I hope more people will start to question what we call MLC and share their honest stories.
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I agree Velika. It is sexism. And when it becomes reduced to an affair and a bimbo, it just adds insult to injury.
I do believe that a large part of the reason that this has never been formally researched is because men are terrified to look at something that appears well beyond their own control. Far easier, to continue sweeping it under the carpet.
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Lying awake here and just found a great description of MLC by a doctor who puts it down to the cortisol from stress counteracting oxytocin thus leading to disconnection.
She went through a tough time by the sound of it but is doing great now x
http://www.saragottfriedmd.com/why-do-i-feel-disconnected-the-cortisol-oxytocin-connection/
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Ready2, here we have a vaccines boletin. Some people do not have it in order, but for many things it is necessary to have our vaccines up to date. I think the only one for adults that here is necessary to take for your whole life is tetanus.
Several of those that Kikki mentioned Mr Bursty had are only necessary if we go to certain parts to certain parts of the Globe. Hepatitis B I think is given to kids now, but it is not mandatory to current adults.
I doubt vaccines have anything to do with it. Pretty much every single Portuguese has vaccines. Not everyone here is having a MLC.
And if vaccines did it, then everyone who has went to certain parts of the Globe would be having a MLC. That is not the case.
An adverse reaction to a vaccine and MLC are two very different things. I have relatives, friends as well as my aunt boyfriend, who have had the whole lot of vaccines necessary for certain parts of the Globe, they are not having MLC. And my cousin who had MLC only had the standard vaccines necessary for Portugal, for a man his age (children now have more vaccines then we did when we were kids).
Velika, it is true that there is no way of knowing how a person will react to receives multiple shots at once, but there are many people who have got multiple shots at once and they did not had MLC.
So, as a cause/source of MLC as a whole, vaccines are, in my view, like strokes, they may have something to do with a specific individual MLC, but it is not possible to apply it to all (or even most) MLCers.
Yes, mini strokes can have a different effect depending of the part of the brain they hit. Or the intensity of the mini stroke, but they cannot be the cause of MLC. It does not apply no all, nor to most MLCers.
Not everyone comes out of MLC. Most people do. And sometimes people come out of MLC, but remain with the alienator for reasons of their own.
I think it may be easier to accept that your husband is having a MLC. That is what has happened to him.
I tend to stick to hormones/brain chemicals, and possibly electric circuit imbalance for the cause of MLC. Vaccines and strokes are not something I would consider. ADD/ADHD, Bipolar (or any other mental illness) do not exclude a person from having MLC. OP's mother is bipolar and, if I am not mistaken, she had a MLC. How does MLC on a bipolar looks like? Try to multiply what we deal with by 10 000.
Yes, Moment, our genes can be changed. I don't recall the possibility of genes to be altered with thoughts, but I remember that the ambient we live in can change our genes. And it is known that negative thoughts can lead to depression, depression leading to certain chemical and hormonal alterations.
Negative thoughts alone will not do it. Only when coupled with a biological reaction, be it hormonal, chemical, or other. I'm not so certain the MLC behavior is tied to their unconscious belief system. That would mean that our MLCers unconscious belief system is a very nasty one. The other reason I do not believe that is because Mr J wrote OW1 that he had to break his values to do what he was doing (having an affair with her and wanting to leave, then leaving).
And unconscious belief system sounds like the sort of thing Freud and Jung would go for. Much I like Jung (I do not like Freud's work, nor do I find it very reliable), the unconscious applied to MLC is interesting from a more spiritual perspective, but does it not cut it neurologically nor biologically.
Yes, our hormones, and brain chemicals levels would make us do things against our belief system. It happens to people with Bipolar, especially in their manic phase. Or some people with hypothyroidism. Or think about addicts. Or like Ready2 said, schizophrenia or ADD. They are not choices.
In fact, a socio or a psychopath have different brain wiring than most people. Same goes for paedophiles. There is a reason why those people are considered mentally (and times also neurologically) ill. And the reason can be found in the brain.
Are you familiar with addiction and compulsions? If so, you know that those lead people to do things against their belief system. Every single day. Are you familiar with soldier behaviour in the battle field (in combat)? If so, you also know that often, because of the excess of adrenaline and other hormones, will also do things that are against their belief system and that, in the battle field (in combat) their brains change, and so do their hormones an their heart rate.
Stress alone can lead people to do many things that go against their belief system.
So, what you suggesting, Moment, is that we accept something that is not true. Most of us had spouses who were good people. Then MLC hit and they changed. That is why we know they are having a MLC. Otherwise we would not have notice a thing. When we meet our husbands they were not the OM in a one night stand. They were normal, caring, decent, good people.
As for acceptance in the way you were referring to, I think you are aware several of us here in this discussion are old timers. We have long moved from the sort of attachment newbies, and even mid timers, have.
We simply think that there is something far more than "oh, he/she just chose to do it". And we develop an interest for neuroscience, genetics, etc.
Regarding SSRIs, some people think they can lead some depressed people to bipolar. SSRIs seems to work well, or ok, for some people, and to have disastrous effects to others. Long before MLC Mr J had been depressed. The depression come from burnout. He as given Prozac. The Prozac drove him nuts and he had to stop. To my knowledge he never took a SSRI again.
There are other meds that may work better than SSRI in certain cases/with certain people.
Hmmm, I vote on the cortisol (stress) for the main villain in MLC. Cortisol is an hormone, so, it goes back to my belief that hormones play a huge part in MLC.
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Hi
To those who understood my intention - thank you. To those who were offended i am sorry. We all need to heal in our own way - and i realise that understanding the psychology behind human behaviour offers comfort. My wish for you all is that once you have finished analysing and trying to understand that you finally find an answer that is acceptable and comforting to you. Like Dr Eagleman, a neuroscientist' said the greatest three words that science has ever contributed to exploration and discovery is "I DON'T KNOW".
The more science discovers the more it realises that we haven't even scrapped the tip of the iceberg. I think this also applies to the working of the human brain the most complex organ that is, as yet, not fully understood - no matter how many discoveries have been made so far the paradigm will shift with future discoveries and maybe so will theories of psychological disorders
Up until recently it was accepted that our genes and therefore our biology was hard wired in the genetic code - now science is discovering that is not the case that in fact our thoughts and our environment can alter the expression of a gene and therefore could alter the expression of the way a hormone is produced. So my hope for you and myself is that at some point - once we have all finished dissecting the MLC - we come to find that we don't really know and that's OKAY. That's all i was trying to convey - not very well it seems - so for me i think once we become okay to leave this behind and accept not really knowing we can then start to put the same effort we have put into understanding our MLCer into understanding ourselves and our need for answers and how we can find peace from it all.
thats all
cheers
moment
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An adverse reaction to a vaccine and MLC are two very different things. I have relatives, friends as well as my aunt boyfriend, who have had the whole lot of vaccines necessary for certain parts of the Globe, they are not having MLC. And my cousin who had MLC only had the standard vaccines necessary for Portugal, for a man his age (children now have more vaccines then we did when we were kids).
Velika, it is true that there is no way of knowing how a person will react to receives multiple shots at once, but there are many people who have got multiple shots at once and they did not had MLC.
So, as a cause/source of MLC as a whole, vaccines are, in my view, like strokes, they may have something to do with a specific individual MLC, but it is not possible to apply it to all (or even most) MLCers.
I agree. I think what I am likely witnessing in my husband is a result of a chemical imbalance with possible influence of SSRI. When I read your description of cortisol that made a lot of sense.
But, I think that if a person's "MLC" kicked off right after receiving multiple travel vaccines, I would suspect a possible adverse reaction, especially if this person seems to be having a more extreme version or gets progressively worse. If the person took Lariam (which can trigger psychosis) that might be further evidence in these cases.
Vaccines contain many adjuvants, heavy metals, agents, fetal tissue, animal protein, preservatives, etc. and whereas some people may tolerate multiple vaccines easily, many parents have watched first-hand as their children have been transformed overnight by an adverse reaction to a vaccine. This is not to say vaccines cause MLC, just to say that vaccines in some individuals could cause a radical personality change similar to MLC.
Yes, mini strokes can have a different effect depending of the part of the brain they hit. Or the intensity of the mini stroke, but they cannot be the cause of MLC. It does not apply no all, nor to most MLCers.
You are likely right, but it is too bad we cannot do brain scans.
Not everyone comes out of MLC. Most people do. And sometimes people come out of MLC, but remain with the alienator for reasons of their own.
Do most people come out of it? I can't tell from this site, although I do think it attracts more extreme cases. When I read more general articles elsewhere it sounds way more temporary than what I read about here.
I think it may be easier to accept that your husband is having a MLC. That is what has happened to him. I tend to stick to hormones/brain chemicals, and possibly electric circuit imbalance for the cause of MLC.
Interesting, and yes I think you are likely right.
Regarding SSRIs, some people think they can lead some depressed people to bipolar. SSRIs seems to work well, or ok, for some people, and to have disastrous effects to others.
This is the only external I know of in my husband's case that I can point to. Again, I wish we knew more.
So my hope for you and myself is that at some point - once we have all finished dissecting the MLC - we come to find that we don't really know and that's OKAY. That's all i was trying to convey - not very well it seems - so for me i think once we become okay to leave this behind and accept not really knowing we can then start to put the same effort we have put into understanding our MLCer into understanding ourselves and our need for answers and how we can find peace from it all.
Moment, I hear what you are saying. Maybe for some of us it actually brings a certain amount of peace to try to understand what may be going on. My husband was a caring, sweet guy who often expressed happiness with our life. He adored our little boy. I just can't accept and don't believe in his right mind he would suddenly run away, traumatize his wife and son, and choose to reduce his time to his precious child to just some brief evenings and weekends. I think it's precisely because people have always accepted this as just "how things go" that nothing is done to truly examine what is going on.
This is not just true for MLC but for many phenomena that eventually come to light as not inevitable but the result of specific events.
Anyhow, good discussion as always!
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Hi
Anjae - I do not follow Freud/Jung and am completely ignorant of their theories – so you certainly made an assumption there that is not true and I guess this is what we all do - it does beg the question – are we not making assumptions ourselves about MLC – just a thought. I mean science and mathematics make many assumptions for example we assume parallel lines never cross and based on this assumption we have built principles of geometry. What if two parallel lines did cross at infinity????? Would that not result in a different set of mathematical principles?? I simply follow the idea that science does not have all the answers and that with new discoveries these answers change and paradigms shift. In addition most scientific conclusions are based on subjective observation - you cannot separate the observed from the observer to me this is a wondrous phenomenon and something to be embraced – it shows that science is a creative process of discovery and should not be held back by absolutes.
I believe that our conditioning colours our experience and perception of the world as well as our basic value system and that is what i refer to as the unconscious - our basic internal values, projections and perceptions. At times of crisis that is when our unconscious manifests in a big way and that is when our core belief system (for lack of a better word) either stands us in good stead or sends us down a path of self-destruction - and that’s what i was referring to in terms of MLCers and their belief systems/unconscious.
My brother went through a severe depression in midlife - HE DID NOT manifest it by having an affair and acting out in a self destructive way. He was aware and capable of recognizing that his inability to have feelings of love for his wife and children was not the norm for him. At his worst he was capable of recognizing something was not right with him. I do not believe my brother is the exception I think more people who go through midlife depression act contrary to what we have come to believe is typical of a MLC – as LBS’s we experience a different version of midlife crisis and this is what is reflected on this forum and in the media in general as typical of a MLC. However my brother experienced a MLC, diagnosed as such by two therapists, and yet his ability to rise above his symptoms of discontent, anxiety, paranoia, grief, hopelessness etc and not act like the “typical” MLCer on this forum brings into question how was he able to react differently. Instead he sought therapy, anti-depressants, meditation, running and yoga and of course to ride out the deep cyclical waves of depression he resorted to online gaming till the small hours of the morning - a far less destructive coping mechanism for his depression. Five years later he has recovered and has an amazing appetite for life and a more peaceful look on life – he no longer sweats the small stuff.
I do not think that my brother is the exception – this forum is about the MLcer who bails and becomes self destructive. We don’t typically get to see the MLCer who is more self aware – I was personally privy to my brothers MLC and that has obviously coloured the way I perceive MLC. My question at the time was - What caused my ex to experience his MLC that is typical of this forum? and what caused my brother to react in a completely opposite manner? The thing is that their MLC was experienced one year apart and I got to see these complete opposite behaviours. Finally, I sat down and started to write down the family dynamics in my ex’s family and his childhood experiences and then I did the same for my brother. It was like chalk and cheese. And that is why my perspective about MLC has changed and I concluded from my subjective observations that how we react is in large part based on this inner core belief system, that is so much a part of us, we often don’t know what it really is until in times of crisis and that’s why it’s that unconscious part of us. This core belief has enabled you as the LBS to take a more compassionate route, however there are just as many if not more LBS’s who have taken the route of recrimination, blame, hate and unforgiveness. So what makes your reaction different to theirs?? For me it’s an inner belief system.
Of course I denied this perspective for a very long time I found comfort in the MLC theory on this forum to explain the poor choices ex was making. But in the end I could not escape that I was being presented with the contrast between Ex and my brother. I believe what made my brother’s reaction different to the typical MLC is his core values, his core belief system which enabled him to still have that voice of reason that told him something was not okay – “That voice that said I should feel love for my wife and children, that the urge to cut and run is not what i really wanted deep down inside, that i must still have feelings of love for my family only they are buried under an overwhelming sense of hopelessness” – his words not mine.
The same can be said for something like postpartum depression – only woman who have psychotic episodes may land up killing their babies however psychotic episodes are very, very rare and not every woman who has one kills her baby so again what separates the woman who kills from the one who doesn’t. And maybe the reason for my perspective, while very simplistic compared to discussion on this thread, is that it is based (like every other theory here) on subjective experience.
In the end we all want the same thing to find closure – the thing is that at some point it has to come because I certainly do not want to still be here another 6 years down the line still focusing on ex while he lives his life to the best of his ability without any thought spared on his past – we all deserve to let it all go and move on – unless of course you have made a decision to stand then I guess you have a different course of action.
Take care
moment
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Moment,
Very good and thoughtful post!
I certainly can't understand what makes an MLCer do one thing vs. the other. It has been said that those who are more aware and do not run....experience an MLT (Mid Life Transition) vs. the MLC that many of us experience.
I don't know if belief systems have an impact or not. There are MLCers who had strong religious beliefs - who went against those beliefs and had affairs...abandoned their families. While others, like my Ex, who had no religious belief systems - and did the same thing.
I think it has more to do with the ability to cope with the feelings of depression and the willingness to talk to someone about those feelings (a therapist or advisor - NOT an OW/OM). My Ex had no coping skills. Running...addictions....and blaming others are the bulk of his "coping skills."
In MLC - they are said to become the opposite of what they were. Going against their own belief system seems to be the new normal.
Again...this is just my own opinion, based upon what I have experienced and seen.
Very good discussion.
L
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unless of course you have made a decision to stand then I guess you have a different course of action.
Yes, many here are standers. :)
I hope the end result is that MLC becomes acknowledged in the same way other disorders are. I hope that acknowledgment by the medical community can provide alternatives to the experiences we are having for others in the future, just like I hope more natural treatments and cures become the norm in the future for everything. The mentally ill used to just be put away and now we understand that's not proper treatment. We'll evolve with this too, I believe. Several here in this conversation are even members of the medical community, so their interest is really a huge step in the right direction, and gives credibility to these concepts.
But you and I have different beliefs on this, moment. I don't aim to change yours. We all must walk our own path. And self-healing vs. taking interest in MLC study are not mutually exclusive, as many of us exhibit. I am defensive of my fellow LBSs when it is suggested otherwise.
Love that oxytocin link, Hmmm! I know Anjae first brought up cortisol many discussions ago. I know I've got a link somewhere that talks about how when estrogen and testosterone are low, it's not the other that replaces it - it's cortisol - and this leads to an array of mental issues. Some MLCers have responded positively to testosterone treatment (not sure if any of the guys have chimed in about their wives taking estrogen replacement), but I know for mine his levels were in a healthy range when he was tested in 2010. More "umbrella" thinking for MLC, which I agree with completely. My dad always uses the comparison, where asthma and emphysema are different disorders, both fall under the umbrella of COPD. MLC is like that (in my mind). Which is why we all belong here. :)
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Hi Limitless
Thank you :D and yes maybe copying skills is the better term. When i say belief system i do not mean a religious system i guess i keep using the wrong terminology - i guess i mean an inner value system - my brother and i are not particularly religious and in fact we do not follow a religion we were however raised in a less dysfunctional family with a stronger sense of doing no harm - we were raised to be kind but not because God said so just because it is one of the only real things you can offer another living being. having said this as a family we had our ups and downs but the downs never pulled us apart and we tended to rally around each other. Ex had a very different experience and i know he never really knew how to be supportive especially when the chips were down.
take care
moment
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Hi R2T
accepted - we are on different paths - while i may challenge the norm it is not done to anger but rather to free the soul
wish you well
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Hi Limitless
Thank you :D and yes maybe copying skills is the better term. When i say belief system i do not mean a religious system i guess i keep using the wrong terminology - i guess i mean an inner value system - my brother and i are not particularly religious and in fact we do not follow a religion we were however raised in a less dysfunctional family with a stronger sense of doing no harm - we were raised to be kind but not because God said so just because it is one of the only real things you can offer another living being. having said this as a family we had our ups and downs but the downs never pulled us apart and we tended to rally around each other. Ex had a very different experience and i know he never really knew how to be supportive especially when the chips were down.
take care
moment
Hi Moment,
I am the one who used the term "religious" values....all of us have an inner value system (even though, for MLCers, I would question this :-\). You are not using the wrong terminology. I understood what you meant regarding belief systems. It is just difficult to for me to understand how someone with ANY type of belief system could justify (within himself) how adultery and abandonment would fit into ANY belief system??!!??
Neither my Ex nor I are religious. (In spite of the fact, just before BD, my Ex started going to Church! This is so ridiculous - as, later, I found out that he had started going to Church to help convince OW#1 that she was actually is true wife (as they were married in the Church) and I was a 30 year affair!). It is all so laughable now...how crazy is that? Attending Church to persuade someone to sleep with you? Did I say that I believe MLCers are crazy?
I think an MLCer either abandons his inner belief system and/or manages to justify how his actions fit within that belief system. (Which is all part of MLC, isn't it? Minimizing the damage caused, denying the responsibility, blaming everyone else?
It's all par for the course.
L
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Hi Limitless
It is crazy??? and very confusing and like you i will never, ever understand how someone who professed to love you could be so deliberately hurtful and at times down right cruel - for me in the beginning it was such a difficult reality to accept because i had believed my ex to be kind and compassionate but that's the thing - i had seen him be unkind at times but i excused his behaviour and denied he was capable of being spiteful. Maybe because this side to him only reared its ugly head on rare occasions. I guess we are all capable of showing our darkest qualities but how dark these qualities become once again boils down to that inner value system which for me includes the ability to be empathetic. Do we ever truly see someone - when we love them we view them through the lens of love which often includes denial of certain traits we are unwilling to accept about that person.
But at the end of the day all i know with any real certainty is that I don't know and will never really know.
maybe it's as simple as the following tale
An Old Cherokee Tale of Two Wolves
One evening an old Cherokee Indian told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, ‘My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.’
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: ‘Which wolf wins?’
The old Cherokee simply replied, ‘The one you feed.’
https://wizdompath.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/an-old-cherokee-tale-of-two-wolves/
moment
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Hi R2T
accepted - we are on different paths - while i may challenge the norm it is not done to anger but rather to free the soul
Moment you have used the word "offended" a few times because you have been expressing your personal point of view. This does not offend me in the least. This is how we learn.
However, you have also insinuated that somehow those of us who believe that there is a scientific basis for MLC are somehow not looking critically at our relationships. Comments such as:
so for me i think once we become okay to leave this behind and accept not really knowing we can then start to put the same effort we have put into understanding our MLCer into understanding ourselves and our need for answers and how we can find peace from it all.
its just that what I would like for all of you is that you move on to a place of acceptance that you invested yourself in someone who was not capable of doing the same for you – there is no real explanation or reason for it, it just is. I truly hope you can all move on with your lives in peace and joy.
it is not done to anger but rather to free the soul
I am not in your shoes. I did not live your marriage. However, I am experiencing a good life, a rich and full life and an acceptance of the way things have turned out for me. Understanding MLC from a scientific approach has not hindered my growth in any way.
Perhaps it is because I am a nurse that I am interested in human behavior and what causes physical or psychological disorders. I, and others have often commented that if this was not happening to me and my family, I would find the whole concept of MLC rather fascinating.
I personally think that something "happened" to our spouses when they were very young, developmental, trauma and/or physiological that laid the groundwork for their crisis to occur several decades later. I personally also feel that there is a strong spiritual component in the destruction of the family on so many levels in our society and the general acceptance of divorce. We share, as you have shared your thoughts about what we believe, about MLC, about the world. One person's thoughts do not merit more than another's. It's fine for each of us to come to the conclusions that we do in order to experience growth.
Sometimes I think we feel that the LBSer must get "better" much faster than they do....I would say it took me 5 years to start to feel alive again, some will take less time, others will take more time but I do think that almost all of us will eventually come to a place of acceptance and peace. In nursing, I studied the term "homeostasis" which in simple terms is "The tendency of the body to seek and maintain a condition of balance or equilibrium within its internal environment, even when faced with external changes."
However, homeostasis goes beyond physiological balance and indeed when looking at a person holistically also takes into account their psychological equilibrium as well.
During MLC, the person is certainly not acting as a "balanced individual" but the pendulum can certainly swing the other way, indeed the body will almost demand that it does to come to a state of homeostasis whereby things function more normally and perhaps more calmly.
So, understanding of MLC doesn't mean that I am stuck or not progressing. For me, the ability to reflect on causes of this crisis actually allows me to let go of any thoughts that I caused this or that somehow it is my fault. As well, and again this was my experience, I never saw a cruel or unkind thing in my husband, not towards me, nor towards others. Thus, I do not condemn him for his misfortune for having a crisis because understanding possible causes allows me to realize that this is not some random event. It is happening and he is not at fault for it (although many will disagree with me, these are just my own beliefs).
I am sorry if in any way you feel that I am not taking you seriously but I don't like to be put into a category of somehow being less than healed because I believe that the crisis has measurable and real biological causes.
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Moment, I don't know is something that scientists use, usually to propel them to know more.
Your idea that there must be something wrong with our husbands come from your experience with your husband, a man you meet when he was the OM in a one night stand. You cannot use that experience and conclude that there must be something psychologically or emotionally flawed with our pre-MLC MLCers. It would not be scientifically valid.
You're preaching to the choir, Moment. The members who usually participate in this science oriented threads are fully aware that the more science discovers, the more aware we are we haven't even scrap the tip of the iceberg. Yes, it also applies to the brain.
Even if big advancements and new discoveries have been made of late. Research, be it on brain issues, or as on cancer, is ongoing. And there has been many new discoveries, possibilities, etc. found recently.
The paradigm has already shifted when it comes to mental and neurological disorders. A lot. All you need to do is to think how those were view 30, 40, even 20 years ago. Not to mention 100 years ago.
In fact, I think it is the other way round, the more we know, the more we may be able to understand what causes MLC (or any other illness). Or which are its main causes. And how to mitigate, if not treat it.
For now, we don't know for sure, but people who deal and study MLC, all seem to agree stress plays a big part in it.
But none of that changes that, essentially, what you wanted to make us believe, was that because your husband was not at his best when you meet him, the same would apply to our spouses.
Your original basis was not neuroscience, or genetics, or even psychology related, it was related with you husband's behaviour, and you extrapolate from there. You offered a view that maybe the problem was that the LBS may not knew the person they had married. Which makes no sense. Some of us had been with our MLCer for decades, often since we were in our late teens. And we all noticed a sudden, drastic change.
Their MLC behaviour is a huge contrast with their pre-MLC one. But what brought our spouses behaviour change was MLC. They were not like that before. While that most certainly had to with neurobiological alterations, it does not mean we did not knew our pre-MLC spouses. Nor that in their normal state our spouses would behave the way your husband did when you meet him. Do you understand the difference?
We understand ourselves, we are in peace with our selves. At least we old timers are. That does not mean we have to stop having a scientific interest in MLC. And I cannot see what is so wrong with wanting to know more about an issue that destroys so many families.
If you do not know about Freud and Jung, it may be a little difficult to know how much things have changed since they come up with their theories. And how much of their theories is still valid or in use. I did not made an assumption, you were the one who brought up the unconscious belief system, and suggested that our MLCers may be operating under such unconscious belief system. The unconscious is the realm of Freud and Jung. If you brought the unconscious up, if you are talking about psychology, it is only logic to think you know the men who come up with the idea and their theories. Otherwise, you are talking about things you do not know, nor how they have evolved over time.
No, I do not think we are making assumptions about MLC. Our ideas about MLC come from have read those who do studies with people going through life crisis, those who work with neuroscience/neurobiology, of having taking courses on those subjects, on being nurses (Kikki and Xyzcf), doctors (OSB), and people who have been reading and researching MLC in several ways, including RCR.
Your brother did not have a midlife crisis, he had a midlife transition. If he have had a midlife crisis he would have done the same things all MLCers do. People who go through a midlife transition act they way your brother did, people who have a MLC act the way our MLCers do. Many psychologists, doctors even, confuse midlife transition with midlife crisis. What we deal with here is crisis.
You cannot compare your brother with your husband. It is like comparing a common cold with pneumonia. Your brother is no exception when it comes to midlife transition. He would be an exception when it comes to real midlife crisis because he was not having one.
I know two psychologists said he had MLC, but many psychologists never dealt with a real MLC. Or if they had, they may had done as with my cousin, and said he had every existing mental illness, from schizophrenia to bipolar, not leaving out borderline.
My cousin had all of them at the same time. Except he does not have any of them. We was in MLC. And now he is back to his old self. Do you remember what OSB wrote "You can get the same symptoms in completely different diseases - that doesn't mean that someone who's depressed and starts hearing voices has suddenly become schizophrenic, but that a non-schizophrenic individual can also suffer hallucinations by virtue of being depressed. "?
One can have something that looks like MLC and not be MLC, and have something that is MLC and the doctors think is every other mental illness in the book.
The reason who separates the woman with post-partum depression that kills the baby from the one who does not is the severity of her depression as well as how much the hormones affected her. It is a question of degree. All illnesses have degrees. Mild or soft is very different from extreme and hard.
...I don't like to be put into a category of somehow being less than healed because I believe that the crisis has measurable and real biological causes.
Nor do I. I think you are projecting your personal experience upon us.
Velika, you may be interested in check http://www.mcmanweb.com/ It is a site by John
McManamy, a man that suffers from bipolar. The whole site is very interesting, and
in the Treatment part he has several articles on meds/SSRI, their effects, etc.
I don't have any real life examples of people who took multiple travel vaccines and had it kick a MLC. Kikki said it happened to her husband. I do not doubt her. But, for me, it is a coincidence. I also do not know any parents whose children have been transformed overnight by an adverse reaction to vaccines. There are, and has been, many children in the family in its several generations. None of us was ever affected by vaccines. Same goes to friends, acquaintances, etc.
I know there is a certain trend against/not so nice towards vaccines, especially in the US, where parents have the option of not give vaccines to their children; I also know that some people have adverse reactions to vaccines, but personally I have never meet anyone to whom that has happened. And none of the real life MLCers I know has had a vaccines combo before they hit MLC.
So, while it may be a fact for the odd case, I do not think it is so for most. And we can never rule out that it may be only a coincidence.
No, we cannot do brain scans. We can't even made our MCLers to see a doctor, let alone do brain scans to them.
From my real life experience, yes, most people come out of MLC. Here in the site you will find a group of newbies, of people who are no longer standing, people whose spouses have come, or are coming out of crisis, people whose spouses have come out of crisis but have long stop posting, and many people who will not be around enough time for us to know what happened. In a way, the forum is a passing by place for many. They come here in the early days, then either stop coming or they come but do not post.
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Just saw this on BBC news on new technology to look at the brain and examine specifically for mental health issues
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-35589927
Why the brain is a marvel of evolution. Awesome cutting edge stuff.
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Hi
Once again I apologise if I caused offence - XYZCF I am in no way implying you are not healed because you are trying to figure out what happened to your MLCer - all I am saying from a very subjective point of view, let me reiterate this is my subjective point of view - it does not make it right or wrong - it just makes it a different way of looking at things which are very much based on my personal experience of H - I have never denied my perspective is subjective and I certainly did not mean to imply you are not healed or that your perspective is wrong on the contrary I was trying to add to the bag of information with something more simple and less convoluted.
Really the intention behind everything I have said is to assist us with healing all the way - (I am not implying some of you are not healed) but some of us like me are still on the healing journey. Whatever I have said I have included myself in that box I certainly have not meant to point the finger at anyone. I guess never a more true word said that with text chatting one looses the tone and body language of the person so we may mis-interpret the manner in which the message is delivered and therefore the context of what is being said. And I think this has happened here.
I understand perfectly that we all have to take our own journey to healing and that trying to understand MLC is one path - one that I took myself or I would not be on this forum - so why would I be critical of you??????- I was just trying to share my subjective insights because maybe there are some people on this forum who struggle with accepting MLC as the only explanation because their experience may have been more similar to mine than yours or a mixture of mine and yours and so maybe both perspectives apply.
I was not trying to oppose your point of view of the MLC theory I was just trying to add more subjective experience and observation to all the information out there. And maybe my different subjective view while disagreeable to some has at least got you thinking and defending your subjective experience. This should be seen in a positive light.
At the end of the day I was simply trying to help people by offering a different point of view but it seems I have done more harm than good so I will leave this as my last communication. Once again I apologise for any offence caused.
moment
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I believe MLC is a perfect storm ... For me and my MLCer it came at a time of family and personal stress, MLCers stress leads to hormonal/neurological imbalances, there's family of origin issues and childhood trauma, repeating familial patterns, spiritual/core belief confusion, impulsive urges, a general "f*** it I'm worth it" attitude and becoming part of a group of people working closely together on an exciting project which has nothing to do with his wife and family which becomes more important than his wife and family. I read something the other day about how we behave according to the crowd we are surrounded by and I saw that in my MLCer for sure.
It's all the things you talk about here and more.
As a community we are sharing first hand experiences, and our experiences are so similar and yet each unique. We also pool discoveries from the medical, psychological, philosophical worlds. All of this helps us to understand a shocking situation.
I was reading about an ancient philosopher, Heraclitus who believed life was made up of opposites that are unified. One thing cannot exist without the opposite other. He believed everything was in flux. In my experience this is true of love, there are times of love and times of tension. For me my Hs MLC is a time of tension. There will be love again, I know. I don't know if it will be with my H.
For him he will feel less stressed and might return to his former self. But, as we say here, for him to really know himself he will have to confront some difficult truths. Or he may find peace and love in his new persona and live happily ever after? 🙄🙄🙄Who knows.
In MLC I believe the shadow self dominates, previously the shadow self showed up every now and again. But when the crisis passes maybe the lighter self emerges dominant again? (My H believes he stepped into the light when he left me, that I was the dark shadow that ruined his life 🙄). Just watch Return of the Jedi and see how Darth finally overcomes his shadow self and saves his son's life!!! Darth didn't want to acknowledge his former self, Anakin, he had metamorphosised. But he eventually returned to that original self. Light did overcome dark. it might seem silly providing Star Wars as a metaphor for MLC but Star Wars is a modern day folk tale and folk tales deal with life, what it is to be human. Not unlike your Native American tale Moment.
These ideas don't discount the scientific, neurological discoveries. They enhance them. Depression is darkness. Stress is darkness. Chemical balance and equilibrium is lightness.
For me it is the human condition to want to know. That is why we continue to discuss and hypothesise about MLC. We are curious, we want to know why good lives can suddenly take a nose dive. Science, philosophy, theology and ourselves, instinct or intuition can provide answers, but theories and thoughts are ever changing, they're in flux. So we continue to discover more possibilities.
So grateful to have discovered such a compassionate, curious bunch of people.
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Beautiful, TT!
These ideas don't discount the scientific, neurological discoveries. They enhance them. Depression is darkness. Stress is darkness. Chemical balance and equilibrium is lightness.
Such a lovely way to say it.
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NPR radio ran a story today about testosterone and older men- sure sounded like MLC symptoms to me. The ones who did NOT receive the placebo gel had a dramatic change in mood and libido.
Food for thought.
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http://www.nbcnews.com/health/mens-health/testosterone-gel-gives-some-men-back-their-pep-study-finds-n520371
is the link about what FTT talked about regarding testosterone replacement benefits.
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New Washington Post article on the biology of mental health:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/02/19/brain-hacking-the-minds-biology/?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_brainhacking%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
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Great article and really promising. Nice point that psychiatry often targets the symptoms not the source of the problem.
I wish MLC were identified as mental illness so we could encourage our spouses to get the medical help they need.
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Excellent article, thanks IANTE :)
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Excellent article, IANTE.
However, I think sometimes a little bit of middle of the road is necessary. The ambient a person lives in plays a part in how a person feels.
If someone lives, lets say, in a poor, troubled with drugs, alcohol and violence neighbourhood or house, just working on the person's brain is not going to do it. Once the person returns to the neighbourhood or house, the same ambient still exists, the person will easily fall back into the same mental/emotional state.
And EEG and working on brain circuitry, will not solve hormonal problems. However, combined with blood tests, they will allow for a broad view into a person's health state/issues.
Now, how do we send all our MLCers to Dr. Asif? ::)
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Fascinating stuff. My mum's an EEG technician. Maybe she could go into business retraining people's alpha waves-lots of money in it!
X
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I agree, Anjae, that MLC is a multifaceted problem and a "solution" would likely have to take neurology, hormones and environment into account. Hopefully an approach like Dr. Asif's will be one more tool in the toolkit.
Funny you should mention environment - about four months post-BD, H asked me if I thought he should pursue job opportunities closer to me and D11. I replied that I thought he should stay put and work on himself without any interference from me or anyone else. Nearly four years later, he's still stuck in the same environment and repeating the same patterns of behavior ...
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My ex was always capable of betrayal I just chose not to see that. Bearing in mind that while ex has married OW he was cheating on her during their “in-love” phase. So how much he loved her raises a big question mark. Having said this I do not believe he ever loved me either, he loved what I brought to his life.
a...This really hits home for me!
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Nearly four years later, he's still stuck in the same environment and repeating the same patterns of behavior ...
IANTE, nearly 10 years later, Mr J is still doing the same. ::) The ambient a MLCer may get itself into, can, IMO, contribute to the length of their crisis.
On the other hand, wallowers (the MLCer who never leave), can remain in the same place/crisis for years on end.
Most likely the ambient inside the MLCer is more or less the same for many years.
Dr. Asif methods seem very interesting. Integrated with hormones, ambient, etc, it could really had a positive effect on a MLCer, when they are not deep into the fog. Providing, of course, it would be possible to have the MLCer accepting to attend an appointment with Dr. Asif.
A thing I'm not entirely sure is possible. But maybe Dr. Asif could be a good option once the MLCer is out of the fog.
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Interesting article about testosterone and memory. As many of us have noticed "dementia"-like thinking patterns this may be of interest:
http://blogs.plos.org/neuro/2016/02/22/testosterone-beyond-sex/
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new thread: http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=7709.0