[kikki]

I guess my question was more to the degree of behavior due to messed up brain chemistry.  In other words what makes one mother experiencing post partem depression recognize that things are not normal and seeks help and the mother who actually land up hurting her baby.

What separates those MLCer's who choose to destroy everything and those who recognize something is off?  What is it that separates the person who is experiencing a chemical abnormality yet has the consciousness to recognize it and the person experiencing a similar imbalance succumbing to the chemical imbalance with very little awareness that anything is wrong?

If their morals, behaviours and character are completely 'out of character', then I would think the above questions would have to do with the degree of severity of whatever is malfunctioning in the brain.

[Blindsided again]

Yes, bipolar is mood disorder as I'm all to familiar with it due to having a grandmother that was institutionalized many times, a few cousins, and 2 aunts, they exhibited signs of this as teens, just as puberty hit. My H never exhibited any signs in 25yrs that I knew him, depression yes.

Oh depression, the worst, I have suffered for sever depression since I was 12, I'm 46 now, I have been on just about every cocktail of drugs available, even the mood disorder drugs. I think we who have dealt with this, deal differentl. I would never, ever thought of leaving my family. But I haven't gone through MLC, gosh hope I never do, menopause will be just about all I can handle!! Lol.....just like with post partem, you have cases where mothers harmed their children, others severe depression with thoughts never acted on. The brain, that huge complicated organ!!! Hopefully science will figure it out someday!!!

As for sever trauma, just my opinion, as all of the above is....I think when a person has suffered some form of trauma so severe as a child, to,protect themselves, they block. .especially if the grown ups around them have failed to act, or abandoned them. My H had such trauma, for first 3 yrs of our R I barely could get it out of him, and took years for him o share about 95%. He has unresolved issues, he knows it, I think low T and other things. Excuse, I'm not sure. If any sort of mental illness I can't buy it as an excuse, as mental illness is not to be excused. This is not just someone going off to have good time. This is someone who has dissasocciated himself from all the life he knew....and really for no concrete reasons other then..."wanting to be alone"

All confusing, all a puzzle...for me it does all boil down to messed up wiring of the brain that has something to do with this specific age that causes a short circuit...my analogy. Then it is puzzling why some react, others don't, but they know something is wrong.....whew

[Anjae]

If their morals, behaviours and character are completely 'out of character', then I would think the above questions would have to do with the degree of severity of whatever is malfunctioning in the brain.

Agree. The severity of the malfunctioning brain.

Sorry that you have so many relatives with bipolar, BA. And that you've had to battle with depression yourself.

Yes, a person who suffered trauma (child or adult) can block it. The blocking will lead to frustration and hurt, frustration and hurt will lead to anger, anger will lead to depression/mania, depression/mania will lead to MLC.

When a person who has been bottle up trauma reaches breaking point, all hell gets loose. Even those who would acknowledge their trauma/hurts, if too stressed will break/run.

[a]

Hi Kiki. Blindsided again and Anjae

Thank you for answering.  I guess the reason i am asking is i am beginning to question if i really ever knew the moral standing of my XH.  Dr Phil says we often fill in the gaps - seeing what we want to see not the reality of that person.  Where my xH is concerned - i am beginning to question how much goes to brain chemistry, how much goes to issue of abandonment in childhood and how much is a lack of morality.  But more importantly i have realized i am a rather naive person i take people at face value and i make the silly assumption that their intentions are good because that is the place i come from, and these are the people who are in my life - my family and my friends.

But you see before i started dating XH - i discovered XH had a one night stand (sex) with a woman who was engaged to be married - he had no regard or respect for his fellow man.  His brothers cheated on their partners many times and i am beginning to get this sneaky feeling that XH may have cheated on me prior to MLC.

XH's brothers also at one stage owned and operated an escort agency which is a nice way of saying a brothel.  When i see how my brother handled his depression (MLC) and how XH did they could not be more different.  I sometimes wonder if XH tried to live up to the moral integrity of my family - he used to say that he felt closer to my family than his.  This is in part because my family are warm and affectionate people and also, unlike his brothers who for the most part only contacted XH when they needed money, my family were the givers not the takers.

That is why i question whether for some MLCers it goes to character (moral integrity).


take care
moment

 

[kikki]

That is why i question whether for some MLCers it goes to character (moral integrity).

This is where each of us needs to take a good look at the person our spouse was, their FOO, who we are and what our marriage actually was.
Each situation and each MLCer is different even though they all seem to run with this script.

By taking an honest outside view of it all, we will all work out whether this person is someone that we want back in our lives.
Some people feel their spouse always had morality/control/narcissistic issues and the crisis has just ramped up those attitudes and behaviours.
Others feel that this is so completely out of character (the crisis behaviours) that this is absolutely nothing like the person that they were.

Having said that, no one is perfect.  We all display narcissistic traits at times, but the morality/character issues would be tougher to reconcile if they had always been there. Unless someone wanted to do a whole lot of work on themselves and get help to develop their character in a more positive way.  Not sure what the chances of that happening would be though.  Kind of remote I would imagine.

[a]

Thank you Kiki

[Trustandlove]

I hope this is in keeping with the topic here; I was going to bring up NLP -- Neuro-linguistic programming.

From what I read this has basically been discredited as a science, it's more a pseudo-science and therapy trick; there is no real regulation on it.

I wonder about what effect it could have, however, as my H behaviour changed (in the months before BD) pretty much in tune with an alternative therapist that we all visited, who used these techniques.

I do know that the practitioner was the original alienator, who took a look at my lovely family and said "I'll have that"; she pumped me for loads of information which I then realised she used on him.....

My H became very defensive when I started saying it seemed cult-like; that was pretty soon before BD, and he was already mentally somewhere else.

There are some who say that these techniques can only work on someone who already is thinking about doing whatever is being suggested; the same way that an OW can only get her hooks into someone who is "available" in the first place. 

But I wonder.  I do get the idea that men feel shame, and if they felt shame over having been pulled in they might do anything to never admit that they were had, including never returning to a family they loved. 

Does anyone know more? 

I know that someone once said about things like this, that it is "very easy to get into someone's head, but very hard to get out of it again", i.e. that an unscrupulous practitioner could put all sorts of things "in", and then say "not my problem", when it caused havoc in that person's life....

My H did at one point admit that he had got mixed up with crazy people, and seemed to be moving towards me, reaching out, reaching out, only to go right back in.

Can this have an effect like addiction?  I've seen my H move away from things like this, only to snap back in, displaying all the behaviours of someone addicted. 

[Anjae]

I hope this is in keeping with the topic here; I was going to bring up NLP -- Neuro-linguistic programming.

Totally in line with the topic. 

Some time ago, I looked a bit into Neuro-linguistic programming. Can't say I have become a fan.

Like you said, it is not a science, it is a therapy trick. I know it used in business. Not something I would get myself in.

Agree, it is "very easy to get into someone's head, but very hard to get out of it again". But in the case of MLC, the MLCer would go down the shadows no matter what. They may feel more validated if a therapists told them to this or that, but they would still go into the whole MLC path.

[Trustandlove]

A counsellor once told me that it must have been that which gave him "permission" to let the selfish side of himself loose....   

He said that we all have those selfish tendencies, but that we generally keep them in check.  But in crisis cases (but this C didn't really believe in MLC) some kind of switch gets flipped, and they stop controlling those tendencies. 

So the selfishness takes over.

[Velika]

IANTE, this is amazing information. It definitely seems like something must be going on in the frontal lobes.

I had never heard of pseudopsychopathic but have often felt like my MLC-H is acting like a psychopath. I will have to research what can lead to this condition, do you know?

NLP could in no way cause MLC behaviors. I have read a lot about it and in fact even tried myself, with positive results. It isn't hypnosis, and nothing is imposed. I think that if someone in MLC got interested in NLP it would fall under category of a hobby/obsession, just like my MLC-H now dabbles with shamanism but shamanism didn't cause his MLC.