[Velika]

A friend recently discovered her daughter has PANDAS after sudden onset of OCD and personality changes. Like me, she has spent the year researching personality change, brain chemistry, etc. She actually told me she did read about just what we were describing here -- umbrella term "midlife crisis" -- bus suspected to have deeper neurological/chemical origins.

I was curious has anyone here researched MLC-PANDAS-type link? My friend's daughter's symptoms and changes, like MLC, came on very suddenly and changes were drastic. She was lucky she was able to ID quickly and get treatment (and she can insist because her daughter is eight, not 43). It makes you wonder, though, as PANDAS onset is also quick with personality and behavior changes. Only recently was it understood to be physical in origin.

previous thread: http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=6315.0

[kikki]

This is along similar lines to the research I did on adult delirium. If you google it, you'll see many similarities with what we are dealing with, but it's now an accepted medical event because it tends to be picked up while people are in hospital.

[Velika]

Kikki, very interesting. I guess the big question is, if this is biochemical, what is the common thread? What do all of our spouses have in common?

[xyzcf]

if this is biochemical, what is the common thread? What do all of our spouses have in common?

I am not sure that all of our spouses have to have the same biochemical/developmental/ physiological cause.

Let's take something like heart disease. There are many factors that cause heart attack and stroke. Your risk increases with the number of risk factors you have but people can have different factors yet still end up in cardiac arrest.

So, cardiovascular disease can be due to obesity, smoking, genetic history, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, stress, lack of physical activity, unhealthy diets and/or harmful use of alcohol. Some young women who take birth control pills will have a stroke.

So, unlike infectious diseases, that have a specific cause, other illness can be due to many factors. We have all heard of an athlete who has a heart attack, often due to heart malformations that were never detected.

So too with our spouses. There have been several possible reasons for their crisis but there is no definitive test to determine what caused such a break in their personality.

[Anjae]

What do all of our spouses have in common?

Stress. High levels of it.

[scooter]

I agree with stress and the fact they don't talk about their feelings and bottle it up and it is a silent killer to their relationships.

[MyBrainIsBroken]

I was just looking at the symptoms for adult delirium and I have a lot of them. 

High levels of stress does appear to be a common factor along with a recent crisis event such as the death of a close relative or a severe illness experienced by the MLCer or someone close to them.

[isabella4567]

I agree with stress and the fact they don't talk about their feelings and bottle it up and it is a silent killer to their relationships.

My husband was a poster child about not talking about his feelings. He often said he did not want a partner  that´s too much up and down or wanting to talk about "feelings" all the time - and neither was he himself that type. We never fought - which I see now as a major red flag. Also, interestingly, in regards to feelings, if I ever showed anger about something,  - not even directed at him but maybe about another person or a situation, that was the worst for him and an absolut "no-no" in his eyes.
I ask myself now if he bottled up his feelings,  or - as I suspect him to be a narcissist - if he was not able to experience true feelings in the first place. But either way a silent killer to the relationship, that is for sure.

[Velika]

Isabella, my husband was exact same. He didn't like to talk about strong feelings and if I were ever upset with someone/something -- he couldn't stand it. I have had exact same question as you, was he just incapable of true feelings? Was he a narcissist? Or worse a sociopath?

[Ready2Transform]

I'm going to sound like my MIL when I say this, and I really hate that.    But they're likely not sociopaths. They're men.

Mine was probably more emotive than most. "Passionate" is a word i like to use, but only about some topics. He was also extremely sensitive and non-confrontational, so even though he would have a lot of strong feelings about something, he would likely wait until he couldn't do anything BUT express it, and that would usually manifest in a way that had more energy than it should have. A blow up or a breakdown. My father is the same way, and also a sensitive and artistic man.

Men are still taught, many times, to not show emotion because that it's a sign of weakness. Boys don't cry. You would think we would be past that mentality by now, but I think we see a lot of evidence here that our spouses are at least part of a generation that still experienced that. I think in MLC (or maybe even before, for some) our spouses projected that stance upon us because we were a reflection or extension of them (as my MLCer said, I was "the right hand that I had to cut off to save the rest.").

They're messed up, but I do think many of us spend time thinking we judged them wrong our whole relationship when we didn't. This is just a really specific kind of breakdown. We couldn't have seen it coming, and we couldn't have stopped it. Invisible powder keg.