[Velika]

I think that someone who was abusive, controlling, unfaithful, impulsive, duplicitous, irresponsible throughout marriage is working out childhood issues.

I think someone who is basically responsible and then suddenly isn't -- or basically calm and sudddnly isn't -- has experienced some sort of neurological problem that has to do with brain structure and susceptibility to environmental triggers, including stress, hormones, depression, medication, and even gut flora imbalance.

That said, I think there are likely many things going on on this this forum. Some might be things that lead to same behavior for neurological reasons and some may lead to the same behavior for psychological reasons.

I think if you see extreme and self destructive behavior with sudden onset accompanied by physical symptoms it is likely neurological. I have very extreme "high energy" MLCer with family history of mental illness, depression, and MLC -- as well as FOO stemming from all of these. I can see how it is a fine line.

[MyBrainIsBroken]

Exactly. Good example. You can't just look at someone and say they should be fine because others have gone through the same or worse. It doesn't work that way.

Thunder mentioned an inability to handle stress. They've proven that certain highly stressful or traumatic events occurring at specific points during a child's development can permanently alter the structure of their brain in a way that reduces that person's ability to handle stress and makes them more susceptible to lifetime problems with depression and PTSD. Other events can cause alternate ego states to develop that can lie dormant for years or even decades until something happens that triggers the emergence of the alternate ego state.

BTW, the concept of multiple personality disorder is no longer accepted. The current belief is that everyone has just one personality but they can have multiple ego states and that the personality can become fractured.

Many conversion disorders, fugue states, and other conspicuous amnestic disorders present few or no problems in diagnosis. However, making the diagnosis in less clear-cut situations can be challenging (Abse, 1966). Clues to the presence of dissociative disorders and ego-state problems include amnesia for significant portions of childhood, childhood recollections of trauma or information from family members that such trauma occurred, and a history of marked changes in behavior during childhood. Patients who are highly responsive to hypnosis should always be screened for dissociative symptoms. The presence of symptoms that are ego-dystonic is an important clue. So also is the presence of the "language of parts" within the interview situation. The patient who says, "a part of me wants to do this, and another part wants to do that," is expressing a divided self and may be a candidate for ego-state exploration, as is the patient who says, "I found myself doing thus-and-so, and it just wasn't like me at all."

Sometimes using the language of poetry and metaphor to describe symptoms (Frederick, 1993) for example, using terms such as "pools of sadness" or "wellings" to describe depressive symptoms is suggestive of dissociative problems. Intrusive behaviors such as muscular jerking or trembling, tics, spasms, tightness, a loss of motor power, or minimal voice changes should alert the therapist to the possibility of a dissociative disorder.

Within the sensory realm such phenomena as transient pain, parasthesias, itching, "weird" feelings of heaviness or lightness can suggest such problems. Other behaviors that raise an index of suspicion are certain psychophysiologic reactions indicative of post-traumatic stress, such as nausea, headache, diarrhea, or vasomotor changes. Marked changes of affect or affects out of proportion to the individual's current situation are also suspect. Finally, refractoriness or unresponsiveness to treatment should always lead the clinician to suspect an undetected dissociative condition meriting hypnotic exploration.
http://www.maggiephillipsphd.com/product_book1_chap1.html

I thought this was interesting since I've been diagnosed with a dissociative disorder and both my wife and I have developed unexplained facial tics over the past few years. The part about patients finding themselves doing something that wasn't like them at all is also interesting.

I think that someone who was abusive, controlling, unfaithful, impulsive, duplicitous, irresponsible throughout marriage is working out childhood issues.

I think someone who is basically responsible and then suddenly isn't -- or basically calm and sudddnly isn't -- has experienced some sort of neurological problem that has to do with brain structure and susceptibility to environmental triggers, including stress, hormones, depression, medication, and even gut flora imbalance.

Not necessarily. There are dissociative disorders such as complex ptsd that can lie dormant for years and then fully erupt following a trigger event.

PTSD symptoms can occur soon after a traumatic experience, but this is not always the case. Here are some common symptom patterns:
Some Veterans begin to have PTSD symptoms soon after they return from war. These symptoms may last until older age.
Other Veterans don't have PTSD symptoms until later in life.
For some Veterans, PTSD symptoms can be high right after their war experience, go down over the years, and then worsen again later in life.
http://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/types/war/ptsd-older-vets.asp

Reports 2 cases of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in World War II veterans (aged 68 and 72 yrs) whose individual onset was delayed for over 30 yrs after their wartime experiences. The onset of PTSD symptoms seemed to be associated with the stresses of late life, including bereavement, social isolation, and chronic medical illness. Theories regarding the etiology of PTSD are reviewed, and a hypothesis suggesting a heterogeneous condition is proposed. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1995-21604-001

[Bailmor]

Not sure if this has been discussed previously, but I saw this story on our local news and wanted to put this our there that there could be some physical issues that affect the brain.  Interesting read.

HENRICO, VA (WWBT) - A Henrico woman thought she'd lost her husband to a mid-life crisis.

When he started swearing and running away, she was ready to leave. Then came a diagnosis she never expected, that explained all of the bizarre behavior.

The pictures of the Plagemans tell a story of 39 years together. Wayne and Peggy met at just 17 and lived the life with two beautiful daughters. He retired from a life of service in the Henrico Fire Department to the Chesapeake Bay.

They laughed often and loved large. He still holds a record for a fishing catch - but considered her the catch of his life.

Until it all went horribly wrong.

Wayne started cursing, moved out to see other women, would run away - and get angry easily, accusing Peggy of outlandish things.

"Slowly I'd say, 'something's wrong,' or it's a midlife crisis or male menopause or whatever," said Peggy Plageman. "We had our ups and downs. We split."

It was blow after blow - until Wayne sat down with Peggy.

"He said, 'something's not right,'" explained Peggy.

The couple sat down with doctor after doctor, and diagnosis after diagnosis...until they finally got the right one, years of frustration and problems later.

"It's called Frontal-temporal dementia (because it's the front and the sides)," said Peggy. "His was more on the right side, which affected behavior. Rather bizarre behavior."

The diagnosis explained the behavior, but didn't make the situation much more bearable. There is no treatment for FTD or medication to help slow it down.

FTD can impact language, behavior, movement, and emotion.

Here’s a link to more information on the diagnosis, and what the warning signs are: http://www.theaftd.org/

"Those years in between were horrible," remembered Peggy. "He took out his frustrations on me. You become a trigger. He wanted to escape wherever he went. His hygiene, he didn't want his hair cut. There were times where I was accused of all kinds of things."

Finding a place where Wayne could live and be treated safely was near impossible. He was kicked out of at least one facility, and several other housing options didn’t work out because of his behavior problems. It was expensive and exhausting.

"He knew what was going on," said Peggy. “He wanted to die."

He even tried to take his own life. Try to imagine behaving horribly toward the ones you love, but not being able to control it.

Wayne died slowly, over the course of a long painful process for his family. It was so difficult, saying goodbye was in a way, a relief.

"I knew that he was in a better place and he wasn't suffering," explained Peggy, who acknowledges his death has brought a lot of different emotions. "But it's been a little over a year, and I'm still grieving for him."

Now, Peggy finally has the chance to mourn the man she married and fight for the man she lost. That’s why she's sharing her story - to raise awareness about a medical condition with very little research or funding...and the potential to devastate families.

[gman242]

 I would say beyond a doubt that i have seen my wife exhibit multipule personalities. Ego split,  whatever.

Shes acted in many ways that resembled the rebelious foster daughter we had, who she tried in vain to stop from chatting with guys on the internet and other stuff. Personality 180 for sure...

[Velika]

Bailmor, I think MLC affects the same part of the brain and accounts for behavior change. I 100 percent believe this is a neurological condition and it is tragic.

[Anjae]

We don't know for sure which parts and components of the brain MLC affects. But there is a big difference between Frontal-temporal dementia and MLC. MLCers get back to normal after the crisis. Someone with Frontal-temporal dementia, or more to the point, Behavior variant frontotemporal dementia is that, so far, there does not seem a come back from it.

"Behavior variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD.). This condition is characterized by prominent changes in personality, interpersonal relationships and conduct that often occur in people in their 50s and 60s, but can develop as early as their 20s or as late as their 80s. In bvFTD, the nerve cell loss is most prominent in areas that control conduct, judgment, empathy and foresight, among other abilities."

The other Frontal-temporal dementia types are:

"Primary progressive aphasia (PPA). This is the second major form of frontotemporal degeneration that affects language skills, speaking, writing and comprehension. PPA normally comes on in midlife, before age 65, but can occur in late life also. The two most distinctive forms of PPA have somewhat different symptoms

In semantic variant of PPA, individuals lose the ability to understand or formulate words in a spoken sentence.
In nonfluent/agrammatic variant of PPA, a person’s speaking is very hesitant, labored or ungrammatical.

Disturbances of motor (movement or muscle) function. There are three disorders that are a part of the frontotemporal degeneration spectrum that produce changes in muscle or motor functions with or without behavior (bvFTD) or language (PPA) problems.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which causes muscle weakness or wasting. ALS is a motor neuron disease also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Corticobasal syndrome, which causes arms and legs to become uncoordinated or stiff.

Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), which causes muscle stiffness, difficulty walking and changes in posture. It also affects eye movements.

PBoth bvFTD and PPA are far less common than Alzheimer’s disease in those over age 65 years. However, in the 45 to 65 age range, bvFTD and PPA are nearly as common as younger-onset Alzheimer’s. Only rough estimates are available, but there may be 50,000 to 60,000 people with bvFTD and PPA in the United States, the majority of whom are between 45 and 65 years of age." http://www.alz.org/dementia/fronto-temporal-dementia-ftd-symptoms.asp

Aphasia also occurs in strokes. Stroke patients often suffer from Aphasia. For some it is temporary, for other it becomes permanent.

As for the motor neuron diseases, along with ALS, they are Progressive bulbar palsy (PBP), Progressive muscular atrophy (PMA), Primary lateral sclerosis (PLS) and Kennedy’s Disease. http://www.mndassociation.org/what-is-mnd/different-types-of-mnd/

The dementias, along with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and the mentioned Frontal-temporal dementia, also include Vascular dementia, Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), Mixed dementia, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Normal pressure hydrocephalus, Huntington's disease and Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome. http://www.alz.org/dementia/types-of-dementia.asp

MLC does not seem to be a dementia. It is reversible (with time I believe so will dementias be). Once out of crisis the person regains their normal mental functions and behaviours.

But to make things more complicated, and since some believe MLC can later lead to dementia (I think in that context dementia is synonymous of Alzeimer's) Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome is a dementia connected with the lack of thiamine (vitamin B1) that is a common factor in those with alcoholism. Many MLCers drink a lot. And some who were not alcoholics before MLC seem to become so during MLC.

Does this means at a later date they will be more vulnerable to Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome? I don't know. Do the ones who suffer from alcoholism before MLC are more at risk that the ones who only got into alcohol during MLC? Maybe.

But we really do not have studies to correlated MLC with all those dementias.

[barbiedoll]

Very interesting reading. I have wondered so many of these things during the past 3 years . I absolutely thought he had a brain tumor and the doctor agreed to do some tests, but of course , my husband refused . I have tried every imaginable explanation and here is what I have found about my husband. I do not know if any of it directly caused his "MLC", but I sure have researched any possible connections.
1. He was born extremely premature to a 15 year old mother in 1957 . He weighed under 3 lbs and was not expected to survive . He still has eye issues from incubator / eyes not covered. He was in an incubator for the 1st 3 months of his life . So we know that no cuddling, touch , bonding happened..attachment injury right from birth. Different brain pathways do not develope normally.  When he was released to his mother , she was already 3 months pregnant .
2. At 3 years old he remembers extreme violence ( screaming/ fear) as his father stabbed his mother . He never saw her again. He imagined she was dead as he grew up. His counsellor says a "searing" locked his developmental growth / PTSD / attachment trauma
3. He vividly remembers being taken from his grandmothers home at age 5. He was "spanked" (beaten) because he would not stop crying for her . Just the start of more deep abandonment/ attachment injuries.
4. At 9 he was sexually assaulted by his fathers friend . He told me about this after 3o years of marriage after he returned home. I had no idea.
5 By age 15 , he had moved 19 times . A very huge red flag in school boards now for children at risk . He was sleeping the high school locker roomer to avoid going home. His coach fed him.
6. He has ACOA Trauma Syndrome / PTSD
7 He has anxious avoidant attachment style / extreme people pleaser
8. six months prior to BD he was diagnosed with diabetes, high cholersterol and high blood pressure. He went from zero medication to 4 . ( I asked doctor several times ... could this behavior be all this medication?)
9 . Very odd... I noticed increased hair growth on his chest . Hormones like a teenager ?  he said " I guess I am finally a man". No concern .
10. When he left he had stage 2 kidney cancer . We were not aware of this . He was diagnosed shortly after returning home. How was that affecting him mentally?
11. He is scared. He believes he had a complete mental break/ physchological split . He has been in therapy for 2 1/2 years . I believe he is afraid of anything like this ever happening to him again. .. so he keeps going to counselling .

How can anyone be "normal" in anyway after such a history. I am amazed he was able to be a good solid husband and father for 3 decades. It slowly begins to be less about "how did this happen?" and more about how could it not have ? His counsellor sometimes refers to all his "compartments " in his brain that absolutely ensured his very survival ... finally gave way.

[Ready2Transform]

This seemed like the most logical place to put this. My neighbor is MLC and also in treatment for PTSD/OCD (therapy and drugs). He's been in ICU since Wednesday because he either had an allergic reaction to one of his drugs, or mixed it with alcohol and suffered tremendous side effects. He got violently ill and began having severe hallucinations. It's unclear what will happen with him moving forward. He was stabilized once on Friday and in his own room, then freaked out again and they ended up in ICU doing more tests.

I bring it up because of the mixture of very clear MLC symptoms (manic spending on big luxury items, lots of trips/fun/constant going despite inability to work and isolation from major relationships with his children, etc) and other more complicated disorders and drug treatment. And if it is something like a drug allergy, he was literally in a state of panic because rats were on the ceiling and evil people were trying to get him. It speaks to the side effects those of us with drug-treated MLCers may be experiencing that are completely out of left field and identity altering.

[Christina13]

This is all so much to think about. My H didn't have any issues at home. Growing up a very normal family life. Parents are still together . Dad coached baseball , nothing traumatic.
The only thing I worry about is the heavy mental illness in the family.
Bipolar sister , four aunts , and his grandfather commutes suicude after losing his business. Before that he deserted his family.
My MIL thinks my H is having a breakdown. We had financial stress and he is unhappy with where he is at.
 The total change in personality and values can not be ignored. He too knew something was going in with him. He told me before I even knew what it was , that he thought he was having a MLC ! Two weeks after BD. I saw articles bookmarked on the computer.
 He td me he was depressed and using pot to cope. He was looking at inspirational quotes on Pinterest about being positive and happy.
 Once I asked him where is my sweet husband , he says I'm trying to come back to you , do you think I like being this way ? It was heartbreaking.
Now he says things similar but I monster. Before he'd cry. Now he says your husband isn't home right now ! Or you have no idea what I'm capable of not in love. And I'm not the same person. The marriage changed me.
Or just plain you don't really know me.
 I think he started using the harder stuff to try and feel normal. I don't know what to think. It drives me crazy. He too went to the doctor on his own. To get blood work and his heart checked. FIL has major heart issues. Heart is fine but he never asked about his mind. I think he thought blood work might rule out stuff.
 They did find diabetes that is not being treated now. He refused meds. Wanted to work out and diet. Never happened. He goes back next week. And I see his doctor too. Hoping to find clarity. Diabetes affects hormones too doesn't it ?
    Velika ,
I read an article done in the UK that says cocaine use affects the same part of the brain that you talk of. So of course I can't imagine the damage on top of his MLC. Having a real diagnoses would help. I am starting to lose my mind with all of this.

[Its_unreal]

BEHAVIORAL VARIANT FTD (BVFTD)

I found this little snippet:

Patients typically start to have symptoms sometime in their 50s

Emotional Symptoms


1. Lack of insight into the person’s own behavior develops early. The patient typically does not recognize the changes in his or her own behaviors, nor do they exhibit awareness or concern for the effect these behaviors have on the people around them, including loved ones.

2. Emotional blunting develops early in the course of the disorder, and is manifested as a loss of emotional warmth, empathy and sympathy, and development of what appears to be indifference toward other people, including loved ones.

3. Mood changes can be abrupt and frequent.


My X was showing all 3 of those at the age of 51, her poor mum died june 2014 of dementia and her dad had a stroke many years ago, is it hereditary