[Did your MLC'er suffer from childhood abuse (physically, emotionally or other)?]

Did your MLC'er suffer from childhood abuse (physically, emotionally or other)?

Yes

65 (70.7%)

No

17 (18.5%)

Don't Know

10 (10.9%)

Total Members Voted: 92

[Not Applicable]

Not unless they develop one. But the problem is who will recognize they have a problem and take it?

I think that is the hardest part about all this. It is so obviously an illness, so obvious they are just going through the script and checking all the boxes, and they are suffering so much, and they have NO CLUE. If my husband had any physical illness and I went online and researched it for him and got him info, he would appreciate it. If I told him he has MLC illness, he would get angry. I can really understand what it must be like to have a relative with Alzheimer's. It's just so horrible and you cannot do a thing! Any other illness if you feel compassion for their suffering, they can feel it, but this, they can't. They don't know what we are bearing for them, just waiting for them to get better. They probably wonder why do we put up with their horrible behavior? They just have no clue why!

I think all of you who have children who might be at risk repeating this in the next generation, as soon as they are old enough, you should sit them down in front of this site and HB's site and make them read read read. Just so they know if and when it hits them, what it is.

[Thunder]

Exactly, Changing.  Who is going to admit it and take a drug, even if there was one??

Besides how do you make a drug that can cure your childhood issues? 
There is just no such thing.

What they need is a GOOD trauma therapist, but there again...would any of them would really go? 

We just need to accept that there is no cure...only time.   

[Velika]

The kicker is that one of the rare side effects is
Personality change. W has weird intolerance to medication and seems to always get the rare side effect. She got narapothy and bad IBS which were both rare side effects of different drugs. I will be honest, I am skeptical about over medicating mostly based on experiences and stories my W shared. I'm not saying this was the reason for mlc, but I find it interesting.

I don't know if I have posted this to the gut health discussion board, but I read that IBS can cause brain lesions. (My husband also had IBS.) I was told by a neurologist that brain lesions can cause this this if behavior. (If you read the lesions to the ventromedial prefeontal cortex you essentially have a description of the MLC I am witnessing.)

C4E, wow what you wrote is so true! Where have I read that MLC is a disease where everyone suffers except the afflicted. I can see now that this isn't true (MLCer also suffers) but it takes a long time to see this.

I don't know if this is something that wouldn't be of interest to drug companies. I just think most people who haven't witnessed it thinks it is a real disease. I was actually considering the other day how this is an example of a condition that really can become better understood due to the internet and discussions like these. We live all over the world, how would we find each other and discuss for weeks/months/years this condition if not for the Internet?

[Thunder]

You're so right, Velinka.

When I first found out about MLC on the Internet I was flying blind.  I had zilch understanding of any of it.  I just thought either my H was having a breakdown of some sort or he really fell out of love with me.  I was thoroughly confused.

But by reading and chatting with others I started to understand MLC much better.

It wasn't me and he didn't just fall out of love he was in a crisis.

[Not Applicable]

You wouldn't cure the childhood issues. You would cure the damage they do to the brain.

I keep having visions over and over of a kid who was in my class in junior high and high school who had a brain tumor removed when he was younger and it affected his sense of right and wrong. I remember one day standing in line waiting to buy my lunchtime nachos and he cut right in line with the biggest smile on his face. He truly believed what he was doing was totally OK. They can't even imagine they are hurting us.

Edit: I just googled him and found out he died last June. A four sentence obituary, about when he was born, where he graduated from, where he lived and where his memorial service would be held. That tells you how his life turned out. Sad.

[Thunder]

How very sad.  I went to school with a frail, sick girl who had a heart condition but her father didn't want to risk a heart surgery.  Many years later, as an adult, she had her surgery and is doing great.  Hit 70 years old this year.  Sorry, just reminded me of a happy ending.

As far as brain damage, I don't believe MLCer's have brain damage.
Maybe some other disease, drugs or injury may cause that.

[Not Applicable]

Googled some more and actually found a longer obituary. Seems he lived a very colorful life as a cowboy. He was married once and then divorced and was in a relationship when he died. The interesting thing was the brain tumor was mentioned up front in the first paragraph of the obituary and its effect on him was pretty clearly implied. So clearly it was known to be part of his personality to all around him until his death. I'm just happy to know he didn't wind up in prison because that is what I always feared would happen due to his lack of sense of right and wrong.

[Thunder]

Oh wow, maybe he got some kind of help years later.

Could the brain tumor maybe have been operable to some degree?

[Not Applicable]

It was actually cancer, due to a previous accident, so they had to remove part of the brain to cure it. That's why he lost his ability to tell right from wrong. But the thing was we all knew about it and so we just tolerated his behavior. One of my classmates who knew him before the surgery told me he had a completely different personality then. Strange thing was he died of a brain aneurysm.

[Kai3030]

Wow on the results of the Child Abuse question above.

In reference to some people not knowing how to answer Yes, No, or I don't know to the child abuse question:

It took me several minutes to decide how to answer because I believe that the emotional abuse that my H suffered during childhood was actually a result of the actions of H's older brother, who had serious anger issues as a teenager. Although H's father has always been a bit of a cold fish, and left his family for an OW with children the same age as H and his brother. (no one has ever referred to FIL as having had an MLC....but sure sounds like it was one to me).

To clarify for others, I assume childhood abuse does not necessarily have to be from a parent or guardian only?