OCPD similarities to manic behaviors

Jsinjin · June 21, 2019, 03:54:40 AM

My uOCPD wife is often angry, pessimistic and incapable of making decisions, a hoarder, etc. Then there will be these short shining moments when she is happy, flexible and almost thrilled to be alive; she engages with me or the kids and seems focused on thinking and enjoying life. The moments are so fleeting and it's like there is another person in my life. Without warning those times will disappear. I spot them typically when there is something new and engaging with our kids or when she has something or some activity that is political where she is involved. Those circumstances could be different for nay individual but there actually seems to be real joy and engagement in those moments. I would say this personality change is less than 5 percent of the time and when it is around it's like the family lives with a totally different individual. I know it's not a manic bipolar type of state but it's almost like the armor comes off.

Curious if anyone else sees this.

11JB68 · June 21, 2019, 02:37:17 PM

Hi, I think with any person and/or with any PD or mental illness etc. there are going to be cycles and mood swings.
I haven't figured out whether with a pwPD are these normal cyclical moods or are the positive behaviors intentional (?) to keep us in the relationship (hoovering etc)... Or maybe a combination.
But yes, with my uOCPDh you just don't know what you're going to get, and yes he has 'good days' / 'good moments' and glimmers of the person I loved. Unfortunately it is unpredictable when that mood will change - it can be fast / abrupt or gradual. With Out of the FOG and the toolbox I've learned to maintain MC because I was finding I would 'let down my guard' in the good times and either say the wrong thing or get my hopes up that things were really okay.

Spygirl · June 21, 2019, 06:39:22 PM

Someone in the past brought up a comment about this type of thing. I would not accept it for a long time. Now i do.

The comment about the "armor coming off" is how i used to think. That there was a wonderful person in there being held hostage by the sick person. I just had to be better in some way to be rewarded with that golden light i knew.

Jeckle and Hyde.

After all this time coming Out of the FOG, i now believe that the sick person IS the real person. The lovely behavior we fall for is the learned behavior needed to keep us around. It does not go for long because it is unnatural and exhausting.

Just my thoughts on it.

11JB68 · June 21, 2019, 09:58:18 PM

Spygirl, I feel that...when uPDh is trying for a while, it seems like it is tiring for him, exhausting.

Spygirl · June 21, 2019, 11:06:22 PM

11jb68

Bet you $20 he sees "being nice and accommodating " to you, as your making HIM walk on eggshells.

My stbexh would scream at me during every rage session "THIS IS WHO I AM" while giving me the finger, or both. The next morning it was an empty sorry and dinner out. i was supposed to forget it. For many years i stuffed it away instead.

Really? When we were dating for 4 years none of that crap was happening. Its like he would put on Mr. Prince Charming for 48hrs, and after the weekend was over i guess he went back to what came home to me every nite after marriage, which was a very sick man i could never love enough to take the fear and pain from.

So glad its almost over and i will be free.....

athene1399 · June 25, 2019, 06:15:36 AM

Spygirl,

My SO's BPDxw was like that. Things were great at first, then she would turn into a maniac and yell "This is who I am!" (or something very similar from what he told me). I swear some of these people read from the same scripts. I get the feeling from BPDxw that she feels the world owes her for something (maybe her past abuse) so she's allowed to act like a maniac when she doesn't get her way/feels threatened/feels vulnerable.

But she does that rapid cycling of emotions that is much quicker than one would experience with bipolar. There was a span of time where it was like what version of her are we waking up to today. She was always blowing up his phone. One day it would be pictures of the kids and talking about what a great dad SO is. But it had such a manic feel to it. It was scary. It was picture after picture. We would scroll through his phone and it was never ending. It would wake us up from all the dinging. Then the next day it's "you're such an $#@*. I'm glad your mother's dead because she would hate you!!!" with the same never ending messages. Literally for no reason (aside from what mood she woke up in that day). We would be sleeping and she would just start this (like before the crack of dawn). So both her intense anger and happiness had a "mania" feel to it due to the intensity of the emotion.

She does do the "perfect mom" or "poor victim" act too. Drives me crazy because I know the real her. I don't know if that's the same as the "armor coming off" but in a trying to suck you back in way that Spygirl was talking about.

Findingmyvoice · July 12, 2019, 09:36:32 AM

my ex is not OCPD, but I have seen the same manic / depressive states.
Staying in bed for days, then getting up at 6am cooking up a storm, shopping, overspending, making big plans then back to being in bed for days and me cleaning up the mess from her manic cycle.

I have heard from a psychologist and from reading that BPD and NPD are often misdiagnosed as Bipolar and I'm sure it is the same for other personality disorders.
My ex was diagnosed as bipolar and I can't say one way or the other if that is true or not.
The antipsychotic bipolar meds do work to help level out her mood swings.
But even with her moods under control she still has the disordered thinking patterns and regular blow ups with the kids.
Just like Athene mentioned she does a great job at the hero / victim / persecutor triangulation with the kids.

Whatthehey · July 20, 2019, 11:10:48 PM

The light would go on in the bedroom at 4am and my stbxOCPDh would bark out an order and/or perseverate on something like the shed door or front door lock. Then after ten minutes he would stomp out leaving the light and he would go back to sleep. Of course leaving me totally shocked awake. Just yesterday he called me at 6am demanding some accounting for a change to a checking account.

I would in the past chock it up to his work stress. Now I realize it is part of his mental illness. This is not normal and a therapist had to point it out to me. She called it downright emotional abuse.

There was a time when we were cleaning the garage and for some little reason (I think a bottle broke) he went into a manic rage. Instant flip and blamed all the garage mess on me. I was seriously screwed up thinking how could it be/it must be my fault. That was my first thought that I may need to go to a domestic violence shelter. That manic violent temper was so instant - he never hit me but physical intimidation was subtle andconstant.

Wilderhearts · July 23, 2019, 09:55:18 PM

When I described my uNPDf's behaviour (rages) to a psychiatrist once, she "diagnosed" him on the spot as bipolar. I say "diagnosed" because he had been deceased for years at this point and she also told me my only problem was that I "cry too much" (I had just had psychotic symptoms and a dissociative episode). She had also almost had her medical license taken away, ha.

The uOCPD woman I lived with alluded to being bipolar and that she managed her illness by living on a schedule. I do have one friend who is truly bipolar and does this, but I think this woman's minute-by-minute schedule was more her OCPD. There were so many behaviours (e.g., rigidity in thinking and behaviour) that couldn't be explained by Bipolar.

Lack of self-regulation happens with severe mental illness - people having a labile mood and rages can't help us in differentiating between one mental illness and another.