Need help with flip flopping personality

This is my mother who I am trying to figure out.

I believe she has a personality disorder of some type, but not sure what.

No way she would never go in for therapy.

Anyway, she is a perfectionist, and has some form of OCD. Not wash your hands 100 times a day or anything. Its sort of mild and I think probably learned behavior from her childhood or due to her perfectionism.

She also has anxiety, as she freaks out over the most ordinary things, like going to the doctor. For days prior she might obsess over it to the point of almost hyperventilating if she gets too worked up.

But on the flip side, she is a huge arguer, and will argue to the ninth degree. She is a right fighter and rarely listens if she is right fighting. But she cannot handle rebuttal, and she cannot handle talking problems out like ordinary people do.

In essence she has an argumentative personality, but if you argue back at times she will fold taking any rebuttal personally and get weepy or cry.

So, kind of from one extreme to the other. Either battling it out or crumbling and emotionally devastated.

Thanks to anyone who can give me a little insight.

Hello and welcome to the forums!

I've moved your post to our significant others/family & friends forum, but with a pointer left in the original destination.

In the absence of her seeing a professional, there's little for anyone to draw any speculations on.

When you say she has OCD (I have OCD) can you elaborate on that? If it's simply perfectionism, it could be more akin to OCPD- Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder is rather a different animal than OCD. OCPD is more 'thing have to be done the way I say'- OCPDers can be hard-to-live-with perfectionists.

It's also my impression OCPD makes for an argumentative person.

But really it's hard to say. A couple things might be to look over some of the disorder forums here. OCD will be challenging, as that forum is so full of people with sexual obsessions/fears. But if you dig enough you'll get some glimpse of other common OCD themes- also all OCD is OCD (despite some commonly used acronyms to distinguish some common sexual OCD themes) so it all behaves roughly the same- maybe you can glean some insight there.

As well as look over the OCDP forum- a much quieter forum, because a lot of people with OCPD refuse to acknowledge they're the ones with the problem. When something gets to the level of a personality disorder, some personality disorders (PDs) seem to be awfully difficult for the person to be self-aware enough to actually post here themselves about it.

And the other PDs as well- keeping in mind as you look at them- and I don't have scientific evidence for this (such as published works I can point to) but keep in mind that PDs are well, facets of personality gone wrong- if you want to look under a microscope, we all do things that might be Narcissistic, or Borderline, etc. it's when it's something that impairs your life and becomes a major part of your personality, I think, when it becomes a problem. So... if you see some traits in this PD or that, with your mom, remember that it doesn't mean she has that- that's why it'd be so much better if she'd see a professional.

Also some websites have mental health quizzes- it might be good to peruse around here and see if you can get a feel for what might be her issue, then take some self-tests inserting your unbiased opinion of her behavior, into it and see what it says. When looking for some self-tests, try to find ones from mental health websites and the longer the test, the more accurate it's liable to be. You can't decide 'oh so and so has _____ from a test that had ten whole questions, you know?

Keeping in mind also, that any testing not administered/interpreted by a professional, should be taken with a grain of salt (the shorter the test, the more salt needed, in my opinion).

If you want something that professionals use....

https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Libra ... -Adult.pdf

might be a decent start. I'm not in therapy (yet, I'm not dead yet give me time) but if I ever see a professional, I have one of these already filled out to hand to them. Also I scored it myself and it sort of didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know about myself, but it seemed pretty accurate. It doesn't say outright 'oh you have this, or that'- it's meant to be interpreted by a professional who can use it as one diagnostic tool- but still you can then compare it to the traits of different disorders and see if it sort of gives you an idea.

Thanks. Yes I would say OCPD.

In general she is an angry person. Complains all the time. Criticizes. Nothing is ever right with anything. She is good person, and a fairly strong person, but at the same time very insecure.

But she will start arguing about something, anything, then when confronted she falls apart. That's the part I don't get. IE if you cant talk to people without getting upset, why start an argument?

I have been around argumentative people before and usually they will go on and on and thrive on it. But with my mother if you argue back and make a strong point she falls apart and gets weepy.

At one point I thought she might be a negative narcissist, but now I am not so sure. My father was absolutely a grandiose narcissist, and I thought years of living with him may have rubbed off.

This is from the internet...

OCPD traits

preoccupation and insistence on details - Yes. For instance the most picky person about how her bed is made I have ever seen. To the 1/4", however, she does not iron her sheets.
rules - Yes. But not too bad.
lists - No
Order and organization - Yes. Super organized. Like to a fault.
Perfectionism that interferes with completing tasks - No not normally, but there is a lot of decisions remorse type behavior and self doubting but my father had that too and was much worse.
Excessive doubt - Yes. Today we went to the dentist to get her teeth cleaned and she had a good checkup, but she did not believe the dentist.

Exercising caution - Yes. A lot of you better do this, and you need to do that, and or you better watch out etc.
Excessive conscientiousness - Yes
Rigidity and stubbornness - Yes +1000

Hi,

I'm new here as well - one of the mentioned PDs.
You wrote:

TTA3 wrote:No way she would never go in for therapy.

I felt very weird, going to a professional, to check my problems out. Felt a bit like going (as a straight man) to a known to be gay doctor - whilst wearing a pink tutu - because of ones broken toe.

What if somebody sees me, why should I go there in the first place, when I'm not gay (or in my case crazy)?

As an example, I wrote:Well, my ouch, toe ouch doesn't really ahhhh hurts any *whimper' longer. I *hiss* better go ouch home again *cry*.

Nobody would really do that with a broken toe, right?

Why then with a mental problem. Mental problems can hurt as well, as physical pain, I assume. I, for example, went to the professionals but not to a therapy thereafter (at least not jet). But even to know, what's wrong with oneself helped me a lot since then.

So even if she checks that up, she wouldn't be forced to do any therapies thereafter, I assume. So if all that bothers her... my advice would be to go and let it be checked.

Just my two cents.

TTA3 wrote:At one point I thought she might be a negative narcissist, but now I am not so sure. My father was absolutely a grandiose narcissist, and I thought years of living with him may have rubbed off.

She might have picked up some traits. No reason a person can't be diagnosed with traits of something and not actually 'have' the whole thing. I have little doubt I could be found to have Borderline traits- do I have BPD? I'd be surprised if I was actually diagnosed with BPD. But I could see my notes saying 'has Borderline traits'

2ost wrote:I felt very weird, going to a professional, to check my problems out.

I would. It's one thing to know I ought to go to someone and open up, it's quite another to have the gumption to do it.