lurkette

A friend of mine (we'll call her L) recently left her marriage and went into hiding because her husband was, shall we say, crazy. She makes the following claims:

- he was a normal guy during the day, but at night...
- repeatedly drugged her and "made" her have sex with other people, tied her up, beat her, and drank her blood
- she had only vague memories of this and thought it was dreams
- he confessed obliquely to some of it - the blood drinking.
- he said, casually and not like a threat, that he would kill her. Like "I have a feeling you're going to die young and I'm going to be the one who does it."
- he tracked down ex-girlfriends and killed them; she saw this in a dream.
- she has dreams that come true, and so does her mother
- her mother had a dream that she told the ex where she is
- a friend of a friend recently saw the ex and he told the FOAF that he knows where L is, and that L told him.

She is now paranoid that he's going to come after her and kill her. She's been having dreams lately that she interprets (after the fact) to mean that this is going to happen. I'm frankly at a loss about what to believe. I didn't know her when she was married to him - I only met her after she went into hiding, and told me all this. I really don't know what to do. She's a real drama queen and has a victim streak a mile wide; she really gets off on the drama of all of this. But just because that is true doesn't mean her fears aren't founded. He could really be a sick fuck who would kill her. It does happen. But it seems that her story about what happened always changes, and a lot of her fears are based on dreams or on what seem like paranoid interpretations of random events (a waitress at a restaurant she's never knowingly been to saying she thought she seemed familiar; ergo, the ex must have drugged her and taken her there on one of their kinky sex outings) - putting 2+2 together and getting 715.

I have no idea how to deal with this. She is obsessed about this and talks only about this, and she's really hard to be around. I don't want to abandon her but this is challenging MY sanity. I don't know what to do short of advising her to tell the police about it, to do everything she can to keep herself safe, but not to let this fear control her life.

Gack, any advice? Is she nuts, or am I cynical and callous?

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Rodney

From my point of view:

1) She had problems with her husband. They may not be what she says they are, but she had problems.

2) She's mentally ill. She has fears and issues and anxieties that she can't handle; they manifest in dreams, and she confuses the dreams with reality. Anything she can't explain sets off a paranoid train of thought.

How can I say this? I almost married this. She worked for the phone company, and thought they were out to get her; if the phone clicked during a call, she was sure it was them. She brought a friend over to her creaky old apartment because she was sure there were gas leaks, even though there was no gas to be smelled. She'd have odd dreams, wake up and call me at work because she knew that they meant death was near.

I and my friends and her friends constantly had to talk her down. Eventually it became a full-time job, and I had no life. I'd come home from work, ask, how was your day, and get two hours of fear, paranoia, and accusations about the people around her. Literally, two hours.

If she doesn't see the need for help, there's nothing you can do except tell her to _get_ help; that, or tell her relatives to come get her. I would imagine that she's not a happy person; mentally ill people rarely are. It's kinda hard to stare a friend in the face and say, "I don't think that's true, get help," but what else can you do? I had to cut loose myself. She made it on her own for a few months, then crashed. Went home to live with the folks. It was probably for the best.

JustJess

My vote:
Insane. Probably schizophrenic.
Needs lots and lots of professional help.

Is her husband a bad person? Maybe. But there's no way to tell fact from fiction at this point.

The best thing you can do for her is to get her help.

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The_Jazz

1) Treat her to dinner at a nice restaurant.
2) Order the appricot flame' for dessert.
3) When the waiter brings it, jostle his arm.
4) Escape in the ensuing confusion.

Now let me apologize for making light of this situation. Basically your friend is making it very hard for you to do your job as a friend. Any one of her claims would be enough to get sympathy from just about any audience, but to say that her husband drugged her AND made her have sex with other people AND drank her blood AND threatened to kill her AND physically abused her is just a little too much to believe. While I think that she certainly deserves sympathy, it's not because she has a psychopath exhusband who may or may not actually exist (can any mutual friends confirm his existence). Having dealt with a mentally ill family member all of my life, I can certainly sympathize with what you're going through, but please remember that it isn't your job to fix this woman.

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lurkette

Rilly? She seems so sane, otherwise. She's functional at her job, maintains friendships, etc., and is in therapy and her therapist believes her. (At least that's what she says, and who knows what she's told her therapist vs. what she's told us.) Granted, he's not a psychiatrist, but...hm...what are other symptoms of schizophrenia I can look for?

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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

lurkette

The husband definitely exists. Friends have met him, continue to interact with him, etc. Nobody who's met him thinks he's' a murderous psychopath; socially maladjusted, perhaps, and maybe a sick puppy, but not scheming-to-kill-you crazy. The thing is, HE says (on his myspace account, which L checks regularly) that she is crazy. He's really upset about the whole thing, etc. He acknowledges that he was not nice to her and cheated during their marriage, but everything else we've heard about their sick relationship has been from her. Now, this is the kind of thing abusive spouses will do - try to make everyone, including the abused spouse, doubt the abusee's sanity. So...I don't want to disbelieve her and find out later that she was telling the truth and now she's dead; but really, some of the stuff she's told us is beyond belief. Is it possible for someone to be repeatedly roofied and not recall anything that happens?

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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

maleficent

Why is she checking his my space account?

She says she's been roofied and raped - does she have any medical evidence to back this up? Why didn't she go to the police? (Roofies, from what I understand from my indepth knowlege of Law and Order -- do stay in the blood stream for a bit...)

I know what it's like to want to beleive a friend... but some of her claims are just a little outlandish... especially for a known drama queen.

If she's in fear for her life... While a dream isn't good evidence... Perhaps she could get a restraining order if there is other evidence (ie the raping and the drugging)

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The_Jazz

It is certainly possible for her to have been drugged incoherent. Anethesia comes in many forms including pill and booze form. Some people self-administer.

With the exception of the dream stuff, it is certainly possible that all of the stuff that she says happened actually did. Even without the claims of clairvoyance, all of the things that she's claiming sound pretty improbable though especially as a whole. It is also possible that some of them did actual happen and her response has revealed underlying psychological problems that explain the dreams, etc. It may have even just been the shock of his infidelity that drove her off the deep end. Regardless, I think that she's swimming in the diving well, and she's not touching bottom. If it seems beyond belief, it probably is. So long as the ex isn't a direct threat to you or her (in reality, not her perception), I don't see where it really matters. She's going to obsess about him regardless of what you do. That's the nature of most mental illness.

Were I in your shoes and decided to stick around (not a given in my case), I would assume that something bad happened to her at some point and accept that you may never find out what that was. In the end, it may not even matter what transpired between her and her ex. Unless she's asking you to help her wallpaper her apartment in tinfoil, I don't see where you have anything to lose by listening to her rant and choosing to ignore her wilder claims. You don't need to tell her that just assume that anything coming out of her mouth regarding her ex is at best exagerated and at worst complete BS. Unless and until you're willing to be her mental health professional, I'm going to restate my view that you shouldn't try to fix her.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Sweetpea

I have one thing to say:

She NEEDS a couseler. urge her to go see one at once, a professional will be able to tell if this is real or fiction.

I always like to believe people, until i know they are lying/and/or have mental issues... so don't discredit what she is saying right off the bat, some of these things could be true... however, it's also possible that she is having delusions.

either way. the same solution needs to happen... she needs to see a professional to work this out. please urge her to see one.

also, i applaud you for being there for her like you are.

sweetpea

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lurkette

Because she's addicted to the drama of it. She had to see what he was saying about her, about his life, etc. It was all very junior high.

She didn't go to the police until after she confronted him about alleged infidelity, and he admitted to that, and confessed to drinking her blood while she was asleep. Then she started with the funny math (2+2=715: I dreamed that he killed a woman with dark hair; his ex-girlfriend had dark hair, and now I can't find her anywhere by searching on the web, so I bet he really did kill her), encouraged by her equally loony mother. By the time she'd figured out that something might be going on, there was no evidence to speak of, and nothing that a private investigator could turn up.

Yeah, she thinks she's psychic. Her whole family has dreams and visions and stuff. I don't know about psychic ability running in families. Or being true, for that matter. I do know that mental illness has some genetic components, though...

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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

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Gatorade Frost

Have you ever heard him admit that he drank her blood or is that just from what she said?

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JumpinJesus

Wow, this is pretty heavy to have to deal with.

I'm not so sure about schizophrenia being the cause. It might be, but it seems like she's too focused on one person with her issues. It could be a form of obsessive compulsive disorder, in conjunction with severe anxiety. Severe anxiety can sometimes manifest itself with paranoid and obsessive thoughts.

Either way, she does need some help. Mainly because - true or not - she seems to believe what she's saying.

I think Gatorade Forest asks an extremely relevant question when he asks if anyone besides "L" has heard any of his confessions.

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Pip

In junior high, one of my classmates was like this. Something had happened to her (it was probably rape of some kind, we never managed to find out though) and she went completely nuts. There were psycho-stalking ex-boyfriends, one, sometimes two, children of hers sent off to London for protection, shoot-outs on airports and so on. Crazy stuff. At the same time, she managed to do tolerably well in school and if you only knew her superficially, she'd seem perfectly normal. The scary thing was, she obviously believed in the world she had created. Sometimes' we'd confront her about the more outlandish things, but she never crumbled. It was her strong faith in her own stories that kept us fooled for so long, and it was incredibly hard to stop believing in her and to stop playing along. For what it's worth, my advice is to pretty much ignore the crazy stuff and try to steer conversations to the mundane here-and-now things, like work, current events, common friends, even the weather.

I think the dream things are pretty telling that something is wrong with her. A sane person would not put so much stock in their dreams. She seems to blow the coincidences you describe between real life and her dreams way out of proportion. Sane persons would rationalise dreams about an ex killing people to mean that they probably obsess over their exs too much, or something like that. In any way, they'd interpret the dream to be about themselves and their mental state rather than being about unknown outside events. So my vote is that she is nuts. Not "alien voices told me to kill the president" nuts, but not far from it. And you are not callous or cynical.

Sage

Yeah, I'm jumping on the "this woman has some SEVERE mental imbalances" bandwagon. Anxiety disorder- definitely, paranoid- definitely, schitzophrenic- most likely not. Does her "craziness" get in the way of her leading a normal life? Does she have a job? Can she go to the post office without jumping on the package meter behind the counter like a rabid wolverine because it was insulting the ghost of her dead grandmother who happens TO BE STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO SATAN in the queue?

If she's taxing your sanity, man, let her go. Friendship is a two way street. Make her a tin-foil hat and be done with it.

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ratbastid

Aside from this, she's perfectly stable. She works an intensely stressful job quite successfully. She's a perfectly great friend, and apart from this, shows no signs of wackiness in the slightest. Yes, she tends to be a drama queen, but compared to all our other friends, I'd say she's about an 8 out of 10 for that.

This is all coming up now because she just heard that, back around Thanksgiving, he said to a mutual friend that he knew where she was, and that she had told him. Except, they weren't talking back around Thanksgiving. So that was a bluff or a long-distance manipulation or something.

Something definitely happened to her. I have no doubt of that whatsoever. I don't really care whether it's all true or not--I care about her, and I'll have her back no matter what happens. That may include picking her up over my shoulder, putting her in a car, and taking her to somebody who can treat her for what's going on in her head, I don't really know.

Bill O'Rights

You, Sir...are a true friend. Most people would just look at her kind of funny, and start to slowly back out of her life. Thing is...you have to be prepared. It may very well come down to having to pick her up over your shoulder and take her to get help. She won't recognize the need for help. To her...it's all very much real, and she won't be able to understand why she is disbelieved or questioned.
You're good people, Rat. But then again...we already knew that.

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Sultana

How in the world could the ex have been drinking her blood while she was asleep? Did you actually *hear* him confess to this business? 'Cause if you did, then I'd guess she'd have to have been drugged at that point.

Personally, I concur with JumpinJesus' observations.

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JustJess

So having heard more... yes, something happened. At least I would think so. What happened? No idea. Probably pretty traumatic, whatever it was. Perhaps caused a psychotic break, perhaps she's schizophrenic (where's willravel when you need him?), perhaps it's the anxiety/OCD blowing up...

The point? If you want to help her, a therapist who is not a psychiatrist isn't good enough. She needs someone with more experience and knowledge of heavy duty psychological trauma. And soon. Because it's pretty important to know just how dangerous her ex actually is - if he is, she needs to be safe. If he isn't, HE needs to be safe.

Just because she handles the rest of her life well... doesn't mean she isn't suffering from a trauma/trauma induced psychotic break/whathaveyou. It could, but it's doubtful.

Ask a professional yourself and see what they say, get some advice from people who aren't armchair psychologists (like myself, sorry. )

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lurkette

Yeah, this is the real reason I need advice...I know just enough about mental disorders to be suspicious, but not enough to make an actual diagnosis

I'm sure something happened to her, too. For one thing, she was "assaulted" in college (she never actually comes out and says 'raped' but I suspect it was attempted rape) and traumatized by that, of course. So we know she has a history of trauma, and that might be coloring her current situation - making her more suspicious, more sensitive to possible harm. But the one thing we do know for certain, confirmed by people other than L, is that her husband did cheat on her. Everything else is stuff she has said, and it's difficult to distinguish what's conjecture and paranoia from what actually did happen - the way she talks about things is usually saying "yeah, and this happened, and now that I know he was a sick fuck, I'm sure what it really means is X," so, coloring the past through a filter.

I'm totally in line with ratbastid - we're not just backing away slowly; we absolutely want to do what it takes to get her the help she needs. My problem is I don't know if that help is a psychiatrist or a bodyguard. I've hinted around to her that it's just very difficult for us to understand what she's going through, but that just makes her want to explain it, and the more she explains, the loonier she sounds. Maybe what we need to do is just come out and say the truth: we think something definitely happened to her, but we also think she may be subconsciously exaggerating some of the things that happened into a danger that doesn't exist, or is less dire than she fears. I guess I don't know what I want to accomplish, other than having her be safe and sane, and that's maybe more than I can do.

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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

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Ustwo

Like attracts like.

He might well be nuts, but it sounds like she is too.

Hell she may need both.

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ratbastid

Oh, she's talked with me about it. She was date raped. Roofies were involved.

She says.

Nimetic

Is it possible to suggest to her that a specialist might help - on the basis that they will help her manage the bad memories from the relationship?

And I'd probably not want to play along with the more clearly suspect aspects of her reality, but those same specialists are pretty good with dreams and incomplete memories right?

On another issue.. Some counsellors have minimal training and apparently pretty useless. And I met and professionals of all types with good qualifications but little true ability. I'm sure the same holds for psychologists (I think you need a true psychologist here, not just a counsellor).

Maybe the best thing you can do in a practical sense, is to figure out on behalf of your friend, who is a qualified and reliable person to consult with (and how it will be funded). Perhaps if you could follow up with references from police and or community organizations? In the former case - while the local cops may not be much help, I'm sure that they have contact numbers (for specialists) and/or a unit that deals with complex cases.

Now in relation to the physical threat... Is it possible to chat to the BF? Perhaps you could get some anonymous male friends to pay him a visit and ask him questions and check him out re girlfriends. If he really is safe-as-houses, one would think that he'll be happy enough to chat.

Whether or not that's better than police, I don't know. Maybe not. Just an idea.

Amnesia620

While I am certain that she is a total attention-junkie, I know how crazy premonitions can seem. I also know how surreal things can seem when the reality is possible druggings and rape. However, I don't think that "L" has been proactive enough in making sure the husband stays away from her.
The end all be all may be just suggest to her that she report it to the police, talk to a therapist and most importantly, don't play into her stories. Show little interest, if you have to. Nip this in the bud...if it's for real, she'll do what she must to stay alive. Her stories may just be originating from her bitterness.

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analog

paranoid schizophrenic. get her to a professional. the ex might not be all roses himself, but likely not nuts... but she's almost definitely over the edge.

Tell her she should see one so that they can help her be safe, just to get her to someone, if you care about her well-being.