Ask the Therapist
Multiple Personality Disorder?
My mother in law, a Mexican native, suffered third degree burns at about age six from head to toe. Miraculously, proper therapies were applied in time and she has no scarring. Some kind of natural marine/aqutic materials were She was burned by hot liquid lard being poured on her by mistake or design(?).
Mother seems to be emotionally unable to bond with my wife. She constantly compares my wife to others and says things that compare my wife to others. These comparisons constantly cast a shadow of negativity over my wife.
We are all of the same religious faith that forbids drinking, smoking, "illicit" sexual activity, etc. My wife and our children live this lifestyle faithfully because it works well for us.
Mother's family engages in behaviors that we cannot condone. One of the cousins threatened to harm me and tried to break down our front door over a family dispute. I believed he intended to either harm or kill me, from his own statements. I was prepared to defend myself with any necessary force...including lethal force if my life were in the balance. I am a pretty fair pistol shot and had a duty weapon from my security job in the house. I let the cousin do what he wanted, but had managed to break through our door with curses and threats of violence on his lips, it would have not been a very happy ending. As it was, he was charged with disorderly conduct and found guilty in court after ignoring the court dates for several months. He argued with the judge as His Honor passed sentencing. He even ignored the sentence until they threatened him with jail time.
Mother's family continually drinks and uses "filthy" language, they condone and engage in adultery, backbite and gossip, tell lies about one another, etc. All of things are in violation of the faith that Mother and all of us are supposed to live. We don't want our children to behave this way and we don't want trouble like we had when our home was attacked. Mother says her family is "superior" and constantly praises "her people" because of their 'accomplishments". Some have managed to marry into money, others have used illegal means to establish their fortunes.
My wife and I live in Arizona with our three children in a three-bedroom that is not too small, not too large and has several fruit trees on a half-acre lot. My wife has a Bachelor's degree, I am an EMT, CPR/AED/FIRST AID instructor and a security officer at a prostegious account on the "right side of the tracks". I am preparing to attend Nursing School in August.
All in all, we have our financial worries, but we do well and stay out of trouble. We are not perfect, either...but I will not drink or associate with people who are drunken. I grew in an alcolholic home. Also, I know that eventually, that incident with the cousin will resurface and he may try me on again. I was raised by a Vietnam veteran, a green beret medic no less. I have no desires to harm that cousin, but I will not let myself be harmed, either. That young man still does not understand the danger he was in that day.
Mother hates that we won't associate with that side of the family and she says all kinds of awful things to my wife about how mean and stubborn my wife is. Mother tried to stop my wife from dressing in white for our wedding because she already had a child to another man, her first husband.
Mother constantly slams my wife's sense of judgement, morals and general good sense. Our house is never clean enough, the food is never cooked right, etc. As a little girl, my wife saw her mother constantly ignore her because "chores" needed to be done.
Tonight, my mother in law broke down into a rage and began shouting and crying and telling my wife that we are self-righteous, horrible people who are trying to keep her from her family. We have told Mother over and over that she is welcome to go and visit them at any time, but we cannot join her. Then Mother said my wife threw her out of the house because she asked a cousin to pick Mother up and take her to the family gathering she wanted to attend. This after Mother spent the day berating my wife and generally abusing her with cruel words and subtle comments.
It seems as though Mother becomes like a little child whenever her family comes around, but the rest of the time, we get along well, in spite of the detachment she and my wife experience. When the family calls, Mother begs, pleads, threatens, tries to intimidate and to cause hurt with her words, to "force" us to befriend her family. She uses the same begging and pleading techniques my six year uses. Then when we refuse to enter a situation that could end in trouble like the last time when we ended up in court, mother simply goes haywire and rants and raves. My children see this because Mother and Father along with Brother live in our home. (All of them my in-laws...I DON'T object by the way...except when mother misbehaves.)
As I said, this ranting and raving seems to be completely out of character for Mother...the family seems to trigger something whenever they are around, but I am sure they are unaware of her behavior. Or perhaps they play along and baby her. These people babied and took care of her after her burning accident. They tend to molly-coddle her to this day...it is almost as though she is replaying a baby role in that family and wants us to join in.
Could this be borderline personality disorder or maybe even multiple personality disorder? Mother does not introduce herself as different people and she does not engage in any bizarre behaviors I know of other than constantly laboring around the house and generally being critical of my wife...but lots of mothers do that. The only time she acts out in truly disturbing ways is when the family is around. She won't accept the fact that harm will come of our associating with that side of the family.
The first thing you need to know is that Multiple Personality Disorder is extremely rare...there are only a handful of documented cases. That said, the behavior your mother-in-law exhibits, while regressive and disruptive, is not extreme enough to fall into a dissociative (the precursor to MPD) or borderline category. What's more likely is that she suffers from some latent post traumatic stress and the family is somehow a trigger.
