So, i have this cousin, female, single, 18 yrs old, who is the reason i actually found this forum ( btw, sorry for that). Its been a year or even more since she started to behave strange - though she was always a bit different and socially awkward. But its her growing narcissistic complex that got my attention at the first place. She is convinced that everyone is jealous of her ( her look, financial status, college grades or whatever) and that people are plotting against her. She has an ideas of grandiosity as well as fanatically expressed religious beliefs…
The thing is that she appears as normal and functional. Everyone think that she is just “weird”. Her mother whom i try to speak with is strongly denying…
What is wrong with her? Could it be some kind of introduction to a more serious things?
Or there are just some people who manage to live on the edge of delusional…?
You know, I think it’s just maybe a teenage thing, but if it persists then she should seek help, might not know for a few years down the pipe. Just be a friend.
Yeah but she is doing things like…
She took a photo and it had a circle of light on her neck…She was like, this is a sign of God, it means im a pure and innocent soul blah blah. Wtf?
Is she doing drugs, or anything? I don’t know, I have done the stuff where like after I made my son a grilled cheese sandwich and on the paper plate was an image of Jesus. I was freaked!!! And that’s even on meds. Lots of that stuff happens cuz even normal will say they saw Jesus in the clouds when they went through a storm in the airplane. I don’t know for sure, but I sure hope she doesn’t have anything bad.
Yeah…i just feel sorry for her. We grew up together. She has like one or two friends.
No drugs, alcohol, nicotine…
Broken home…divorced parents… I wish that her mum doesn’t think that visiting a psychiatrist is the end of the world.
I kinda think that most of my cousin are all off, so it must skip a generation. My one beautiful cousin killed herself from depression, and my other side of family has anxiety. I don’t know, it’s like we can’t stay married, or healthy, or happy. All my cousins.
No it skips, honey, he’ll be fine. My kids are fine. It is health, yes, but I think they say it takes some time before symptoms are pronounced, so I don’t know for sure if she has anything, my family was all like that in the beginning too when I said mental doom, they just brushed it off. When you can’t cope, that’ the time.
Sounds like classic PD sz, or at least slippage into paranoid delusional psychosis to me. If her mom is also in denial at this point, it may be very difficult to get anything across to her until she is older. I’m guessing severe identity enmeshment with your aunt along with a paradoxical denial of that by your cousin. Have seen this a number of times before.
It could be just that she is going through a stage. I think someone on this site said psychiatrists consider a person sz if they are psychotic for over six months. Watch her for signs of breaks with reality. It’s okay for her to be eccentric. She won’t be liked, but she won’t need to be force fed medications either.
I heard that the new diagnostic manual for mental illnesses is lumping all types of schizophrenia together whereas formerly they were al divided into subtypes. But if you read the old manual you will see that is says that people with the subtype of paranoid schizophrenia function better than any other subtype and can often appear “normal” and fit into society. I’ve had paranoid schizophrenia for 35 years. Most people have no idea, and I can usually move freely in society.
Maybe your friend is just stuck up and a snob.
I can talk and act normal and make perfect sense and sound totally normal. But if people around me knew what I REALLY think about they would think I am batsh*t crazy.
Is there a history of mental illness in her family?
Is the religiosity something that has been frequent in her life, or is it a sudden fixation on religion?
Neither of those things prove whether she has mental health issues (though I think there is enough symptoms that you describe that it should be investigated.)
Could she just be trying to compensate…like make her life better than what it really is to try and make herself feel more important/special?
I don’t want to undermine the possibility it may psychosis, I’m not a professional nor do I know her personally can’t tell what she is like day-to-day, but from the way it sounds she doesn’t seem to have a stable and happy life-style at home and so she seems to be creating one in her head. She might snap out of it as she grows older, like if she goes away to college and gets out of the environment she’s in. But I don’t know, it’s just sounds like she is trying to compensate for something.
You are right she does create a perfect life from the outside, like on the social networks…she has a strong narcissistic side…which is always a sign of insecurity…
And she lies…alot.
