Multiple Personalities, or Just One with a Problem?

Reader’s Question

I have been with my fiancé for almost six years. He is 26 years old. He has always been an exceptionally competitive person and hard on himself. If he doesn’t win he is upset for days. He then switches from a nice, fun-loving guy to a moody, grouchy person who doesn’t care about anything for days and weeks after. During these times he says that he’s worthless and that he never amounted to anything, and he will sleep for most of the day. He actually has a pretty sweet life, a loving family and might I add, an exceptionally caring soon-to-be wife.

Why does he go from one extreme to another? It’s like he can switch into two different personalities. Either that or he can’t control the anger of failure so much that he loses it. I’m not sure what to do; I give him space, but then he feels guilty for acting the way he does and not being with me at that time. What can I do? I have conversed with him about the possibility of having a bipolar condition, and he agrees that he has some symptoms. What can we do?

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

You seem to have an intuitive sense about what prompts a change in your fiancé’s behavior. And rather than that being an indication of “switching” personality, it’s more likely that he has one of those personalities in which disappointment or defeat is simply intolerable. Such is often the case for personalities which I refer to in my books as “aggressive personalities” and which some other authors and researchers have labeled “Type-A,” or “Controllers,” etc. Such personalities are inordinately competitive, goal-oriented, and “driven.” That’s not to say that they can’t also suffer from mood disturbances. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest that such individual’s might be predisposed toward illnesses such as Bipolar Disorder.

It would be best to encourage your fiancé to visit with a mental health professional. There are many approaches that might assist him in gaining some much needed balance in his overall style of coping. Medications can sometimes help, but they can also sometimes mask symptoms and therefore “enable” people to continue maladaptive patterns. It’s best to work with a psychologist or other professional who is broadly versed in personality issues as well as the various other conditions that tend to co-occur with certain personality types.