Tag Archive for: Mental Illness

Rumbles Before the Quake

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The ground gives off a lot of clues before an earthquake — and so do people.

We often hear that someone is “going through a midlife crisis.” It can happen in a way where the person is happy, sad, or in between. A red sports car may be involved, or it may be a new model train hobby. When the person is married, the crisis ends up spreading out to affect the people around them.

In most cases, however, there has usually been some sort of shift taking place within that person that set the stage for a midlife crisis. From society’s changing attitudes to cell biology, here are three factors that I frequently see:

•Menopause: A classic example is a woman going through menopause. Many women will tell you that they felt absolutely crazy for five years. Their body stops being able to regulate itself, and then, all of a sudden, they start thinking differently and feeling differently about themselves and their whole life. Menopause “survivors” say that they had become a different person through those years.

•Mental Illness & Substance Abuse: It is not uncommon for very high-functioning people to struggle with a chronic mental illness or substance abuse problems. As they approach midlife, something happens that throws them off balance where they are no longer able to control their illness, even within the parameters that have always kept them high functioning. Of course, Covid has been working non-stop to add stress to people’s lives, which may result in relapses when there otherwise might not have been.

“Cougars” & “Hot Dads”: As society has suddenly begun to admire women and men past the age of 40, the denizens of that age group are taking notice. Men, especially, seem eager to test out the extent of their attractiveness on younger associates at work. Things like personal trainers, plastic surgery, and body contouring become a priority. This effect may also be partially responsible for the rise in divorce among people in their 40s and 50s.

Eventually, for these people, something happens where they are no longer even within the sphere of normalcy. The checks and balances they had made in their lives are no longer working, and they begin to act in ways they never had before. Either they will ask for a divorce, or their spouse will. If you ask their spouses what happened, they will often say that the person who had the midlife crisis was a workaholic with a successful career — and a substance abuse problem.

Thankfully, the 1950s are dead and buried, much like the notion of staying in an unhappy marriage. That said, divorce can still be a long and painful shift, and escaping an abusive home is still fraught with dangerous obstacles.

Contact us for more information.

Cheryl Stein, Esq.
The Law and Mediation Offices of Cheryl Stein
745 Fifth Avenue, Suite 500
New York, NY 10151
Phone: (646) 884-2324
E-mail: cheryl@cherylsteinesq.com

Divorcing Jekyll and Hyde

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When a disorder, such as Borderline Personality Disorder, becomes well known and filters into mainstream vocabulary, all of a sudden, laymen are diagnosing each other with it at the drop of a hat.

Obviously, a lot of divorcing couples paint their spouse with such labels, even though the person may simply not be handling the divorce well. When the average person undergoes an extreme stressor, such as an unraveling marriage and divorce, it makes sense that they may go a little haywire.

I have had clients tell me their spouse has borderline personality disorder, but when I dig deeper, it seems that the only person their spouse has difficulty with is them.

Borderlines have an overarching pattern of troubled relationships shadowed by explosive and uncontrollable anger. They have difficulty maintaining friendships, in general. If my client admits that his or her spouse, who acts erratic and unpredictable with them, is close with their immediate family and has good friends, in all likelihood, they are not borderline, but rather unhappily married and targeting their frustration at their spouse.

When there is mental illness, however, it can be problematic – mental illness typically limits a person’s coping skills.

In the case of Jekyll and Hyde personalities, you could question what came first – the chicken or the egg? Are people with specific personality disorders more prone to getting divorced? If one person’s emotional problems take up the whole room, how can they sustain a relationship?  

Spouses can feel like they’re walking on eggshells around someone who is volatile. The person could be charming and spirited, but once you get to know them, they’re stressful to be around. They become easily unhinged, and you never know when or what is going to set them off.

When couples divorce and a custody trial ensues, a parenting analysis is done. This analysis includes determining which parent is more attuned to their childrens’ needs. I’ve participated in cases where both parents are compromised – one may have Borderline Personality Disorder and the other is Bipolar. In this case, we’ll do a comparison between the two to determine which one is higher functioning and better equipped to deal with the childrens’ physical, emotional and intellectual needs.  

Even though we try to be settlement oriented, we often have to litigate. In these situations, attorneys have to reveal what’s going on for their client and provide examples to the court. In domestic violence cases, attorneys need to show exactly how their client is the victim of coercive control and abuse, which many times goes hand in hand with the perpetrating Jekyll and Hyde personality type.

Attorneys need to help their clients recognize that they can only control themselves, not their ex-spouses. They should also try to help their clients have insight into their own behavior and learn to modify it and not necessarily react to the other party’s provocations, especially in custody cases, where the parties have each other in their lives at least until the childrens’ emancipation.

Feel free to contact The Law & Mediation Offices of Cheryl Stein with any questions.

Cheryl Stein, Esq.
The Law and Mediation Offices of Cheryl Stein
745 Fifth Avenue, Suite 500
New York, NY 10151
Phone: (646) 884-2324
E-mail: cheryl@cherylsteinesq.com