It's great when you know people who have a copy of the DSM IV handy.
09.20.04

I have no life.  I called someone I know to tell her about the incident with my former "friend".  She asked if I thought he was mentally ill, and I said that I thought maybe he has Borderline Personality Disorder, but I hadn't looked at a copy of the DSM IV in several years.  What do you know, she has a copy of the DSM IV at home and looked up BPD!  I have copied some info from the internet into the link below.  I think if you look at this information and look at the email, you see he pretty much fits the bill.  Of course, I'm not a mental health professional, and this whole posting really just came from two people interested in mental health who have way too much free time on their hands.  I was shocked to see how closely he fit the criteria, especially how the longer descriptions of criteria match up with his statements in the email.  However, the question remains what his Axis I diagnosis would be.

Borderline Personality Disorder diagnostic criteria





Ode to Vincent Vandale Smith: the longest email I've ever received.
09.14.04

Long story short:  V.V.S., who until recently was a friend, lied to me and other friends that he had brain surgery!  Then he impersonated his brother to email us to "update" us on the recovery process.  Best of all, I met his brother in real life and then we talked online.  I feel kind of embarrassed because when I met his brother in real life I acted as if I somewhat knew him due to the fact I thought we had been emailing back and forth.  The brother probably thought I was a little crazy because in reality we had never spoken before.  I can't blame him if that's what he thought.  I would have had the same reaction if a girl I've never met before acts like she knows me on the first day.  So after I discovered the lies, thanks in part to the investigation of many friends, I contacted his brother online and asked if V.V.S. had brain surgery.  Now the brother probably thought I was really psycho because of course he lives with V.V.S. and knew there was no surgery.  Plus, V.V.S. had probably already groomed his brother in advance to think I was crazy, which I know had been done in the past with other friends or girlfriends.  In fact, V.V.S. attempted to convince me that all of his (ex)girlfriends were crazy.  But once in a while you have to stop yourself and ask: is everyone that Person X knows crazy or is Person X crazy?

Personally, I think the brother is the type of person who hides his head in the sand.  I told him about the "recovery update" emails.  He admitted it was V.V.S.'s email address, but the brother justified the impersonation by saying that someone must have hacked V.V.S.'s email account and used it for malicious purposes.  I pointed out that V.V.S. had mentioned the brain surgery to me in person, in real life.  After that, the brother said he wondered about his sibling, but otherwise seemed to lose interest in the conversation.  I understand that it's hard to accept that family members might be mentally ill, and that there's a limit to how much you can sacrifice your own life in an attempt to care for ill family, but I think that living in denial certainly is not a step in the right direction.

So I confronted V.V.S. on the phone because I had to find out for sure that I wasn't dropping someone based only on rumors and circumstantial evidence.  He didn't admit the truth on the phone, but then I got an email (edited in this posting for profanity) at 3:27 a.m. today.

Read the email.

At first I couldn't decide whether or not to post this email.  I never normally post conversations (or monologues) from other people.  Also, I would hate for anyone to misinterpret this posting as an attempt to preserve the friendship or to start a dialogue with him.  Really, I'm posting this email and commentary as a sad example of the problem of untreated mental illness, as well as an example of human frailty.  Many of the statements in his email could be made by any person.  We all have been there to some extent.  Although we live in a global world, individually we are becoming more and isolated.  I suggested to V.V.S. many times long before all of this that he should seek counseling.  He told me that he was going to counseling, but I have no way of knowing if that was also a lie.  I really hope he does seek help.  His family would be in the best position to assist him in getting such help, since he lives with them, but their vision seems to be too myopic to notice what's going on.  And I guess you can't help someone who doesn't want help.

Overall this experience really shook me.  I think I tend to look for the good in people, which I think is generally the right thing to do.  But with this particular person I struggled to see the good and ignored the bad when I was faced with mounting evidence that something was wrong.  This experience reminded me of stories you see on the evening news.  The neighbors of a serial killer are interviewed and they say, "He was a quiet man, kept to himself a lot, but we never thought he could have done something like this."  

Although I don't have particularly good feelings about V.V.S., I sincerely hope he does get help.