It has been a few years now, that I have asked my parents to respect my boundaries. Preceding this decision I had decided to no longer lie to myself and call things by there names. But like any well-meaning adult with a decent character, I was lenient with my parents. The first time I enforced my boundaries meant things would change in the family dynamics. I expected them to feel discomfort about my decision and that they would need time to adjust. However, I didn’t quite anticipate that they would act out so much, after all, I had considered them adults, too. Unwanted visits, waiting in front of my house till I got back from work, gifts in front of my apartment door, some of which were very expensive, unwanted calls, texts, letters, texts written of in to letters, some unpaid and not least the break in earlier this year. As alway I’m left to deal the the consequences of their behavior. I am fearful to leave my apartment and I am fearful to return to my apartment. I installed a chain at my front door. And now that the days are getting darker, I don’t want to switch on the lights in rooms facing the street, a dead giveaway that I’m home and I get a panic attack, when I forgot the switch off the light in the kitchen and see a light in my apartment when I returned thinking someone must have broken in again. So now I want to call it what it is – stalking.
Case Study
On this blog I try to bring together empirical evidence and logic with my chaotic and nonsensical upbringing. By reading up upon stalking behavior I came across this case study, which links not stalking per se but erotomania to a thyroid condition. A case study presents in interesting case, here a unique case which means there is no empiric data and more importantly no replica, because it only reports on the case of this one woman. The benefits of case studies it that it might improve clinical outcomes for other patients. If someone presents with an unusual symptom physicians can read up upon how others solved the problem. Or later research might actually aline with what was previously only described in a case study.
Erotomanie
People with erotomania genuinely believe that someone is in love with them but is keeping it a secret. It is not the same as obsessive love. They are however delusional about subtle behavior like looks that may or may not have been exchanged or the person walking past their desk twice a day when it is really just on the way to the bathroom. This delusion can result in stalking.
Though my mothers relationship to me is certainly abnormal I remain convinced that she is not capable of love. But there are things she wants from me, attention, comfort and care, or short she wants my love. Which I did give to her, like most babies do, hoping to be cared for. And like most children, I had to love her and disregard all the inhuman ways she treated me, even when I was a little older. In that way she was not delusional – children are dependent on their parents. Yet when I but my foot down and enforced boundaries, maybe for the first time in my life, things changed. Of cause she doesn’t want to except that or she feels entitled to my love at this point, since that sentiment is also reenforce by society. Regardless I don’t want her attention anymore and any signals she thinks she receiveing are an elusion.
Hyperactive Thyroid
The lady in the study that thought her boss is following the bus she is taking to work everyday in his car because he loves her, had a hyperactive thyroid condition that she didn’t check up with regularly. By treating the condition more meticulously the delusion vanished.
Interestingly Chinese medicine associated a thyroid condition this laying. Not surprising therefor that my mother is ridden with such a disease. The everlasting victim that she is, is she made sure to tell everybody who would listen that she now has Hashimoto-disease „and it is live long disease“ *suffering. Hashimoto is an autoimmune disease in which the body makes anybodies against the thyroid. It typically leads to a brief increase in thyroid hormones before hormone levels drop because the anybodies are slowly degraded the thyroid. When I raised concerns to the family doctor that I might have inherited the condition, he was so perplexed he pulled up my mothers file. He told me it was quite the opposed my mother had, I guess then a hyperactivity of the thyroid, and that that was not hereditary. It is difficult to ever now the truth about attention seeking lairs, but just for now let us go with what the physician said.
Case in Point
So with this I would like to present a new case study of an delusional women with an hyperactive thyroid. Granted, my mother is the most obsessive and stringent person if there ever was one and is never late taking her meds or for check ups. But a later study found that among people that once were juvenile offenders those that later continued with criminal behavior had higher thyroid activity. This proves that there is a wider trend that an imbalance in thyroid hormones can lead to concerning behavior.
Hyperthyroidism and de Clerambault’s syndrome in a young woman (1987) Dr Kua
Criminality and psychopathy as related to thyroid activity in former juvenile delinquents (1996) P.O. Alm, B. af Klinteberg, K. Humble, J. Leppert, S. Sorensen, R. Tegelman, L. H. Thorell, L. Lidberg
