Is Joy borderline personality disorder or what else?? Joy…

Question Answered step-by-step Is Joy borderline personality disorder or what else?? Joy… Is Joy borderline personality disorder or what else??  Joy volunteered that she was the fourth of eight children (five girls and three boys) born to a Catholic couple, and the fourth girl. The family was lower middle class. Her father was a struggling furniture salesman. Her parents had a rural background and moved to their present suburban area when joy was a few years old. “My dad never felt accepted in the city, because we were country people. He seemed to take his frustrations out on me.” Joy added, “I was always the black sheep. I didn’t do anything bad, but that’s what my folks always told me. I was always getting yelled at for no reason. They used to get mad, saying I was a dangerous driver. I liked to drive my car fast, but I only did that late at night, and I never had a serious accident. It was fun, and I knew what I was doing. But no one in my family would ride with me. I used to like when people rode with me, because I liked to  scare them.” Joy added that she was at best cordial with her family and had little contact with her  parents and siblings. She described her parents as “mean.” When pressed about this, Joy shared  that “My parents were together all the time and didn’t pay much attention to us. We all had to raise  ourselves.” Joy said that she moved out of the house the day after her high school graduation. “I  stayed away from home as much as I could all through high school, and I couldn’t wait to get away.”  she  stated again that she was frequently singled out as the family scapegoat. Her father in particular  always criticized her and told the others that she was worthless. “He’s like a lot of people, who don’t  want to give me credit when it’s due.”  During the second interview Joy was more verbal and the social worker learned more about her background. In high school she showed remarkable athletic ability, starring on her high school’s state championship softball team 2 years in a row. Another impressive accomplishment was her work on the town’s volunteer rescue squad. Joy developed an early interest in nursing and enthusiastically sought out the EMT position. She hoped to become a registered nurse one day. She admitted to  being a bit of a daredevil as well, jumping off high cliffs into reservoirs and sometimes starting fightsJoy said  “I’m not really good at anything. I don’t have any skills. I’m kind of a nobody.” Yet, beginning at  the age of 18, she  had been making emergency squad runs, going to the sites of heart attacks and  car accidents and participating in dramatic rescues. She seemed to be very effective in that capacity.  “I like to keep busy,” she said. “I don’t feel so good when I just sit around.” Indeed, Joy and her housemates worked long hours at the fire department, attended parties, played sports, and took  weekend trips together. When asked if she took pride or pleasure in these activities, she replied, “No.  I’m just filling time. If I stop doing things, I feel empty.” Joy did say that she missed a lot of work  due to her inability to consistently follow a schedule and she functioned poorly when sad, frightened, or irritable. She usually missed several days of work each week and thus had an unsteady income, which was a concern to her.  She suggested that her parents could provide more accurate background information and  invited the social worker to meet with them, as long as she did not have to be present. The social  worker had one meeting with her parents and was struck by their defensiveness. Her father said,  “Whatever Joy tells you, don’t believe it. I always provided very well for her. We always had food on the table and clothes in the closet. I never cared that Joy never appreciated anything. She was an ungrateful girl.” Her mother agreed that she was not one to nurture or be soft with her kids.  She said, “Children cannot learn too early to stand on their own two feet, and I ran my household  accordingly. They had to learn early to take care of themselves.” The social worker concluded that Joy’s description of an emotionally cold household was accurate.  During the third assessment meeting, Joy said again that she sometimes felt she deserved to  be lonely, because “I’m a bad person,” even though she was not able to elaborate on this point. At other times, however, she felt she was “an OK person.” She talked about a series of short-term relationships with boys during her last 2 years of high school, but she insisted that they were superficial.  She never let her boyfriends get to know her well and was never physically intimate with them. She said, “They were always smothering me, wanting to be with me all the time, but who wants that? They all seemed nice at first, but then I realized I couldn’t count on them for anything, and they eventually wanted sex. That’s probably all they ever wanted. So we wound up having lots of arguments and I  had to push them away.” Still, she said that she always had a new boyfriend within a few weeks of  a breakup. She said, somewhat sarcastically, “It was a way for me to pass the time.” After this third visit, the social worker received a letter from detailing her history of sexual abuse by her father that spanned the ages of 5 through 17. She had never discussed these incidents with anyone. She added that the incest was her own fault, proof that she was a bad person. She had never trusted anyone and assumed that anyone who knew her secret would reject her. She perceived that the  social worker was genuinely interested in her, although she admitted to feeling confused by his concern.  During their next meeting she was again experiencing thoughts of death and fears of losing  control and the social worker arranged for  her to be seen by the agency physician for a medication evaluation. “I’ll see him,” Joy said, but I’ve taken meds before and they never do anything for me.     Psychology Social Science Social Psychology PSYCHOLOGY 24815 Share QuestionEmailCopy link Comments (0)