If you claim you have a mental disorder in advance of the time required for such a diagnosis to be made, how can it be determined that you have it or you are acting as if you have it?
Persistent complex bereavement disorder is distinguished from normal grief by the presence of severe grief reactions that persist at least 12 months (or 6 months in children) after the death of the bereaved. It is only when severe levels of grief response persist at least 12 months following the death and interfere with the individual's capacity to function that persistent complex bereavement disorder is diagnosed.
Ok, let's remember that the descriptions of these "disorders" are not necessarily cast in stone, these specific distinctions are encoded in the DSM for the convenience of psychiatrists, therapists, and social workers who a) need to know what ballpark they are playing in with their new patient/client, and how to bill the insurance company for the counseling fees. Psychological "diagnoses" are not nearly so precise as most medical ones can be.
We can say with certainty that this test says you've got a bacterial infection, a heart condition, high cholesterol, or whatever, and that will be clear and accurate. With psychological "diagnoses" you get a list of characteristics and get to choose which ones the patient/client exhibits to see if maybe they may match the criteria for the diagnosis. So if there are 7 criteria, the diagnosing practitioner might need 5 out of the 7 to qualify as that diagnosis.
So you can easily have three people who have the same psychological "diagnosis" who behave very differently and have very different symptoms, because their three sets of 5 out of 7 criteria don't match. And that doesn't even include people who might have 4 out of the 7 who you'd have to say rule in/rule/out (maybe, we'll see) for that diagnosis. It's not so clear and not so categorical as one might think.
HW's statement about complicated grief are, as is typical for her, not accurate. There are several treatment programs for complicated grief, and many modalities which do help. HW's statements that so few people "get it" is not accurate, between 20-30% of people who experience a loss may deal with this. It is NOT permanent and it is NOT true that there is nothing that can be done to resolve it. That thinking is part of the disordered thinking and ideation that goes along with this syndrome.
In addition, in important point to be made is that there is an addiction factor in the brain with persistent long-term grief which creates many maladaptions and symptoms over time. It turns out that biochemically and emotionally, the grieving person gets as much pleasure as pain from focusing on their lost loved one and their grief. Interesting considering other apparently addictive tendencies HW's behavior seems to indicate, yes? Here's but one easy article from 2013 on this in case you're interested.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/get-hardy/201309/about-complicated-bereavement-disorder-0There's lots of info out there that contradicts what HW is saying. I say she's using her "disorder" to justify her self-involved undisciplined behavior and all her antics. Yes, I'm sure she is grieving Art's loss for real, but it also looks very much like whether she is doing it consciously or unconsciously, she's also enlarging, continuing, and milking her grief for everything she can use it for to her own advantage. Poor me, I'm suffering so, and I won't ever get over it, either, this article I read on the internet says so... Sheesh.
Sigh.
