Case study on Jackie is 50 and widowed, her husband died five years ago.
Jackie
Jackie is 50 and widowed, her husband died five years ago. Born and raised in the Bronx, New York, she lived with her only husband of twenty years in her mother’s apartment with her two sons. She currently still lives in that apartment with her mother and her two grown, adult sons. Jackie has a history of being hospitalized to inpatient psychiatric wards after suicide attempts and deep cutting close to arteries. When in her late teens, Jackie was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder I and that has been her diagnosis for decades within the healthcare system. She has been prescribed lithium on and off for years but will sporadically refuse to take it. Jackie has not been able to hold a stable job and receives SSI benefits for her mental health disorder.
Jackie reports that the one good relationship she had was with her husband and she has not dated anyone since then. She also reports that she does not know if she has fully mourned his death. It seems she largely trusted him to be good to her and he was.
Jackie also states that her mother has emotionally and verbally abused her and her children for many years. Her mother has symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder and often has mood swings, pushing away her family and then putting pressure on them to give her attention. She often fabricates stories, trying to get Jackie in trouble with the police.
In the last three years, Jackie has displayed more intense suicidal ideation than was the case while she was married (she thinks about overdosing on pills or jumping out of a window) and deeper cutting gestures, making more frequent visits to the hospital. She reports that while the thought of how her suicide would affect her sons was a deterrent from suicide attempts in the past, she now thinks her sons would not care if she died and believes it is better if she were to end her life since she can never gain freedom from her psychotic mother, she feels. She also states that part of her still wants to live and that is why she has therapy with you, with whom she has developed a close relationship, speaking on the phone with you for two weekly sessions over the last year. She states that she trusts you more than the people on her ACT team.
Jackie was diagnosed with Borderline Personality a year ago for the first time, having historically been diagnosed with Bipolar I Disorder. She says that she does not feel she has this diagnosis and notices how doctors seem to judge her when they see it. Yet, she also feels that she is acting more and more “like a borderline” in order to “show them what they want to see.”
Jackie says she always has felt like a boy or a tom-boy. She was close to her biological father, but he died tragically when she was 12. Jackie can be a lively talker, is well informed and knowledgeable about culture. She can discuss her feelings and she was known for being a good mother when her sons were boys and well-behaved.
Her moods tend to cycle between what appears to be depressive states and evident
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