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Enneagram Movie Board Archive Claire: Mercurial, Somtimes Borderline....Posted by Rich (64.12.96.13) on October 21, 2002 at 20:08:50: In Reply to: Case study - Claire posted by Jan den Breejen (213.75.42.140) on October 21, 2002 at 13:01:38:
> Anybody could type Claire?? (any system may be used; mbti, enneatypes, Oldham/Millon). Plus from this profile, Claire seems to match what you have said about the Mercurail; in their 40s they seem to settle down and not be so extreme...Rich
> I have known Claire for over 25 years and have watched her through the good but mostly bad times of her often shaky and erratic life. Claire and I went to school together from the eighth grade through high school, and we've kept in touch periodically. My earliest memory of her is of her hair, which was cut short and rather unevenly. She told me that when things were not going well she cut her own hair severely, which helped to "fill the void." I later found out that the long sleeves she usually wore hid scars and cuts that she had made herself. Claire was the first of our friends to smoke. What was unusual about this and her later drug use was not that they occurred (this was in the 1960s when "If it feels good, do it!" hadn't been replaced by "Just say no!") or that they began early; it was that she didn't seem to use them to get attention, like everyone else. Claire was also one of the first whose parents divorced, and both of them seemed to abandon her emotionally. She later told me that her father was an alcoholic who had regularly beaten her and her mother. She did poorly in school and had very low self-esteem. She frequently said she was stupid and ugly, yet she was obviously neither. > Throughout our school years, Claire left town periodically, without any explanation. I learned many years later that she was in psychiatric facilities to get help with her suicidal depression. She often threatened to kill herself, although we didn't guess that she was serious. > In our later teens we all drifted away from Claire. She had become more and more unpredictable, sometimes berating us for a perceived slight ("You're walking too fast. You don't want to be seen with me!"), and at other times desperate to be around us. We were obviously confused by her behavior. With some people, emotional outbursts can bring you closer together. Unfortunately for Claire, these incidents and her overall demeanor made us feel that we didn't know her at all. As we all grew older, the "void" she described in herself became overwhelming and eventually shut us all out. Claire married twice, and both times had very passionate but stormy relationships interrupted by hospitalizations. She tried to stab her first husband during a particularly violent rage. She tried a number of drugs, but mainly used alcohol to "deaden the pain." > Now, in her mid-40s, things have calmed down some. Although she says she is rarely happy, Claire does feel a little better about herself and is doing well as a travel agent. Although she is seeing someone, she is reluctant to become very involved because of her personal history.
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