JoAnn Spears returns to let her nursing prowess diagnose mental illness among long lost monarchs. This series focuses on Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. Her popular previous series on Henry VIII’s illnesses can be found here:

1. http://jordynredwood.blogspot.com/2012/01/florence-nightingale-diagnosis-henry.html

2. http://jordynredwood.blogspot.com/2012/02/florence-nightingale-diagnosis-henry.html

3. http://jordynredwood.blogspot.com/2012/02/florence-nightingale-diagnosis-henry_03.html

Parts I and II were on Monday and Wednesday.

Today, JoAnn concludes this fascinating series.

A recap of Mary’s career is called for in arguing that she may indeed have had Histrionic Personality Disorder. 

Overall, the etiology of histrionic tendencies is poorly researched.  Early loss of a parent, or unpredictable parental attention, may contribute to it. 

Lack of constructive criticism and discipline may lead to the emergence of a histrionic personality in adolescence.  The pubescent Mary was almost universally doted on. Interestingly, her mother-in-law, that clear-sighted Machiavellian survivor Catherine De’Medici, was not nearly so sanguine about the burgeoning Mary.

Dramatic statements and lack of sincerity are strongly associated with the histrionic type.  Being easily influenced by others is also characteristic; some aver that Mary’s strike at Elizabeth was incited by her scheming French relatives.

Mary made the histrionic decision in choosing not to subdue the flashing of her considerable beauty, style, and elegance at the austere and Puritan Scots court, damaging her chances of political success.

Perceiving relationships as being deeper or meaningful than they are, or entering too deeply into shallow relationships, comes with the histrionic territory.  Clearly, Mary’s initial assessment of her relationship with Lord Darnley was far from accurate.   Likewise, she couldn’t or wouldn’t see how extreme and inappropriate the favoritism she showed her exotic Italian secretary was perceived by those around her.

Dependency, the primrose path to getting others to do one’s dirty work, goes hand in hand with histrionic personality disorder.

Histrionic individuals are known to rashly shift from one perspective or plan to another.  This can put them in the way of situations and relationships that are unstable or even threatening to their well-being or safety. 

Darnley, Rizzio and Bothwell were not the only men who came a cropper in Mary’s wake.  The poet Chastelard was executed for romantically hiding under her bed.  England’s prime nobleman, Norfolk, was brought low by scheming to marry her.  Her sex appeal blasted the career and marriage of Lord Shrewsbury, her eventual jailor. Lack of concern for the impact of one’s drama on others highlights the histrionic trajectory.

Histrionic people have a strong need to be at center stage.  Fading into background, keeping a low profile, and having only a bit part to play do not sit well with them.  Mary could not allow herself to be forgotten by the European political world.  She did all she could to stay on stage with them, even at risk of her own life.

Constant seeking of the approval and reassurance of others rounds out the histrionic personality.  Mary, with histrionic insouciance, took herself from screaming drama queen to subdued sainthood without blinking.  Such sainthood would bring her the approval of Catholic Europe, and ultimate vindication both from heaven and earth.

JoAnn Spears returns to let her nursing prowess diagnose mental illness among long lost monarchs. This series focuses on Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. Her popular previous series on Henry VIII’s illnesses can be found here:

1. http://jordynredwood.blogspot.com/2012/01/florence-nightingale-diagnosis-henry.html

2. http://jordynredwood.blogspot.com/2012/02/florence-nightingale-diagnosis-henry.html

3. http://jordynredwood.blogspot.com/2012/02/florence-nightingale-diagnosis-henry_03.html

Part I was Monday.

 

There are four types of Cluster B personality disorders.  Two of them, the Antisocial and Borderline Personality types, tend toward, but are not absolutely divided between, gender lines.

 Elizabeth I’s father, Henry VIII, went from Defender of the Catholic Faith to excommunicated renegade over non-consummation of his sexual relationship with Elizabeth’s mother, the enigmatic Ann Boleyn.  He could easily be touted as a prime example of this disorder.  Mary Queen of Scots’ father, James V of Scotland, likewise had antisocial tendencies.  His acknowledged illegitimate offspring outnumbered his legitimate children 3:1.

Both Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I could behave in remarkably self-serving and unrealistic ways.  However, each maintained, despite ups and downs, a solid and defined self from which each might venture at times, but to which stronghold each always returned, Mary on the Catholic side, and Elizabeth on the Protestant.

Where, then, do these two legendary queens fall on the personality disorder continuum?

Narcissistic personalities are preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity.  These are ego-building structures in most people, but can become ego- challenges when underpinned by extremes of parenting in vulnerable individuals.  Elizabeth I never knew her mother.  Her father, Henry VIII, vacillated between tolerating Elizabeth, neglecting her, and avoiding her.  A trusted stepmother, Katharine Parr, exposed her to exploitation by an irresponsible would-be stepfather. A fond surrogate mother, Kat Ashley, probably spoiled Elizabeth rotten, and ultimately set the stage for the conflicted personality that was inherent in Elizabeth, but yet to emerge.  The likes of Walter Raleigh, Francis Drake, Shakespeare, the Lord Essex, and many more knew what it was like to live in the glare of that drama, directly or indirectly.  For some, like Drake, it led to glory; for the likes of Essex, it led to an early death; for Sir Walter Raleigh, it brought both defeat and victory.

JoAnn Spears returns to let her nursing prowess diagnose illness among long lost monarchs. This series focuses on Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. Her popular previous series on Henry VIII’s illnesses can be found here:

1. http://jordynredwood.blogspot.com/2012/01/florence-nightingale-diagnosis-henry.html

2. http://jordynredwood.blogspot.com/2012/02/florence-nightingale-diagnosis-henry.html

3. http://jordynredwood.blogspot.com/2012/02/florence-nightingale-diagnosis-henry_03.html

Part I is today. Parts II and III will be on Wednesday.

Welcome back, JoAnn!

It’s said that good judgment comes from experience, and that experience comes from bad judgment.  England’s Elizabeth I is a fine example of this aphorism.  Early misalliances with her exploitive stepfather Tom Seymour, and the less-than-suitable Earl of Leicester, for example, cost her dearly on a number of fronts.  Nevertheless, she learned some lessons and finished the game as England’s own Gloriana, its supreme diva and arguably most successful monarch.

Mary Queen of Scots’ fund of experiences was also remarkable, even for someone of her rank and stature.  Unfortunately, the tragic Stuart queen failed consistently at making her fund pay dividends of sound judgment and good choices.  She was less challenged and far more advantaged, at the outset of their reigns, than her most famous contemporary–and relative–Elizabeth I.  Still, she made choice after choice that led to an almost unbelievably disastrous trajectory and culminated in a lengthy and ignominious imprisonment.  She died facing Elizabeth I’s executioner on what amounted to a gibbet of her own devising.  What made the difference in the way things went for these two powerful and legendary women? 

The point at which combinations of personality traits amount to health and success, or dysfunction and disaster, is not always easy to identify.  Mental Health diagnosticians use a guide called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), now in its fourth revision, to help them make this determination in a systematic way.

The DSM IV categorizes mental health conditions into different spectrums, or Axes. 

The second axis categorizes conditions known as personality disorders.  These are characterized by enduring, pervasive patterns in the way individuals think, feel, relate to others, and control–or fail to control–their impulses.  There are three clusters of personality disorders.

People with Cluster A disorders tend to behave in ways that would be considered odd, eccentric, isolative, or even paranoid.  Certainly, neither Mary nor Elizabeth were ever dismissed as odd; both were far too flamboyant and vivid for that, and both were at their best performing to an appreciative audience. 

Cluster C disorders are associated with anxiety, inhibition, neediness, preoccupation, rigidity, and submissiveness.  ‘Bloody Mary’ Tudor, sister of Elizabeth I, comes to mind here.    Her religious zeal, which lead to the burning of numerous ‘heretics’, is what history at large remembers her for.  Tudor aficionados will also note the pathetic, neurotic quality of her relations with the world at large, and with her husband, Prince Philip of Spain, the prototype ‘Cold Fish’ of the Renaissance era.

This leaves us, obviously, with Cluster B personality disorders.  Dramatic, erratic, impulsive, tumultuous, and attention-getting, the folks in this Cluster are the ones who, in modern parlance, command the room.  Clearly, both Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I deserve a second look from a perspective that minimizes judgment of them, and demands a full and constructive exploration of their complex and fascinating personalities.

***********************************************************************

JoAnn Spears is a registered nurse with Master’s Degrees in Nursing and Public Administration. Her first novel, Six of One, JoAnn brings a nurse’s gallows sense of humor to an unlikely place: the story of the six wives of Henry VIII. Six of One was begun in JoAnn’s native New Jersey. It was wrapped up in the Smoky Mountains of Northeast Tennessee, where she is pursuing a second career as a writer. She has, however, obtained a Tennessee nursing license because a) you never stop being a nurse and b) her son Bill says “don’t quit your day job”.