Originally Posted by
thatoneguy 
The dual phenomenon is certainly a befuddling one. It really seems as though I can be dealing with two entirely different people depending on whether agf is having well...for lack of a better term... an episode versus the calm inbetween.
For me, it was this inconsistency that was the real problem. It is what made me absolutely insane, and with good reason.
If a child is given consistent love, then they are fine (natch.) You'd think that if they were given no love, that would be the worst, but eventually that is accepted as the state of affairs, and they get on with it and focus on other things.
What is the worst is inconsistent love. It leads to obsession. The same holds true for behavior. The whole Dr. Jeckell/ Mr. Hyde deal would maybe be tolerable, or definitively intolerable, if there was some logic behind it.
But it's unpredictable, and beasts that we are we keep trying to get that thing (love, or the sweet version of our beloved) to appear again. We don't know what causes it, how to trigger it, so our brains go into overdrive trying to make it reappear again. It's absolute torture, and we end up twisting ourselves, uselessly of course, to try and get the result that happened once.
My personal opinion is that this is the worst thing. It isn't any of the behaviors themselves (although they can really be a trial), it's inconsistency.