Expert: Ivan Goldberg, M.D. - 11/14/2008

Question
Sir,
I've known this girl for over 2 years and we're close friends.
I observed that sometimes she'll act really friendly and invite me to do things and go places with her with her and then sometimes she'll act like we're dating and want us not to hang out. She came around one time and she said how much she's glad I was there for her and how I was the only friend that took the time to see what was going on with her.
Another thing I observed was her love for the creative world and art and she come up with all these ideas and jump from one idea to the next and sometimes sound jumbled. Other times she'd avoid me and say not so nice things and then say sorry and say how much she values our friendship. Recently we had a weird conversation when I was trying to talk to her about something and things went downhill from there. She'd jump out of my way when she saw me, walk away when I tried to talk to her so I just gave up and returned the favor of avoiding her. I learned from a reliable source that she'd bipolar and I remember her telling me something close to that and telling me she has a personality disorder and that her mom gets maniac depressive sometimes. Does this sound like she could be bipolar or could it be something personal? I kept telling her I had no interest to date her or anyone and we both said we liked the brother sister type friendship. What could be wrong?

Answer
Hi, Donny . . .

From what you write, she may have a psychiatric illness or the two of you may just have a personal conflict of some sort. There is no way I can tell what is going on.

Sorry.

Best regards . . .

Ivan
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