Need Clarity

Hello, can you please tell me the mental health disorder that is characterized by a person who was always ignored and considered as not acceptable by family, and that person, as a result, constantly strives to achieve highs of happiness and accomplishment by not only attaining great feats of success, but also advertising that success?

Many decades later, the family still rejects her, which makes her feel dumped and not accepted by her family. Those feelings drive her to do something successful, such as earn a degree, build an amazing career, win an award, etc. and this makes her feel so much better. She thinks in her head, "Look at what I accomplished. You rejected me and turned your back on me, but look at the great things I did even better than you. Do you feel bad for rejecting me now? Do you accept me now?"

no, Im sorry but we can not tell you what this mental disorder is. if you look at the bottom of every page you will see a site disclaimer that says ...

The material on this site is for informational purposes only, and is not a substitute for medical advice,
diagnosis or treatment provided by a qualified health care provider.
Always consult your doctor or mental health professional before trying anything you read here.

my suggestion is to contact your own treatment provider or have your friend contact their treatment provider who will be able to tell you and your friend whether your friend has a mental disorder or not.

Doesn’t sound like a mental illness to me but as Amandalouise said none of us here can diagnose you as diagnoses have to be made by professionals only. Good luck in finding the answer

Doesn't sound like any mental illness I am familiar with. Painful yes but not what I would describe as being on the spectrum of mental illnesses.

If you truly feel this individual is ill then a visit to their family doctor is in order. If the family doctor feels a referral is in order they will make one to a psychiatrist. What they should NOT be doing is attempting to self diagnose. This is NEVER a good idea. Offer this person support and encouragement to pursue this if they are truly concerned something is wrong.

Maybe someday she will no longer look for approval from this family?

I actually did the same thing for a different reason. I didn't want to stay in the same class level as my parents & thought education & a professional career was the answer because I refused to depend on marrying someone to get me out of where I was growing up. Thank you "I can do it myself" was always my motto. My dad was against me getting a degree but like normal I blew off their thinking & went for it. It was never because of a need to be accepted except maybe by the higher class people than basically kept my parents at arms distance. I didn't get ut until a few years ago that it wasn't their education level but it was my dad's behavior....but that is a different story & issue.

That behavior is NOT a mental health issue.

Childhood Emotional Neglect is not a mental illness but it can definitely create the environment that is the foundation for thinking like that to be formed.

You might look into the CEN forum here & watch some of the videos to see if any of it fits your childhood experience.

This whole thing about understanding our past & how it relates to the present is like one huge jig saw puzzle....understanding pieces from all over coming together to make sense out of it. My T called it integration (though not related to DID integration of alters). It can give us lots of possible answers to the "why questions"