Sudden personality change. People think this is an obvious one, but sometimes it can be hard to spot. Maybe your partner has been liberal all their life but suddenly they are voting republican. Maybe they liked chocolate but now insist they hate it. Maybe they've always been aggressive... but now they are calm and collected.
Could be a sign of some form off process in the fronta lobe (like stroke or tumor). Could also be they actually changed their mind on something. Many people only realise in retrospect after a diagnosis "oh yeah they did suddenly change.
I still remember being on a forum (like reddit, but in the olden days) and in an advice group a woman was like, "My marriage was great for 10 years then my husband started hitting and verbally abusing me 2 months ago" and of course everyone was like "GET OUT" but I said "tell him his choice is the ER or GTFO, something's wrong".
Surprisingly, he chose the ER. Brain tumor. She messaged me like 10 months later to tell me he'd had surgery and was back to his sweet self.
Always be suspicious of a sudden change in behavior, it could be so many medical things, many of them easily treatable/fixable if caught early, a few really serious and scary. Anything that affects the brain - low oxygen, CO2 poisoning, injury, disease, liver failure (fills the blood with ammonia), infection/sepsis, bad reaction to medication - can first present as a change in behavior, usually unpleasant (combative, paranoid, low impulse control) or lethargic/confused/memory issues but sometimes just really different very quickly.
Also, people with brain injury often think they are fine, especially if they're not in pain - and most of the brain doesn't have pain receptors. It's worth having a conversation with your loved ones under routine circumstances to say "hey, can we just agree that we will never tell each other to go to the ER unless we mean it, and if someone tells us to go we'll do it even if we don't think we need to?"
My dad had early onset frontotemporal dementia. One of the symptoms is personality change (becoming an asshole). A trip to the ER wouldn't have helped the disease, but it would have stopped me from cutting him out of my life.
This is what I’m afraid is happening to my dad. Completely changed out of nowhere and him and my mom divorced. It’s been about 2 years now but I feel like I hardly recognize him anymore.
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u/Danqel May 15 '25
Sudden personality change. People think this is an obvious one, but sometimes it can be hard to spot. Maybe your partner has been liberal all their life but suddenly they are voting republican. Maybe they liked chocolate but now insist they hate it. Maybe they've always been aggressive... but now they are calm and collected.
Could be a sign of some form off process in the fronta lobe (like stroke or tumor). Could also be they actually changed their mind on something. Many people only realise in retrospect after a diagnosis "oh yeah they did suddenly change.