He is obsessed with herbs and vitamins. How to tell if he is nuts?!
Question:
He is obsessed with herbs and vitamins. How to tell if he is nuts?
He spends at least $4500 a year on vitamins and herbal remedies. There is no rhyme or reason to what he is taking, but he mixes about 30-45 different herbs together in a vita mixer, shoves them in capsules and takes 15 of them a day. This includes echinacea, diminia root, milk thistle, some kind of bilberry root or something, and I could go on and on and on.
Where do you think he got this crazy idea to take all this stuff every day. He thinks it is going to make him healthier and has it in his head if he doesnt take them, he doesnt feel well. I am afraid he is going to kill himself with herbs.
Do you think he is nuts or does he have some valid points taking thousands of dollars worth of herbs every year?
Answers:
This is a case of something that could be good, taken to such an extreme that it is no longer any good. I'm with the first respondent here, who said it sounds obsessive (as in diagnosable mental illness), particularly because he claims that he is unwell without them--part of the diagnostic criteria for OCD is that a person feels that if they don't do the compulsive behavior, that something bad will happen. He may not kill himself with all these potions, but he sure is wasting a lot of money. He probably got the idea bit by bit. Some people have the very mistaken idea that if 5 of something are good, then 20 are four times better.
No, I don't think he has any valid argument for taking so many supplements. However, if you were to challenge him, I bet he would respond by expounding on the merits of the individual supplements, without noticing the huge problem of his excessive combined use. Perhaps you could get him to see a naturopath (an expert on this topic), with the specific goal of reviewing this guy's supplement intake and making intelligent recommendations.
Are you in a relationship with this guy? If you are, I suggest you sneak away. Because if it's not this (vitamins) it will probably be something else (sports cars, computers). Crazy people are never crazy in just one way--they're crazy in at least a few ways.