Hi Marvis, and welcome!
I'd be really frustrated too if somebody decided to arrange my life for me without even talking to me first. In fact I've said to people "I'm 60, not 6!" My younger children are around your age, my son is 26 and my daughter 34. I don't think any of us likes being told what to do let alone having someone go ahead and DO it for us.
Like Phoebe, I went back to read your intro post, and I'm sad to see that things got violent--I've been in that "really scared of what might happen" place too and I did NOT like that feeling. It was a great decision on your part though to remove yourself from the situation. I know it seems conflicting when our loved one with BPD then feels abandoned (since that's the fear in the center of the disorder) but we can't help anyone else if we don't take care of ourselves.
Waverider once told me to look at it like the airplane spiel where the flight attendant says "please place your own oxygen mask on before placing it on your child" because you aren't gonna be any good to that kid if you're unconscious on the floor! So, great boundary, Marvis, removing yourself from the immediate conflict, that was great self-care.
One of the things I've learned here is the "taking a time out" tool. As much as I may have wanted to at any given time, I couldn't put my husband in a time-out ( ), so instead we can learn how to put ourselves in a "time-out" by temporarily removing ourselves, whether that means going to a coffee shop for a few hours or going to your sister's for a few days. There's a process to it that made so much sense to me when I read it, and this is the link:
How to take a time outI really like what Waverider said too about "Often a lot of this erratic crisis behavior is an exaggerated version of thinking aloud." I would take everything my husband was saying so personally and then react out of feeling hurt, and that just made things worse.
And like Waverider also said, it's "often best to step back and not try direct or influence the change. No matter what you say it will feel like interfering with his thought processes." I thought "trying to reason" made sense until I learned that because a pwBPD thinks so differently it was just more agitation.
It reminds me of my son with ADHD when he was young. When small he didn't have a way to block out all the extra sounds in the environment, so when we'd go to a department store he'd be reacting to the lights buzzing overhead, the sounds of people pushing hangers on the racks 2 departments over, and it would get to be too much. he'd put his hands over his ears, but that wasn't enough, I needed to remove him from all the stimulation before he lost control and started acting out. And in a way, our loved one with BPD gets overstimulated too and starts losing control of their emotions, but since they're adults we need to remove ourselves rather than them.
While you're out of the house, why don't you read through some of the info in the right hand sidebar of the board, that way you can begin to familiarize yourself with how the pwBPD feels, how you can be most effective in the relationship, that sort of stuff. Take care of yourself for a bit and relax. I know I would get so rattled by the blow-ups that I couldn't even think, and then i'd be worrying about every little thing I said... .it's uncomfortable to say the least, and you really don't relax. So maybe while your BF gets the space he needs you can have your own self-care time.
I know i'm babbling and babbling... .but I've been where you are, and I know when we can start changing our own mindset it makes a big difference.
It's a process, and it takes time, but believe me it's worth it.
dreamflyer99
