New hope...

[janey62]

I'm writing this cautiously because I don't want to jinx the thing, but my pwBPD seems to have turned a corner.

Over the past 2 and a half years, since we've been together, Ive seen enormous progress.  At first all was chaos and his bizarre behaviour made no sense to me or to him.  Two years of confusion, pain and worry followed but I stuck with him because when he was ok or 'normal' he was the nicest, kindest and most loving man I'd ever met and seemed genuinely bewildered by what had taken place.  

Things were really bad at one point last year, but then I discovered this site and began to understand what was happening and indirectly must have passed that to him, though I did blurt out that I thought he had BPD which didn't go down very well at the time!  Eventually though he did get a diagnosis of BPD.

I've been trough a learning process myself, trying to get to grips with my own part and my own behaviours and learn to moderate them so that I didn't make things worse.  Its been slow and often frustrating as my reactions have often been unhelpful, though understandable. I'm getting there... .find myself able to detach myself and take care of myself which ironically seems to help him... .

He has also been working on himself.  He has shown so much courage and strength of character that I'm often rendered speechless!  He still has his episodes, some recently have seemed more dangerous than ever, with threats of suicide.  Something changed though.  I was so worried one night, and also felt helpless because he'd walked out into a freezing night and was threatening to sleep out and not caring if he lived or died, that I called the Police and he was taken to a psych unit and assessed.  I think my doing that was the right thing for us both.  I handed responsibility to professionals and ultimately to him.  He had to negotiate his way out of it, or submit for treatment.

He came home later that night and thanked me for what I'd done.

It seemed like a turning point, though he has worked hard himself to be more aware of and manage his feelings, it seems that my actions were helpful, though at the time I didn't know it.  Before that I'd just managed his behaviours myself as far as was possible, keeping him safe and protecting myself by distancing myself when he became abusive.  

Its early days but we are hopeful.  With open and honest dialogue between us and his new understanding of his illness and his determination not to be beaten by it I do think that he can at least learn to manage it.  He writes about his feelings daily and does a mood journal online; seeing his mood swings in a graph seems to have given him insight into himself that he didn't have before.

We've had very patchy to non-existent help from professionals though so are thinking it might be best not to count on it.  

Any suggestions of ways he can help himself further that I might suggest to him would be gratefully accepted.  Any pointers, reading materials, anyone know of a good DBT therapist in the Dorset (England) area that he might try?

I'm feeling quietly joyful... .know there is more work to do for both of us, but looking forward to a relaxing and happy christmas... .

Janey x

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[waverider]

Sounds like you are doing the right thing. There will be ups and down, but you are keeping your eye on the big picture and making the hard calls when you have to.

Getting professional help is hard as often the full on courses are either not available or not affordable, and general levels of T often dont seem to achieve as much as you do yourself with some knowledge. This is partly because of the lack of continuity of insight of a pwBPD. They "get it" then go away and do the opposite of what they know they are supposed to do.

If you are both openly working on it together it makes it a lot easy to meet in the middle at times as there is a better level of both acceptance and the ability to almost treat the disorder as a third party (thick of it as a toublesome child) rather than part of your partner. Ie you can separate the person from the disorder, which is an important step as you can both be on the same team

[Grey Kitty]

  Yes, you are doing good work, and so is he!  Stick with it.

Take a look at the book  "The High Conflict Couple"; It is full of DBT exercises and tools. Review and discussion of it is here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=73976.0;all

I haven't tried DBT or seen my wife try it (yet), however I know that much of it is based on Buddhist mindfulness meditation practice. I've found that mindfulness meditation practice helped me a lot, and also that it helped my wife. There are a LOT of resources for this out there. If you pursue this, don't just read about it--the practice is what makes the real difference in your life.