Ridiculous Non-Issues

[leggomyeggshell]

Hello, tonight we were having a relatively good day, then out of the blue the pwBPD decides to latch on to some thing I said that was so insignificant to me that I don't fully even remember saying it, I notice this tends to happen a lot.  It had something to do with a political issue as we were watching a debate on tv, anyway I had just gotten back downstairs and she started talking to me about something with the debate.  I believe I said something along the lines that we should not talk about it because it was sort of stressful or maybe too complex of a topic to discuss in front of our kid and I didn't want to get into it all at that moment, I can't remember, in other words I dismissed something she was saying without realizing it.  anyway, she starts getting angry and saying I am abusive for cutting her off, then I start trying to recall what I had even said.  At some point I said I was going upstairs if she did not stop calling me abusive.  Apparently the threat of me attempting to enforce a boundary in that situation upset her tremendously and she starts threatening to leave the house, etc.  I said to her something like not to make a bad decision.  She thought about it and went upstairs instead.  Then she comes back down 5 minutes later and orders the kid and dog upstairs and tells me not to come up tonight.  I hear her on the stairs telling the child that her family is the three of them, not including me.  now she is making a federal case out of this and is holed out in the room with the kid and the dog.  Sometimes it seems like the more trivial the issue, the more adamant she gets that this is something she wants to fight about.

Anyway, obviously I failed to validate her at that moment but I have only really been thinking to go into validation mode when she is having a dysregulation, other times I interact with her as I would any other person.  It's always hard when it blindsides you like that.  Do you guys always watch what you say with them?  Is there ever a time when you can relax and just be yourself?

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[waverider]

It gets better once validation becomes part of your everyday way of interacting with people, its just the good oil in getting on with people. Once it gets to dysregulation state then often its too late.

As for what seems a trivial issue, it is not about the issue itself it is about her feeling not valued as a person (by the world, not just you, including herself). She just uses the issue to illustrate and "proof" of her preconceptions.

Often fixing on tangible trivial issues is about converting internal complex chaos into something that is easy to apply some black and white "logic" to. Passing on the responsibility while they are at it

Sometimes it's best just to shrug and let it go. You can't fix everything

[Notwendy]

Sometimes the "issue" isn't the issue- but the reason at the moment for feelings of being devalued. When you make the issue or say something about it being "trivial", this is interpreted as " you are trivial, your feelings are trivial" and that can escalate it.

Sometimes the reason given may not even be the reason, but the first explanation given or thought of, or a smokescreen to deflect the question from the real reason, which the pw BPD may not even be aware of , or not want to tell you because they fear if you knew the real reason, you wouldn't like them. It feels like a house of mirrors at the fair.

WW is right about validation. The topic may not be validated but she wants her feelings and needs validated. Some of this is Mars/Venus interactions- the book that made a point that women talk out their feelings- and want to be heard, but men tend to hear these things as something to fix and so, feel uncomfortable just listening. I recall feeling invalidated when talking to my H. He would fear that he would have to fix something that he couldn't. He would also fear that I'd go on and on and on all night with feeling stuff. So, he'd jump to trying to contain the conversation by cutting it off as fast as he could. This was frustrating to me, and I recall feeling upset. If I pushed it, he'd dig his heels in. Well, I don't have BPD so it didn't get to what your wife did, but I can see how someone who could not modulate their feelings well might escalate it.

Years ago my H was angry at me for something and gave me the ST all through dinner. This is when the ST drove me bonkers and I would plead and cry for him to just please tell me what was wrong. Later, when he got over it, I asked why and he said " I didn't like the soup". I thought- all that over SOUP? but it was not about the soup, it was something else, something he may not have known at the time, or if he did, I wasn't going to know.

So, we have a choice to WOE with what we say, but I think these things are going to happen. I agree that a validating style of speech and actions are very helpful. If your wife needs to talk- at least validate her need to do so. Yes, have boundaries, you can't be available all the time.  But with black and white thinking, saying you don't want to talk now means you NEVER want to talk, even if you talked yesterday or 10 minutes ago. So your wife brings up politics at a bad time- saying honey, I really want to hear what you think, but I can be more attentive after child is in bed, so lets talk then. It may or may not work, but what happened didn't work.

The other choice is to not react to their reaction. Not WOE also means not fearing their response, and so when there is a dysregulation, not getting emotional or reactive might help keep it from escalating as much.

[waverider]

Issues are often just mediums used to express emotions of the moment, which are often not related.

pwBPD are often full of crazy distorted perceived emotions that have little logical foundations of their own, so they attach to anything that lets them vent out. Fixing the issue blocks the vent leading to a potential build up and explosion.

[leggomyeggshell]

Thank you guys for the insight.  This makes me wonder what happened to her when I was upstairs that made her feel a strong emotion.  Come to think of it she did seem to latch onto the very first comment I made once I had come downstairs so I think you are both right that it wasn't really about the issue she was going on about, although she convinced me it was at the time.  But I am curious what it could have been that triggered this and if there is any way to see this coming or to prevent this next time.  Could it have been just from her being alone with her thoughts for 15 minutes that triggered the sense of emptiness and despair?  Can I do something to help her not feel this way next time?  For me, being alone for 15 minutes does not fill me with a sense of dread and anger that I need to then transfer onto another person, so I am struggling to understand.

[Notwendy]

IMHO, trying to help, predict, or influence someone's thinking is futile and a waste of energy.

Pw BPD seem to have pre-existing negative personal messages. A fear of abandonment can lead them to "hear" those messages in a statement that isn't intended. You only know that they are triggered when it happens. Of course, we often also know what can trigger them. That we can avoid, but the other- the unintentional, is not something we can really predict.

The part we can control is our own reactivity to them. If we can understand that the triggers reflect their own thoughts, that we have nothing to do with them, then we can give up feeling responsible for them. The triggers belong to them, and the feelings that they avoid by blaming and raging at us allow them to use us as an emotional regulator.

Not adding to it means not being reactive. It doesn't mean allowing someone to rage or insult you, but it means holding on to our own feelings. It takes practice, but once we can see that it isn't about us, we can stay calm in the storm. In fact, our staying calm in the storm can result in them calming down quicker than if we participate in it. It's the emotion that feeds it. We can calmly remove ourselves or walk away in a huff, and each of those moves can have a different result. JADEing usually makes things worse.

[waverider]

Thank you guys for the insight.  This makes me wonder what happened to her when I was upstairs that made her feel a strong emotion.  Come to think of it she did seem to latch onto the very first comment I made once I had come downstairs so I think you are both right that it wasn't really about the issue she was going on about, although she convinced me it was at the time.  But I am curious what it could have been that triggered this and if there is any way to see this coming or to prevent this next time.  Could it have been just from her being alone with her thoughts for 15 minutes that triggered the sense of emptiness and despair?  Can I do something to help her not feel this way next time?  For me, being alone for 15 minutes does not fill me with a sense of dread and anger that I need to then transfer onto another person, so I am struggling to understand.

She might not even know what triggered it.

Their mind is not always in the present, it races into the past along with perceived futures making all sorts of links and connections that are not even there. Something rings an alarm bell, they react like some kind of silent comedy movie fire brigade running around tripping over themselves looking for a fire to put out. So they start one to justify being called out. Having hosed that down they feel validated in being called out.

They simply cannot compute false alarms, that part of the brain comes from the executive side which is generally overridden by the alarms of the emotional side.

[joeramabeme]

Thank you guys for the insight.  This makes me wonder what happened to her when I was upstairs that made her feel a strong emotion.  Come to think of it she did seem to latch onto the very first comment I made once I had come downstairs so I think you are both right that it wasn't really about the issue she was going on about, although she convinced me it was at the time.  But I am curious what it could have been that triggered this and if there is any way to see this coming or to prevent this next time.  Could it have been just from her being alone with her thoughts for 15 minutes that triggered the sense of emptiness and despair?  Can I do something to help her not feel this way next time?  For me, being alone for 15 minutes does not fill me with a sense of dread and anger that I need to then transfer onto another person, so I am struggling to understand.

Leggo - nice post - well articulated and very reasonable questions that you are asking; what happened?  What did I do?  How can I not do it?  etc.  Sad to say, but your questions imply a certain amount of control and responsibility - not said in a disparaging manner. 

There is no way to know when your pwBPD traits will be triggered - they do not even know themselves - and that is part of the problem.  What you can do is not think that you could do something different that would have prevented this.  By it's nature, this is exactly what BPD traits are; so in essence you are asking how can I control her disorder or take responsibility for it.  The only variable you have control or responsibility over is you and your reactions, the rest is all on her.  Sounds like you handled all of this very maturely. 

There is a tendency to believe that there is some potion or formula that measured in the correct dosage will circumvent or prevent an episode - it's just not true. 

The importance of knowing all this is so that you don't enable broken behavior.  If she is immature and acting childish that is all on her.  I tried for years to get my pwBPD traits to see the lights and all it did was make me sicker and more co-dependetly addicted to her ailment. 

Ask yourself this question; of all the times you tried to change her behavior or make her see how unreasonable she was being, did it work?  Not just situationally but globally in your r/s?  In my case the answer is no - not a difference and in fact made it much worst as she was looking for a scapegoat that would take responsibility for her nonsense. 

Save yourself a lot of agony - when you know that you are not at fault, dont take responsibility or tell yourself a story that you can practice validating her bad behavior.  It really is no different than a child having an unannounced tantrum - intentionally spilling milk on the floor and you cleaning it up and asking if your parenting style upset the child - really! - not an exaggeration. 

This is for your well being which may or may not make a difference in hers.

[leggomyeggshell]

I do appreciate what you said.  I think what you are saying is 95% true.  There is a component to this which depends on my actions, and like if I had been fully attentive to what she was saying and trying 100% at that moment she might not have dysregulated, or it could have been aimed at some non-present third party instead of me.  I would like to believe that this occurs independently of me but I think there might be things I can say that could stop it or keep it from erupting, or that trigger her... .according to her I cause some of the problems so there is another perspective out there.  I try to consider all perspectives.   Again, I would love to dismiss her as being always wrong or her behavior being independent of my actions but I feel that would be too generous to myself... .  the part I can accept though is that whether or not I caused it, or had any hand it in whatsoever, at that point it is already done and I have to just accept the facts, validate, disengage.  Without reacting or saying anything back that she can hold against me the next day or two.  Something I am working on still... .

[waverider]

  There is a component to this which depends on my actions, and like if I had been fully attentive to what she was saying and trying 100% at that moment she might not have dysregulated,

This may be true but you are still setting yourself up for unrealistic expectations, you can't be 100% best practice 100% of the time.

Throwing up another analogy

BPD is like living in a cyclone zone. If people ignore that then the town will get flattened every time. So practices are developed to minimize that, building regs require a degree of cyclone proofing, warning system are developed and monitored.  People dont store potential projectiles outside etc, but they still get on with their life. Cyclones will still happen and things will still get damaged, but when it happens they seek shelter until it passes then go about making any repairs after. They dont dwell on how they messed up because some damage occurred. They did their best, and more importantly they dont let it ruin their lives with self criticism.

pwBPD will turn that 5% you missed into 100% blame if you let them. Guilt and self doubt can let them.

I would love to dismiss her as being always wrong or her behavior being independent of my actions but I feel that would be too generous to myself... . 

One of the things to get past is apportioning blame, it just is, it is part of a day in the life of BPD relationships, this is were we get into the field of Acceptance.