So my wife has diagnosed CPTSD.
I believe (especially since reading others stories on here) that she has BPD and maybe CPTSD.
Basically I experience all of the classic BPD behaviors and in our years together haven’t seen any behavior that would indicate CPTSD. I agree she had a at times crap childhood into her teenage and young adult years, but never any avoidance or triggering based on childhood memories.
Now I realize that these very often coexist and are based on some similar origin points but the one is a much milder issue of a mood disorder and the other is a disorder of personality and will take a lot more work to heal from and change behaviors.
And I keep getting these attacks where everything is a double standard, and every one of her issues is blamed on me, and I am accused of being the source of. Like the verbal abuse, I have spent our entire marriage saying things like: ‘no matter how you insult me I won’t insult you back’ but I get accused of being verbally abusive all the time.
Does this sound like CPTSD to anyone here? Maybe it’s both . . .
My ex was diagnosed with cPTSD as well, she told me. She said it was from years of being in an abusive relationship with her exh. As I've written here before, early on in our relationship she had a very important thing she needed to tell me, we had to go to a quiet place to talk about it. There she outlined for me that her marriage was abusive and she needed to sneak out of the relationship, quietly making her plans and getting an apartment, acting like things were normal. Then one day she just got her stuff together and left, taking the young song along and then sending an email to her husband that she was filing for divorce.
I don't know how much of this about the abuse was true. During our 2-year relationship she often forwarded to me his texts and emails to her, wanting me to validate that he was a terrible person. Firstly, they were just regular text communication, no Our Family Wizard required, which surprised me since I thought that when there was obvious and dangerous abuse-like she described- the court would require OFW. Secondly, these communications were not abusive in any way, and didn't seem like those from an abusive person- no cursing, no real anger, no put downs, no name calling. Just matter of fact, and some frustration...which I understood.
Finally, after our breakup, word got around to me that her sister had told a client of mine (strangely enough, this client was a good friend of my ex's sister since childhood) that "she was worried about me" being in a relationship with her sister because my ex "is not a good person/is a bad person". I got along great with my ex's sister, I really liked her and she really liked me. It was a shock to me that my ex's SISTER would tell a client of mine, who I knew well and was friends with, that.
Perhaps on a related note, my ex told me that her ex boyfriend committed suicide "after a fight" with her, and left a note saying it was her fault. She says that also was traumatizing to her, as I imagine it would be. But, I do know what she calls 'fights', and they are not a typical fight. It starts with her accusing of doing something 'bad', telling me what my intentions were, then comes the JADE from me, and then the circular argument begins as she gets very angry and around and around we go. Once during an argument that started in that way I told her "honey, you seem to need to win when we have a disagreement, and I want you to know that is not my goal. I just want to feel heard, you don't have to agree. I have no need to win". I also note that if I were to ask her the most simple question about something she said she'd do but didn't, or something confusing to me about her behavior, or even just ask her to stay on the phone and chat a little bit when we weren't arguing, she would call that starting a fight.....or just say "what...you trying to start a fight?" in a very angry tone. Or talking about a certain weekend that she made a commitment to me to do something, then didn't, and so I ask her about it and she gets really angry....months later when discussing it becomes "oh yeah, that weekend you started a fight".
Which leads me to believe that my ex's behavior- highly controlling, angry, yelling, name-calling, put downs, mocking, mimicking my voice with sarcasm and contempt like a child, dishonesty and evasion, ghosting- predated me, and predated her marriage with her ex.
I know from all my reading and video watching that cPTSD is not easily differentiated from BPD. They share angry outbursts and abusive behavior. I also know that some therapists and psychiatrists will avoid using the BPD diagnosis since it's so stigmatized.