BPDFamily.com

New here. I posted my introduction yesterday.  My boyfriend of 8 years is undiagnosed BPD.  It's obvious.  I'm having a hard time with communication with him which is terrible.  Last week I left, for 2 days. In those 2 days my family "made plans for my life" which didn't include him and had nothing to do with what I wanted. My mother, being our insurance agent,  Sent him a letter saying that since him and I no longer reside at the same address that he needs to renew his own insurance, etc. This, of course, threw him in to a hate filled rage. He wants all bills in my name so I have to take responsibility and I can't "screw him like every other psycho b***h in his life" if he decides to leave. I can't reason with him or show him how I'm not going anywhere ever again.  I want to help him. I want our relationship to work. I'm committed to us. He keeps telling me it's not working.  This is my fault 100%. He needs his own space and I keep invading it. I'm trying to understand all of this. I'm talking softly, not yelling even when I get called terrible things. I know there is no instant fix. This is a process. But, I think he wants/expects it to be instantaneous. I'm just not sure how to handle all of this. I don't have the tools in my tool box yet. He is unwilling to go back to therapy and he just told me he is unwilling to accept my help. Not sure if that's what he really feels considering I was told 2 days ago when he says things like that he means the opposite.  See my dilemma?  He tells me to stay out of his space but does that mean he WANTS me to be in his space? I'm so confused. Any thoughts, communication skills for me to practice,  prayers to any god out there, good juju, etc would be greatly appreciated.

Oh boy Marvis, sounds like you've got a lot on your plate right now!  Sorry to hear it.


Can I ask how you feel about your mom getting this involved in your relationship?  We know it threw your boyfriend into a hate-filled rage; how about you?

The push/ pull dynamics of help me/go away are quick cycling and is 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.

Often a lot of this erratic crisis behavior is an exaggerated version of thinking aloud.

To be honest, it makes me very angry. I'm 30 years old, not 3. I know she meant well but my mom is the type of person who will not listen when it comes to mental disorders. She still thinks my bipolar (medicated, under control) disorder was caused by them not having a funeral for my grandmother when she died. She won't even consider that it's an imbalance,  a genetic predisposition.  You try to tell her, she dissociates and points at all her pretty flowers or talks about how my sister did this or that to her house then compares me to my sister. She's a master of guilt trips, her main one is because I choose to be child free. I dont need the stress of a rugrat running around in this choatic catastrophe I call life, she doesn't understand that at all. My boyfriend won't even acknowledge that I didn't make this happen, not on purpose.  He doesn't want anything to do with my feelings of betrayal from my mom. I try to reasonably talk to him about it and all he says is "f*** you and your family" Because of this, we took 40 steps back after taking 2 forward. It's so frustrating and I want to scream. I know he feels I abandoned him, betrayed him but he doesn't know how scared I was. He's never been physical with me, it scared the crap out of me. I had to get away, just for a minute. I'm back now and very much committed to us, that has never changed. But how do I prove it to him?

I just read your intro post and I'm sorry you had to deal with physical abuse.  You did the right thing by getting the heck away from him at that time   Has he made any effort toward righting that wrong?  How could he prove to you that he will never lay a hand on you in anger again?  Is that something you absolutely will not tolerate in a relationship?

As far as telling your parents about what happened, it makes sense that you did.  What your mom did with that information probably didn't help matters.

Are you sure you're ready to go back?

It would probably be best if I stepped away from this discussion, Marvis.  Not because I don't care about you, but because I care too much and am way opinionated about physical abuse.  It is something I would not put up with for one second, as it would scare the crap out of me too, to the point of no return.

There are other members who have had to deal with this and have had success in navigating through the chaos.  I hope that they'll chime in soon with some sound advice and further steps for you to take.

In the mean time, protect yourself and stay safe

 

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 out (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=84942.0)

I 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