BPDFamily.com

It's been a while since I've posted here. For the last year my wife has been in DBT and for the most part things have been going well. She's been using skills and trying to learn how to deal with her emotions.

Things started falling apart a couple of months ago when her Uncle died. This forced a great deal of interaction within her family, which has a history of abuse and problems, her mother has BPD (undiagnosed) herself and lets just say that I avoid spending time with her any chance I can, she brings out the worst in my wife unfortunately.

So, I thought that after 2 months of that things started to get better, the family interaction started to die down and she started to get back to her DBT skills and I thought we were making it through it the worst of it.

Since then we've had a series of minor to major financial hits, Water heater broke, furnace broke, now the car has a problem. My wife doesn't work, she dysregulates very strongly and when she does, she can barely function. Working a job is very difficult for her, how do you explain why you're breaking down in tears for no obvious reason to your coworkers... .Not to mention, constantly calling or texting me to make it through the day. I feel that she needs to focus on her DBT program right now. We aren't rich by any stretch of the imagination, but we are making due. With these recent problems she now feels that she needs to get a job.

This is just one of the problems, her DBT program has been on hold for the holidays, no therapist for a week and her group hasn't met in a couple of weeks. A lot of her friends are going through problems, or worse, they are doing well and she's making comparisons about how she's not doing well, but feels she should be. She's feeling incredibly alone.

She's been dysregulation for days, worst she's been in a year. I can tell she wants nothing more than to scratch the skin off her arm (her go to self harm) but she knows I'll call 911 if she does, or at least I think that's what keeps her from doing it.

I've been trying to use my skills, SET, validation, trying to take care of myself, but I'm exhausted. Nothing seems to work. She can't stop circling the drain, we talk constantly about what she's feeling and the problems she's facing. I come home thinking that we're going to take a break from it all  then we end up talking for 4 hours about all the problems that she can no longer deal with (she's even said that she needs to take a break from it then starts bringing up another problem she can't handle at the moment). We miss meals, I haven't gotten a good nights sleep in days. I don't know how much longer I can do this and she needs help, but refuses to use the skills she's learned because she's in full on willful, active passive mode wanting someone to come rescue her, but there's no one that can rescue her from herself.

I'm afraid that she's going to lose friends over this since she keeps posting sad face pictures on Facebook saying how hard things are for her right now. She has friends who are worried, but are confused as to what the problem is and have no idea how to help... .

I just don't know what to do anymore and am coming to my wit's end.

Maybe I just need to vent to some people who might understand what I'm going through, if nothing else, I appreciate that this board provides that.

I'm glad you are back... .and I'm sorry you are having a tough time over the holidays.  Hang in there!  You've done the right thing by coming back here to post.I

Please keep coming back and let's do some problem solving... .and get those tools working a bit better for you.

So... .why do you miss meals... and why haven't you gotten a good nights sleep?

Go into some detail.

I also noticed that you seem to have really long talks about things... .how long will one conversation or one problem last?

I think we can make this better... .I think we need some details to get you pointed in the right direction.