BPDFamily.com

Hi there,

My ‘home board’ is Coping and Healing from a Parent/Family Member, but I went to the Staying board just now to ask you for some advice about relationships because the ‘fleas’ I picked up are doing no good to my relationship with my partner.

In a nutshell: my mother has uBPD. I have been NC for a year. She abused me sexually, emotionally and physically. I have PTSD and I have trouble regulating anger. In many ways, I respond like a pwBPD when I am angry. The emotion rises quickly and sometimes I shout at my partner (who is one of the few people with whom I feel safe enough to show my feelings). Of course, he does not deserve to be treated like this. It makes him very sad and upset.

I have had a relationship with my partner for two and a half years. My MIL has BPD traits that are very triggering to me. For instance, she makes mean remarks and bullies me when I am ill, and afterwards she denies or ignores her own behaviour. (There is a whole lot more but I will try to keep it short  ) Her remarks spark my anger, yet I am too afraid to ask her to stop (asserting myself has led to heated discussions more than once and I really do not like having words with her). After visiting or answering a phone call from my inlaws, I realise how angry I am and then things tend to get out of hand.

So I am trying to deal with the anger as it is, since I am unable to change her behaviour at this point.

I would like to know about your experiences or success stories regarding anger management with your SOs with (u)BPD or BPD traits. Is there a certain technique that the pwBPD tried that worked?

I hope this post is not very out of place here; if it is please feel free to tell me so :)

Best wishes to you all,

Polly

I think your question is a good one because how we are raised can affect our relationships. I had issues in my marriage but I first sought out counseling to address the "fleas" I might have from my childhood- because not only would this help me, and my marriage- it would help in all relationships. It is good that you are aware of this.

Individual counseling is a good step. There are all kinds of people out there, but if they can trigger you, then you know this is your trigger, and dealing with this trigger will help you no matter who you deal with. So, MIL is a mean person, but that is her choice to be mean. You can take care of your side of the fence by dealing with your triggers.

If you can see being triggered as a gift- because they are a clue to your issues- then they can be a guide to what you can work on in T. Triggers are negative messages about yourself that you were led to believe or fear are true, but they may not be. If you didn't believe them a bit, then you would not be triggered.

If your MIL called you a pink elephant, would you be triggered? I don't think so, because you absolutely know that you are not one. You would think she was nuts. But when she says things that push your buttons, they feel personal to you. But they are not, they are about her.

Counseling and working on boundaries can help you with being triggered. MIL isn't triggering you. She is just being her mean old self.  You are responding to her comments by being triggered, but you don't have to. Counseling can help you with this.

It works. Once I realized my mother doesn't trigger me as much, other people didn't either!

Hi Notwendy and thanks for your reply. I am sorry it took me a while to respond. Triggers do offer useful information about the parts that need healing. I have been in T for over a year and yet I have not been able to develop an adequate response to either triggers in general or to my MIL's mean remarks.

My partner and I have taken a time-out from our relationship for an unspecified time because my situation was causing him much stress and I wanted to end this pattern in which he tries to help me but ends up getting upset because obviously he cannot heal my PTSD and 25 years of emotional and physical abuse.

I am having trouble discussing my feelings with my T and am trying to address this issue urgently. However she does not believe that the situation is getting out of hand.

Sorry for bothering you with these details; all I wanted to say is that I am trying to find a good T (or a good working relationship with my current T) and I can see how triggers are the clue to addressing my issues.

Thanks again for your help :)

Hi Polly87,

I am sorry that you had to endure that abuse from your mother.   I had experienced a plethora of abuse from my mother as well and I understand how difficult it is working through the anger.  My mother is a diagnosed with schizophrenia/bipolar and most likely co-morbid BPD/NPD. 

I have had "fleas" from her behavior and can triggered by my pwBPD's behavior often. From my mother, I learned that asserting your self is not "allowed," I tended to suppress my feelings and react with appeasement. Suppressing my feelings ended with me becoming more angry and hurt.  When my bf says something or behaves in a way that triggers me and reminds me of my mother, I have been angry.  It took me awhile in therapy to learn that I get angry at my bf, because his behavior at times reminds me of my mother. 

Working through the anger has really helped me.  I have learned my anger has stemmed from me thinking that both my mother and bf should be acting a certain way; like a non-disordered person. Also much of my anger was founded on my belief if both my mother and bf stopped their behaviors, that would mean that they loved me. All of my thoughts and triggers are founded on my own abandonment fears.  I learned what type of things trigger my own abandonment fears.  Learning about this has been a two-fold process, which helped me with my anger and my other issues.

I have been practicing DBT/mindfulness for when I get triggered and it really helps.

Try looking at each situation where you have felt angry and have reacted towards your partner. What specific things were done or said by your MIL to trigger you? Try connecting that with the behavior of your mother. What specific things did your mother say or did that made you angry?