BPDFamily.com

This is a short update on where my and my uBPDw's relationship is today.

My wife got out of psychiatric hold a little less than two weeks ago, she was admitted after telling the emergency room people that I was trying to poison her and that she wanted to burn the house down with me in it. The psychiatrist there prescribed her resperidone and she's been taking it since that time (with perhaps a short period of time when she stopped taking it early on). She has also started therapy, and we went to a marriage counselor for the first time last week.

The paranoia she was experiencing seems to be greatly diminished and her behavior is more calm and considered. She has said that she's noticed a personality change since she started the meds and feels more centered. She has also told me that she understands thàt she was creating stories to explain her feelings and isn't going to do it any more. We've talked about how both of our fears stimulated our behavior in the last few weeks and that those fears were legitimate feelings on both sides.

We agreed that when we go to the MC this week that we're going to explain our position more clearly including her and my experiences in the last few weeks. Our first visit was mostly an emotional dump on both sides and avoided a lot of issues we face. She hasn't yet visited a psychiatrist but has found out where she is going to go that accepts our insurance.

Our next big decision is whether we're really going to Turkey or not as we have nonrefundable tickets. Both of us are still leery given our perceptions of what was going on lately. I have specifically told her that I am not going unless she has sufficient meds, or has been cleared to go without them by a psychiatrist. She told me she considered this decision emotional abuse - I told her it was a boundary and she could accept it or not.

My wife clearly doesn't have the more common symptoms of BPD (like cutting, suicide ideation) but shares a lot of the BPD-type behaviors. The meds have certainly changed a lot of these behaviors (at least for now). It makes me wonder if they would be helpful for others with BPD. I'm not aware that they are prescribed for anyone other than with psychotic-type symptoms.

my gut feeling is that your wife has much more than just BPD. BPD is a personality disorder and I believe, not an imbalance of body chemistry and thus cannot be treated with medicine. I guess, BPD is seeing reality with a distorted view, while psychosis is creating a reality. You can look at me and I can interpret as a hateful or loving looks, but in psychosis, I see things that do not even exist.

I'm afraid I have to agree. The symptoms that I've observed seem to match more closely with late onset schizophrenia - paranoia, thinking someone (me) does things solely to mess with her mind, and olfactory hallucinations. Another key symptom is hearing voices, but I don't know anything about that. The standard treatment for LOS is low dose anti-psychotics - that seems to be working here, at least somewhat. 

The LOS diagnosis also fits with her past behavior - it didn't seem like her BPD-like symptoms really started showing up until she hit menopause. The symptoms were definitely on monthly cycles for quite some time and only recently has it moved into almost full time status. LOS is more predominant in women and usually hits around age 50 or so, about when all this started happening.

She finally made an appt with a psychiatrist at the end of Oct, maybe I'll learn more then. She got her original prescription renewed so the meds will last til then.