BPDFamily.com

Dear BPD Family

I have been married to my wife for over 30 years. She has been the love of my life and has always stood by me. I always thought she was different some how for many years but things usuually worked them selves out. About 5 years ago my wife had a dabilitating accident that caused her not to be able to work and since then developed other health issues. she gets around ok but is alone during the day for countless hours due to daughter in school and me at work. She has always had forms of Anxiety and bouts with depression. About a year ago she was officially Diagnosed with BPD. That really strated with the extrem bouts of Anxiety and depression which she is on Meds for. Bouts of crying for no reason i can see. She in most cases wont talk. Only rare ocassions. her Therapist did start her on the suggested therapy for this. Dont remeber the exact name. All i know is she is not very good at following it. about two weeks ago after almost 8 month the Therapist suggested she start over. I really am having a hard time trying to help her and it seems when i do she takes it as a personal attack. She puts herself down all the time and states she can never do any thing right. My oldest daughter who has made great strides in dealing with her depression said to me the other day. How do you do it and stay? Not sure how I do? I think I deserve better. I am a person with deep faith in God and I guess that what gets me thourgh it all. The hardest part is she seems to be on this roller coaster ride of emotions with her family but once she is out and sees friends or other family she appears to be happy. i am going to contact a Therapist for myself just to  have someone local on advise on how to deal with this. mant times thought of leaving but she really has no where to go and it would really rock my family. Sorry for the dump but thats what i hope I can do here from time to time. Signed Hopefull D :) *)

Hello NewDelV,

*welcome*

First: good deal about seeking your own therapy for support. Maybe you were able to cope with being somewhat of a caretaker for so many years. Given your wife's accident, her behaviors seemed to have worsened. Shame ("I'm a bad person who doesn't deserve to be loved" s a core trait of BPD.  We can unwittingly trigger this emotion, while thinking we're helping. I'm not saying that you have done this, but consider it. Have you taken a look at the lessons to the right of this board? Validation can go a long way towards defusing conflict. It doesn't need to be complicated. Here is a sample from the lessons. Let me know if this makes sense:

Communication using validation. What it is; how to do it (https://bpdfamily.com/content/communication-skills-validation)

Turkish