BPDFamily.com

The other day, I was responding to a new member here and his story really resonated with me.  He was in a terrible place mentally and the relationship was extreme dysfunction with BPD rages.  It pushed him over the edge and the poster pretty much had a mental breakdown.  And as I was typing out some advice to him, a memory from 20+ years ago returned to me.

I had been married just over a year at this point, and we had a new baby at home.  My BPD wife and I were beginning to fight often and at times I'd get so upset, I'd have panic attacks.  I was in my 20's so I didn't know what was happening, I thought it was breathing problems or something since we lived in an older cabin.  But they progressively became worse and worse.

One afternoon, we were arguing over cleaning up the house and I felt my breathing quicken.  Before long, my breath started to speed up and it felt like I had just sprinted 100 yards.  The more I tried to control my breathing, the worse it became, and I asked my BPD wife to help me (or at least stop screaming at me).

She insisted that there was nothing wrong with me though, that I was faking it to get sympathy.  Meanwhile, my breathing is going faster and faster, I'm starting to hyperventilate, and this had never happened before.  I thought I was dying and since my wife wouldn't help, I stood up to grab the cordless phone to call my mom...who happened to live next store to us.  As I stood though, I went straight down to the floor...I was too weak to stand.

This made my wife super angry and her screaming went to a new level.  I told her to give me the phone so I could call my mom for help, and that opened an entire new rant on me being a "momma's boy".  And through all of this, my breathing is getting faster and faster, I couldn't calm down, and my cheeks were going numb.  I was literally terrified and I'm still getting screamed at.

This goes on for several more minutes, me gasping for air and my BPD wife screaming.  I guess she finally realized that I wasn't okay though because she opened the front door and yelled, "<Mom's name>, there's something wrong with your son."  My parents came flying over and as they entered the house, my wife is telling them all the things I did wrong.  And I can only imagine what it took for my mom not to go after her...she's not a patient woman.

By now, I'm taking 5-6 shallow breaths per second and my head felt like it had been hit with a sledgehammer.  My entire head and neck were numb and I'm crying, I thought death was just seconds away.  My mom is trying to calm me down but I'm trying to tell her what my wife was saying, what she was accusing me of.  Then I passed out from lack of oxygen.

I woke up sometime later and I was okay, but the headache was legendary for several days.  That day I told my wife that she was leaving, that I was done, and I genuinely meant it.  I did reach out weeks later though and fought to reconcile, which we eventually did.

How could I just "forget" something like this though?  When my wife and I finally did separate and divorce a few years ago (after 23 years of marriage), she kept bringing up when I threw her out that first year we were married.  But somehow, the facts never even occurred to me until I was replying to that post a few days ago (and of course, they never occurred to her either since it was all my fault) . 

I've heard that some people block out memories from trauma...is that what this is?  Is it common?

Hi Pook. I read a lot of your replies, and from what I can tell our lives have led a very similar path, with similar patterns.

I too was married 23 years. We had our first child within a couple of years being together, although we didn’t get married until my son was 2 years old.

Yes there are many things that I have forgotten in the past, behaviours that I have swept under the carpet, forgiven far too easily, and forgotten. While the BPD partner remembers everything. Only their memory is selective. They remember anything that may have slighted them be it real or imagined.
They can remember a way they perceive you looked at them, or your tone of voice, or something that you might have said in the heat of the moment, 20 years ago.

Yet anything you bring up that you might recollect, somehow they don’t remember that

I never had panic attacks. However, there was one occasion when my wife was hiking with her mother. It was a well known walking route that spans 100 miles, and she was bearing the end of the route, doing it in sections every Sunday with her mother. I was laying on my bed and thought I was having a heart attack. Our kids were quite young, but thankfully our eldest was old enough to use the phone and rang my wife, I think.
My father in law and sister in law arrived at the house and an ambulance was called and I was rushed in to hospital with a spontaneous pneumothorax (sudden collapse of the lung)
I couldn’t breathe and the pain was unbearable.

I was put on a ward with tubes coming out of my side and put on a suction machine to try and re inflate my lung, which is pretty painful, it feels like your lung is trying to be sucked out of your body.

When my wife arrived on the ward, feeling the worst I have ever felt in my life, she then started a relentless verbal attack on me as if it was completely my fault it had happened, making me feel selfish for being in that position. I actually wanted the nurses to remove her from the ward but after a while she calmed down.

I ended up in hospital for a month, having to have an operation on my lung because it wouldn’t re inflate, and she was actually fine the rest of the time I was in their, although she always made me feel that I was my fault it happened, even though the dr said it was due to my body shape (tall and thin) and a lot of sports people get it (basketball players etc) 

I too had a few 'upset' times even after having finally broken up with her. Our BPD experience and memories are so engrained in us that it's still there for a hell of a long time, still bubbling under the surface.

I liken it to a form of PTSD as we've certainly had a large dose of 'trauma and stress' during our BPD relationship. I think sometimes our mind just recalls the bad times - maybe subconsciously - and our physical body reacts to this mental state, resulting in panic and ll the associated symptoms.

Amazing how the mind can control the body's workings.

Yes, I have had that kind of experience.

I had a flash memory. It was very fuzzy, but somehow I had thought this memory of an incident with BPD mother from my childhood, at the time, was a dream. I asked some family members about it and they confirmed it was true.

I had read about such things and was skeptical but now I know this can happen.

This memory came back after I observed something similar to what you experienced with your ex wife. My father was sick, and my mother was being critical and dismissive of it.

I had not thought about the experiences in my childhood and tried to make a good relationship with my parents as an adult. Once I left home, I didn't see the dysfunction as much. My parents mostly held it together during visits. I thought things were fine. Until I saw they weren't and then remembered. The post you read triggered your feelings and the memory.

It's odd the pwBPD becomes more verbally and emotionally abusive to a partner in this situation. It's the opposite of what we'd expect. My own explanation is that the (BPD)Vicim-(Partner or other family member) Rescuer roles are expected and customary. If someone is not feeling well- they are perceived as not being in their role- and so are perceived as being Persecutor to the pwBPD and so they attack them back.

Somehow my BPD mother didn't connect her behavior with people's response to it. That your ex-wife remembers this as you "throwing her out" fits her victim perception.

I think we tend to look back at things we did or didn't do that caused issues but we probably have less control of how someone with BPD responds than we think. That this wasn't your fault is so plainly obvious here. That you reacted to how you were treated fits the circumstances. It's your ex-wife's thoughts and feelings that influenced her experience of it. You didn't cause that.

Hi Pook,

I think that repression of traumas is very common, as is the general concept of repression.  In addition, if you were "out of it" for a while, it's easy to understand why your memories of events surrounding that scary incident are hazy.  On top of that, since you were operating in "survival mode" for such a long time, it was normal for you to focus on just getting through the day, rather than reflect or piece together a tapestry of dysfunction.  As you know, many BPD behaviors don't seem logical, at least on the surface.

I guess it should be no surprise to you that your ex blames you for trying to throw her out.  I bet she blames you for throwing her out several times, even if the fact patterns don't line up.  The pwBPD in my life says the exact same thing, when typically the fact pattern is completely opposite (e.g. when I've asked her not to leave our home after an angry outburst).  You know how blaming others is a common BPD tactic.  Their narrative is that others are ruining their life and being abusive, when usually the opposite is true:  she's acting horrendously and treating her loved ones like crap.

When BPD behaviors started to emerge in my young adult stepdaughter, I was alarmed by the string of increasingly dysfunctional incidents, as well as by the angry rages she displayed.  At first, I took everything she said at face value.  But over time, I saw how fact patterns just didn't seem to line up.  As I learned more information, sometimes months after certain incidents, I was able to go back and re-interpret her stories with that knowledge.  Then I understood how her stories and accusations were wildly distorted, and often projections.  I saw how what she was purportedly upset about wasn't really the problem--it was deflection from something more serious that she was trying to hide, from herself and others.  I guess I was able to see the patterns because I wasn't the object of her rages.  Maybe I saw more clearly than the other loved ones around me because of that.

I'm not sure how best to deal with traumas and confusing memories except to amp up self-care, whatever that looks like.

I think we all do. I'm unsure I'm qualified to speak on this since mine is relatively fresh, but I often get triggered by things I see online or on TV. I get reminded of lots of things. And yes they constantly bring up things you did to hurt them somehow.

Even your throwing her out story, triggered something in me. 7 months into dating she came over with an overnight bag, started going off on me, finger in my face, her super close to me yelling that I'm an aszhole, her being aggressive because I was annoyed and I'm controlling and insecure because she was over an hour late when I made us dinner, and she didn't let me know. And "everyone knows I'm always late". She kept on for an hour or so about how I don't listen, "I didn't think you were stupid", etc. I told her no one talks to me like that in my home and she should leave until she calms down, she claims I shoved her out of my house....the doorbell camera footage said otherwise...then it became about me deflecting and denying her reality lol  and I have no  accountability.

The more you all post the less crazy I feel.