BPDFamily.com

Hi, I'm Kim. I'm in my mid-twenties and my partner is in her early thirties. We've been together for almost six years now, she is the absolute love of my life. However, she struggles with bi-polar, depression and anxiety, and was diagnosed at the end of last year with BPD after a period of depression spanning almost three years.

She is now in DBT with an exceptional psychologist, and is seeing a psychiatrist who has finally managed to balance mood stabilisers etc for her other conditions.

She is working incredibly hard to overcome this, but really struggles with guilt and shame that she's holding me back in life. She is concerned that I'm young and am wasting my years with someone who can't do all the things that she thinks I deserve - just going to a coffee shop together or having lunch with my parents strikes up a whole host of anxiety etc, and she is unable to do a lot of things with me. We stay home, like we're just existing.

However, this woman treats my like any parent would want their child to be treated - with love and care and respect. Make no mistake, we have had some serious rough patches because of the BPD and we work very hard at it, but I am not going anywhere. She is absolutely and completely worth it.

This leads me to why I'm here - to learn to better be a support system for her. Her psychologist has respectfully declined to see us together (I wanted to have some sessions with her so she could help to educate me on being a support system for BPD) which I understand. But I sometimes feel like despite all of the learning and research and self-education, I still often don't know if I am helping or not. I'm not always sure how to react, or to see through outward defences to what she's really feeling. I am not an emotional person, and I can be patient and recognise that it is a chemical, biological reaction and not "her". But this is a whole realm of serious personality disorders, and I worry that sometimes I'm not well-enough equipped to deal with them constructively and helpfully.

Thanks for accepting me, I hope I've come to the right place.

I'm glad you partner is getting support -that is often a big battle but if she is keen then there is a lot of hope.

She will need to work through a lot of things herself. BPD is defined by a deep feeling of shame - there is probably very little you can do to fix that. But read on this site about validation (one of the green links on the right ->. This is a conversation technique to help you both talk - and to let her feel heard. Suprisingly, when she says she feels like she is holding you back, reassuring her is actually NOT the right answer! She is not saying she IS holding you back - she is saying she FEELS like she is holding you back. For a BPD, whatever they "feel" is "true". So telling her it's not true doesn't make sense to her - because she does feel it so it must be true! Her feeling isn't right or wrong, it's just what she feels. With validation, and a technique called SET, you can talk about her feeling. Talking about it allows her to work through it. AFTER you have allowed her to feel, and you talk about it, you can them tell her "your truth" - but in the right way. Read about SET (Sympathy, Empathy, Truth) on this site as well.

I think she is very lucky to have such a loving partner.

Thanks Arleigh, I have never heard of SET so I'll go and do some research. After reading some of the tragic accounts on this site I know my partner is very high functioning, which I'm extremely grateful for. She studied psychology for a year at Uni and was absolutely devastated at being diagnosed with BPD, because of the stigma. I never really understood why, but it sounds like it can be an incredibly difficult disorder to be associated with, because of some of the behaviours it can cause. Very sad.

It's difficult for me to "let go" when I hear that it's something that she needs to mostly work through alone. We live, commute and work together so we spend at least 23.5 hours of the day with each other. This works for us - we're best friends and communicate openly and respectfully, but it does make me feel EXTREMELY involved in her recovery and therapy process. I'm the responsible one in the relationship - obviously her tendencies towards impulsive shopping, binge drinking etc mean that I'm usually the sensible one. I'll have to work on letting go and letting her do this with her therapist.

I must say, the DBT therapist-patient mantra of "believe at all times that the patient is doing her best" has helped me to no end - it's pasted on our fridge! :)

Perhaps post next to that note: Believe that most of the time, what the patient says and feels has nothing to do with you!

(Actually don't post that because your partner won't like it - but remember it. Most of the time, her feelings, rages, thoughts, complaints etc have 1% to do with you and 99% to do with what is inside her. She is struggling to make sense of what is in her - and it's easier for her to blame your 1% contribution to her feeling than face that it's actually her internal problem.)