BPDFamily.com

uBPDh is dysregulating again, the reason for which is not important because although I may have been insensitive in saying certain things, or communicated in a "wrong" way, I'm sure he would've interpreted my words in a different way were his not spiralling into dysregulation.

Now that he's dysregulated, I've said/ done things which have not helped, but have stopped now, i.e. at least I think I'm not "making it worse".  BUT (and it's a big "but"), when he's dysregulated, anything I say/ do is usually mocked and cursed upon.  If I leave him alone (trying to give us both some breathing space), he will say I don't even try to make him feel better (and then it's easy for me to descend into JADEing).  If I reach out to him, everything I say is attacked.  Heck, he even attacks me if I'm not saying anything. 

I know it takes a long time for them to go back to baseline (and I have experienced these ups and downs countless times), but what do you do in the meantime?  How can you "help" them get back to baseline sooner?  Because pwBPDs tend to put 100% of the blame on others, and if I'm not doing the "right" thing he just wallows in his dysregulation and let it spiral on. 

It is worth mentioning though, that for a long, long while I've not been on the "white" side in his mind already.  Even when he's not dysregulated, he will tell me how bad a person I am, a bad wife/ mother, worthless, etc.  I get told frequently that I'm the biggest mistake of his life, and I'm convinced that he doesn't like me one bit.  So I'm not even talking about getting back in his good books so to speak, just how to sail through an episode of dysregulation.  Any wisdom would help, thanks.

It sounds like you've tried many different ways to help him return to baseline and he outmaneuvers those attempts  :(

Do you think being angry and fearful is preferable to being depressed or rejected for him? He is unskilled and keeps reaching for the tools that fix one thing and break another.

Sometimes, the best thing is to minimize the target, to fall back and use that distance to shore up emotional strength so you have a solid foundation to build on.

Of the ways you respond to him, which ones feel best for you in terms of your own self care?

He definitely "likes" to be angry and for him, if I've been wrong (and obviously I'm always the one who is wrong, even when he is), I should be punished.

I actually like to put some distance between us so we could take some time off instead of him keep on berating me.  It's no fun to have someone you love call you names constantly and using stuff you say to attack you.  BUT if I don't "reach out" to him to some extent, he will say "Am I so cheap that you did something wrong and you don't have to win me back".  At the same time, for best self-care, I wouldn't want to give him ammo for attacking me further.

It's a lose-lose situation for me most of the time really.   

I explored this back when I was with my BPDxgf, only once did I manage to even come close to what could be called "helping her back to baseline", and it was when she was angry at me for "not caring about her".

I told her I didn't want that to mess up our thing, I sort of "reached out to her", told her in a "tell me what to do" kind of way. She said "fix it then", and I basically love-bombed her for a moment; after that she just said "you did good".

This is one instance of one couple that ended up breaking up a few months later, so its not bulletproof or even "reliable data", but at least in that moment when she wanted to be rescued I sort of asked her to show me the way, it was a cooperative thing, it was "us", a team, "we" got through that.

At least that's what I like to believe.

My gf said a very similar thing before ghosting me, I thought it meant she didn't want to spend too much money (she had gone out to a bar but was having second thoughts about it) but it was about her low self esteem: she was feeling very, very abandoned at that moment; I paid the price of my mistake with our relationship .

Then again, if their minds are that similar maybe my "fishing her out of dysregulation" anecdote might actually be useful for you