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I'm tired of living with a grumpy person. He skips meals daily so that he's always hangry and depleted. He doesn't sleep. So he lives in a permanent state of emergency and is rarely in a good mood. He's traumatized from a decade of struggling at work and it's just rough to live with someone who always needs TLC and can't lift me up some times. At a certain point this will all break down. He's outraged every day and it's just like a broken record.

That sounds tough. What can you do for good self care?

So much of this is outside of your control—his eating habits and his sleeping behavior.

Do you have friends and family outside this relationship who can support you?

Hi Inner Light,

I am sorry that you are going through this. That's a difficult situation.


I want to echo Cat Familiar. He is not taking care of himself. It's really important to do things that you enjoy and to do them often. What are things that you like to do?

It seems not sleeping or eating properly is very common with BPD - kind of inevitable that it makes an already difficult illness a lot worse.

I hope that you are eating and sleeping ok? Self care is important and there is nothing we can do to make them eat/sleep - I know how frustrating that is as I too get fed up with grumpy/erratic behaviour - I just have to distance myself and keep myself occupied and engaged with my own hobbies/interests even though that often leads to more resentment on my partners part.

A lot of this stems from an inability to structure and prioritise. When this happens with anyone, BPD or not, everything becomes harder as nothing becomes automated. Frustration comes through and we get angry. Normally with ourselves. When this occurs with pwBPD they simply project responsibility for this onto others and it becomes "your fault" "You do it" "why is that person/you doing this to me?"

Sometimes the self loathing can take forms of "I dont deserve good things to eat, or to sleep", hunger and sleep deprivation can become self punishment.

It is important that you dont get too tied up trying to provide their stability for them, ultimately this reinforces the perception that it is your responsibility. It can also compromise your ability to structure and prioritise your own life, and you start to fall apart.

Do you often feel like your own life's schedule is regularly being sabotaged by having someone rubbing an eraser through it by their impulsive demands and indecision? All those things you know you can get done simply dont happen because you are constantly adding pauses and rewrites.

A good reminder I once read was along the lines of "Someone else's lack of planning and indecision is not your emergency or responsibility, you are simply a volunteer aid worker giving a helping hand there should be no self guilt involved"

Wow I was really struck by the questions there. Yes, I do feel my days are constantly being edited and rewritten! That's partly because we have two little kids and th :wee:ings often do not go according to plan with kids in tow. But ever since yesterday he's been in a weird mood and I'm off kilter because we'd planned a trip and now he insists he told me he had to work all along. So I'm waiting to find out if I can get a refund. Yes I know this is all dysfunctional I have no illusions about that but I can't see my way out of this mess. Self-care? I've been thinking of hiring a sitter once a week...

Why not go on the trip as you had agreed.  He can either go or stay?

Best,

FF

Part of the deep impact of being with a person with BPD (pwBPD) is the extreme level of volatility, inconsistency and dysfunction.  When you don't know what will happen next, then you're stuck playing defense.  To use a comparison, in competitive games the teams playing Offense are more likely to win than the teams playing Defense only.

So ponder ways that you can be more proactive than always reactive.  (Yes, easier said than done.)