BPDFamily.com

Hello all,

I’ve been married for 20 years and I am quite sure my wife is a BP.  We’ve gone through some rough patches (2006 and 2011 often come to mind), but I feel like 2019 has been the most difficult of all so far and I feel like I may need to bring my marriage to an end, but I still don’t want to lose hope.

It’s such a long story with so many complexities.  She is disabled and suffers from many health issues including chronic pain (leading to a difficult battle with opioids that I believe she finally ended last year) and an autoimmune disorder.  She has been seeing a psychiatrist since 2006.  She spends most of her days lying in her bed.  A simple outing can cause her to be fatigued for days.

In June, I called 911 for the first time, as she was abusing alcohol, acting suicidal, and throwing objects around the house while our 20-year old daughter was present.  She was sectioned and has since been receiving more professional help, including a partial hospitalization program that she was discharged from earlier this week.  She is scheduled to begin a DBT program next week, I remain as optimistic as I can about it.

I’ve started to try to get more help for myself since the incident in June (as has my daugher); I’m seeing a therapist from my company EAP and while my wife was sectioned I also had a legal consultation; at that time I was thinking that our marriage was over, but have decided to give it another chance.  I’ve also read through Stop Walking on Eggshells a couple times, which is where I heard of this forum.

In early July, my wife received some paperwork in the mail from Social Security; every few years they send a package like this for her to fill out to verify that she is still disabled, etc.

This year, she’s been procrastinating badly on filling this paperwork out.  She doesn’t want to do it, it’s triggering to her and she feels like receiving disability money de-incentivizes her to get better.  I’ve tried to explain to her that I don’t see it that way, I feel like she is confusing the cause and effect.

I don’t want her to be disabled.  But the fact is that right now, and for the last 12 years or so, she definitely has been.  I feel like she needs to contribute to our marriage somehow.  We could get by without her disability benefits if we had to; it’d reduce our overall income by about 20% or so.  I told her she doesn’t even need to get a job, if she was just able to take care of the house or something I’d be fine with that.  But if she can’t do anything, then collecting disability to help with our finances is still a contribution, in my eyes.  I think I’ve explained this all to her quite clearly, but still, she’s not filling out the paperwork.

I called Social Security last month, and explained to them that she had a traumatic event in June and was entering a PHP at the time; they were able to extend the deadline for the paperwork and it’s now due this coming week.  They also told me that I could help her fill it out, etc.

Tonight when I came home from work I calmly and nicely suggested that we work on it together tomorrow morning.  This triggered another mood swing & she went up to bed.  She tries to make me feel like I did something wrong by saying what I said.

I know I’m rambling at this point.  There’s so much to the history here and I can’t even start to scratch the surface in this post.  I don’t know what I’m asking for here really.  I just feel like I needed a place to write about this I guess!

Thanks in advance for any advice.  It’s nice to have a place like this to write about these things.

Best

Hi Muldiggan:
Welcome!
I'm so sorry about the difficult times you are having with your wife.  That's a lot to handle.  Hopefully you have family & friends to offer you support. It's good that you reached out to get some help via resources at work.

How did things go today - any progress?  If she doesn't sign the papers, any chance you could get authorized as her conservator, and sign on her behalf?

Is she hoping to go back to work?  I'm suspecting that isn't likely.

Does she have weekly therapy sessions?  Any chance of getting in touch with her therapist/psychiatrist & ask that the situation be discussed?

Perhaps you could bring her into one of your therapy sessions?  It could help to discuss this with a 3rd party.

Has the psychiatrist acted as a therapist or to just provide periodic short sessions to prescribe meds and adjust them?  
That's good news.  Hopefully, she participates & takes it seriously.  There are various strategies & coping skills to learn in DBT.  There is no magic.  People get out of it what they put into it.

If you aren't familiar with DBT, you might want to get a book and check it out.  You can find various books through Amazon.  Marsha Linehan is the authority.  You can find books by her and others.  Also, the website: www.dbtselfhelp.com can give you a bit of an overview of DBT

Thanks so much for the response and the information, No-One.  Last weekend was a very trying and emotionally-draining one, but some good news is that we made it through it, and she finally filled out her disability paperwork on Sunday & Monday, and mailed it out on Monday.

That definitely made me breathe a sigh of relief... made it through this particular bump in the road (though I know in my heart that the roller coaster ride is far from over).  On Monday night, I slept better than I have in a long, long time.


I agree it's not likely.  She worked for about 5 years after we finished college, got married, and had our daughter (working from 2002 to 2006 or so), but then had to stop at that time due to both her mental and physical health issues.  She tried going back to work in 2013, I think it was, but was unable to continue after a few months.

Still I hold out some home that someday, if she's able to bring her pain and BPD under control, that she'll be able to at least get some sort of low-stress, part time job or the likes, but I'm certainly not banking on that.


Over the years her psychiatrist has been pretty much 99.9% med management, I'd say (even though she bills for both psychotherapy and medical services...)  For the past few years she had reached a point when she was only seeing her about 4 times a year, but since the incident in June, it's been more frequent.  Her next appointment is next Friday, and I may go with her, to talk with them about therapy vs. med management, etc.  My wife did start seeing a pain psychologist more regularly earlier this year, though she hasn't seen her in the past several weeks due to the PHP program she went through.

Thanks so much for the information/resources you shared with me about DBT.  Her intake to the DBT group is next week, actually (not this week as I had thought), and I remain hopeful.

Thank you again for your support.

Best,
Muld

Hi Muld:
Good to hear that you were successful with getting the forms completed & mailed in.  Sorry you had to jump through so many hoops, with all that stress. 

Hopefully, the DBT training will be helpful for your partner. You might consider adding a psychologist at some point, perhaps after the DBT training.  It could help reinforce and help her use some of the skills.

 A psychiatrist is the best source for prescribing & managing meds.  If you are using insurance, I'm thinking they may not pay for weekly talk therapy sessions with a psychiatrist.   Perhaps a psychologist, with DBT experience & familiarity with BPD, could be beneficial for some weekly visits (as an addition to the psychiatrist visits).  Meds. can set the stage for benefit from ongoing therapy, but I'm thinking that more frequent therapy sessions are essential.

Sounds like a good idea to go with your wife for the Psych. appt.

Best wishes to you & your partner.  Let us know how the DBT classes go.

Hi Again Muld:
Thought you might find the article at the link below interesting.  It refers to various studies about people with BPD who also have issues with pain.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3280073/

Thank you for all of this advice and information, No-one!  It's very, very appreciated.

We'll see how the next few weeks go, hopefully we'll continue to make some productive steps forward.

Take care,
Muld