When you overhear something that bothers you.

[maxsterling]

As many of you know, my wife has been hospitalized for mental health issues around a dozen times.  She's attempted suicide twice that she has mentioned to me.  From my viewpoint, that is all very, very serious.  From her viewpoint, she's just "depressed."

I mentioned a few months ago about how she threatened suicide when I would not engage her in her abuse.  Said she would leave the house to go "kill herself."  I called the police, which she was mad at, but I truly think that saved her life.  And afterwards, she told me that if she wanted to kill herself, she wouldn't tell me (that made me more uneasy) and if she had spent the night by herself a few months ago, she probably would have attempted (that made me extremely uneasy).

Last night she had a friend over.  This is a friend that she had met in the hospital, and suffers from her own depression problems.  I overheard her talking to the friend about how others try to help with depression but they "don't understand it" and don't understand what it means to "think about killing yourself every day since you were 16."  In a later part of the conversation, she was telling her friend about how to not get involved with emotionally damaged men unless she wanted to go back to the hospital again.  Then she proclaimed that every time she was in the hospital was after a bad fight with a boyfriend. 

Hearing that really shut me down, and I did my best to tune it out and not eavesdrop.  But I feel that is really weighing on me today.  Hanging out with the friend was good for her, as they were laughing and having a good time. I hadn't heard her laugh and be that happy in two years, so I want to feel encouraged by that.  Things have been going better the past week or two.  But now I sit with that uneasy feeling again - that she is completely dependent on me, and it won't take much for things to get really ugly.

So what do you do when you accidentally overhear or read something uneasy like that?  I know bringing it up would be bad, but I also know I need some kind of emotional outlet here... .

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[reluctanthusband]

I feel you Max.  My uBPDw had always had really messed up friends and ever since finding out about BPD hearing her try and make it better drives me up a wall.  It's like are you kidding me?  That friend of yours needs professional treatment and YOU are giving advise?  I have to have 2 thought processes going on at all times with her. The first one is self preservation and the second one is to keep from telling her off.  I hate it.

[nothing]

Everything out of a BPDs mouth is manipulation. It is the only way they think they can get people to like them or to get them to do what they want at the time.

She is making you the bad guy that put her into the hospital so that next time you don't fight her you just agree with whatever she wants. (manipulation!)

[vortex of confusion]

Hearing that really shut me down, and I did my best to tune it out and not eavesdrop.  But I feel that is really weighing on me today.  Hanging out with the friend was good for her, as they were laughing and having a good time. I hadn't heard her laugh and be that happy in two years, so I want to feel encouraged by that.  Things have been going better the past week or two.  But now I sit with that uneasy feeling again - that she is completely dependent on me, and it won't take much for things to get really ugly.

So what do you do when you accidentally overhear or read something uneasy like that?  I know bringing it up would be bad, but I also know I need some kind of emotional outlet here... .

You are in a really tough spot. First off, if you brought it up, she would probably deny ever having said it. That is something that I have run into at different times. He can say something directly to me and if I try to discuss it, I get a complete denial that he even said it.

I know that uneasy feeling of them being completely dependent on you. My husband has said that he is afraid of being alone. He hasn't said it directly but his actions are such that I am afraid that leaving him would send him into a downward spiral. I feel like I have to protect him to a certain degree because he seems incapable of taking care of himself at times. Mine has never spent any time in the hospital but there have been nights when he has pulled the suicide card on me and I have taken charge and ordered him around like a child and put him to bed. It has never gone anywhere other than me getting motherly and putting him to bed and keeping an eye on him. I often wonder what would happen if he had those feelings and I wasn't around to take charge. It is a scary feeling to know that my actions could impact somebody so much that it would lead them to do something stupid.