Glad to find a community

[endingthechaos]

Hi there - I'm so glad to find a community for support.  This is the third time I've tried to leave my partner.  We only just got married in January and he has so many triggers around stability.  The marriage seems to have made his illness worse.
 
He's only formally been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and PTSD.  The borderline diagnosis has been strongly suggested by two former therapists.  My biggest question is why does it feel like I'm the only one who will name this and search for help?  He was open to it at one time, but has never been in the care of a psychologist or psychiatrist long enough to really work things through. 

My soon to be ex partner is transgender (female to male), had a significantly abusive childhood (his words), has an unstable father (narcissistic), has already been to jail once and has had several trips to the hospital for psychiatric needs (before we met) and has been fired from every single job since we met three years ago (according to him it was never his fault).

I'm a teacher, so my natural inclination is to figure this out.  I've separated from him and am staying with friends for the time being.  I have full intentions of divorcing him.  More than anything, I feel awful that this person doesn't seem to know how sick he is.  He is in crisis mode most of the time and for a while I just viewed him as misunderstood.  I had no idea what borderline personality disorder was until about 2 years ago when he went away for DBT therapy.  But, since he doesn't believe he has BPD he hasn't continued it.  It's the moments that he doesn't act sick that I miss.  I have cut off contact with him and I'm trying to stay strong, but I am so angry that this is who he is forever. 

I've experience parts of my personality that I didn't know existed until recently - the worst parts.  Anger and rage that I'd never felt before.  I feel so lost.

Thank you for keeping this community going.  I hope to read more about this so at least I don't feel so alone.

[Mutt]

Hi endingthechaos,

More than anything, I feel awful that this person doesn't seem to know how sick he is.  He is in crisis mode most of the time and for a while I just viewed him as misunderstood.  I had no idea what borderline personality disorder was until about 2 years ago when he went away for DBT therapy.  But, since he doesn't believe he has BPD he hasn't continued it.  It's the moments that he doesn't act sick that I miss.  I have cut off contact with him and I'm trying to stay strong, but I am so angry that this is who he is forever. 

I'd like to welcome you to the family, I'm glad that you have found us.

Think of it this way, his reality is real to him just as your reality is real to you, he doesn't have something else to use as for a benchmark.

We don't know that he is going to be this way forever, he may get help further down the road or he may not, that anger that you're feelings is partly because of not accepting him for who he is, he is who is, I'll give you a link to radical acceptance, basically it's accepting something or someone to get ourselves unstuck, it's really helpful, it helped me accept two people in my life that have a mental illness, my ex wife and my dad.

Radical Acceptance For Family Members (DBT skill)