Hello Monkeyhead and welcome to BPD family,
I am really feeling for you right now as well as your son. What an incredibly traumatic experience for both of you.
Your bf sounds very similar to my H. Although I knew that my H's mental health was always questionable, he too was a very nice, beautiful man and then on occasion his anger would take over and he changed into a mean person. This was always accelerated with alcohol and my H would also accuse me of absurd things such as having an affair etc.
In 2010, he hit rock bottom. After drinking heavily, he too picked up a weapon, (in his case a knife) and told me he was going to kill himself. If it wasn't for me struggling with him and the knife, the doctors concluded he would have died.
During his subsequent hospitalisation, my H too admitted he wanted help.
His treatment towards yourself is a BPD trait called 'splitting' or 'Black and White Thinking'. I too found out that he had behaved this way to his ex's - H's T's noted it was a defense mechanism because he feared abandonment as a direct result of childhood events.
Whenever H was splitting against me, it hurt me deeply and I would always deny it - telling him he was wrong. This would escalate his BPD behaviour because he was being told he was wrong.
What became really confusing to me was that once his BPD rage was over and he'd rest a while, he'd turn back into that really nice person and would admit to me that he didn't know why he said what he said and that he didn't mean it. Then he would feel bad about it and it would usually lead to more drinking and another BPD rage including more splitting from him, more denial from me, leading to more Self Harm. We were trapped in a never ending circle.
I learnt to validate his emotions and not to JADE – Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain (plenty of info here on this bpdfamily website about justifying emotions and JADE). When he got upset and accused me of things I didn't do, I learnt to validate NOT what he was saying but instead his emotions - What he was saying may not have been real but his feelings were very real.
Scenario 1 – The way it used to be.
H says: “I know your having an affair. I hate you. I'm leaving you”
I used to say: “What! Where did that come from? That's not true – I'm not. I love you. I wouldn't do that”
H would return with “I don't believe you, I know your having an affair”
I'd continue to JADE - leading to more toing and froing and even more accusations against me.
Scenario 2 – Justifying and not JADEing
H says “I know your having an affair. I hate you. I'm leaving you”
I said: “I can see your upset, what can I do to help you. Can I get you a cup of tea/valium” whilst I promised to sit down with him and listen to him once he had calmed down.
H says: “Yes please. I need a valium” and then he'd usually tell me he was upset over something that had happened that was unrelated to me and I'd respond with “That must have made you feel horrible... .”
H agrees: “Yes it did”.
We were then no longer at logger heads with each other and instead H felt my compassion and not frustration.
Of course I had to learn not to get so upset with what he was saying, but knowing he was suffering from a disorder whereby Splitting was a trait/symptom, it helped me not get angry with him and instead sympathise with him. In doing this alone, it meant that my facial expressions and my speech no longer portrayed disgust in him but instead showed warmth and love.
Ofcourse these were not skills I mastered overnight and there were as many setbacks as there were breakthroughs along the way.
After many years of T and much hard work from us both, my H did officially (clinically) recover from BPD but the critical factor was that he acknowledged he had a problem and embraced T. I agree with I_am_the_fire.
you get out of it what you put into it
Seeing as your case is eerily similar to mine, whereby a near death situation landed him in hospital and alcohol was an influence, the first thing the T's highly recommended was that H refrained from drinking alcohol before he went to intensive T. They explained that T was not going to be easy and he needed a clear mind to tackle it. My H did 3 months in a 'live in' rehab. I am not sure if that's possible for your bf as he doesn't have insurance but AA was also helped for my H at the time.
