I've been jumping around the Eggshells book a bit. This evening I jumped to one of the last chapters. I saw a list of criteria defining "abuse." I thought I'd share. I had no idea I was experiencing what would be defined as abuse. I put a tick next to the ones that apply to me in some way.
Do you…
feel afraid of your loved one much of the time?
avoid certain topics out of fear of angering them?
feel that you can’t do anything right for them?
believe that you deserve to be hurt or mistreated?
wonder if you’re the one who is crazy?
feel emotionally numb and/or helpless?
Does this person intimidate you by…
yelling at you?
humiliating or criticizing you?
treating you badly in front of your friends or family?
ignoring or dismissing your opinions or accomplishments?
blaming you for their own inappropriate behavior?
seeing you as their property, or as a sex object, rather than as a person?
Are you afraid of them because they…
have a bad and unpredictable temper?
hurt you, or threaten to hurt or kill you?
threaten to harm your children, or take them away?
threaten to commit suicide if you leave?
force you to have sex with them?
destroy your belongings?
Do they try to control you by…
acting excessively jealous and possessive?
telling you where you can and can’t go, or what you can and can’t do?
trying to keep you from seeing your friends or family?
limiting your access to money, your phone, or the car?
constantly checking on you?
insisting that you share your passwords with them?
If you are gay, bisexual, transgender, or ungendered, do they… threaten to out you?
tell you that you have no legal rights?
tell you that you’re a deviant?
justify the abuse by telling you that you’re not “really” gay, bisexual, transgender, or ungendered?
Every item in each of the above lists is a form of abuse. The more of these that are part of your relationship with your loved one, the more abusive—and potentially dangerous—that relationship is.
If you circled one or more of the items in the above lists, we encourage you to speak with a counselor about your relationship soon. If you circled two or more, we strongly encourage such a conversation very soon.
I guess I should find a counsellor/therapist who speaks English (I live in a country I don't speak a foreign language in), who understands BPD. According to the excerpt above, I should do that soon. In the past, I've seen a lawyer, but I'm wondering if I should be establishing a more ongoing relationship with a lawyer in some way. Living in a foreign country where you don't speak the language isn't easy from the perspective of knowing where you stand about different things. I might talk to my psychiatrist who I've had a relationship with for several years (he prescribes me medication for ADHD/OCD) about my wife's BPD.
Things don't appear to be getting any better. It saddens me to think that I might one day live in a separate flat. I don't want to! Sometimes I feel sad about a feeling of lack of physical and emotional intimacy. The name calling is pretty frequent. I want to be happy and have a happy home. It has been for the boys that I've had the drive to stay all these years, as well as believing that I was causing my wife's upsets - even my therapist seemed to believe to a large extent that I was causing them... at least that was my feeling at the time, and I might be wrong about that.
