Finally Understanding Why I Got So Depressed

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

When my relationship with an exGFwBPD really started to fall apart in October, the catalyst for it was me becoming extremely depressed. I even wrote a suicide note. I've struggled with depression the whole of my adult life, but this was a particularly scary situation for me. I don't think I ever wrote a note before. I was serious... Don't worry I'm in therapy and medicated, now.

Granted 2020 was a really stressful year for me between a new baby, and the pandemic, plus health concerns. I had managed to keep my depression at bay for almost five years. So, my question through this breakup was, why the major depressive episode, that seemed to be caused by an interaction with the exGF?

I seemed to have gained a better understanding for my triggers this week.

The two in person interactions I had with her this week has allowed me to open my eyes to it a little bit more and given me understanding. On Saturday, I went over to her place to pick up the baby for visitation. The baby was not ready to leave, even though I told her I was taking him out previously. It turned into a huge fight which started when she started telling me the baby sitter was asking her all week what would happen if I didn't show up to pick up the baby on Friday. ExGF is getting back into the swing of work travel, due to vaccination. It was pretty insulting, and I managed to more or less maintain my composure. She kept pushing me, though as I was leaving, until I finally flipped out on her. This left me both angry at her, and angry at myself, for losing my temper and not being able to validate properly. Ultimately, I was a little bummed out about the situation. The fight did seem to affect the baby and I'm really trying to be a good co-parent.

Yesterday, was another visitation. It's been getting pretty hot out lately. I've been running around all week getting Air Conditioners for my new apartment and setting them up. So it was pretty hot at the ExGFs house as well. When it got to be bedtime the baby became really fussy. I could tell it was because of the heat. The house has Central AC, but I didn't want to run around close windows and turn on the AC without permission. That would be a battle for sure. So I just dealt with it the best I could. The baby went into meltdown mode. But I managed to console him and get him to just about fall asleep on my shoulder. At this point the exGF gets back. I told her I think he's too hot. So she turned on a ceiling fan, then she removed a weather seal on a window and opened it. This cooled things down considerably. She says, "Well, why didn't you just turn on a fan and open a window."

I respond, "I don't know, it just didn't occur to me."

Great solution! Doh! I totally agree, but it wasn't where my head has been all week. I've been working on getting AC set up at my place, so I was thinking about making do without AC and trying to get the baby calmed down. However, I did feel pretty stupid for not thinking of it myself.

To add insult to injury basically on my way out the door, she commented, "I opened the window and he went right to sleep." It felt like she was calling me inept and stupid. I just said, "Excuse me" because I wasn't sure I heard her right, and she replied, "Nothing."

I basically drove home feeling completely inferior like a bad parent and stupid. It made me depressed. Then this morning I woke up to another text message criticizing me further for not putting a rubber cap on his sippy cup.

So at first, I thought my depression was only caused by the fighting. Now, though, I realize it was a combination of the fighting when she's in a fowl mood, and the constant criticism when she's in an OK mood.

I've seen these polls on this board that most of us are struggling with depression. For me the trigger is criticism over how I'm caring for the baby. I feel like learning my triggers will help me manage everything better.

What other triggers should I expect to watch out for that some of the experts here have encountered while co-parenting?

[EZEarache]

When my relationship with an exGFwBPD really started to fall apart in October, the catalyst for it was me becoming extremely depressed. I even wrote a suicide note. I've struggled with depression the whole of my adult life, but this was a particularly scary situation for me. I don't think I ever wrote a note before. I was serious... Don't worry I'm in therapy and medicated, now.

Granted 2020 was a really stressful year for me between a new baby, and the pandemic, plus health concerns. I had managed to keep my depression at bay for almost five years. So, my question through this breakup was, why the major depressive episode, that seemed to be caused by an interaction with the exGF?

I seemed to have gained a better understanding for my triggers this week.

The two in person interactions I had with her this week has allowed me to open my eyes to it a little bit more and given me understanding. On Saturday, I went over to her place to pick up the baby for visitation. The baby was not ready to leave, even though I told her I was taking him out previously. It turned into a huge fight which started when she started telling me the baby sitter was asking her all week what would happen if I didn't show up to pick up the baby on Friday. ExGF is getting back into the swing of work travel, due to vaccination. It was pretty insulting, and I managed to more or less maintain my composure. She kept pushing me, though as I was leaving, until I finally flipped out on her. This left me both angry at her, and angry at myself, for losing my temper and not being able to validate properly. Ultimately, I was a little bummed out about the situation. The fight did seem to affect the baby and I'm really trying to be a good co-parent.

Yesterday, was another visitation. It's been getting pretty hot out lately. I've been running around all week getting Air Conditioners for my new apartment and setting them up. So it was pretty hot at the ExGFs house as well. When it got to be bedtime the baby became really fussy. I could tell it was because of the heat. The house has Central AC, but I didn't want to run around close windows and turn on the AC without permission. That would be a battle for sure. So I just dealt with it the best I could. The baby went into meltdown mode. But I managed to console him and get him to just about fall asleep on my shoulder. At this point the exGF gets back. I told her I think he's too hot. So she turned on a ceiling fan, then she removed a weather seal on a window and opened it. This cooled things down considerably. She says, "Well, why didn't you just turn on a fan and open a window."

I respond, "I don't know, it just didn't occur to me."

Great solution! Doh! I totally agree, but it wasn't where my head has been all week. I've been working on getting AC set up at my place, so I was thinking about making do without AC and trying to get the baby calmed down. However, I did feel pretty stupid for not thinking of it myself.

To add insult to injury basically on my way out the door, she commented, "I opened the window and he went right to sleep." It felt like she was calling me inept and stupid. I just said, "Excuse me" because I wasn't sure I heard her right, and she replied, "Nothing."

I basically drove home feeling completely inferior like a bad parent and stupid. It made me depressed. Then this morning I woke up to another text message criticizing me further for not putting a rubber cap on his sippy cup.

So at first, I thought my depression was only caused by the fighting. Now, though, I realize it was a combination of the fighting when she's in a fowl mood, and the constant criticism when she's in an OK mood.

I've seen these polls on this board that most of us are struggling with depression. For me the trigger is criticism over how I'm caring for the baby. I feel like learning my triggers will help me manage everything better.

What other triggers should I expect to watch out for that some of the experts here have encountered while co-parenting?

[Mutt]

Hi EZEarache,



Is the sort of arrangement that you currently have called bird nesting? That being said, I think that it takes a certain amount of time to detach from an ex romantic partner if that is a goal that you have in mind. If you’re done with the r/s I would focus using validation in other parts of your life and don’t worry about validating your expwBPD’s feelings. I would focus on conflict resolution skills like not JADE’ing so that you don’t add to a pwBPD’s triggers because they have a very low threshold for stress and it takes a lot longer for them to return to their baseline compared to a non.

She is who she is with her invalidating behaviors towards the people that she’s closest with. That is not going to change unless she gets help for herself. It is ingrained in her personality, understanding that and separating her personality  from your self worth is something that you can work on.

Create a goal of depersonalizing her behaviors that are ingrained in her personality her personality is not something that is personal to you. You will see that over time that will lessen the sting in her words until you eventually reach a point with effort and time where you become indifferent to her behaviors. You neither like it or hate it and it doesn’t evoke an emotional response.

[EZEarache]

Is the sort of arrangement that you currently have called bird nesting?

I don't know what that means.  Is there a source on the term "bird nesting?" I know empty nesting.

[Mutt]

It’s an arrangement where instead of having children shift between two homes the parents take turn staying in the family home.

[EZEarache]

Yes and no.

The baby sitter goes to her house on week days, between 9 and 4. It's worked out pretty well so far. Because of the pandemic, we were both working at home, until I needed to move out. Now it might be getting more complicated, because her work travel schedule seems like it might start picking up. Moreover I work from 9 to 6.

If I visit on a weeknight I have to go to her place. I can't get there until 6:30 because of my work schedule. Bedtime is about at 8. So it doesn't make sense to drive him a half hour back and forth to my place each way. He'd spend 2/3rds of the visit in the car.

However, on Friday, I had my first overnight with the baby at my place. It was a great success. He was happy and we had a great time. In therapy, we agreed that once I got settled into the apartment I would take care of him on Friday night and Saturday. I want to have a conversation about starting this arrangement now. I'm pretty nervous to have this conversation, though. I'm having an anxiety attack just thinking about it.

[Mutt]

Do you have a court order?

[EZEarache]

No. We are not married so there is no need for a divorce. There is no court order, but there almost was. When I first left the house, exGF immediately threatened me that she was filing for full custody because I was unstable. It didn't seem like a threat the way she phrased it. It sounded more like she had already started the process. This completely crushed me. I broke down in a way I don't think I ever have before. I never cried like that in a therapy sessions before. 

Apparently the Sheriff's office offered to escort her to family court to do so, and advised her to file for custody. Someone also advised her that my mother was some sort of threat, and that my mother would file for custody if exGFwBPD tried to take the baby away from my mother. In our final therapy session, where the exGF broke it off with me, she informed me that it was the babysitter that had provided that advice. Through this all, I have managed not to triangulate with the babysitter. I keep it strictly professional and don't discuss the ex on any level with her. I would fire the babysitter, or refuse to pay for her anymore, but this would be bad for my son. So, I'm just trying to let this go. It's hard though, the exGFwBPD's paranoia that erupted from the threat of abandonment as a result of the potential threat from my mother was a huge problem for me for about 3 weeks after I first moved out.

Since then after weekly therapy and soul searching, I've determined that I was brought to this level by the exGF's constant criticism and emotional abuse. Just last night she was guilt tripping me over things she did for me in the relationship approximately a year ago. I'm getting better at just validating her to reduce the conflict, but it's really difficult for me. At first, the guilt trip worked, I was starting to feel depressed again. However, after I analyzed the message more, I could see that she was forgetting her part in the things she was saying and just blaming me.

I'm doing my best to try and keep this all out of the court system. If it were to go into the courts, it would be a difficult case for me because of the suicide note I wrote and stupidly presented to the exGF, when I was trying to explain to her what the conflict was doing to me. She has figuratively has waved that note over my head for the past eight months. The fear of my suicide and abandonment caused an onset of dysregulation to a spectacular degree.

[Mutt]

Since then after weekly therapy and soul searching, I've determined that I was brought to this level by the exGF's constant criticism and emotional abuse.

If you’re out of it for three weeks you can start to see the behaviors in a more objectionable way because you’re not constantly distracted.

Just last night she was guilt tripping me over things she did for me in the relationship approximately a year ago.

There’s a good chance that if she brought up something random from a year ago she’s baiting you because she wants soothing. Let me off you a different strategy. Don’t JADE ( Justify, Argue, Defend it Explain ) it doesn’t give her something that she can pick apart and start a conflict.

I'm doing my best to try and keep this all out of the court system. If it were to go into the courts, it would be a difficult case for me because of the suicide note I wrote and stupidly presented to the exGF, when I was trying to explain to her what the conflict was doing to me.

So you are cognizant that she’s triggered and making efforts albeit difficult from your end to not poke the bear so to speak. It’s difficult because you have you’re own stress to manage.

I’m not a L. Depression is more acceptable in today’s society because of awareness. Sometimes we go through periods where we’re depressed and the courts understand that theres a period after the split where things are emotional on both sides. I would consult a L in regards to the note and disclose it with them.

My point is this. It is the right of the child to have a r/s with both parents regardless of how either parent feel about each other. Put yourself in the babies perception and get things sorted out in court so that the r/s remains intact for the baby regardless of what your exGF feels when she’s dysregulated.

[EZEarache]

There’s a good chance that if she brought up something random from a year ago she’s baiting you because she wants soothing. Let me off you a different strategy. Don’t JADE ( Justify,  Argue, Defend it Explain ) it doesn’t give her something that she can pick apart and start a conflict.

Absolutely, that was what was happening. I've been trying to set a new boundary where I refuse to engage in conversations about events that happened more than two months prior. I think she might be coming to terms with it. I actually kept myself from JADEing in the text thread mentioned above, despite it being pretty triggering for me.

I found this list of validations. https://www.hopeforbpd.com/borderline-personality-disorder-treatment/validating-statements

During the scenario above I chose to use the validations:

You're right.

I'm sorry that I hurt you.

It makes sense that you feel.


They worked great. She went from being mean spirited to apologizing to me for something that I wasn't looking for an apology for. I'll take what I can get..

I'm planning to print the list out and put it on my fridge, maybe in my car and on my desk at work, too. When she starts in on me via text, I'm just going to try and find the right validation, until I manage to memorize them all.

[Mutt]

That’s good that you set a boundary on yourself. You’re doing the work and finding different ways to talk to a pwBPD. Feelings = facts. Validate a pwBPD’s feelings. That being said, the tools don’t always work and you can’t use the tools and hope that she’s going to adhere to verbal agreements.

[IntoTheWind]

The last time I saw my exGFwBPD after a break, I was getting back to my regular self again and we were going to watch a baseball game and I was driving.

She decided to call my car ugly for some reason, so I made a lighthearted joke back at her and she sulked for the next 40 minute car ride and was cold towards me for 90% of the baseball game, she called me a few more light names that stung, but enough for me to comment on, or want to "escalate". She later told me "I need to be nicer to her".

After saying the joke, I saw her face and knew exactly what I was in store for and had an overwhelming sense of dread wash over me.

It made me remember that I wasn't the problem, and that I'd basically learnt to suppress myself for fear of JADE cycling until 3am.