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Author Topic: Advice on Psychatrist not Telling My Wife about her BPD  (Read 712 times)
Arrowfel

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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Posts: 5


« on: January 24, 2018, 09:24:37 AM »

Hello Everyone,

My first post.  I have to be very careful about using this site because my wife gets extremely paranoid and is completely in denial about any of her BPD symptoms.  So if you don't see me online much that is why.

I am curious about peoples opinions about whether it is better for the BPD person in your life to know that they have BPD or not.

I am in the difficult position of being told by my wife's and my psychiatrist that my wife has very severe BPD but that he recommends that I can't tell her yet about his diagnosis.  It has been 6 months since my wife had a major epsiode of paranoid delusion (and still holds to the delusions today) that pointed my psychiatrist towards a diagnosis of BPD. Psych says he is trying to find a way of telling my wife about his diagnosis but every time he tries to talk about how her symptoms are very much BPD-related my wife is completely in denial of being told about it.  She actually insists that the psychiatrist has told her she doesn't have any BPD traits at all.

I hate the amount of secrecy involved and I am reaching breaking point of being told I am 100% the cause of all our problems in my wife's eyes.  Tonight she has revealed that she feels I am a bully who is always trying to control our relationship.  I have no interest in wielding power in my marriage but since I have had treatment for complex trauma resulting from childhood physical and emotional abuse (mother with probable malignant narcissism) I have been no longer able to accept the abusive way I had allowed my wife to treat me for 18.5 years of marriage.  Now that I have done the extremely painful inner child work for my CPTSD treatment.  I have developed a sense of inherent inner value and I know I don't deserve to be miserable or to be blamed for things that are obviously not my fault. 

I accept my many mistakes and that I have done and said things that are hurtful to my wife.  I am very angry at the horrible things she has said and done to me over the years since 2000.  I wish often that I could go back and never meet her.  Even if it meant I would be alone.  I would probably have more peace of mind and more financial security.  I know I am not perfect and I am trying to find some kind of inner peace within myself.  But being around my wife who still thinks that the way she thinks and feels is completely normal and rational (while absolutely refusing to talk about her episodes of splitting and enduring paranoid delusions) is increasingly hard to take on.

I feel like the psychiatrist is being a coward to leave me in this position.  My wife has become increasingly unhinged and violent towards me as I have been working on setting boundaries.  She thinks I am cold and cruel for telling her for example that I won't accept being yelled at for not immediately meeting her demands to cut friends out of my life "or we won't have any future together".  My wife assures me that I have set boundaries in the worst possible way and made her totally miserable.  While being completely unable to take any responsibility for any of her actions in the past or present.

I have no confidence that she will change without accepting her diagnosis and I know I can't do anything about making that happen.  But I really want the psychiatrist to step up before I cannot cope anymore with having to keep all of this to myself.

Please share your advice and experiences.  It would be good to have advice from someone other than my psychiatrist.

Best Wishes

Arrow


 
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walkinthepark247
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« Reply #1 on: January 24, 2018, 01:23:22 PM »

I had this very conversation with my therapist recently. My wife is undiagnosed and refuses to see anyone who could diagnose. My therapist suggested that a diagnosis (and knowledge of the same) for her might just become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I believe he was partly telling me this so that I could focus on myself. In the past, I had become overly-focused on getting my wife "help" and a diagnosis. It has freed me up a great deal.
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"Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured." - Mark Twain
Tattered Heart
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« Reply #2 on: January 24, 2018, 01:37:22 PM »

Hi Arrowfel,

I'm sorry you are having difficulties getting your W's T to disclose to her. It sounds like he believes your W may be very fragile in her acceptance of the diagnosis and may be concerned that if he pushes her too quickly into taking a diagnosis that it may cause her to either break from T or may cause her to have further personal issues.

Are you hoping that something will change once she gets a diagnosis? Sometimes we see members who want the diagnosis hoping their partner will have an "Aha!" moment and get to work on being better. Unfortunately that isn't always the case.

One thing that you can do regardless of whether your W ever gets a diagnosis or not is to begin looking at your own response to her and ways that you can start focusing on yourself again. Which of these would you say is an area that you struggle with the most?
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Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life Proverbs 13:12

Arrowfel

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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Posts: 5


« Reply #3 on: January 24, 2018, 06:00:15 PM »

Hi Arrowfel,

I'm sorry you are having difficulties getting your W's T to disclose to her. It sounds like he believes your W may be very fragile in her acceptance of the diagnosis and may be concerned that if he pushes her too quickly into taking a diagnosis that it may cause her to either break from T or may cause her to have further personal issues.

Are you hoping that something will change once she gets a diagnosis? Sometimes we see members who want the diagnosis hoping their partner will have an "Aha!" moment and get to work on being better. Unfortunately that isn't always the case.

One thing that you can do regardless of whether your W ever gets a diagnosis or not is to begin looking at your own response to her and ways that you can start focusing on yourself again. Which of these would you say is an area that you struggle with the most?

Thanks for the advice TH.  You make some good points.

I'm not so much expecting an aha moment (although of course that would be nice).  My issue is the ongoing need for secrecy and the pressure it places on me to act deceptively.

In my experience my wife is very much sure of her accurate understanding of her behaviour.  I cannot get her to listen to my point of view or see things from my perspective.  I feel that her insistence that there is nothing wrong with her and 100% wrong with me is related to the lack of a clear signal from the psychiatrist.  It feels like he is not setting clear boundaries with her and that allows her to reinterpret every joint session as if the psych had been frustrated or even infuriated with me the whole session (when I ask the psych this is 90% not the case at all).  The psych is able to talk to me about issues I need to do better with but can't talk to my wife or tell her off for negative behaviour without her being convinced that I have tricked the psych into being on my side.  So fun.

Our psychiatrist has strongly advised I tell my wifes parents so I will have people in my corner and so that my wife cant tell them I am abusive to her and my daughter without them expecting my wife to back up her claims (I am not physically or emotionally abusive to either of them to the best of my knowledge).  I can't call them without my wife accusing me of trying to turn them against her.  My wife tries to divide and conquer by making them decide between her story and mine.  They believe mine because I am fully accepting of myself having a role in causing problems and I dont demand that they choose between me and their daughter.  In fact I told them I would rather they hate me than to deceive them.  But they dont hate me.  I recorded an hour of a 12 hr argument and got my mother in law to listen to it.  She lasted 10 minutes before she couldn't listen anymore.  The daughter she heard ranting at me was unrecognizable to her.

I am still working on my anger over the abuse I had up to age 18.  I put in a lot of effort to deal with my CPTSD and I have made a lot of progress towards feeling whole again.  It feels like the more whole I feel internally the less I am willing to tolerate being screamed at for the smallest error around the house.  My wife says that she is changing because she saw how much effort I put into the CPTSD treatment.  My wife says she has made a lot of progress in improving herself but from my external perspective she is still doing all the old negative and controlling behaviours like saying to me "don't you care enough about me to get me X or do that for me". 

I'm not thinking I can't get better than I am but I also dont see much improvement at all from my wife.  I suspect that a firm diagnosis might help since currently the lack of clarity is allowing her to mentally wiggle out of every situation where she plays a role.

I will continue to consider my role in our issues.  I know I am nowhere near perfect.

Best Wishes

Arrow.
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Arrowfel

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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Posts: 5


« Reply #4 on: January 24, 2018, 06:09:01 PM »

I had this very conversation with my therapist recently. My wife is undiagnosed and refuses to see anyone who could diagnose. My therapist suggested that a diagnosis (and knowledge of the same) for her might just become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I believe he was partly telling me this so that I could focus on myself. In the past, I had become overly-focused on getting my wife "help" and a diagnosis. It has freed me up a great deal.

Thanks Walkin, 

Can you elaborate on how it has freed you up?

I find it extremely hard to do anything as an individual without my wife constantly wanting me to check in with her.

I find that whenever I try to talk about how I feel or share worries etc then my wife will try to one-up me with a much bigger worry.  Or alternatively she will either pick a fight or collapse into sobbing and will then end up comforting her and my feelings are completely ignored 
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walkinthepark247
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Relationship status: Married
Posts: 128



« Reply #5 on: January 25, 2018, 08:09:10 AM »

It has freed me in the sense that I now know I have no control over whether my wife seeks help or not. It was causing me a great deal of anxiety (something I struggle with already). Of course, being in a relationship with a BP can cause great anxiety in itself. But, therapy has helped me to acknowledge and accept that my wife might never seek improvement on her own.

Read more about Radical Acceptance here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pieces-mind/201207/radical-acceptance
"Sometimes problems can't be solved. It’s difficult to accept what you don’t want to be true. And it’s more difficult to not accept. Not accepting pain brings suffering."

BTW, radical acceptance is also a component of DBT therapy. It's equally useful to non-BPs.

Interestingly, my has begun to seek improvement on her own. But, I don't believe my efforts had anything to do with it. She does not acknowledge that she has any sort of mental illness. However, she states that her new therapist has her focused on mindfulness exercises (another component of DBT). Fingers crossed that she continues down this path.
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"Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured." - Mark Twain
isilme
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« Reply #6 on: January 25, 2018, 11:25:32 AM »

Most of us on here have SO/spouses who have not been told they seem to have (or definitely have) BPD.  For me, it's not a debilitating secret.  It's just a piece of knowledge that helps me, but would not really help H.  Not at this time, maybe never. 

Whether your W is told she has it or not, in my opinion, will make VERY little difference.  She will likely ignore it, and possibly turn on the T for even suggesting it, and maybe refuse to go anymore.

Knowing about BPD is far more helpful for US.  It's good to be able to put a name to the behavior we observe, and to learn that we are neither alone in it, nor are we 100% of the problem (as we are often told.  repeatedly.)

If you have receptive friends and family, willing to learn about BPD who can be trusted to handle things delicately, then I'd go ahead and share with them.  But this can backfire, and the T is right in not wanting to simply say, "Hey Lady, you got the BPD.  Snap outta it." 

Excerpt
I feel that her insistence that there is nothing wrong with her and 100% wrong with me is related to the lack of a clear signal from the psychiatrist

^^Not really.  She does not want to believe anything is wrong with her, so she won't.  The T, I think, may have a good handle on this but may not be explaining it very well to you - see if this is close if you can talk privately:

Many actions a pwBPD exhibit are about dodging and avoiding shame and blame, they NEED to not be at fault for things.  When they can't escape fault, they tend to shut down, can fall into deep depression.  Black and white thinking means they MUST be ALL good, or ALL bad.  One mistake can mean they are suddenly ALL bad.  Being all bad means people will abandon them.  So they will go through all manner of mental gymnastics to avoid being in the wrong or the blame for ANYTHING.

For a person like that to have someone in authority tell them they have a condition that means they certain ARE int he wrong at least part of the time can be devastating.  And they will retreat from it, deny it, vilify whoever suggests it. 

If the T wanted to run her off, they'd have told her long ago.

The knowledge that it's BPD, or even just likely BPD, is meant to help YOU learn to adjust your reactions to those BOD behaviors to stop adding fuel to the fire.  As much as BPD sucks, and as much as it seems to rest all on the pwBPD, WE are also just damaged enough to end up in the relationships.  Many of us are codependent or have other issues like depression and anxiety that somehow make this seem "normal" for us where it has to get pretty bad for us to even look for help understanding it.

Even if the T never says a peep to your W about the BPD determination, nothing stops YOU from employing the tools and lessons to see if you can minimize the drama. 

Walkinthepark mentioned radical acceptance.  THIS is a big thing.  Imagine your W has a physical disability.  She's in a wheelchair.  You can SEE she's in that chair and don't expect her to be able to do certain things, like go rock climbing next weekend - oR, you at least acknowledge that she has more challenges to go rock climbing than other people.  She may be able to do it, but it will take more support, and more planning for her than other people. 

BPD, the way I see it, is an emotional disability.  Some coping mechanism, some ability to manage emotions, is just missing, stunted, not developed.  Most people have some ability to handle things, even very unpleasant ones, without going totally off the wall.  In BPD, emotions are often uncontrolled, they are facts, "How I feel today is how I always felt, so if I am mad today, I have always hated you - if I love you today, I never hated you, why would you even mention that?" 

To simply handle unpleasant realities is a super big challenge for many with BPD.  Hell, for my H, if it rained today and he wanted to do something outside, his life is ruined and it must be my fault.

Excerpt
I'm not thinking I can't get better than I am but I also don't see much improvement at all from my wife.

Improvement is relative and slow.  H did not show much improvement until I made concrete changes to myself.  I also have a form of PTSD, I grew up in a pretty crazy household as an only child with two mentally ill, abusive adults nominally called "parents".  My knowledge of BPD came about partly after trying to reconcile internal rage at the overt abuse and the quiet neglect I faced for 19 years.  I had repressed memories and dissociated feelings tied to those memories come to a head about 10 years back, right when H and I were facing a VERY turbulent time in our r/s.  This site helped me greatly. 

As I worked at making ME healthier, stronger, and set a few boundaries not to control H, but to not allow myself to be screamed at (as much), things improved.  If things get heated - take a break.  You do NOT need to be screamed at, but the answer is not changing her, it's changing how YOU react and what you will allow yourself to take.  Find ways when you can to leave the argument.  Leave the room, the house, find a task or a chore.  With some couples, you can get away with saying, "I will not be yelled at.  I am going out for an hour, a while, whatever, until we can talk calmly.  I will be back, but I will not stay with you this angry."  For me, such statements would fuel the fire, so I just pick an opening and find a reason to leave.  Only you can feel what's best in your house.

I mentioned to others my bungee analogy.  We are on a ladder of emotional coping.  We are on level 10, our SOs are tied to us with a bungee cord.  Day by day they bounce around, sometimes on our level, sometimes much lower, heck, on a really good day they may even bounce higher.  But on average, we are steady on our level while they on average are a little below, maybe about level 5.  As we work on US, we climb that ladder, with them still tethered to us.  They are still bouncing away, some days higher, some lower, but as we slowly and steadily climb, and hit level 15, they are now averaging level 10 - they have improved by us taking all those steps and as they push and pull, they got dragged right along behind us. 

Accept that she has a disability.  Accept she may never learn its name and that THAT is OK.  The name is not what's important, so much as a strategy for how YOU and you families can deal with it.  You know she may quack and waddle and like to swim, but realize she will be very upset if you call her a duck. 

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