Are those flashbacks and how not to get scared by them (or less scared at least)

[Steppenwolf]

Hi,

My uBPDw has frequent short episodes, where she just mutters "I hate humans". Like when we are going to sleep and lying in bed to relax or going to sleep, she will just mutter this phrase all of a sudden. In these moments her face shows an extreme hatred, but then after a short moment, it is all back to normal again.

I tried to talk to her about it and told her that these sudden outbursts do scare me, as I have rarely experienced such intense expressions of hatred in anyone. She won't talk about how she feels or what she thinks about in these moments and I definitely don't want to press the issue. She promised she would try to control these outbursts when I am around, and I think she does. But still, they do scare me.


Has anybody else experienced something like this in a pwBPD? How do you deal with this and do these moments scare you as well? Did you find anything you could do to help the other person in these moments, or is this something I just should let go and handle it her way by ignoring it?

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[Gemsforeyes]

Hi Steppen…

When your wife has her “I hate humans” moments,  do you know what she’s been doing/watching/listening to in the hours prior to trying to relax and making that statement?

Maybe the next time this happens (or perhaps before, during a calm moment), instead of telling her that the statement scares you, you can ask her if there was something she saw or heard that made her feel that way about people in general.

Just a thought…because I periodically had the same thought in the past.  So I stopped watching the news.  But frankly, I still have that feeling pop into my head when I see an ASPCA commercial showing horrid animal cruelty.

Warmly,
Gems

[Steppenwolf]

When your wife has her “I hate humans” moments,  do you know what she’s been doing/watching/listening to in the hours prior to trying to relax and making that statement?

Maybe the next time this happens (or perhaps before, during a calm moment), instead of telling her that the statement scares you, you can ask her if there was something she saw or heard that made her feel that way about people in general.

Just a thought…because I periodically had the same thought in the past.  So I stopped watching the news.  But frankly, I still have that feeling pop into my head when I see an ASPCA commercial showing horrid animal cruelty.

I think that is part of it. She cares really deeply about a lot of issues on the news, like environmental issues, animal cruelty, racism etc. Unfortunately, she spends a lot of time on Facebook where for some reason she gets recommended a lot of right-wing posts, that deeply hurt her a lot.


I reacted in all kinds of ways before, so it wasn't all the time that I told her I was scared of this. I also asked both during a quiet moment and after such an episode. She never tells me immediately afterwards, but in the quiet moments she seem surprised I don't feel the same way, like "Seeing how the environment get's destroyed, why don't you hate humans as well".

The kids copied her a couple of times since she also had these moments in front of them a couple of times, but she also seems to be able to control them to a degree.


Also, just recently I noticed a behavior again, that seems related to this, where she also tenses up for a short moment and seems distant, but then just utters my name a couple of times. I guess both of these moments are just her somehow getting overwhelmed by emotion and trying to handle it somehow. It's been a long time since she did the name thing, and we went to a rough phase for a while.

So maybe I really shouldn't put too much thought into this, except seeing it as a way for her to handle strong emotions. And just figure out how we can avoid the "I hate humans" moments in front of the kids.