My SO having major episode... help

[AllisG]

Hi all.

My boyfriend has been "on a rampage" for the past five hours.

What triggered it was I had plans with friends yesterday and those plans fell through.  I then decided to stay at home, catch up on laundry, read, etc.  I stopped at his place and everything seemed fine.  Then today he started telling me that not spending the day with him meant I didn't love him or care about him.  I tried validating, I've tried everything to defuse him, but he is relentless.  He is being very emotionally manipulative.  Everything short of threatening suicide.  I am trying to set and  maintain limits.  He tends to twist my words and use them against me.  He tends to always assume to know how I think, feel, etc.

I told him I couldn't talk anymore if he wanted to continue to argue about yesterday.  He has text me over 100 times in the last hour. 

The last text was apropos to nothing.  Immediately after writing how I didn't give a hit, he text a question about a sex toy on Amazon. 

I've never been so frustrated or felt so helpless that I am literally in.tears.  Idk what to do anymore. 

What can I do right now?  Just ignore him?

[AllisG]

He keeps asking why I'm ignoring him.

If I respond it will start all over again.  If I don't respond I'm afraid he'll take a cab to my house.  (His car is being repaired.) I definitely don't want that to happen.  He said earlier he was going to, but I had went to my mom's. 

[Seneca]

Honey, you have to ignore him until he calms down. You can't get through to them when they are like this and it is abusive loony behavior.

Send him a message saying he is being inappropriate towards you and you will be happy to discuss this rationally when he calms down. Say nothing, respond to nothing after that, until such time as things are normal.

[AllisG]

Thank you so much. 

I know, I just really needed to hear it's okay to ignore him.

It is so hard though.  He's now starting in with the "poor me"

messages.  "I'm such a loser, no wonder you don't want to spend time with me.  I'm sorry I am such a burden."

[karma_gal]

It is hard, but they have to learn... . and we have to learn that we can't get through to them when they are raging like that.  We always want to explain to them, tell them, get them to understand, but we need to realize that they aren't capable of listening and rationalizing under the circumstances and it's best for everyone to wait until things have calmed down a bit.

The self-loathing naturally follows the raging, when it isn't getting them what they want.  My H does it constantly.  The poor me, victim stuff drives me absolutely crazy, so I have had to start walking away and leaving him to deal with that part himself.  Otherwise, I would probably be really tempted to agree with him, and add a few other things of my own as to why he's a PITA and worthless sometimes, and that definitely wouldn't help things any!

It's going to be tough for you tonight but he wants you to feel bad, to feel guilty.  Don't let him.  If you are at home now, take a hot bath, read a good book, turn your phone off so you can get some sleep, and see how things look in the morning.  That's about all you can do, unfortunately, is take care of yourself.