BPD escalates behavior when I am sick?

[MissyM]

Wondering if anyone else deals with this and what do you do?  This is one of the hardest things to deal with, when I am down and vulnerable my dBPDh becomes extremely hostile.  I get that he becomes overwhelmed easily but I am not going able to tolerate this when I am sick.  There are times that I need to be able to depend on him.  I am currently sick from an infection following a root canal and his behavior is extremely self-centered and childish.

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[Lilibeth]

MissyM, i know exactly how you are feeling. It is the same with my husband. If i have even something as ordinary as a headache, or if he decides that i am not looking well, he makes it seem as if i am to blame for my condition. I have been and still do try to keep any form of physical un-wellness to myself and see a doctor if i need to - telling him would be total disaster. He just wouldn't be able to cope and it comes out as temper, as if i am responsible for his feelings of worry, or for making him take time off from work, or for causing all this inconvenience in the home.

[MissyM]

I hear you Lillibeth!   Fortunately, my dBPDh spoke to someone in his 12 step group and modified his behavior.  He picked up the kids, then got everyone food and wasn't even pissy about it.   Earlier today he was feeling sorry for himself because I am not well and he was going to have to take care of everyone tonight.  The other good thing is that we are separated and he left after caring for everyone, so he didn't have a a chance to muck it up.  I know I struggle to keep it together when I am sick and he starts acting like he was earlier today.  Hopefully, we are both making changes.

[LifeIsBeautiful]

It happened to me recently. Something in me snapped and I left the house to get rest. I'm not saying that's the best thing to do, but when my body tells me something, need to listen to it whether or not someone is raging. The important message for me to get across was that I had to take care of health without getting anyone's approval. Hope you have recovered well.

[Surrender]

MissyM, i know exactly how you are feeling. It is the same with my husband. If i have even something as ordinary as a headache, or if he decides that i am not looking well, he makes it seem as if i am to blame for my condition. I have been and still do try to keep any form of physical un-wellness to myself and see a doctor if i need to - telling him would be total disaster. He just wouldn't be able to cope and it comes out as temper, as if i am responsible for his feelings of worry, or for making him take time off from work, or for causing all this inconvenience in the home.

I find it incredible that we all share so much of the same story. My guy gets so upset with me when I'm sick that he blames me and is resentful if he has to take care of me or if we need to change our plans. He literally becomes cruel and divides himself from me in some attempt to be moralistically and physically superior. My illness triggers him and he then uses my age as though it is my fault for being older than him. It is insane because he takes my illnesses personally and uses it to justify his fears against me. I guess what makes it worse is that he is one of the healthiest person that I have ever known and has never needed to go to the hospital, doctor or dentist. I on the other hand am 10 years older than him and have a history of surgeries etc. This definitely doesn't help my cause when he goes 'off' and I am forced to feel bad about normal things like even catching a cold.

Our perceived weaknesses seem to trigger them and it turns into resentment and antagonism on their end, at least it does in my guy. He absolves himself from caring for me if he warns me to do something and I don't do it and then I get sick. He makes it clear to me that I'm on my own then and then views me as the weaker sex who is deficient and perhaps even unworthy at that moment.

[Lilibeth]

Oh Surrender, i feel so much for you. Here it is the other way... . he tends to fall ill at the slightest thing, and then makes a big thing out of it, and since i don't fall ill so often, it all becomes my fault. Since i do the cooking, there is something wrong with that, this or the other... . About his constant illnesses and health issues now, since very, very recently, i just keep quiet... . just let him go on and on and on... . after a while, i see that he becomes quiet... . sometimes he tells me i don't care, but he absolutely refuses to go to a doctor, so i gently remind him of that when i sense that he is quiet enough to listen. It is very, very hard, i know. About myself, i am learning to take care of myself, Surrender... . at least that way some of the unpleasantness is spared... .

[Cloudy Days]

My husband also escalates his behavior when I am sick. I remember a few years ago I got some kind of bug and I was so sick that I literally lost my voice. Sickest I have ever been and really the first time I was ever really sick around my husband. He was awful to me, all I really wanted to do was sleep and he kept waking me up and finding things to fight about even though I couldn't even talk to him because my throat was raw.

I also had a similar experience when my tooth was infected and I went and got a root canal. When I got home all I wanted to do was lay down. This was all before I knew anything about BPD so I was just dumbstruck.

I am actually very healthy and rarely get sick, my husband on the other hand has some health issues, it's sometimes exhausting trying to keep up with what is wrong with him and he expects so much from me when he doesn't feel good.

[Lilibeth]

These are times when we really need to disengage, i think, though i do know how hard it is to think of anything when all you want to do is lie down and rest, and the husband is just going on and on... . I also identify with you when you say it is exhausting just keeping up with what is wrong with him. Plus, every day there are complaints about this that or the other... . Last month, everything i did or made or cooked disagreed with him and he gave me the feeling that it was my fault, and worse, that i didn't care to find out. Now this month, all that is gone, and he says i haven't cared to find out... . so now i have to go back to the usual kind of cooking etc... . Now, however, since i came to this family, i'm learning not to take what he is saying to heart... . that is helping me... . i am also finding ways and means of being good to myself, as in, give myself a teeny treat, just to build up a non-existent sense of self-esteem just at the time he makes me feel the worst... . the only thing i know is that no more, no more, no more am i going to take a beating of me... . I really do feel for you Cloudy Days, just remember that you are not alone.

[MissyM]

Or you could do what I have done the last few months and stop cooking!   Really, what freedom.  I usually love cooking but when it becomes a chore and one that isn't appreciated, no need for much of that.  We are separated right now but I started that a couple of months before that.  I still cook something simple for the kids and I a few nights a week but no elaborate meals.  I am a fabulous cook but don't see the point of knocking myself out for someone that doesn't appreciate it.  I'd rather spend the time on improving my life in other ways, right now.

[Surrender]

More and more women are separating from their partners preferring to be single because they can't handle having to continue being mothers to men. It's sickening to me the imbalance between the sexes and the expectations men place on their partners out of a sense of entitlement.

My BPD partner doesn't cook except for sandwiches, eggs, pizza and pannini's. He is OCD about cleaning and tidying which is a good thing but after a while you begin to resent having to always take care of them. I think the danger with them knowing that they have this illness (brain sickness) is that they use it as an excuse to hide behind. My partner is a master of excuses and in this way finds a means to escape real life and all of its demands. In his mind he believes he gives me amazing sex so I should be more than happy to cook and be the responsible working partner.

The narcissistic part of him is convinced that he is a real catch even though in his lucid moments when he is breaking down he admits to being the biggest failure and loser of all time. Then he gets mad at me for being with him accusing me of having a problem for not leaving him... . he will say to me "what does that say about you, why you would be with someone like me?". Then I sigh because I realize that we can't possibly win when they are shifted or slightly dysregulated.

It's like saying that we can't do anything good enough and when we do something really well it suddenly becomes about something different that is still bad. I recall when my partner would be sitting at home in front of the pc writing posts on forums after I just finished a 12 hour shift. He wouldn't get up nor would he have dinner ready, then he would become angry at me for trying to impose my timing on him saying that I was selfish because things had to be done in my time. So there I am after working my 12 hour shift on maybe a few hours sleep hungry and just wanting dinner to be ready. Did I mention that I had made it prior and it just needed to be pulled out of the freezer and heated? Yeah hard to believe yet I somehow ruined the entire evening because of my demands which in his eyes were imposing on his important work on forums. Seriously there were times that I wanted to bash my head on the kitchen counter and never cook a single thing again.

I endured lectures on how if I wanted food at that time then I should just carry on without depending on him because he was on his own schedule and didn't require so much effort to eat as I did blah blah blah. The moral of the story is this in subtitles:

"don't depend on me for anything because I don't want to do anything at all but I'll be expecting everything from you. Why? Because I want you to be everything for me but I don't want to be that for you. In fact I want to do as little as possible for you while reaping the benefits of my demands".

Honestly if I didn't see that he was making changes I was heading out the door.

[Lilibeth]

Hang in there, Surrender, please... . you aren't alone... . when you can find some time and space for yourself, see if you can work around this. Would talking with him help - then you could say that while the weekdays are your responsibility, weekends are his, or something like that? i know you will have to listen to all kinds of reasoning and emotional blackmailing and things like that, still would that be an option to consider? or something like that? and just blank out the nasty things he says... . that's not you, and it's certainly not about you... .

[Surrender]

Would talking with him help - then you could say that while the weekdays are your responsibility, weekends are his, or something like that?

I think that is a brilliant idea and I feel ridiculous for not having thought of this. I think we become so overwhelmed by staving off the verbal abuse and attacks that common sense goes out the window and we live on a survival mode likened to avoiding walking on eggshells if possible. We survive one blow to encounter the next one and so on and so on. I went to see my T and he told me that I'm utterly exhausted because my body is constantly in a tense state and I don't let it rest even in sleep. He called it something but I don't remember the name right now. Essentially he said that people who live day to day with partners with illnesses such as BPD are in a heightened hyper vigilant mode and we never feel safe enough or relaxed enough to sleep properly or even just be in a 'normal state'. It's hard on our bodies and that is why many partners get ill because our day to day lives are so tense and we are always trying to 'avoid' triggering them.

We end up living lives without the norm that we can come to expect on a daily basis instead it's the opposite. We have no normal to expect and hence we are hyper vigilant and afraid to trigger them. We watch what we do, what we say and how we respond because we know that the slightest thing can trigger them and that is suddenly a very negative attack that comes literally out of nowhere land basing us and leaving us completely shocked time after time after time. This is how we live and this is our roller coaster.

I think we end up having something similar to ptsd because they trigger us in ways that we don't quite understand and that affects how we sleep and how we essentially rest. I don't think I remember the feeling of truly resting in the entire time I've been with him yet at the same time he is my the very thing that keeps me feeling centered and complete. Without him I feel lost and utterly depressed. I don't know how this all works because it seems like two contradictions are in place at the same time in the dynamic of what our love is but that is how it is. I've come to accept it. He is my glue and I am his yet at the same time he causes all these disruptions in me that are in turn causing me physical, emotional, mental and spiritual suffering.

How can we have two extremes at the same time I ask? I love him more than anything and everything yet he causes me the greatest pain and dysregularity that is causing me my own symptoms. Is love that strong that we can sacrifice our own happiness because we have learned to accept being happy loving them even though it causes so much anguish?

I ask myself many things but yet like you lilibeth I still find denial my preference. I know ultimately I love him and he is home to me.

[Lilibeth]

Surrender, you've perfectly described my physical condition - utter exhaustion of body and mind. This is what i was in till a few months ago - i went to a therapist but since i went alone, he was not ready to discuss my husband's condition other than how it was affecting me. However, he did give me some meds for my panic attacks and my anxiety  - these also helped me to sleep at night. It is also this hyper vigilance on what i say, the expression on my face, my responses etc that was getting me down. That has somewhat eased off after i joined this family and started reading this book: stop walking on eggshells by Paul T Mason and Randi Kreger. This made a lot of things clear to me and i've been trying to work on the techniques i got from here and from the book. You know, Surrender, it was this question that bothered me too - to love him and yet have so much anguish from the relationship. I'm slowly realizing that distancing myself from him when he is nasty or when tries to demolish me is making me keep a grip on myself and is actually helping the relationship. It is helping me to see myself and see him too - actually SEE. Denial is not really the answer, Surrender... . we have to deal with it and them put it away. I am dealing with the grief over my mother and i can feel it slowly, ever so slowly seeping out... . denial will only make the whole thing a huge big block in our heart. Stepping back does not need to make you feel disloyal or as if you are emotionally breaking away. What i do know and do believe with my whole heart is that sacrificing myself and all my wishes and desires and the little things that meant a great deal to me over these 26 years didn't do anything either for me or for the relationship. I've ended up less than zero. And he is the same, if not worse - it is as if i had encouraged him on this path, almost. I had hit rock bottom when i came into this family, Surrender - here i have learnt that if we don't pay attention to ourselves, and if we don't put ourselves first, we are never really going to be able to love freely - there will always be a rider hanging around somewhere, making us feel hurt/disappointed/unwanted/badly treated etc. And then would that be really love that we are giving? and receiving?

I got the feeling that even though i loved my husband, i was staying on because the option of leaving him was terribly painful. I also felt that staying in the relationship was making me actually non-existent as a person - i had to get myself back - have to... as i am still working on myself... . have to and have to. I suggest, Surrender, that you first of all make sure you get enough rest and sleep - and do try and download or get this book... . the rest will fall into place here in this family... .

[Quantendynamik]

Hi MissyM,

I got exactly the same thing from my uBPDw. 

From my experience, this happens whenever they are about to face the responsibility of something they do not have 100% confidence in.  They unconsciously use the attack-before-attacked technique which worked for them most of the time to project the fear and responsibility and whatever else to others. 

Childish, yes.  They did miss the mature way of coping with their emotions and proper way to interact with this world, and therefore act just like a child.

Getting them in proper treatment aside, here is what worked for me so far:

1. Excuse them from care taking or whatever support you would need, and take good care of yourself, re-assure them that you are fine.  This helps them to stay out of the fear/pain they will have under expectation.

2. Ask like what you would ask to a child, e.g. "honey, would you please give me a cup of hot water.", by telling exactly what you want them to do.  For they usually miss the sympathy ability and cannot come with the things they can do to help, although we may expect they naturally can.

I know this doesn't sound great, and do expect we can get somewhere with the help of this forum.

Get better soon, and take care.

Wondering if anyone else deals with this and what do you do?  This is one of the hardest things to deal with, when I am down and vulnerable my dBPDh becomes extremely hostile.  I get that he becomes overwhelmed easily but I am not going able to tolerate this when I am sick.  There are times that I need to be able to depend on him.  I am currently sick from an infection following a root canal and his behavior is extremely self-centered and childish.

[MissyM]

So interesting that illness is a common problem.  My dBPDh is now trying very hard to be accommodating while I am sick, I recognize it takes a great deal of effort from him.  Something that is 2nd nature for me, so I have always found this a mystery but it is much clearer now that I know he is BPD.

Surrender,

I think we end up having something similar to ptsd because they trigger us in ways that we don't quite understand and that affects how we sleep and how we essentially rest.

I have been diagnosed with PTSD and am doing EMDR for that, it has greatly helped my reactivity to my dBPDh.


Q,

1. Excuse them from care taking or whatever support you would need, and take good care of yourself, re-assure them that you are fine.  This helps them to stay out of the fear/pain they will have under expectation.

2. Ask like what you would ask to a child, e.g. "honey, would you please give me a cup of hot water.", by telling exactly what you want them to do.  For they usually miss the sympathy ability and cannot come with the things they can do to help, although we may expect they naturally can.

1.  Goes against what has been suggested for me by the therapists and recovery people involved.  They are trying to focus on him learning to support me and me asking for that support.

2.  That is perfect, I notice I do have to be explicit about what I need.  It is so foreign to me that he has not a clue about what to do.  I realize his mother never did these things for him but I certainly have and you would think he could have learned from that.  Thanks for this tip, very helpful.

[Quantendynamik]

1.  Goes against what has been suggested for me by the therapists and recovery people involved.  They are trying to focus on him learning to support me and me asking for that support.

Thanks for sharing. 

Just sometimes I feel so tired to do the "parenting" or "training" when I am sick.

I guess just try not to overwhelm them and keep trying if we still can.

[MissyM]

Q, to be clear I wouldn't even attempt this if he wasn't working on himself and had other people in his life to hold him accountable.  Happen to love his sponsor, who is a doctor and seems to have a good understanding of my dBPDh's issues.

[Cloudy Days]

I think we end up having something similar to ptsd because they trigger us in ways that we don't quite understand and that affects how we sleep and how we essentially rest.

I have been diagnosed with PTSD and am doing EMDR for that, it has greatly helped my reactivity to my dBPDh.

How severe is your PTSD? I think I am really starting to develop it with my husband, especially when we are in the car together. I think it has gotten to the point where I am in fight or flight mode any time I get in the car for a longer trip with him. He can be perfectly calm and I just feel like at any moment it's going to be war again. I literally cannot relax. I am starting to see his therapist and she has been doing EMDR on my husband for awhile. I am just wondering if I should look into it for the PTSD in the car. I know my nervous reactions to him tend to trigger him so it isn't beneficial in any way to me.

[Quantendynamik]

I see.  Yeah, I will leave it to the doctor and focus on myself.  Thanks.

Q, to be clear I wouldn't even attempt this if he wasn't working on himself and had other people in his life to hold him accountable.  Happen to love his sponsor, who is a doctor and seems to have a good understanding of my dBPDh's issues.

[MissyM]

CD, I would ask his T about EMDR.  It has been great for me.  Certain looks from him or words from him can trigger me, so having done the EMDR I am getting better at accessing  my own recovery tools and deal with those situations.  Like taking a break from him and realizing that his behaviors are about him and not necessarily imminent danger for me.  Although the car is a terrible place when they disregulate.

[PacifistMom]

I have a type of arthritis and when I have a severe flare-up really just need to go to bed and cannot think clearly, from pain and exhaustion.

Every time I feel like this he starts a huge fight.

Last night we were at my former stepfather's house visiting and he knew before we went I was very tired and aching. I had to drag him to leave and as we were about to get out of the car, that's when it started.

Every time I am in disbelief, I can't believe after 11 years he still starts fights when I am feeling at my worst and he knows I will not be able to think of anything to say. It's always a no-win argument anyway. Then he accuses me of not giving a sh**, that I am not there for him, that all he wants is to be able to talk to someone to get some advice and perspective ... . but of course it is advice on a situation "caused" by me ... .

Oh yes. This is a constant for me. I'm still reeling from last night and this morning's angsty texts of me not caring and still have not figured out what to do, so this post resonates deeply with me.

[Lilibeth]

PacifistMom, i so, so feel for you. You have described the exact situation i find myself in. Some time back when i was trying to look for answers i came across this website that explained why people got angry when their partners/wife/husband fell ill or felt unwell - it said that the anger was an expression of their fear that something might happen to the one they loved and they would be left alone. I thought that was rationalizing and it really didn't help my feelings - i still had to -- in fact, have to -- deal with this. I'm not sure what would work since we live in different circumstances, but what i see works, is when i just cannot go on, i lie down in the second bedroom which i have done up for myself and use as my study... . lie down and close my eyes, and just try and shut my ears to all the ranting and complaining and blaming... . it's hard not to let the words hit your heart but those words are not the reality of who you are, so that is another thing to fight against - just tell yourself what he's saying is just not true, so leave it be... . I too would be very happy if someone told us their experiences of how they dealt with this...