Shattered

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Right now I am feeling shattered and desperate, with nowhere to turn except this message board.  The guy I am living with has symptoms of paranoia, obsessive-compulsive behavior, impulsiveness, and periodic intense rages.  I had told him many times that the rages were a "bottom line" issue for me, and that I would not tolerate them.  It seemed that he was trying to stop them, and it had been several weeks.  But today he produced another rage, an intense one.  I am trying to recover right now.  I hope he does not come back to my room while I am typing this.

He is convinced that the neighbors (this is my house where we are living) are producing acts of vandalism.  He has discovered an item missing from his car, sticks arranged in the driveway in a provocative way, a car tire that keeps getting deflated, and chimney smoke preventing him from working in the basement.  It's difficult for me to say with certainty that these events are or are not vandalism, but it seems to me that there might be other explanations.  Sometimes I smell the smoke that he smells and sometimes I don't.  Once I was with him outdoors when he heard someone speaking that I didn't hear.  My hearing is very sensitive.

Last night he called me from a road trip (driving my car) and said that he wanted to be gentle and supportive with me.  Today, as soon as he returned from the road trip, he started shouting and raging, almost as soon as he walked through the door.  He had bought a six-pack of beer and started drinking.  He raged about a scratch he discovered on my windshield that he was convinced was created by a neighborhood vandal.  I reminded him that we both had chopped hard with sharp tools through four inches of ice on that windshield just a few days ago.  That set him off and his rage increased.  He said that he had thought about this for four hours while driving, and I should not question his conclusion.  He shouted nonstop, pushed me a little bit at one point, stumbled, knocked many piles of books and binders all over my floor, and accused me of doubting him, not trusting him, and so forth.  This went on for at least two hours.  He wants to go to the chief of police with me along, explain the vandalism, and ask for advice on how to handle it.  He said we must be of one mind, agreeing on everything, to go there or the police would doubt him.  But he was furious, raging, judging me, condemning me, accusing me of dishonesty.  If anything, I am too honest, and that is the cause of all this, because I was admitting that there might be alternative explanations instead of vandalism.  I thought it was a reasonable question I asked, and I pointed that out.  But he sees it as doubting his word.

He seemed to calm down a little bit, and I had asked him to let me be alone for a while to recover, but he keeps coming back to my room anyway.  Just now he charged in here, saying he just remembered that when all my stuff was falling on the floor, I started to threaten to call the police, but then my voice had tapered off. I said that I didn't really mean that, it was in the heat of his rage.  He started shouting at me again, saying that I was trying to control him.  I countered that he was the one trying to control me.  I said I needed time by myself and asked him again to leave.  He said "This is off until you learn how to have discussion without trying to control me."

I had thought this was getting better, but now it's as bad as ever.  So is it me or him?  Am I being controlling?  :)oes anyone have any advice?  Help please!  I hear him coming back.

seekonlypeace

[seekonlypeace]

Right now I am feeling shattered and desperate, with nowhere to turn except this message board.  The guy I am living with has symptoms of paranoia, obsessive-compulsive behavior, impulsiveness, and periodic intense rages.  I had told him many times that the rages were a "bottom line" issue for me, and that I would not tolerate them.  It seemed that he was trying to stop them, and it had been several weeks.  But today he produced another rage, an intense one.  I am trying to recover right now.  I hope he does not come back to my room while I am typing this.

He is convinced that the neighbors (this is my house where we are living) are producing acts of vandalism.  He has discovered an item missing from his car, sticks arranged in the driveway in a provocative way, a car tire that keeps getting deflated, and chimney smoke preventing him from working in the basement.  It's difficult for me to say with certainty that these events are or are not vandalism, but it seems to me that there might be other explanations.  Sometimes I smell the smoke that he smells and sometimes I don't.  Once I was with him outdoors when he heard someone speaking that I didn't hear.  My hearing is very sensitive.

Last night he called me from a road trip (driving my car) and said that he wanted to be gentle and supportive with me.  Today, as soon as he returned from the road trip, he started shouting and raging, almost as soon as he walked through the door.  He had bought a six-pack of beer and started drinking.  He raged about a scratch he discovered on my windshield that he was convinced was created by a neighborhood vandal.  I reminded him that we both had chopped hard with sharp tools through four inches of ice on that windshield just a few days ago.  That set him off and his rage increased.  He said that he had thought about this for four hours while driving, and I should not question his conclusion.  He shouted nonstop, pushed me a little bit at one point, stumbled, knocked many piles of books and binders all over my floor, and accused me of doubting him, not trusting him, and so forth.  This went on for at least two hours.  He wants to go to the chief of police with me along, explain the vandalism, and ask for advice on how to handle it.  He said we must be of one mind, agreeing on everything, to go there or the police would doubt him.  But he was furious, raging, judging me, condemning me, accusing me of dishonesty.  If anything, I am too honest, and that is the cause of all this, because I was admitting that there might be alternative explanations instead of vandalism.  I thought it was a reasonable question I asked, and I pointed that out.  But he sees it as doubting his word.

He seemed to calm down a little bit, and I had asked him to let me be alone for a while to recover, but he keeps coming back to my room anyway.  Just now he charged in here, saying he just remembered that when all my stuff was falling on the floor, I started to threaten to call the police, but then my voice had tapered off. I said that I didn't really mean that, it was in the heat of his rage.  He started shouting at me again, saying that I was trying to control him.  I countered that he was the one trying to control me.  I said I needed time by myself and asked him again to leave.  He said "This is off until you learn how to have discussion without trying to control me."

I had thought this was getting better, but now it's as bad as ever.  So is it me or him?  Am I being controlling?  :)oes anyone have any advice?  Help please!  I hear him coming back.

seekonlypeace

[KateCat]

Hi, seek:

I am also in my sixties, and my husband is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who exhibits many of the same fears your partner does (though he generally does not respond with the scarier reactions you have described). I think you are quite right to conclude that you should not challenge his beliefs, although they do appear to be manifestations of a paranoid belief system.

You get to decide whether you want him in your life or not, but if I were in your position I would behave calmly around him for now but make plans to have that brother of yours help you get out of this situation as soon as possible.

I think you can make this bad dream go away and make your way back to life as you used to know it. 

[seekonlypeace]

Hi KateCat,

Thanks for your reply.  In calm moments this guy once or twice admitted that he thought he was schizophrenic.  I didn't ask if someone had given him that diagnosis, but I suspect he thought about it based on his own reading.  The rages are what made me think he has some sort of personality disorder.  But he does have occasional auditory hallucinations.  One time he knew they were not real, but other times he thought they were real.  Those don't scare me as much as the rages and the delusions that trigger the rages.  

But it's hard, because they are not always delusions.  One time I went into my back yard, and the next-door neighbor started a smoky fire just then in his fire bowl, on a warm day in the middle of the day, and I had to stop working.  So it does happen.  But sometimes my friend detects smoke when I can't detect it.  

Tonight I was not the calm person I would like to be.  He said some things that triggered my own anger, and I did not seem to be able to stop myself from shouting back.  When he tells me that I am being controlling, it's so difficult to stop myself, when he had just finished telling me how he wants me to behave.  But I am not a trained therapist.  It's hard for me not to react.  I try, but it doesn't always work.  I sometimes wish I could bring a third party into this relationship to intercede in all our interactions.

He has entangled himself into my life in a way that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to just separate or walk away.  For one thing, he's in my house.  Our economic situation is extremely imbalanced.  If I kick him out, he would be homeless.  When he first came, he offered to help me build a house in a wooded property I own, where my late husband and I had planned to build.  I have spent a large sum of money on tools he insisted on accumulating, second-hand tools that only he knows how to repair.  I've spent all the money and the house is still not built.  So I would be stuck with all that huge pile of tools, or what might look like junk to someone else, unable to recover the financial investment.

And then there is the emotional investment.  There are times when he is not raging that he can be very pleasant to be around.  I do care about him.  I think all his previous relationships were highly dysfunctional before he met me, and this is likely the most functional one he has ever known.  And I see myself reverting right back into the severe isolation and grief I experienced after my husband died, which he helped to soothe, at least when he was not going through rages.

So it's complicated.  That's why I am still trying to decide.  I need to figure something out, because I'm not sure the rages are going to stop.  He had controlled them for a while, but tonight he just let this one out to blast at me as long as he felt like it.  When I first met him, he seemed to recognize the folly of what he was doing after he did it, but now he seems to feel justified, and to blame me for the interaction.  

I keep thinking what might happen will be that he will decide that he can't live in this area where the smoke is affecting his health, and that he must move to a part of the country with better air quality.  He has mentioned that possibility as a last resort, but said he wants me to go with him.  But I have shown some reluctance to go, and he sees that.  But he sees it as a survival issue for himself.  That might resolve it all anyway.

Thank you for your thoughts, and let me know if anything I said here stimulated more ideas that might be helpful.  I wish you peace in your relationship with your husband.  I have not always known how to talk to my friend about his paranoid ideas, but it sounds as if my instincts may be the right ones, even though I do not always succeed in putting them to good practice.

Thanks,

seekonlypeace

[Surnia]

Hi seekonlypeace

and welcome here.

A really tough situation you are in! You are under a lot of stress and must be frightened! 

I know how difficult it is to stay a calm person under such circumstances. I think its important to not argue with him, when he is in that state of mind. This will fuel his rage.

Is he drinking a lot?

You wrote he pushed you, was it the first time getting physical?

Its so good you are reaching out here! 

[seekonlypeace]

Hi Surnia,

Thanks for your welcome.  Yes, sometimes I am frightened by him, usually more by what he might do to my neighbors than to myself.  He has never been violent with me.  Once he pushed on my chair, and last night he pushed my shoulder just very lightly (but I still didn't like the way he did it).  He has said a few strange things when extremely drunk that worried me.  He does not drink every day, or even necessarily every week, but occasionally goes on binges in which he get extremely intoxicated to the point of getting sick or staggering.  I am a gentle and shy person, not used to people shouting at me.  I'm a widow who was in a very warm and caring relationship with my husband for about 35 years.  My late husband was a very healing person to be around, and I am grateful for his time in my life.  So I am used to a very different kind of relationship than this dysfunctional one.

I need to somehow change the way I interact with him during his rages.  But it's very hard.  I don't have experience with it.  But I think this website is a really good one, with many good practical suggestions and videos, and helpful people.  It's good that I had this message board last night when I felt so desperate.  Thanks for your kind message.

seekonlypeace

[seekonlypeace]

I forgot to report that today is much calmer than last night.  He took me out to dinner as a "peace offering" and said he felt remorse.  He said he wished he could find another way to express his feelings.  He said that it was all because he felt that I wasn't supporting him and he felt exposed.  I said that if he would just say that instead of raging and shouting accusations, then we could have a calm and more productive discussion.  He said he didn't realize it until later.  But I guess this calm after the storm is a common phenomenon.

[KateCat]

Yes, sometimes I am frightened by him, usually more by what he might do to my neighbors than to myself. 

I just wanted to comment on this important piece of the problem. Particularly as I think you mentioned you may be preparing your house for sale, perhaps in part because your husband believes he will be happier elsewhere.

In my experience "the neighbors" play an important part in the evolution of a relationship with a paranoid person. They are an important test for you. The paranoid partner will seek your solidarity vigorously on the topic of "the neighbors." You will generally be expected to keep your distance from neighbors, to regard them with suspicion, and to isolate progressively from social activities in the neighborhood.

You may be expected to move. If you do so, the process will likely repeat. If so, you will experience greater discouragement, greater isolation, and a greater sense of responsibility for your partner, whose mental illness will be increasingly obvious to you. You will get more stuck.

Re-reading the above, I can see how paranoid I sound.  Maybe none of this rings a bell with you. Or doesn't ring a bell with you yet. If it doesn't, try the experiment of not agreeing with his various conclusions about the neighbors. Do not agree that you hear voices when you hear none; smell strange smells when you don't smell them; or conclude that the neighbors are coming on your property to rearrange tiny things to harass you (unless you believe that they are).

I think what I want to say is that this "neighbors" battle is a worthy one to fight. It's a big one, and really too big to lose, in my opinion.

Please stay safe and make sure there are other people in your daily life in addition to this guy.

[Surnia]

I need to somehow change the way I interact with him during his rages.  But it's very hard.  I don't have experience with it. 

I can relate with it. I had no experience with this neither. That he can tell you he feel remorse afterwards is in my eyes something positive.

I would recommend you to read through the LESSONS from the Staying board, seekonlypeace. I think you can benefit through it. A good start could be: Surviving confrontation and disrespect. This can help you to find a different way to approach those difficult situations.

Keeping good healthy relationships outside, like neighbors, friends, family members is something very important too.

[KateCat]

That he can tell you he feel remorse afterwards is in my eyes something positive.

Boy, this is really true! If it were "paranoid schizophrenia" rather than some sort of paranoid-flavored personality disorder, this would be very very unlikely. It should mean that the behavioral tools offered on this forum have a possibility of being effective for your situation.

"Boundaries" and "Validation" can become your very good friends. (He'll like the validation stuff but probably be much less enthusiastic about boundaries you implement. . . . Then, you can read about "extinction bursts" and additional tools to help you weather his frustrations at your changes.)

With respect to the "calm after the storm" phase, you may already be familiar with the concept of a cycle of domestic abuse: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_of_abuse