Does living with a BPD give you PTSD ?

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

empathic

Do you also have gaps in your memory from stress?  This has happened to me.

Hmm... . well I don't have as clear memories from that time, as I have from, say, my childhood. But it's hard to say if it's due to the stress of having small kids or the stress of dealing with BPD. I know that before that time, I could remember and cherish certain good things that happened and later look back on them to gain energy and peace of mind. I'm trying to get back to that place again.

Or do you mean that you've blocked out certain things due to stress in a given moment?

[empathic]

empathic

Do you also have gaps in your memory from stress?  This has happened to me.

Hmm... . well I don't have as clear memories from that time, as I have from, say, my childhood. But it's hard to say if it's due to the stress of having small kids or the stress of dealing with BPD. I know that before that time, I could remember and cherish certain good things that happened and later look back on them to gain energy and peace of mind. I'm trying to get back to that place again.

Or do you mean that you've blocked out certain things due to stress in a given moment?

[MammaMia]

Empathic

I believe memory gaps are probably a combination of brain overload due to small children, jobs, too much responsibility AND the trauma of living with a pwBPD.

Whether consciously or not, I tend to remember the good times most. Perhaps because they were few and far between.  I seem to lump the bad times into a large file in my brain that is vague but remember the good times individually and more vividly.

Does that make sense to you?

[empathic]

Empathic

I believe memory gaps are probably a combination of brain overload due to small children, jobs, too much responsibility AND the trauma of living with a pwBPD.

Definitely agreed.

Whether consciously or not, I tend to remember the good times most. Perhaps because they were few and far between.  I seem to lump the bad times into a large file in my brain that is vague but remember the good times individually and more vividly.

Does that make sense to you?

I think I know what you mean. I work the opposite though - I remember more clearly when people have wronged me, than I remember good times. And it's always been that way for me, so it's not new with what I'm dealing with now. I had a hard time in school with bullying as I could not really shrug off bad things people told me. It might be that I learnt a behaviour back then that has put me in this position. I could have used better tools much sooner.

[livednlearned]

There's a really good workshop on PTSD here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=124200.0

I was surprised to learn that there are four types of symptoms. It seems like people usually mean "hyperarousal" and "reliving the event" when they refer to PTSD, but "feeling numb" and "avoiding" are also symptoms. The four types of symptoms are:

  1. Reliving the event (also called re-experiencing symptoms):

     Bad memories of the traumatic event can come back at any time. You may feel the same fear and horror you did when the event took place. You may have nightmares. You even may feel like you're going through the event again. This is called a flashback. Sometimes there is a trigger -- a sound or sight that causes you to relive the event. Triggers might include:

         * Hearing a car backfire, which can bring back memories of gunfire and war for a combat Veteran.

         * Seeing a car accident, which can remind a crash survivor of his or her own accident.

         * Seeing a news report of a sexual assault, which may bring back memories of assault for a woman who was raped.

  2. Avoiding situations that remind you of the event:

     You may try to avoid situations or people that trigger memories of the traumatic event. You may even avoid talking or thinking about the event. For example:

         * A person who was in an earthquake may avoid watching television shows or movies in which there are earthquakes.

         * A person who was robbed at gunpoint while ordering at a hamburger drive-in may avoid fast-food restaurants.

         * Some people may keep very busy or avoid seeking help. This keeps them from having to think or talk about the event.

  3. Feeling numb:

     You may find it hard to express your feelings. This is another way to avoid memories.

         * You may not have positive or loving feelings toward other people and may stay away from relationships.

         * You may not be interested in activities you used to enjoy.

         * You may not be able to remember parts of the traumatic event or not be able to talk about them.

 

4. Feeling keyed up (also called hyperarousal):

     You may be jittery, or always alert and on the lookout for danger. This is known as hyperarousal. It can cause you to:

         * Suddenly become angry or irritable

         * Have a hard time sleeping.

         * Have trouble concentrating.

         * Fear for your safety and always feel on guard.

         * Be very startled when something surprises you.

[MammaMia]

Livedandlearned

Bingo!  Will have to check that site out.  Thanx.

[hergestridge]

I haven't had a doctor put a PTSD diagnosis on me, but I think it all started a couple of years ago after an especially nasty splitting episode after which my wife cheated on me and then fell into a depression which left me to take care of our two year old more or less on my own. I had so many ambitions at work and with my art and all of a sudden I just thought "F*ck it, I don't care... .". I just took care of our daughter, cooked, cleaned the home, went to work... .did what everyone expected of me. Started to loathe questions about the future or about vacation planning because I didn't want to (or couldn't for that matter) see more than a week ahead. Also started to dislike things that reminded me of the "old life" before the hard times because it just made me think of the trauma. It was like year zero.

Here's how I meet up to the PTSD criteria:

The traumatic event is persistently reexperienced in one (or more) of the following ways:

(3) Recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts, or perceptions. (check!)

(4) Recurrent distressing dreams of the event. Note: In children, there may be frightening dreams without recognizable content.

(5) Acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience; illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashback episodes, including those that occur on awakening or when intoxicated). Note: In young children, trauma-specific reenactment may occur. (check!)

(6) Intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event. (check!)

(7) Physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.

Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by three (or more) of the following:

(8) Efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma (check!)

(9) Efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma

(10) Inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma

(11) Markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities (check!)

(12) Feeling of detachment or estrangement from others (check!)

(13) Restricted range of affect (e.g., unable to have loving feelings)

(14) Sense of a foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal lifespan) (check)

Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (not present before the trauma), as indicated by two (or more) of the following:

(1) Difficulty falling or staying asleep

(2) Irritability or outbursts of anger (check!)

(3) Difficulty concentrating (check!)

(4) Hypervigilance

(5) Exaggerated startle response

[Blimblam]

hergestridge,

like 2 weeks ago I could check off every single one on that list. A month ago I thought the only way out of it was to kill myself.  A few days ago it transformed into a new but still uncomfortable feeling.

IN that crappy feeling in your chest are the answers surrender to it.

How do you identify with the projections of the disorder? how does she make you feel? What layer of feeling is under that feeling? How do you Identify with that projection? who made you feel like that in your family? Like if you just tried to love them more it would stop but it didn't.

[MammaMia]

Hergestridge

This is no way to live.  There is help available, but it will not come to you.  You must seek it out.  Remember, YOU have choices and YOUR needs and happiness and that of your child ARE also important.  Nothing will change unless you address the issues.

I take it you and your wife are still together. Marriage counseling may be a step in the right direction, if she will agree to go. To suffer in silence is just wrong. You deserve better. 

Please consider letting a professional help you. If your wife refuses, do it for yourself and your daughter.

[hergestridge]

Thanks BlimBlam and Mamamia for your concern. My wife and I broke up a couple of weeks ago. Actually it was more like she left and from what I understand she could no longer tolerate the person I had become. We had been togther for 20 years. For the first ten years I was mr co-dependent. Then I started to treat her like an adult, that was the first blow for which she never forgave me. That's when the splitting and the little "revenge" things began, which lead to my breakdown two years ago, which I suppose left me useless as a partner. I could perform sexually but I could no longer slip into "cosy"/romantic mode between the dysregulations because I was too aware about what was coming. PTSD doesn't leave you all jumpy as people can expect. It can make you appear like a bored uncaring, cynic.

It's like being close an alcholic or someone who beats you. For a while you can forget between the "episodes", but I lost that ability. When you can longer fool yourself that the elephant is not in the room you can't join in the fun anymore. You become the killjoy, the constant bad conscious. Like Poe's black cat.

The reason I stayed was partly because I was afraid what happen to our daughter BTW, but that's a whole different story. We tried couple's therapy but of course that was a mess because my wife turned it into a power trip (as she did with everything else). I would never have admitted to having the kind of problems I had, or at least I would never have used the medical terms or sought professional help. At the time my wife was hospitalized for some time and chances are that the authuroties could have looked up my suitability status as a caregiver for my daughter. It wouldn't have looked too good to have a psych journal.

And thank you god I'm in a lucky position after all. I have a job and I enjoy the time I have with my daughter (it's half time currently). I feel like half the man I used to, but I keep telling myself I have been through something really tough.

The tough thing is I have to meet up with my my wife (soon to be ex?) several times every week, and every time I have to pretend like nothing happened. She basically destroyed me.

[LoveNotWar]

YUP, living with a pwBPD can definitely cause PTSD, the verbal stuff is bad enough but if there was physical abuse that causes a huge safety issue.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs has done a ton of research on PTSD. Check it out.

The good news is, with time and good care, you can recover. By good care I mean taking good care of yourself and doing what's right and good for a you, mentally, physically and spiritually. For me that has meant eating right, exercising, being social and re-learning good sleep habits, lack of sleep is a killer! Also, as was mentioned, do not contact the ex, fight the urge to check Facebook, text or email or ask mutual friends and DEFINITELY no drive-bys  to see if there's a new car in the driveway etc. Gotta let them go!

[Vatz]

I don't know. For a while noises in the hallway scared the bejesus out of me. Like some horror movie where the monster isn't really gone, and is coming for you. But this was after I sent her to the hospital.

But that was a few days. Once I got rid of almost all her things, that feeling subsided. I found a few things of her, but they're trivial. Non of them would require her to set foot in my home to get them.

As for your situation, 6 months is a long time to still remain in that sort of heightened state. Not good for the body, not good for the mind.

See a therapist, maybe get a combination of medication and talk therapy. Research has shown these things help.

Come to think of it, when I was with her and I was in the living room/my bedroom, hearing her come out of my bedroom had my pulse race. Even when we were still together. I didn't want to be seen being myself around her. I felt judged. Could have been delusions, but I felt that way. I'll have to get with another person and see if I still feel like that.

She'd come out and talk to her friends on skype. I never heard their end of the conversation, but always heard hers. So much giggling and what not. I think what I felt was jealousy. But I was so subdued emotionally that consciously, all I could think of was "I'm trying to have some ALONE TIME and you're cutting into it."

By the last 3 months of still being a couple, I wanted more and more "alone time." Every so often, I pictured a clock, counting down. If anyone has seen 24, I had *that* sound effect in my head. The countdown that I kept hearing was the countdown to the break-up. I just never knew the precise time. But it would pop up during the most mundane things. Once during sex I thought about it and heard it. We'd have sex, and after she was satisfied (or feigned it) I would just go back to what I was doing. I didn't feel like she wanted to hug or hold me close.(Foreplay *after* is just as fun.) We almost never just lay there naked together, holding each other. I don't think I ever realized how much that bothered me, how much I really wanted that. Sure she'd be in a better mood after sex, almost a different person. But... .it's like once it was done, it was done.

So where did that leave me? Well, now I'm sort of afraid of women, and if not afraid, I just assume none are interested. I still keep trying because I have to. The salmon doesn't know why it swims upstream.

I sort of got carried away with all that. Hope your situation improves. It's going to be a hard journey for you, but you have to keep at it. You matter. All the best.

[Rubies]

My children and I have PTSD from BPDxh.   Even 4 years out and NC, he still threw his minions of flying monkeys, circle back and pop out at the kids or somehow breach security.   

We seem to be cycling between Complex Stress Disorder and Post Traumtic Stress Disorder.

I know my security measures are effective when he contacts me and wants an amicable relationship.

[Vatz]

My children and I have PTSD from BPDxh.   Even 4 years out and NC, he still threw his minions of flying monkeys, circle back and pop out at the kids or somehow breach security.   

We seem to be cycling between Complex Stress Disorder and Post Traumtic Stress Disorder.

I know my security measures are effective when he contacts me and wants an amicable relationship.

Jesus, that's insane. One wonders if these people even get when they've overstayed their welcome.

[hergestridge]

Sure they know when they have outstayed their welcome, it's a trigger!

When my wife broke up with me I am sure she genuinely wanted out of the relationship, but she was not comfortable with the fact that she had singlehandedly ruined it. When we were together she was at my throat all the time by now all of a sudden it was important for her to be friends.

[Rubies]

My children and I have PTSD from BPDxh.   Even 4 years out and NC, he still threw his minions of flying monkeys, circle back and pop out at the kids or somehow breach security.   

We seem to be cycling between Complex Stress Disorder and Post Traumtic Stress Disorder.

I know my security measures are effective when he contacts me and wants an amicable relationship.

Jesus, that's insane. One wonders if these people even get when they've overstayed their welcome.

The truly bizarre is he remarried 14 days after the divorce was final, yet I was still stalked, harassed, bullied and slandered until recently.   He got himself and a few others fired, more are under investigation for their flying monkey antics toward me and DD.

It's still better than having him in our home.

[Vatz]

Flying monkey antics? what like actually sent people after you? I mean... .that's pretty serious.

Hergestridge, mine wanted to "still be friends". I always found that uncomfortable. Its like she doesn't get the pain that comes from seeing the one you used to love. Knowing there's someone new. I told her flat out that I hate the idea.

I think if any thought gives me the sort of anxiety that makes my skin crawl is her contacting me in months or years. With her concern and worry about how I'm doing.

[MammaMia]

I believe the only possible answer to the question about PTSD is a definite "YES".

I do not know of anyone who has come out of a BPD relationship feeling positive and happy.  There may be some relief that the relationship has ended, but the demons persist, even for those who are able to move on.

This disorder devastates everyone who loves a pwBPD or comes into contact with them. It is life-altering on many levels. No one really understands unless they have been through it.

[Rubies]

I believe the only possible answer to the question about PTSD is a definite "YES".

I do not know of anyone who has come out of a BPD relationship feeling positive and happy.  There may be some relief that the relationship has ended, but the demons persist, even for those who are able to move on.

This disorder devastates everyone who loves a pwBPD or comes into contact with them. It is life-altering on many levels. No one really understands unless they have been through it.

I came out of that 17 year psycho prison BPD marriage positive and happy. I survived, I was regaining my health, the judge knew exactly what he was dealing with and protected DD and me.   For the first time, there were consequences to violating my boundaries, thus the need to get others to do it for him.

[Xtrange]

Some would say that it's Complex PTSD (aka DESNOS)

[AlonelyOne]

mine wanted to "still be friends".

Mine likes to chit-chat.  Can't quite understand why I don't want to. There was a period I thought maybe we could divorce, remain friends... .perhaps event he occasional 'lover'.  But all the crap I've been put through has made me feel that if there was a way I could not have to deal with her or any of her antics ever again. I'd choose so... .

Yes, I'm falling out of love with her.  The funny thing, were I to tell her that. Her interpretation would be, you fell out of love with me so quickly. See, you never really loved me.  Rather than even begin to comprehend that her acts of antagonism, repeated false accusations, and smears, and all the tears - are what led to the breaking of my heart toward her.

[Ihope2]

I realised that the absolutely bizarre and exhausting almost year that I spent living with my exBPDh, had left some traces of PTSD with me.

Right from the outset after our marriage, he started becoming suicidal, having suicidal ideation, and withdrawing from me, locking himself up in the spare room for days on end.

He then was hospitalised in a psychiatric hospital for a week, and was diagnosed with bipolar mood disorder and complex ptsd.  This was when he gained access to tranquilisers and sleeping tablets, which then became his new drug of choice (next to the suboxone that he was already on).  He overdosed at least once on the tranquilisers, telling me after the fact.

And he used to combine heavy use of suboxone with heavy use of the tranquiliser, which would slow his breathing down to dangerous levels, and a few times I would find him heavily sedated and I could not even see whether he was breathing.

Another thing that triggered my alarm bells is that he would be in the habit of either not sleeping at all for nights on end, or he would lie and sleep in the most strange of places, under a table on the cold tiled floor, or outside the house, or on the floor next to the bed. He would sometimes not even take a blanket, so I would see him lying there in a most unusual place, and instinctively, it would trigger my alarm that he had fallen down and was lying in state of distress or was perhaps already dead.

I cannot believe what I had to try to cope with!  Also a few weeks into our young marriage, he would keep sharp knives, shards of a broken mirror, and metal skewers lying around, and send me bizarre whatsapp messages while I was at work about how that no matter how deeply he cuts, he still feels nothing... .Or that he wonders of a skewer through his main artery in his neck would end his life quickly.

And then he would take my car at night or over weekends and be gone for hours, and I would not know where he was, or in what state he was in.  He also claimed to be epileptic, so of course that made it so much more distressing for me.  I do doubt now though whether it truly was epilepsy, or perhaps conversion disorder.  Because he seemed to be able to "time" his fits for the best  dramatic impact, and they would take place while he was conveniently lying in bed next to me, after which he would fling himself to the floor and the convulsions did not seem to the tonic-clonic kind of seizure, which I have witnessed once before in someone else. He surprisingly would never bite his tongue or choke or roll his eyes back or froth at the mouth, or even fully lose consciousness, as he would be uttering words and making moaning and choking sounds. 

So yes, I think I sit with some residual PTSD.  I notice it when I start getting anxious about something that I did not normally obsess about before, like that when I arrive home from work one of my cats might be lying dead in the road, or that I will get news of an accident or death of my sister or mother.  And this past weekend, one of my three cats needed a routine procedure at my vet to have an abscess drained, and I felt myself getting into a knot of anxiety about that he might not survive the operation.  I never used to obsess about this type of thing so much.

And when MH17 was shot down, I found myself obsessing about viewing footage of the wreckage and I was so caught up in the horror of it all.  It was almost as though someone I knew was on that flight, it affected me so badly.

I do think I am experiencing the after-effects of having been traumatised by my brief marriage to a person with severe BPD.  However, I know that I will deal with it and heal and move on.