left her, now a suicide attempt?

[jadedcat]

I left my BPD wife (not diagnosed, but suggested by therapist) a month ago. This weekend she made a suicide attempt with a handful of pills and some booze. Now, the amount of meds she took put her to sleep for a couple of hours and left her seeming pretty stoned afterward but it was nowhere near the fatal amount (ten pills vs a thousand).

She is feeling better today, says a cloud has lifted and she no longer feels angry or sad. She believes she died and came back, or that some part of her died.

She texted me once she woke up and I hurried over, worried about her condition and the garbled texts she sent. As I said, she seemed stoned and mellow as marshmallow but she still got around to claiming her attempt was my fault, that I could have done dozens of things differently in our marriage to prevent her from doing that.

So, was it a real attempt? Or a fake out, to pull me back in and disparage me?

I don't know. She wouldn't go to the hospital. She does not want anyone to know about this and is pleading with me not to tell a soul. So, I guess my lot in life is just to go around with this huge weight of guilt and this huge anxiety and stress inside me, eating me up. She is back at work, as if nothing happened.

What the heck?

[Skip]

So, was it a real attempt? Or a fake out, to pull me back in and disparage me?

You can't know.  Her immediate need to blame is somewhat suspect.  The fact is, people do die in these events even if it was mostly drama.

If this is the first, I'd error on the safe side and believe it even if its a little off.

The real question to ask is what will you do next time?

I'd tell her (now) that you were really concerned and to understand that if she needs help you will be there for her.  I'd also make it clear that you feel you should have taken her to the hospital and next time you will insist, even if you have to call ambulance.

This is a good way to convey compassion and concern and very indirectly and non-shaming way let her know that it will get visibility the next time. On a suicide attempt, the police can hold her in many jurisdictions.

[Lucky Jim]

She wouldn't go to the hospital. She does not want anyone to know about this and is pleading with me not to tell a soul.

I agree w/Skip: sometimes pwBPD succeed in their suicide threats, so it's hard to know for sure, and best to err on the side of safety.  Nevertheless, I suspect that the reason she refused to go to the hospital, and the reason she wanted you sworn to secrecy, is because on some level it was all drama -- a cry of wolf -- and an extreme form of manipulation.  That doesn't make it any less stressful on you, I understand.

LuckyJim

[GuiltHaunted]

I have nothing useful to add to your question. But want to commend you for being there for her. I would have done the same.

This is an example of the opposite:

During the days of the breakup with my ex, I was in such a deep despair, being 100 of miles from her, with no place to live etc etc. I was standing next to a freeway exit ramp trying to have a phone conversation with her, and she kept hanging up. I was so far out, that I threatened her "if she would hang up again, I would throw myself on to the freeway" (not proud of that today, but I was really pressed and panicking). Her answer was "I am able to live a happy and wonderful life no matter what you decide to do".

That reply still haunts me after nearly 2 years. From loving me, to 1 day after moving out not to give a sh!t.

[Mercury2Pluto]

This was a major issue in my marriage.  At first I took the suicide threats very seriously and would stay home with her and not let her out of my sight.  I had no way of knowing whether she really would or not.  She also swore me to secrecy and I felt trapped.

Thanks to group therapy I was able to eventually set a boundary on this.  With a lot of encouragement, I followed the T and group's advice and told her that when she threatened suicide I would call 911.  I meant it, she believed me, and she stopped doing it.  At first I was shocked by this suggestion in therapy, but they convinced me that it is the right thing to do, and I would have done it if the situation arose again.  I encourage you to consider this approach and follow through.  This is not something you should carry alone.  And it's just not possible to know one way or the other.

A friend of mine with depression told me that her friends called 911 one time when she was threatening suicide.  The paramedics came to her house and talked to her.   She said it was very embarrassing and she never did it again.

[razemarie]

My exBPD fiance used to threaten suicide on a daily basis after I left him.  At first I took each threat seriously and took him back several times because I was scared he would kill himself.  (He had unsucessfully tried when his ex-wife left him and I was worried he would do it again). With help from the BPD family I have found on this site, I learned to set boundaries around this.  I explained that if he threatened suicide again I would have to call 911.  He listened for about a month and then did it again.  I did not issue any threats or respond to him.  I simply called 911.  When they arrived at his house he acted confused and said he had never threatened suicide and was confused as to why they were there.  They then read back to him the goodbye email he had sent me.  He tried to lie for a little while longer and then finally admitted that he was depressed but not suicidal.  That was six months ago and he has not done it since.  Sometimes you have to show them you are serious for things to change.

[clydegriffith]

Hmm, hard to tell if it was a legit attempt or just a manipulation tactic. You have to be very careful.

The BPDx used to constantly threaten suicide. She put on a show downing what appeared to be a bottle filled with  prescription pills and kept going on and on about how she was going to die but in actuality she had just placed a bunch of tic tacs in empty prescription bottle. She purposely did that at some point in the past because she fully expected to have one of these rages and she had this maniuplation tactic ready to go.

She also constantly threatened to do kill all her kids and then kill herself and warned me that everyone would be dead when i got home. And she text me pictures of the kitchen knife she was supposedly going to use.

I don't believe that at this point in time, while she's still young that is, that the BPDx would ever go through with any of her BS suicide threats. However, as time progresses and she continues to reek havoc wherever she goes, starts loosing her looks and finds it not as easy to reel in the next victims, i see it as a possibility. As a matter of fact, i think that is her destiny.  

[JarMan]

When I was dating my uBPD gf, who is now my wife, I broke up with her. We had met in college and she lived 900 miles away from me so I thought it was all over when I told her I was moving on. It took her less than a week to move in with her sister, who lived only 200 miles away from me, and then to call me and tell me that she was going to take a whole bottle of pills unless I came to her right now. I'm ashamed to admit that I dropped everything and drove to her that night to "save her life." When I got there she told me she had taken some pills but she wasn't clear on how many. I tried to call 911 but she convinced me not to. She showed me where she had hidden the almost empty pill bottle. It was taped to the bottom of the bathroom sink and had about two pills left. I was confused at the time about what was really happening, but suspected she hadn't taken very many pills, and ended up not calling.

I stayed with her for a few days but ended up taking her back home with me. She had told me that when I went back home she was going to hang herself from the gazebo with her belt. I didn't know what else to do but keep her with me where I could watch her.

I should have called 911 that night. Things may have turned out completely different. As it is, she continued to make suicide threats after we were married when I was at work. She would call and tell me that she had a knife to her wrists and was in the process of slitting them and that if I didn't come home right then she would be dead when I got home. I was a restaurant manager at the time and couldn't come home until the store was closed so I never did rush home. When I did get home she would show me the minor marks on her wrists left by the knife where she was supposedly cutting them and then would show me where she was hiding the knife. It wasn't until I became so exhausted and exasperated by the ordeal, and stopped caring whether she lived or died, that she stopped making the threats.

Now it's over 22 years later and what she will say is, I wish you would kill me and put us both out of our misery. For a brief period when our son was storing his shotgun at our house she threatened to shoot herself. I have some of these conversations recorded. I don't keep a gun in the house because I'm afraid that in a moment of rage, depression, or frustration she would use it on either herself or on me.

[clydegriffith]

When I was dating my uBPD gf, who is now my wife, I broke up with her. We had met in college and she lived 900 miles away from me so I thought it was all over when I told her I was moving on. It took her less than a week to move in with her sister, who lived only 200 miles away from me, and then to call me and tell me that she was going to take a whole bottle of pills unless I came to her right now. I'm ashamed to admit that I dropped everything and drove to her that night to "save her life." When I got there she told me she had taken some pills but she wasn't clear on how many. I tried to call 911 but she convinced me not to. She showed me where she had hidden the almost empty pill bottle. It was taped to the bottom of the bathroom sink and had about two pills left. I was confused at the time about what was really happening, but suspected she hadn't taken very many pills, and ended up not calling.

I stayed with her for a few days but ended up taking her back home with me. She had told me that when I went back home she was going to hang herself from the gazebo with her belt. I didn't know what else to do but keep her with me where I could watch her.

I should have called 911 that night. Things may have turned out completely different. As it is, she continued to make suicide threats after we were married when I was at work. She would call and tell me that she had a knife to her wrists and was in the process of slitting them and that if I didn't come home right then she would be dead when I got home. I was a restaurant manager at the time and couldn't come home until the store was closed so I never did rush home. When I did get home she would show me the minor marks on her wrists left by the knife where she was supposedly cutting them and then would show me where she was hiding the knife. It wasn't until I became so exhausted and exasperated by the ordeal, and stopped caring whether she lived or died, that she stopped making the threats.

Now it's over 22 years later and what she will say is, I wish you would kill me and put us both out of our misery. For a brief period when our son was storing his shotgun at our house she threatened to shoot herself. I have some of these conversations recorded. I don't keep a gun in the house because I'm afraid that in a moment of rage, depression, or frustration she would use it on either herself or on me.

This! The BPDx is 100% capable of having a Jodi Arias moment. When reading stuff about that trial if you replaced the name Jodi Arias with the x's name it could have been her. Everything from the sex addiction to the violent rages and eventually murder. I would not be surprised if she ever does something like that or if she pushes someone to the edge that does that to her.