dysreg > Extinction burst > Ughh

[maxsterling]

I could sense it coming on.  Her depression getting worse, her nitpicking that I am not here for her, etc... .

Saturday morning started off okay.  Then she called her stepmom to invite her over for mother's day.  Stepmom said - I want nothing to do with you, you are mean.  W freaks out, calls me when I was looking forward to having a day to work on myself.  She calms, goes to art therapy.  Half an hour later, she calls up saying she got into a fight with the facilitator there, and wants me to come get her.  Uggh.  I go, and she is talking to a counselor, and she has calmed.   Afterwards, we go for a walk, come home, eat lunch.  I could see her slowly deteriorate.  Telling the cat she hates him.  No motivation for anything.  Just cold and distant.   Just before dinner she asks if we should "wait longer" (meaning trying for a child).

UH OH.  Loaded question that there is NO WAY I can answer properly, especially given her sour mood.  I thought, and replied that we will know when the time is right.  Big dysreg followed, I tried to clairify, and then after that before I could walk away from the convo, she declared "I don't want to talk about this anymore", stormed off to the bedroom and closed the door.

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[maxsterling]

Sorry, had to quickly hit "send" (I'm sure you know why).

Anyway, she stormed off to the bedroom about 7pm, and I didn't see her again until morning.  As far as I am concerned, if she has the door closed, I'm not even going to bother.  Plus, with all I am dealing with now, I need the break.  Oh, and right after that, the whole prostate pain came roaring back (stress related, I'm sure), and I wound up just watching tv, and falling asleep, only waking up to pee until about 8am the next morning.  I slept on the couch, and I think I needed that.

This morning, she woke up, first thing she told me was that she didn't want to hear me complain about back pain because I slept on the couch, that she never asked me to sleep on the couch, then blamed me for not coming in to bed which meant she slept much more than she wanted to.

Gads.  I just need to take care of myself, and avoid her moods.  I have NO energy to try and fix it.

Oh, and this morning was the big conversation about her wanting to get pregnant ASAP.  I told her "at least come off your meds first and then we can discuss."  She of course was mad about that.  I asked her to do two things for me to help with my stress level before we tried for kids - 1) Come off her meds and manage her life without them 2) Get wheels in motion as to how she will earn money.  She's done neither.

[maxsterling]

She requested we go to a chinese buffet.  Okay.  We went, she made a comment about how I am making the problem worse by saying she has to come off her med before pregnancy.  She also commented "this place makes me want to kill myself."

We came home, she immediately went to the bathroom to make herself throw up.  Great.  Bulimia, and a suicide comment.  Then she came to tell me, "NOT THAT YOU CARE BUT I JUST THREW UP!"

Any clues here?  I feel this is self sabotage.  She really is scared about having a child, wants to have a reason not to, and somehow blame me for it.

Thoughts?

[OffRoad]

You know, Max, having a boundary involving finances might be a good requirement for having a child. If you don't have enough money to support a child, then you must wait to have the child. But that is logical. Does logical work with your W when she isn't dysregulated?  I don't know how old she is, but there comes a time in the early 30's when a woman's bio clock starts screaming at her to have a child. If the logic circuits are not working correctly, it's going to be tough to get her out of this mental mode if she is of this age range or older.

[maxsterling]

She's 39, I've got prostate issues, and we rarely have sex due to her health/emotional issues.  A baby is unlikely.  I fear if we actually start trying and can't - she will fall apart.

Oh, and even when calm, logic is tough with her.

[OffRoad]

Is a pet a possibility? I don't mean to sound callous, but I know a lot of people who make their pet into a surrogate child, if children don't work out for them. (Or ones who do that after their children have grown and gone)

[Notwendy]

This doesn't sound like two parents deciding together to bring a child into the world. I don't even know what her idea of a child is. It may be some fantasy of having something to validate her, but kids are demanding and need mature parents who are able to suspend their wants to make sure the child's needs are met.

Sometimes, giving reasons doesn't help. It can be a form of JADEing, and besides, if she wants what she wants, reasons don't make a difference to her wanting it.

However, to be understanding, 39 is getting late and she may be panicking, because time really is getting short, and even if she has a mental illness, giving up on being a mother is hard, no matter what. I know a man who because of intellectual disability should not be a father ( he needs supervised care). However, he does know that others have children, and he likes kids so he can get sad about not having that part of life. You can empathize with your wife, even if you know that having kids is not wise at the moment.

Maybe Max for you, right now, it is just no. No. Until you are ready and want to do this.

Once I was in the car, Mom called and asked a question. I needed to look it up at home, but I was in the car. No matter how much I explained that I didn't know, I am driving, I have to look it up at home, she was convinced I knew and I was refusing to tell her. She kept asking over and over. My reasons didn't matter, even if they were the facts. As far as she was concerned, I knew, and woudn't tell her.

[maxsterling]

And now it's off to the kitchen, pulling things out of the pantry and the refrigerator she doesn't want to have in the house anymore, blaming me for having it, even though she bought half of it.

The car went and hid, scared.  I must admit, I am quite scared.

I boxed the food up and put it in my car.

[formflier]

 

Max,

Have you tried just saying "No"... .?

Or... .I won't discuss it until $$... .and then walk away from future conversations.

She will keep trying... .

Honestly... .just trying to figure the quickest way to get you away from those conversations

[maxsterling]

Form - if it were only that easy.  A simple "no" would leave her begging (abusively) for an explanation.  That would leave me to enforce a boundary by leaving the house, which would result in property damage, suicide threats, and police being called.  I don't have the capacity to deal with that right now.

[formflier]

Form - if it were only that easy.  A simple "no" would leave her begging (abusively) for an explanation.  That would leave me to enforce a boundary by leaving the house, which would result in property damage, suicide threats, and police being called.  I don't have the capacity to deal with that right now.

I figured as much... .

It's interesting that most of us have figured out how we can "push it"... .and what will send them off the deep end.

FF

[waverider]

Sounds like she hankering for a big dose of support and empathy, but doesn't really know what for and so is just pushing all the buttons. Which of course causes you to start shutting down and withdrawing. Causing her frustrations to escalate.

She is trying to soothe by projection.

It could be about the clock ticking away for a child or maybe something else.

"NOT THAT YOU CARE BUT I JUST THREW UP!"

This is the telling statement. In her mind you are not being supportive enough, even if neither of you know what for, but that is her base emotion triggering this.

[Notwendy]

"Form - if it were only that easy.  A simple "no" would leave her begging (abusively) for an explanation.  That would leave me to enforce a boundary by leaving the house, which would result in property damage, suicide threats, and police being called.  I don't have the capacity to deal with that right now."

This is what life with mom was like, and my father was terrified of leaving her alone in the house if they had an argument. Eventually he did walk out for a few hours to get away from the conflict, but then, we delt with mom's suicide threats.

When dad passed away, we kids worried about this. Of course, none of us want anything to happen to mom. However, neither of us are willing to be there all the time to watch her. We have made the decision that if ( heaven forbid) she is in any danger, we would call 911. Knock on wood, she has not made threats to us. She knows that the threats would result in a 911 call and she is thinking straight enough to know this. If she really needed this level of help, then she would not be considering the consequences.

Although I get that you can't deal with this now, and I get that my father could not, being in fear of what mom would do resulted in him feeling he had to do what she wanted in order to avoid this. When we lived at home, we feared this too. I also had fear of my H's dysregulations and made efforts to protect the kids from this. I know that Dad did this to protect us kids too. This is walking on eggshells and it is almost automatic to us, yet this is what we are encouraged not to do.

[maxsterling]

That's exactly it, waverider.  She wants attention.  Unfortunately her method expressing that is vitriolic.  She was on my case before bed, too.  She was taking a bath, asked me to sit with her, and after 10 minutes, started just being mean to me, I clammed up, then she was mad because i was not responding, and asked me to leave.  Later, before bed, she did the whole blame her whole life on me routine.  Eventually, I got her to lay in bed with me, and eventually it turned to tears and she wanted me to tell her that she isn't s a complete screwup and that our wedding was good and that life will be good.

I take this to mean:  screaming at me, slamming doors, and being otherwise violent means she wants me to soothe her.  But damned if I want to be around her during those times.  Soothing is impossible unless she rants through the cycle. 

[takingandsending]

Hey, Max. I think you are doing the right thing by keeping your boundary. You maybe aren't protecting yourself enough, but you are balancing out the concern over complete, full blown dysregulation if you do because you aren't certain if you have the energy to deal with it. I would do the same in your shoes.

Is there anything that you can do for yourself? Even taking some time off of work to do something that will bring your stress levels down? You don't have to share this with your wife. You need a little space to bring your fear, anxiety and pain levels down. Are you going to see a doctor about the prostrate pain? Can you see a T for the stress you are dealing with? If you are already doing all of these things, please disregard. I just know that if you are feeling better yourself, your wife will probably also loosen up. pwBPD get panicked when we aren't at our best, as unfair as that is.  

[maxsterling]

Talking - I thought of taking a "secret sick day" this week.  I've done that twice before, and it really helped (one time my boss saw me crying at work and insisted I take a secret sick day).  I do have a P and a T, and I am thinking of asking my T to up my dose of antidepressant and keeping that from my wife (one of her main topics last night was how she has to come off all her meds and I still get to take mine).  I also have a few alanon people I can call, and maybe plan to meet with one of them.  My wife is very much needing my attention right now, but I think she would consider that a positive reason to be away from her.

I think has T tonight, and then may go to Yoga afterwards.  Assuming she goes to both, that gives me some free time in the evening.  I'm glad she has T today.  I think I may bring home a movie, make a healthy dinner, and then insist that we watch the movie.  I will get her away from talking about the bullcrap that can't be solved now (or ever) and give us a chance to spend time together in a lighter way.

[maxsterling]

I should add that this morning she went to her usual AA meeting, and came home steaming mad that she will never go to that meeting again.  Basically, someone told her to wrap up her share for time reasons, and she felt embarrassed and took a huge offense to this.  And I can understand why - she feels like she is not a popular person in the meeting, that nobody really likes her or cares about what she has to say.  I'm not sure if that is truly the case, but I can see how she would feel that way.

But that is the way it has been lately.  It didn't just begin with her stepmom - I could see for weeks where she was painting people black, claiming she has no real friends, wanting to make new friends.  Her stepmom was just the trigger.  Then she gets into a heated argument with the art studio facilitator.  Then her best friend.  Then me.  Deep down she knows the problem is hers... .

[takingandsending]

I like the movie idea. And taking any time for you, regardless of her need/crisis right now, is going to help you deal with her need/crisis better. It's really tough. She is feeling crappy and wants you around so that she can stay relatively safe. That is reasonable, but you have to take care of yourself first. Better to do it before you are crying at work, if possible.