Dealing with silence

[foggydew]

When I visit BPD friend, the first day he is always overjoyed that I'm there, is very demonstrative and caring. The second day it cools, and on the third he stops talking. He sometimes says he doesn't feel like speaking, and so I try to respect this and give him time to wind down when he gets home from work (he often complains about his mother who didn't give him time to wind down after school). One day this week (after half a bottle of alcohol) he was extremely aggressive when I tried to talk to him, but then apologised the next day. He talks about the mean streak that is always there but he can often keep under control.

Well, it continues. I had to stay with him longer than I expected (and this was at his suggestion). More repeats of silence - we would watch TV in complete silence, or he would read. Sometimes he would ignore anything I said. Sometimes he said something in a low voice, and when I asked him to repeat it, he wouldn't. At one point I told him if it wasn't worth repeating he shouldn't say it in the first place... strangely, that helped for a while. Ok, this is all pretty superficial stuff, and if he doesn't want to speak I don't want to make him. What I do want is to controil my own response to this - I tend either to feel insecure or angry, and I just want to try and ignore it. Any ideas how I can deal with myself so I can cope with this? I know that it's not my fault, and I know he isn't going to change a lot.

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[Daniell85]

What I personally would do is start limiting the visits to a couple of days.


Are you able to mix in some alternative activities while you are there? Like taking a day elsewhere and doing other things, interacting less on the third day or so. It sounds to me like he is feeling engulfed, becomes resentful and is pushing you away.