Hello everybody. I sure hope I don't get busted being on this message board

[OKTeriffic]

So... .Two days ago I listened to Marc Marons What the heck podcast in which he interviews Dave Foley from Kids In The Hall.  Dave described being trapped in a marriage with a BPD wife for 11 years and having his life disappear, his feelings disregarded and his activities controlled.  He spoke at length about what that was like.  I identified with every single word.  I think I'm in hell.  Just reaching out to see who's out there I guess.  I'm certainly alone here.

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[Circle]

Thanks for the podcast tip. That was interesting; and so much like what you'll read on these boards. BPD behavior is surprisingly predictable in it's manifestations. Which is why a lot of people end up leaving; but of course, not everyone. For the same reason, some people end up working with it. Don't let me be your glimmer of hope though. I'm not one who would recommend staying. They are just too dangerous. And, like Dave Foley, a lot of people end up stuck in some insurmountable situation due to, as Marc Maron says "unfair behavior". That you have reached the point where you are solving the 'mystery' of BPD behavior, is a major achievement. Because we sure aren't taught about it in school! What helped me, from the point where you are, to the point where I am was this:
I kept reading posts almost daily on here. (Reading what other people are going through definitely helps to process what you are going through. We are all in the same boat here; no exaggeration.)
I replied to posts and supported other people.
I learned some of the tools available on the site.

Hang in there! Keep reading, keep posting.
Others will be along to offer helpful questions to ask yourself.

[VitaminC]

Hi OkTeriffic!

It's good you found us and you are welcome here. It seems you've identified that you are in a relationship with someone who has at least some of the traits of BPD. That can be lonely and isolating because often other people who are close to us cannot really understand what's going on.  You will find a lot of understanding here.

You will also find a lot of useful resources.  Have you checked some of the tools in the banner on the right here ----> ? It's a great place to start.

How long have you been in this relationship? Have you children? Do you live together? What are some of the main issues that you would like help with?

Keep posting and tell us more of your story, OkTeriffic, that is a strong step in the right direction.  

[Wrongturn1]

Welcome OKTerrific!  Thanks for the tip on the podcast - I can so relate to the fight over buying socks.

Looking forward to hearing more of your story.

[Grey Kitty]

Hello, and welcome here!

I sure hope I don't get busted being on this message board!

That's a REAL good idea. It is ok for you to have some things you keep private, like this forum. Trust me, nothing good will come of your spouse finding you here, so do take some precautions to prevent that.

First, anonymity keeps you safe. I hope that "OKTeriffic" isn't something you use as a username or email address anywhere else. (If it is, staff can change it for you).

Second, take reasonable precautions, like clearing your browser history, browsing privately, logging out / closing your browser, and not getting emails from this forum sent to any account your partner might see. (If your partner is tech savvy and prone to online stalking/spying, you might need to do more)

[OKTeriffic]

Neat! People replied!

So yeah... Hmmmm... where to start.

She told me early on that she had at one time been involved in a study and that she had been involved in a mental health study and that she had been told that she fit the profile of someone with BPD.  I googled it and read several definitions seemed WAY off to me.  She did have self image and trust issues and was a bit emotional at times but she had a very traumatic childhood and it seemed to make sense to me.  Nothing I couldn't handle... .

... .I should mention at this point that I have been reading a lot of personality disorder information lately and can check every single box off the passive aggressive disorder checklist in regards to myself.  So I find it almost impossible to be direct in a relationship and have a nice healthy dose of martyr, I must make everyone think I'm great or I'll die, and brooding resentment... .so if you do the math you'll see that our issues are almost specifically designed to ... .well, I don't even know what you call it... .We are both emotionally exhausted and in a state of self perpetuating depressed anger.

It changed after we got married... .Instantly... I can no longer make ANY decision without getting permission unless I have the energy to argue until I get tired and give up.  I do virtually all shopping, cooking, pet care and house cleaning unless I am ready to make the decision to be a hoarder that only eats MacDonald's.  I have tested this theory as far as I am willing to.  I do stand up for myself when I have the energy which invariably ends in her crying and pretending she will leave until I don't have the energy to feel guilty.  Then since we are both exhausted at that point I explain why the argument was dumb, we both apologize.  RESET.   I am 5 years into this.  My friends are gone.  I never see my family alone anymore.  I am a servant.  I am irritable almost all of my waking hours (It used to be only when I wasn't at work).  We get along fine on vacations as long as I plan everything and do not miss any turns.  For some reason the idea of breaking up fills me with failure regret.   As Dave Foley mentioned in the podcast, I no longer care if I live or die.  I'm not suicidal... That would require energy I don't have.  I also can remember that I was a very different person before I tied the knot.

I like cats... .I've been sitting here at work "working late" for the last hour.   She isn't actually as bad as some BPD folks are described... .I feel like it is salvagable... but I'm a people pleaser and she was finished being impressed with me at "I DO".  So my self worth is through the floor and it feels like my soul is dying.

I am going to make my way around the site within the next few days.  I end up spending most of my time in the same room as her and if I am in my studio she tends to pop in suddenly unannounced.  So I'll stick to reading during work hours.

Cheers!  And thank you for chiming in.  I can be fun too.  Hope that wasn't too depressing.

[OKTeriffic]

Grey,

Thanks!  I'm in IT so security is my middle name.  Yeah it would not go well if she found out.  Or maybe it would.  I need her to get into therapy.  She has almost agreed many times.  We did couples therapy but it becomes the blame game between us.  When I do therapy by myself it is just very expensive weekly venting sessions.  Sometimes she owns her mess but usually not until after an evening of extreme drama.

[Grey Kitty]

So yeah... Hmmmm... where to start.

Yeah, it is kinda overwhelming, isn't it. A few things come to mind for me... .

This is a huge problem for you here... .time to roll it back.

My friends are gone.  I never see my family alone anymore.

Your family still exists. Decide to spend time with them, not all of it with your wife.

You might be able to rekindle some friendships too--it may be easier than building new ones. And you do need friends.

It took some time for your world to get this small. It will take some time to make it larger, but you can recover.

So I find it almost impossible to be direct in a relationship and have a nice healthy dose of martyr, I must make everyone think I'm great or I'll die, and brooding resentment... .so if you do the math you'll see that our issues are almost specifically designed to ... .

Yep, they match well, don't they! This is pretty common/normal somehow.

And your marriage will improve a lot more if you work on your own issues than if you work on hers. Not 'cuz hers are worse... .'cuz you can't actually change her, but you can change yourself. Yeah I guess that is a good news / bad news thing, isn't it. You sound pretty self-aware that these characteristics are ones you wish to change.

I can no longer make ANY decision without getting permission unless I have the energy to argue until I get tired and give up.

You can make decisions for yourself. Start with the decision to stop and get out of the circular arguments, no matter how much she wants to engage you in them.

I do virtually all shopping, cooking, pet care and house cleaning unless I am ready to make the decision to be a hoarder that only eats MacDonald's.

You are pretty much right on this--you can choose to do it or not do it, but if she's not going to, she's not going to!

I am going to make my way around the site within the next few days.

Happy reading! There is a LOT here. (The sidebar is full of great places to start like the lessons --->>>> Also feel free to chime in on other's topics when they seem very similar to yours... .it will happen. If you want to change something, I'd recommend picking a specific issue that bugs you and will come back, describe it, and if you have an idea on how to fix it, post that, and see what we can suggest.

[C.Stein]

As Dave Foley mentioned in the podcast, I no longer care if I live or die.  I'm not suicidal... That would require energy I don't have.  I also can remember that I was a very different person before I tied the knot.

I also got to the point of not caring if I lived or died.  I tried to talk to her about it too and all I got was a blank look and silence.  It got worse from that point on for me, started to have physical symptoms of heart attack, presumably due to the anxiety, stress, depression of suppressing my emotions.  It built over 6 months to an anxiety attack then stroke symptoms a couple weeks later at which landed me in the ER.

I tell you this in the hope that you can avoid it going that far.  Find a way to deal with your emotions.

[OKTeriffic]

Grey,

Thank you for the thoughtful words. 

Reading other peoples experiences here I am amazed how they could have just as easily been written by myself.  We are all snowflakes right?    It is amazing once you begin to read about pathology you find that if you add the correct trauma there appears to be an extremely limited number of outcomes.  Not just for BPD but also for people the fit passive aggressive profile like myself.  And even the ability of those two pathologies to find each other out in the wild.  Kind of mind blowing... And a little disappointing.  So much for being special!  Kidding... .It is also good to know that there are a lot of positive predictable outcomes.

There is a part two to this... .

So as time went on... I think she has been trying harder over the last few months... .  I realize that I have been paying little attention.  I kind of collapsed as a personality and stopped reacting out of a lack of emotional energy... I kinda got some of the same positive outcome though.  I came home last night and dinner was made, pets were fed, and the kitchen was clean.  I realized then that she had been doing little things she hadn't bothered to do in years recently.  I'm not really sure how to preserve that without just ignoring her, which isn't much of a marriage either, but I have a lot of reading to do still.  She didn't make a big deal about it... I thanked her but neither did I really.

Come to think of it... I don't really go out but we don't really talk much either.  No fighting recently though!  But again... .Is this part of a cycle of repair or part of the BPD experience I just hadn't detached enough to be familiar with yet? 

I'm still too emotionally exhausted to feel any kind of real hope or spark but I assume if that continues and I snap out of it we can find a way to enjoy things together again.

To be continued... .

[OKTeriffic]

C. Stein,

Hello!

Well... On that level I beat her to it.  I have been a panic attack sufferer since 1999.  I have saved the MRI films from my stroke-like panic attack.  I actually figured out how to get past them for the most part years before I met her (I had them chronically for 5 or 6 years) though I started having them again from time to time.  In my case mostly because of the workload I have taken on with 2 jobs and the majority of the domestic chores.  She is actually pretty caring when I do have them and helps me to chill back out to non "I'm dying" levels.  The one time we did go to the hospital though she was totally cool until the hospital bill arrived. you would have thought I spent the money on hookers. 

If you ever need panic attack advice please message me.  Honestly, I think it is safe to consider me an expert.  They honestly don't have to ruin your life but they can seem impossible to get a handle on.

In regards to speaking to her about not caring about being alive... .Yeah I got the exact same response a couple of times... .Another time I got a half hearted offer of joining me on the way out.  I had to explain to her I'd rather feel better than be dead.  I rather enjoyed being alive before she wore me down (To be fair... A lot of things have been very difficult... .  It has never been all her fault, but more accurately, her reactions are too much extra stress to an already challenging existence).  I know she feels empathy.  But if I emote too much it shuts her right down and I get indifference or worse I get the added guilt of making her feel like she's ruining my life.  That's irony right?

I don't her drama knows how to co-exist with mine.  If I have a panic attack and just stay calm on the outside and say "I think I'm having a panic attack.  No it's not because of anything in particular I'm just freaked out" does ask what she can do.  I usually reply "Nothing really I just needed to tell someone" and she'll hang out and be supportive for the 20 or 30 minutes it takes to start snapping out of it.

For that matter...   Any panic attack sufferers that read this please feel free to message me.  I can probably help you out.

[C.Stein]

If you ever need panic attack advice please message me.  Honestly, I think it is safe to consider me an expert.  They honestly don't have to ruin your life but they can seem impossible to get a handle on.

Thanks.  I have never had anxiety issues until the last months and following couple of months of my relationship with my ex.  It really took me by surprise because I had no idea what was going on.  One of my clients actually clued me in to a possible anxiety attack, but I dismissed it because I had never had one and am not normally an anxious person.  It was a couple of weeks later when I admitted myself to the ER for the stroke symptoms and they came up with the same potential cause ... .anxiety/stress ... .and it all fell into place.  Now that the relationship is over and I have processed a lot of the pain and anxiety, all the symptoms are gone.  I do still get that anxious feeling at times when I think of my ex ... .a lingering reminder of the emotional destruction.  I hope it will dissipate entirely someday soon.

In regards to speaking to her about not caring about being alive... .Yeah I got the exact same response a couple of times... .Another time I got a half hearted offer of joining me on the way out.  I had to explain to her I'd rather feel better than be dead.  I rather enjoyed being alive before she wore me down (To be fair... A lot of things have been very difficult... . It has never been all her fault, but more accurately, her reactions are too much extra stress to an already challenging existence).  I know she feels empathy.  But if I emote too much it shuts her right down and I get indifference or worse I get the added guilt of making her feel like she's ruining my life.  That's irony right?

The one time I mentioned this to my ex was my last attempt to really communicate with her, to be completely emotionally open and honest.  I phrased it as "I am so tired of life ... ." in that I was so emotionally ruined and exhausted by the things she had done/was doing I just didn't care anymore one way or the other, about anything.  It was probably my most vulnerable moment with another human being in my life ... .and it was met with silent indifference.  That is a pretty bitter pill to swallow from someone you consider the love of your life and who you thought felt the same for you.

Like yours, my ex is capable of empathy, however only where there is no personal emotional risk.  When it came to empathizing with my feelings and emotions she simply couldn't do it, the risk was too high, especially when the need for empathy was a direct result of something she had done/said.  This is a consistently reported problem with borderlines.

[VitaminC]

Can I barge in? This just leaped out at me from the developing conversation and I wanted to thank you guys for having it.

It was probably my most vulnerable moment with another human being in my life ... .and it was met with silent indifference.  That is a pretty bitter pill to swallow from someone you consider the love of your life and who you thought felt the same for you.

Like yours, my ex is capable of empathy, however only where there is no personal emotional risk.  

A very good refinement of the idea of empathy. Thank you for that.

I think this can be a very confusing thing; we see our partners being empathetic and so think "well, they are capable after all, hurray", but then we don't get to feel that towards ourselves and it does not compute until we see the bigger picture of both the disorder and ourselves and our needs.

[C.Stein]

I see empathy as two different things.

First, per the conventional definition of being able to understand/"feel" what another person is going through.  This is a past/present condition.

Second, being able to understand/"feel" what a person might go through emotionally as a result of something you say/do.  This speaks more to the ability to empathize with the potential consequences of your actions/words on another person before your act/speak, which is not something someone who demonstrates poor impulse control is capable of.

I see a borderline having difficultly with both when overwhelmed by their own emotions and/or there is a risk to their own emotional "stability".  Anything that might cause shame/guilt is avoided, not because they are incapable of empathy but rather because it is too emotionally risky and/or their own emotions get in the way.  In romantic relationships, or any emotionally close/intimate relationship, this risk becomes prominent and overwhelming.

I might note that we all can struggle with empathy in the same fashion.  This is not a uniquely borderline thing.

[ampersandalz]

OkTerrific,

Hello! Sounds like you and I are practically rowing the same boat here. I have recently come to find out about BPD and have found reading through experiences, speaking with people here/online, and reading books/listening to audiobooks about the subject very helpful, if not a bit sad overall. 

I can relate to what you are saying on a number of levels.  My wife very likely has BPD.  It seemed to really "rear its head" after we got married, but looking back over our entire relationship leads me to realize that the symptoms were present long ago, I just better knew how to handle them.  I had a better support system, family and friends nearby, people who weren't afraid to tell me that I was being wronged when I was being wronged.  Now I am miles away from those people with no one to turn to short of a phonecall home. 

My wife is a good person, a passionate person, a person who I love deeply and would do almost anything for.  That last part is my definite downfall and has led to me existing very similarly to how you describe.  Even if I'm not so much asking "permission" to do things outside of the house, I am often met with strange ultimatums of times to be home and the wrath that might ensue if I happen to be late or don't keep her updated with my location/what I'm doing.

It is difficult, but in learning more, I have found a new resilience in my mind.  I am able to greater understand her attacks, her outbursts, and how I can handle them.  I was once as patient as any human can be, especially with her, and have just become so worn that over the past year or two I just don't have the energy or skin to keep that patience.  My mind just leaps to the defensive.  Now, reading about BPD, I am keeping the "don't JADE" mantra in my head through all heated or accusatory interactions. (If you haven't yet read this, it is Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain.)  I was a bit confused as to how I could stand my ground and maintain dignity while doing this, but after our most recent argument, I was able to ask questions, find out what makes her feel the way she feels, and advise calmly that I am a person with feelings and those feelings are valid (as are hers).

I am sorry you are going through this, but I hope you find solace here and consider it a place of support.  I feel the same way posting here as you do (sure hope I don't get 'busted', but the support is important to me - anything to help me feel like there is hope in improving my relationship with my wife.

Lastly, going with the trend of making sure to take care of yourself while accepting you cannot change her, I highly recommend therapy.  It has done wonders for me and gives me a sense of worth that I was otherwise lacking for so long.  "Breathe in confidence" is what my therapist says and those words definitely ring true in these hard situations.