I act like mad

[coborder]

Hello and thank you for reading me!
I thought I could move on without the help of this message board, but I am still stuck in a nasty situation.
My partner has BPD traits, and our relation became very violent after the birth of our 15-months-old daughter.
Last september, We both decided to end our relationship. Since then, I have been looking for a place to stay. We live in Paris, I am a freelance worker, believe me, it is quite a challenge to find a flat!

For the past weeks, we have been through good and bad phases (usual stuff), but my partner avoids the topic of our break up. Anytime I bring it up, he becomes moody, starts to blame me for anything and it makes me mad!

Although I know how important it is to remain calm, not to make things worse, that I am responsible for what I say or do, I can't help getting angry, being aggressive, sometimes insulting.

So now, my partner thinks he is the victim of a crazy awful woman! I always acknowledge when I go too far and I have no excuse for my bad behaviours. I am scared to act as mad as he does and worse,that he could use it against me.

I try to use the tools given on this website, but I fail sometimes. I had never felt so much anger before, I had never acted so weirdly. I work things out with my therapist, but it doesn't solve all the problems on the spot.

Have you ever doubted that you were the crazy one?

[VitaminC]

Hi Coborder, you are welcome here.

It sounds like you have an awful lot to deal with - breaking up with your partner in the past month, trying to find a new place to live in an expensive city, and a baby to take care of.

It's good you have the support of a therapist at such a stressful time, but you are right - it can't solve everything and certainly not on the spot. The communication tools are used successfully by many members - but starting and maintaining a different sort of communication takes a lot of practise. And nobody can get it right from the start and everyone will sometimes be too tired or too stressed to put in the effort that is required.

Also the nature of BPD being what it is, means that sometimes, no matter what we do, our partners will not respond the way that we would hope.

All the pressure of everything that is going on in your life at the moment is bound to make you react in ways you would rather not. So give yourself a little break about that.

In my own relationship I surely behaved in ways that I am not now proud of; ways that I know, and knew at the time, were hurtful or dismissive to my partner. I also often blamed myself, and while I obviously was part of an unhealthy and eventually toxic, dynamic - the key is to remember that a dynamic takes at least two.

What is your immediate goal? Is it to move out? Or is it to try and salvage the relationship?  A useful thing to read about right now might be about not JADEing anymore. That's "Justify, Argue, Defend, or Explain". The more we do this with someone who is not really in a position to talk camly, the more we fuel the fire.

Will you have a look and let us know if that helps? Please feel free to post more, we are all here for you.

[coborder]

Thank you for these comforting words, they give me rest and strenght. I feel very grateful and it is good to remember that I am not alone.
I wish you a very good day!

[VitaminC]

I feel very grateful and it is good to remember that I am not alone.

When we feel heard and understood, we don't feel alone, that's true. And that is a good thing 

[Cat Familiar]

Welcome Coborder. You have found a very supportive place to share your feelings.

When I first came here two years ago, I was full of anger. It's incredibly frustrating to deal with a BPD partner and try to negotiate the inevitable conflicts and disagreements that happen in any relationship. I had expectations that my husband would be able to problem-solve in a rational and reasonable way. After all, he is a lawyer and is used to dealing with words and logical thought processes.

Much to my surprise, he personalized any complaint I had, even if it had absolutely nothing to do with him. He got angry that I should even feel upset and of course, his reaction of not listening, not caring about my feelings, dismissing my concerns, made me absolutely furious, even over trivial issues.

After being here a while, I realized that the normal methods of communication just don't work with people who have BPD and I began adjusting my words accordingly. It was not easy to overcome a lifetime of speaking what was on my mind without filtering the way I used my language to accommodate his over-sensitivity. But it became easier and I sidestepped what would have become major disagreements and horrible arguments in the past.

Now I realize that I've always had communication issues with some of the people in my life who also had BPD: my mother and my ex-husband. Then, I was totally mystified why discussions would go completely off-track and they'd respond in angry ways, raging at me or giving me the silent treatment.

Often those of us here on this board have had a family member with BPD and until we learned more about the disorder, we didn't know that's what we were dealing with. I merely thought my mother was troubled and my ex-husband was explosive, but now I realize that they had BPD traits all along. We get accustomed to dealing with people like that and we may become people pleasers or codependent. So we might find ourselves in romantic relationships with people with BPD just because it is so familiar to us.

There are no easy fixes, but I can assure you from my experience that you can make your relationship a lot easier to deal with if you choose to stay. And the lessons you learn here are valuable with everyone, not just people with a personality disorder.

I wish you the best as you chart your course for the future with your child.    

[coborder]

Dear Cat familiar

Thank you for your reply, it feels good to read that nothing is ever doomed and that a relationship can evolve in the right way!

When I eventually understood that my partner had BPD traits, it's been very helpful and it prevented me from sinking in despair. I thought I could make a good use of this new vision, but I still haven't found the right way to intercat and communicate with my partner. Maybe I should push it further, be more patient, more persistent.

Still, I must admit that our situation got a bit better (same time last year was a total nightmare). What concerns me now is my own behaviour : sometimes, I loose it completely! I become so aggressive, so cynical, I get carried away and even if I cool down quickly, the damage's done. I can't stand anymore the blame, the contempt, the bad faith, etc., my anger takes control and I fight back with poor words and actions.

Yet, I have no excuse to react the way I do. I know I am responsible for my own behaviour. So when he says that I have a problem and that he is the victim of my violence, a part of me knows he is right. It is not only shameful, but also scary and it had never happened to me before (I am 40!).

Well, dramatizing won't help. At least, this forum is a free space and then again, I am very grateful for your support!
Take care

[Notwendy]

Hi Coborder,

It makes sense that you are angry after all the drama in a relationship. I also feared I was becoming like my BPD mother after I would break down in tears after those long circular arguments and just cry in frustration , while my H appeared to stay calm. Then he would call me irrational. Since I was the one with the unstable family life ( as a child ) I assumed he was right- I was the problem.

It took me a while, just like Cat says, to actually understand that the words I said to him were heard as personal insults. A lot of the time, they weren't meant to be that way- but this is how he heard them. Then, he would react. It seemed to me that these reactions came out of the blue, but once I saw this, I was able to understand what was going on.

Then, there were times we really did have a conflict- and I said something critical- and the reaction was intense. Now, nobody enjoys hearing something negative- but we all go through that at some point. Somewhere along the way we may hurt a friend's feelings, or be forgetful, and we apologize. Growing up, if my mother was angry at us kids for anything ( usual kids stuff) it was "the worst kids ever". Although my H is not anything like my mother in most ways, these reactions were similar. A hint of criticism would lead to a blow up. Having grown up walking on eggshells with my mother, I did the same thing in marriage.

But even walking on eggshells ( which I don't recommend) doesn't avoid conflict and the style of these circular arguments is a pattern- a pattern we can learn to change.

One thing that helped me was to not be emotionally reactive to his words. They used to hurt, I would get emotional. That would upset him more. Somehow he thought if he got angry enough, I would not be upset, but that made me more upset. Learning to stay calm, walk away from the words to calm myself down if I had to seemed to let the situation defuse instead of escalating. I learned to not react to words that were said in the moment. Often he didn't even remember them, even if they were hurtful to me.

The lessons on this board can help you learn to communicate better with your child's father and also with others. Even if the two of you are not romantically together, there is a child involved, so there will be some communication.

Your feelings are real- and we all get angry. Do you have a support system? A counselor can help with the feelings, help you not be reactive. But it is OK to feel what you feel.

[Notwendy]

As Cat described- this can happen over even trivial issues. It helps to be able to recognize when a conversation has traveled into a circular argument.

The other day, my H mentioned that a celebrity announced an endorsement for presidential Candidate X. But that celebrity has been outspoken against Candidate X. So I replied, "I don't think so" and he went on to argue his stance. I started to look up the facts on the internet- I was confused at this point, but no matter what I showed him, he insisted that I had not seen what he had seen.

I recognized the pattern at that point. When I said "I don't think so" that became a personal insult " you are wrong" and from that point on, he was going to maintain his being right- no matter what and we were running in circles.

But it is trivia - and easy to let go. If he wants to believe what he believes, then that is his choice. It is harder when it is personal, but once in the circle of the argument, emotions are flying, hurtful words may be said. There isn't a solution- in the moment. If it is something important- in that moment, it needs to wait.

The signal to stop is me- when I start to feel angry or frustrated, or a need to prove my point, I just have to back off at the moment. Sometimes, he has actually heard the message, even agreed, but won't agree just then.