Locking yourself in a room to avoid the BPD rage?

[SuperDaddy]

I have just come to the realization that the situation described by the image below has chronically happened to me in my childhood and in all three long-term relationships:



Those are episodes, all related to BPD:

1)

From 8 to 12 years old, I had to protect my father against my mother's physical assaults. To avoid her, my father got home as late as he could, silently, through the backdoor. While my sister and I tried to enjoy my father's presence in the room, she would notice his presence and rush in our direction. So I had to hold the door firm to prevent her from entering it, with all of my strength. From the other side, she would offend him with lots of sarcasm, very loudly.

Sometimes she would threaten to jump out the window. Once I asked him why she was behaving like that. He said that she always had strange behaviors, such as keeping poison in her drawer in case she had to end her life. And yet she functioned normally when we were young but became mentally ill as she got older. He said this was common to happen with age, but I didn't buy this explanation.

2)

Over more than 10 years, my first long-term relationship was unstable but mostly manageable. The only thing that caused conflict between us was her pathological jealousy. That was the unmanageable part. But she got much worse after she got pregnant. So I gave up on the relationship, then got her to sign a private recognition of separation, and finally I started to date outside the home. But still she would not accept it and began a real plot against me. It turned into a "living with the enemy" plot. I then had to lock myself in the room to work in peace, and I kept it locked when I left to protect my stuff. She is possessive and never accepted the loss.

3)

In my second long-term relationship, I noticed early that she had a serious problem. She was pathologically jealous of her stepdaughters and would ruminate about it all day, including their mother's name in her rantings. Things were still manageable, only until she had her own kids. Then her mood became much worse. I began having to lock myself in the room during the weekends, when I was with my older daughters from the first relationship, and I turned the music loud so that none of us would hear her rants. Once I timed her rant. She remained ranting on the other side of the door for 45 minutes straight, with no pause. We spent most of the time locked in the room because anytime we left it, she could start her rant all over again.

Curiously, once I explained to her that the music prevented us from hearing her rants, she stopped doing it at the door. So maybe the false perception of doing psychological harm to us was what sustained her behavior?

4)

My current wife has always had some raging moments related to feeling controlled. This is clearly related to her upbringing, particularly by her narcissistic father, but still I can't avoid her reactions. She screams and insults me very loudly for long periods and throws all sorts of objects at me, so I use headphones and lock myself in the room for a while until there is silence again. I haven't timed it, but I think she can go for more than one hour. At times, I have also brought the kids into the room to protect them, but usually that's not needed because I'm the only target.

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Diagnostics:

My current wife has recently been diagnosed with BPD. We have been together for 3 years now. She is the only one that regularly regrets her behavior.

My previous wife is the one with the most symptoms, about all of them, including self-harm, and may have already been diagnosed with BPD. That was a 7-year relationship.

My first wife also said she had BPD traits, and that became more evident to me many years after the divorce because of multiple rage attacks.

My mother was also said to have BPD traits by her therapist. She has always been high functioning (financially independent), but she seems to have the core BPD symptoms, such as identity disturbance.

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Has anyone here experienced the same kind of situation? Am I doing something wrong?

Please feel free to add constructive criticism if needed.

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[ForeverDad]

The children would benefit from living as much as possible of their lives in a stable and normal home, both for their benefit now as children as well as their lives as adults.  Some day they'll choose their own adult relationships and you don't want them to choose a spouse who is either aggressively demanding (like one parent) or passively compliant or appeasing (like the other parent).

We all learn in various ways.  One is by experience.  Another is by education.  Still another is by example.  That includes children.  The children need to learn what normalcy is, what a childhood in a stable home with little conflict is like.

Family dysfunction is easily passed from one generation to the next, as happened in your own family and so many others.  While we can't say whether you sought out such relationships or were inclined into them, it did happen.

One of your challenges now, besides helping yourself now to figure out why you seem inclined to fall into dysfunctional relationships, is to help your children not to follow into those distressing generational patterns.  Taking advantage of counseling resources is also a great help.

[SuperDaddy]

Hi @ForeverDad ,

I was expecting comments about the door locking, specifically, but thanks for your response.

My thoughts are that I'm focused on the protector role because that was my role in childhood, and it was my only important usefulness there. At the same time, some of my partners use verbal aggression a lot, just like my mother, only because I'm too resilient against all other stuff, and they think that this is the only possible way of causing psychological damage to me. And a door is a good physical shield for a protector.

We all learn in various ways.  One is by experience.  Another is by education.  Still another is by example.  That includes children.  The children need to learn what normalcy is, what a childhood in a stable home with little conflict is like.

So your theory is that I have learned what a relationship is from a bad reference (my parents) and therefore took steps that moved me towards the same type of relationship. So in essence, you think I'm uneducated? (I'm not offended, don't get me wrong.)

I can't agree with that, because I never thought that there was any kind of normalcy in my mother. And I could also clearly see how my father was allowing the situation to deteriorate by not being able to communicate. So I turned into a very active communicator within the relationship context. Also, I did therapy in that period, but the best examples I got came from the mothers of my friends. Those were not cold-hearted like mine. My mother was so neglectful that I told her she would never see me again once I left. In fact, I vanished after the divorce audience. She made a deal with my father in which she gave him the full custody of the kids in exchange for more property. In that sense, all of my partners were quite different than my mother, because they were not cold-hearted at all.

Finally, I had an excellent example of normalcy from my father's family. For two years, I lived side-by-side with my uncle, his wife, and 3 children, who are all successful athletes, and they brought me in for many activities as if I were an adopted son.

Also, over the last 15 years, I have read a few dozen books on relationships, on child care, and on BPD.

With that said, do you still think I still don't know what normalcy and a stable home should look like?

Family dysfunction is easily passed from one generation to the next, as happened in your own family and so many others.  While we can't say whether you sought out such relationships or were inclined into them, it did happen.

Well, I believe the main reason for that is inherited genetics, then inherited food habits (and therefore nutrient deficiencies), and finally acquired behavioral issues (such as in complex PSTD). I follow my own food habits and have recovered from my traumatic experiences but may have inherited from my father a taste for adrenaline. His job was quite dangerous and wild.

One of your challenges now, besides helping yourself now to figure out why you seem inclined to fall into dysfunctional relationships, is to help your children not to follow into those distressing generational patterns.  Taking advantage of counseling resources is also a great help.

I don't think it works that way. I think counseling is only useful if the kid has an ongoing issue. Though I think my boy might be at risk because he might have inherited the taste for adrenaline as well. But I'll be his personal coach in relationships. He has a very secure attachment with me.

[Pook075]

People often ask "is there something wrong with me" when they discover they've been in multiple relationships with BPDs or mentally ill partners.  I think there's no basis for that though due to how the illness works. 

I've been in relationships with two people who had BPD traits, and very briefly dated a 3rd before red flags appeared.  All three were super loving and caring at first though, taking an interest in my life and doing everything they could to make me happy.  This is a symptom called mirroring...they liked whatever I liked and the relationship was perfect.

Who doesn't like a perfect relationship where they're showered with love?

In all three situations, I felt something was off but I couldn't identify it.  So a part of my brain knew very early that there was something else at play, even though I couldn't identify it.  BPD is incredibly common though- maybe as high as 1 in 16 people (or 6% of the population).  It's commonly misdiagnosed as something else and they're still learning about unconventional BPD, so it could be even higher than that.  We just don't know.

Here's the thing though.  Let's say 1 in 16 are BPD on a dating site.  The majority (the non ill people) meet someone and eventually find a relationship that works.  The BPDs recycle relationships though and are single much more often.  How long would it take for that 6% to be 25% of the entire dating pool on a site...or even a higher number?  It's something to think about.

In short, this is not a "you-thing."  Maybe you're the romantic type that likes to "save people", but the mental illness part was rarely front and center early in those relationships.  There were probably some clues, sure, but all of us are here because we missed or ignored the clues.  And that doesn't make us dumb, that simply means we believed that love could conquer all and we came up short.

[SuperDaddy]

Hi @Pook075 ,

That's very well said on your part. Dating sites are a big problem. You don't get to check with their ex-partners. I actually think that the percentage is way higher than you say and directly proportional to their prettiness. I think that when you finally find a super attractive girl on a dating site, the chances of something being off about her are nearly 100%. Because very pretty girls have lots of men to choose among their surroundings, in every place they go. What's off with them could be a generalized anxiety disorder, avoidant personality, a fake profile/pictures, or BPD, which is the most "hidden" issue.

Once a girl shouted at me in our very first conversation by phone and then blocked me. She was calling me at 9 am o'clock, so I woke up dizzy and made the "mistake" of asking who it was. But apparently she expected me to know it was her, since I had told her at what time I wake up for work. I'm afraid she didn't even sleep that night. And by the way, I'm pretty sure she had anorexia as well. That's the type of girl to whom you can't ever give your address, and you have to keep your phone recording the interaction 100% of the time, for your own safety. Because it's a bomb.

Indeed, it was over a dating site from the internet where I found my last two partners, who have full BPD. For the current one, I was pretty clear that there were many things largely off with her, and therefore I was not allowing her to stay in my place more than 3 days (only weekends). However, after she got pregnant, I changed my mind, because she was still in recovery from anorexia. So I hired a professional cooker. My strong feelings for her made me become blind to the obvious fact that she had the disorder that I knew so well, just like the previous one. So it took me almost 3 years to accept my fate. But if it weren't for the disorder, then she would be an excellent choice.

I'm still stressed from yesterday's shoutings, but I look forward to the possibility that she recovers one day, that she learns to hold her mouth and change the behavioral pattern.  So that I don't ever need to use a door, headphones, or even physical distance to stop hearing it.