Bad day_short frustration fuse

[JoeBPD81]

Hi, just venting here.
I work with public, and this morning a guy pulled a gun on a workmate, we called the police, the guy ran, and we are still working with tachycardia and anxiety. I work in a troubled neighborhood  and verbal violence is a must, some threats and insults every other day. It is a social office and we try to help people, but the law sets the limit on what we can do. And we are blamed for those limits.
This morning (before the gun incident) a big guy broke to tears at my desk, and then was very nervous, and I though he would start hitting and breaking things. That’s my job, I make people cry, I make grown men cry, and I get insults and threats. Yay!
I couldn’t react, I kept offering alternatives to the bad news I’ve just delivered, but I couldn’t validate much, or think... .Because I was upset about my GFwBPD.
I have my college exams soon. And I haven’t studied much. I never know when it is convenient, because I’m gonna be accused of “living my own life outside the family”, “not caring about the kids”, “enjoying my time in my own bedroom” or even “you could be f... ing people online for all I care!”. So I keep pushing it for later, and many days I feel I just lost all the time “walking on eggshells” without even having any quality time with the family, and I hadn’t rest nor studied. But when I have to turn in a paper or an exam, I just have to take the time, and I feel awful, and I shouldn’t. So yesterday I told my gf, after being a while with the kids: “I’ll be in my room studying, will you call me if you need me?” and she said “No, I won’t”. Then I couldn’t shut up, and said “It has to be possible for me to study and not have a conflict”. And she said that
“those comments are what creates conflict”, and she was mad all evening.
Later she asked me a favor with her phone, and I did more than she asked, and when I went to give her the phone, she was heating something, and I said that it smelled good. She said “Stay away from my safe food!” I grabbed a banana for dinner, and leave, but she kept talking so I went back, eating the banana. She told me how could I be so rude as to eat in front of her when she was so hungry, and she loves bananas so much but they make her sick. Specially after ruining her dinner for commenting on the smell. Don’t I know she only eats at night?
Later last night she texted me that she was grateful I was kind even If she was rude.
This morning she was mad with rage. And ranted about not trusting me, that she doesn’t believe that I’m working in my work hours or study when I say I’m studying. And that she hates that I know she has BPD because now I say that her perception is wrong, and I can get away with everything. She’s always wrong and I’m always right.
It hurts me, because I barely keep up with duties, work and study, and being a parent... .I don’t do anything for fun. In my free time I read and read about BPD, I listen to her hours and hours when she wants to talk. And sometimes I watch a tv-show, or football when in season. Mostly I watch “tv” in my phone in the subway on my way to and from work.
If I was dishonest, at least I should have a life worth lying about, super fun and fulfilling. Instead, I “have to” feel guilty about studying when I don’t even like it, and I’m too tired to do it most days. I try to study with the kids playing and screaming at home, and I have to read paragraphs 10 times to get something in my brain.  But College is the only thing I do for myself, I never finished a degree when I was younger, and I’m doing my best at 39 under not easy circumstances. Just to feel that I didn’t quit this time.
She started a job today, and she just texted me “this is hell. I hate it and I sxxk”. So…great!

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

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[Tattered Heart]

Whoa! What a scary morning! Glad you are safe. Sounds like you have a high stress job and a high stress home. I hope you are able to find ways to relax and blow off steam when the pressure gets to be too much. When I was in school I had difficulty studying too. I would try to study, do homework, or focus on school at home, but my H would choose those moments to need attention, want to talk, and then when I didn't talk, get upset.

As for your gf's blow up,is it possible she is having some internal thoughts that she is projecting onto you? DO you think she knows she overreacted about the banana and is now upset with herself so she took it out on you instead? You mentioned that most of your free time is spent learning more about BPD. Has it become too much of a focus in that she feels like a project? Could she be upset because she thinks you only see her BPD and not her?

[Mutt]

Hi JoeBPD81,

Wow, what a morning. I'm glad that you're safe too. I agree with Tattered Heart, I'm reading projection too, and I also sense that she's hyper-critical on herself.

And that she hates that I know she has BPD because now I say that her perception is wrong, and I can get away with everything. She’s always wrong and I’m always right.

I just wanted to say a couple of things, can you study at a public library? I take my kids to the library, the older one and the middle I don't have to watch so much, they keep themselves busy reading books or playing on the computers. How old are your kids?

I know that it can be hard to find time for yourself with a family and studies, but self care will help manage both, can you find time for yourself, you mentioned you watch TV on your phone on your commute, I think that you need some me time outside of that. Have you ever gone to a gym? One thing that I like about the gym is that I can spend 45 minutes up to a couple of hours without interruption from emails, calls, kids etc. It's "me" time and you feel great after a vigorous work out.

[JoeBPD81]

Thanks, folks,
I'm a bit worried that she hasn't reacted at a gun shown at my workplace. She said "sorry about that" and we didn't talk about that any more. It is invalidating to my experience.
I leave in the morning for work, and I come back around 4, 4.30pm then I have a meal, I do the dishes and kill some time alone. If I think I can, I take a nap, so I restart my brain. My work involves laws and math, and trying to see as many people as I can in the hours we have. So I end up pretty mentally tired. About 5.40-6pm the kids and my GF arrive from school. And the kids have dinner by 8pm, and are in bed around 9. So that's 3 hours for family time, homework, showers and dinner. The kids are 10 and 6, and not easy (I'm in the parents forum also). We stay up until late, some days we talk, some days I study, or read or watch a movie. She won't have dinner, her only meal, until she is alone, so I leave soon after the kids are in bed, if we are not engaged in conversation or something. I don't usually  interrupt her dinner. She is dangerously skinny, I'm really worried about her heath, so the last thing I want is for her not to eat. So yesterday was an exception because I had fixed her phone and I had to return it to her, I thought her dinner was going to be much later.
This morning she said that I knew how much I was going to hurt her, but that I just didn't care. There are so many things that upset her, that I can't honestly keep track of all. After she is upset, I can understand why, but I can't predict them all. Or I had to really live in fear that every single thing I do or say is going to trigger her.
Some days she tells me "this upsets me a lot, but I have to learn to live with those things, they are part of live, so people/you don't have to keep them out of my way". But then she doesn't remember that when she is upset.
She's complained about becoming a project, that's an issue. But she talks a lot about BPD with me, I don't go and bring the subject. She talks with other anorexic Borderlines, and she tells me about herself, similarities and differences.
I go to a library, alone when I have no other option, I've even studied in my car. The kids demand and compete for constant attention. The words "keep themselves busy" sound miraculous to us. Even if that happens for 10 minutes, they have to be singing, talking loud to themselves, or hitting something(or each other). If we watch a movie, they turn around and have 2 hours of questions about the 5 first minutes of the movie. When my GF has a good day, it's gone after 10 minutes dealing with the kids.
They have no family support, so they 3 feel they are unwanted. So, if we have 3 hours together, and I leave 2 hours for a gym, you know what message I'm sending.
Until the exams I'll be leaving some evenings for the library. Then we'll see. We seem to go from crisis to crisis, and there is no time to be prepared for the next one.
She's been nicer now, but cried most of the evening, and talks about leaving therapy and dealing with people altogether. Then she said people didn't include me, but still she doesn't see a future for us, that I deserve better and she's always going to hurt me. I now don't know if I react to each experience, or to a history of frustration and not improvement.

[DaddyBear77]

Hey JoeBPD, I'm really impressed at how well you're holding things together. That's a metric ton of stress and NOT easy. Yet you're going back to school and raising two kids and still managing to put on your happy(?) public face for your job. That's really impressive.

When my uBPDw weighed 93 pounds at one point, and falling, I was scared s--tless. She wasn't even seeing a T at the time, and so getting her there was a massive effort coordinated beteeen myself and my MIL. She came back up, left her T, and stayed up in weight for a while but she's dropping again and it's correlating with an uptick in other BPD/NPD symptoms. She also REALLY freaks out when her eating routines are messed with in ANY way, which is another sign to me that things are getting worse again. And currently, she's seeing a very inexperienced counselor who isn't helping.

Anyway, the anorexia part stood out to me in your note. That's one of the harder aspects of mine and probably other's pwBPD. And it sounds like you're also starting to see signs she might stop T so that's a really anxiety producing moment too.

I wish I had good advice other than hang in there and keep writing.

Good luck man 

[JoeBPD81]

Hi there,

Thanks for encouraging me. Things got better, and then bad and good again and so on.

My Gf is below that weight, I never thought that an adult could be so light. I bought her a T-shirt and I had to buy the 8-10 year old size, and it was big for her! She could be forced into impatient care by a doctor, against her will. I've seen that if I raised the alarm, things turn worse, if I keep calm, even if she says she needs to lose a lot, a day after she doesn't keep on losing. She tries to maintain. It's really hard not to intervene, but I've seen I can only plant little seeds and wait for them to grow, I can't force her to take care of herself. I wish I can show her that our life is worth living. Then, anything that kills her won't be welcome.

I'm sorry you have a similar situation, DaddyBear. What's "MIL"?

She refuses to see the anorexia as a mean to self harm. Her T says it is, and she reacts againts that. I believe it is too, even though it's an illness of its own. It's not self harm as an impulse. It's more a constant punishment for not feeling good enough. The illness has a way to present itself to her as other things, control, having the body she is comfortable with etc. "I just want to be skinny, because I like it". Well, if you are able to like something that can kill you, and it's making you sick and weak, it is self harm, isn't it? I don't know if I can talk to her about this, I hope the therapist knows better.

BPD would be much more bearable if I didn't fear about her death or falling very sick, I also believe that a well nurtured brain can react better to emotional pain. She's been more emotionally stable on periods she ate "normal" (before meeting me). That would be a huge relief for me. Also, the girl I fall in love with weighted almost double what she is now, and I miss her.

My GF has started a job on probation, and it's going well. It's just 3 hours a day, but it can help us money wise to stay afloat, and it's already helping her to give her some time a day to focus on something else than her own head. I hope they hire her, and this can be a new start. 

It's always a rollercoaster, but I'm getting used to the crisis, and learning that they don't kill us, even as they seem awful.

Thank you all for your help!   

[hadenoughfred]

you have a lot on your plate? Have you been able to set boundaries? One thing I learned early on was that before I knew it my friend was inadvertently isolating my life. My friends coming over on the hop was no good, seeing people outside was no good etc. I had to have something for myself... .and yes I understand she is your girlfriend so it has more commitment... but if you don't have some space for yourself you will lose yourself. You wont be any good to the children or her. One of the things my friend said to me ... .as its the longest relationship she has ever had... .was because I was not a pushover. I didn't give in to her or was afraid of her. But to stay strong like that I had to have some down time to meditate on what I was doing where I was going and make strategies.
Your living with so much stress please be careful... .I have been left with an illness due to trauma and stress (previous to our relationship) that I cant get away from. Now I need caring for. Its a close line between careing, living, working, and ending up needing to be cared for.

I hope for the best for you as it will always be up and down just have to see if there are more ups than downs

[DaddyBear77]

What's "MIL"?

Sorry - that's Mother In Law - her mother.

When I met my wife, she was also double her current weight, and I certainly miss that time and that person. The thing is, I have really come to know that she is the same person, and has been the same person, with a constantly fluctuating ability to deal with normal life stressors. Long before we met, the anorexia, bulimia, cutting, drinking, suicidal ideation - it was all there then and it was under cover when we met and then as the stress of a wedding ramped up the worst of it reared its ugly head again. 

I suspect all of that is true for you, too.

I really hope she gets that job, too.