Dad or 10-year-old seeking advice: My wife is having paranoid delusions

[joss]

Hello all... .

I'm a [hopefully] Non-BP here, asking for advice from anyone who has been in a similar situation... .

My wife and I have been married more or less faithfully for over 13 years and together for over 15. About two years into our relationship, around a year after having moved to a new city where we didn't know anyone except for my successful but self-absorbed family members, my wife started showing signs of depression.

Fast-forward through multiple mis-diagnoses of bi-polar 2, depression, and on and on and on, my wife finally determined that she was suffering from adult ADHD. She recently (within last two years) and successfully weaned off all of the meds that had been prescribed by her previously assumed incorrect mental-health practitioners, and is now only (not sure how consistently) taking Aderall for ADHD.

Our son, now 10, is also diagnosed and demonstrably ADHD, and takes a relatively low dose of time-release stimulants to help him focus at school and at home.

About a year ago, after I began to acknowledge having hidden the level of my own alcohol consumption, and having gone through an unrelated job-change and 5-month period of unemployment -- my wife started to develop wild mood swings. This was not the first time we had been through this kind of experience together, but the hot and cold ends of this episode were extreme. Last July, she exploded at our son on the way back from an event, and when she asked if she was overreacting, I replied that she was. That led straight into a multi-hour bout of fury on her part that left me confused and exhausted. (There are many more details I could share about this event.)

Shortly after she started expressing very paranoid worries, including being spied upon (by me), and having her phone replaced with a replica (again by me). This reminded me of a psychotic break that a past ex- had after spending about a year preferring crystal-meth over sleep, which is relevant only because it's not the first time I've seen this type of behavior.

She finally agreed after a few days to go to her regular therapist, and she got on anti-anxiety medications for a very short time, prescribed to use as needed. (I don't remember the name of the med.)

Recently, after more than a full year of very short fuses, mutual blame, agitation, and exhaustion, I am attending a weekly mindfulness and DBT training course, and my wife has seen her therapist exactly once since her initial bout of paranoia. In the last week or so, she's started expressing some of the same kinds of paranoid ideas that she did last year, thinking that I've installed hidden listening devices in the wall outlets, replaced the SIM card in a very recently purchased new phone (with a new account) with a fake one -- this came up at least four times -- and bugging her car.

I'm at a loss for what to do (or not do) next!

At this point she's threatened to call the police on me for exaggerated or invented "abuse", and has strongly suggested that she would "fight for what's hers" if we landed in divorce proceedings. At no point has she attempted to negotiate a reasonable separation with terms that put our son first, and she has repeatedly refused to talk to a marriage or family counsellor until our son's co-op school made it clear that we must do this.

My son is very mistrustful of me because he spends lots of time with his mom who is having paranoid ideation directed towards and about me, though we are rebuilding our relationship recently.

I love my wife and want to stay together, but tonight for the first time I started considering contacting a lawyer to investigate my options, and also calling or writing ahead to the local police to inform them of her mental instability, in order to try to protect myself from repercussions of some irrational paranoid action on her part.

Any advice or help would be hugely appreciated! I really have no clue what to do at this point!

Thanks!

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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.

[Mutt]

Hi joss,



I'd like to welcome you to bpdfamily. I'm sorry to hear that, I'd feel worried too, it has to be hard to contemplate going to the cops and getting legal counsel. I'm not familiar with that, from experience my ex hallucinated once swearing that she say a UFO in the sky where I saw nothing but clouds. I'm sure that somebody else has a smilar experience, you can also check other threads around thesite, something might catch your eye that you can relate with. You're not alone.

[HelenaHandbasket]

Holy cow.  That must be so scary and confusing.  You say she has a therapist--is there any way you could speak to him/her?  You could say that you understand that HIPAA laws limit what the doctor can discuss with you, and that's fine, but you want to make him/her aware of this recent worrying behavior and ask for advice.  Or you could see a therapist yourself and ask for input.

[RedPill]

Hi Joss and welcome to the forum. Sorry for what you're going through but glad you're here.

I can say that I am very familiar with your experience. My ustbxBPDw accused me of similar paranoid accusations for about two years including "finding" me on the Ashley Madison hack (nope), believing I was booking hotels to have affairs (nyet), bugging her phone (no), hacking her computer (nope), hiding money in secret bank accounts (nada), and doctoring voicemail messages to erase evidence (nope). It was frightening and confusing to be confronted with these accusations which she fervently believed and wanted me to confess to.

Similarly, my pwBPD is also operating under a ADHD diagnosis. Her diagnosis was initially floated by her therapist as a possible personality disorder, but then landed on ADHD, of which she does exhibit some traits. Unfortunately, in my experience she exhibits more BPD traits which have been growing thoughout the years.

My pwBPD is on Vyvanse and Bruproprion (Wellbutrin). She has a few bottles of Adderal in there too. After the first round of accusations I thought her medication might be off so I went with her to explain to her psychiatrist what had been happening. Believe me, that did NOT go well.

Her behavior started to get stranger in her late 40s so I attributed it to early menopause or wacky hormones. I didn't know about BPD at the time or it would have made much more sense.

Eventually, we started intensive couples counseling and I began individual therapy. Just as we were beginning to make some progress (I thought) and begin to address the real, root issues between us, as well as re-awaken our intimate relationship ... .she pulled the plug.

So. Advice. Educate yourself. Read posts on this forum. I'm new to this and it has been a relief to hear that other people's experience have been so similar to mine. Keep posting to let it out. Read the Walking on Eggshells book and Bill Eddy's BPD Divorce book. Read, practice, and try to implement good validating conversation techniques without resorting to JADE (justify, argue, defend, explain). Start to accept that this is HER problem that only she can solve. You cannot force her to get help. You cannot fix her. I know you want to. You love her. But you are a part of the dysfunctional dance too. Your half is what you can fix. Not hers.

Finally, be careful about her threats. Don't allow yourself to be baited. If things get heated, leave the room. Learn and practice how to establish healthy boundaries. Start documenting what she says and does. Document your time with your son. Talk to your therapist and a lawyer. Get prepared. It sounds very real to me.

Do you want the marriage to continue? What would need to happen to make it better?
--
RP