How to explain to the kids when your spouse is raging

[Depression = 72% of members]

Hi all! I wasn't here for a while, but I am happy to know that there is a warm community with smart people - many of them share a similar situation to mine - to come back to.

Here's a question. How do you deal with a BPD episode in front of the children?

They are used to the more typical one, not having patience sometimes, screaming at me, blaming etc. But what happened when that is worse - like suicidal threats? Or saying "I hate daddy" and ":)addy makes me hate you" and "daddy hates me" and stuff like that.

My oldest - turning 10 soon - run to the bathroom crying. My wife really wanted to continue our "conversation" but I basically kind of moved away to take care of my daughter crying (she isn't crying often). I explained to her that some people just have very strong emotions and they don't know how to deal with them, and brought an example from a bullying kid in her class.

What do you do? How do you handle it? What's the best way to protect them and give them the best chance of growing up normal?

[joshbjoshb]

Hi all! I wasn't here for a while, but I am happy to know that there is a warm community with smart people - many of them share a similar situation to mine - to come back to.

Here's a question. How do you deal with a BPD episode in front of the children?

They are used to the more typical one, not having patience sometimes, screaming at me, blaming etc. But what happened when that is worse - like suicidal threats? Or saying "I hate daddy" and ":)addy makes me hate you" and "daddy hates me" and stuff like that.

My oldest - turning 10 soon - run to the bathroom crying. My wife really wanted to continue our "conversation" but I basically kind of moved away to take care of my daughter crying (she isn't crying often). I explained to her that some people just have very strong emotions and they don't know how to deal with them, and brought an example from a bullying kid in her class.

What do you do? How do you handle it? What's the best way to protect them and give them the best chance of growing up normal?

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[Lunira]

I am the adult child of a BPD mother.  In my case, I didn't understand it when I was very little.  Her outbursts were scary, and I sometimes believed her when she said it was my fault, or my father's fault.  As I aged, I realized that her behavior was more like a toddler than even an older child, let alone an adult, and how disgustingly dishonest, two-faced, selfish, self-entitled, and melodramatic she was.  She was pretty much completely worthless, for anything but screaming, picking fights, lying, and slouching around in her bathrobe all day feeling sorry for herself.  She wouldn't even get a job.  She was basically a career mooch, off her father and off my father.  

She told me point blank that the reason she even wanted a kid in the first place was that she thought my father (who is Catholic) wouldn't leave her if she had a child.  To leave your wife would be bad enough, but a 'good Catholic' leaving his wife and child too?  Unthinkable, right?  (Bear in mind, this was the 1970's.)   Practical upshot, I was born as an insurance policy on the meal ticket of a deranged parasite.  Seriously, how screwed up is that?

I had lost all respect for her by the time I was 12, and regarded her as an embarrassment.  

Advice?  Act in a healthy way, despite how ridiculously she behaves, and model that for the children.  Unless they have whatever mental weakness as predisposes someone to developing BPD in the first place, you will do them a lot of good this way.  Show them what normal is, and does, and looks like, regardless of how screwed up she is.  

[sweetheart]

Hello joshbjoshb,

My son is 9, I started talking to him about his father's mental health issues when he was 5. For me it's always been a bit of a no-brainer; when my h dysregulates or has become actively unwell, or is inappropriately ranting I have always removed our son from the situation.
I do this by either physically taking him out of the environment or I say go upstairs put your headphones on and listen to music/watch a film.
Running parallel to this I have been open in an age appropriate way about what is going on with his dad and why. We talk about mental illness and how what is happening is not happening in all other families. I do not normalise his father's behaviour. As he has gotten older I role play scenarios with him so that he can learn how to respond and also remove himself from situations that feel 'wrong'
Our son also attends Young Carers where he mixes with other children whose parents have a whole array of mental illness and physical disabilities. He also had play therapy and emotional support at school when he needed it when he was younger.
Honesty, openness, understanding and teaching techniques to improve emotional resilience have been key to helping my son grow up well adjusted and as unaffected as possible by his father's illness.
Limiting the amount of exposure he has to his father's full blown dysregulations have been crucial to his emotional well-being. Prioritising my sons needs over my husband's whilst using the skills learnt from here have enabled us to remain together as a family whilst minimising the emotional damage that can arise out of living with someone with complex mental health needs.
That said it has been an immensely challenged balancing act.

[5xFive]

Wow, sweetheart. Good for you! I have a s6 and a d7mo. I have been really struggling with what/how much to say to my son when my hubby dysregulates. He gets so scared, and MY fear is that since my husband is not diagnosed BPD, if I start to talk about it with my son, he will say something to H which will cause him to dysregulate even harder. But I am starting to see the effects of this. S6 does not want to take ANY responsibility for his actions, he tries to blame everyone else when anything goes wrong and anytime something happens that he doesn't like, he's "having a bad day". The program your son is in sounds wonderful but I don't think my uBPDh would approve of something like this. You've definitely given me some things to think about though. 
Thank you for this post joshbjoshb!