Validation Fail

[5xFive]

My uBPDh has been dysregulating on a regular basis lately. He works outside and it is HOT right now. I can't pay to see my therapist for the time being, but through a quick text conversation, she mentioned to me that perhaps he suffers from backwards seasonal affective disorder (which I guess is called something else now, but most know it by this name) where he gets irritable and anxious and revved up from all the extra light he gets at work. Over the last 17 years, and especially the last 5 years we've lived in the south, I have noticed that summer is the worst: nearly constant devaluation of me with barely any up-cycle. Just never ending wave after wave of "episodes" I like to call them where I feel like I am sucked under the ocean and I'm drowning bc the waves keep hitting me and don't give me an opportunity to catch my breath.
He had a rough morning this morning. He is incredibly unorganized, and when we need to leave for work at the same time, I often try to leave 15 mins before I actually need to because I can't handle his chaos so early in the am, always hunting for his keys or his hat or his freaking boots! It is too much for me when I am barely awake and it often makes me late for work because if I don't help him search, then he feels abandoned. I have tried to convince him to ready himself the night before but he has said he is too tired when he gets home.
This morning I had already left when he couldn't find his work phone. He never calls me (he wants me to call him), he only texts me and when I reply, he gets SO mad about how much he hates texting, so then I call and he inevitably gets upset at something I say (probably jadeing) and he hangs up on me, then he texts me again and around and around we go. So attempting some of my new skills this morning, I did not text him back right away, giving myself a chance to think about what I wanted to say. I was in such a good mood, I was sure today would be a great day! We have already been through 3 full days of devaluation and that is normally his limit. Last night was calm, and I was feeling good. But then of course I didn't call fast enough and it was off to the races.
Then he saw that I forgot to lock the front door last night and he was so very very mad at me. We talked and he says he has asked me over and over to lock the door, that the safety of our children are at stake for god's sake! I told him that he is right and I understand why he is upset. I will try not to make that mistake again. He says he can't trust me because I keep saying I won't do something and then I do it so he doesn't believe that I will remember. I said that I can see why he would feel this way, and if our roles were reversed I would be upset too, asking him to do something and being disappointed over and over.
I think things are calm, and then he gets upset because I've been having trouble with our insurance covering an ADD medication that helps him focus at work. He called me and texted me a LOT and I wasn't able to respond because I was working, which spun him out. By the time I was able to respond to him, he started screaming at me how much he hates me, how I have ruined his life, and how he wishes he had never met me. He then tells me he wants a divorce (which he says literally every time he dysregulates) and then he started calling me names. I am so upset that I am shaking. I told him I dont deserve that treatment and if he continued, I was going to hang up and take a break from the conversation. He screamed the f-bomb at me so I hung up and then turned off my phone for 5 mins to collect myself. When I turned it back on, he texted me that he had needed me and I wasnt there for him and that he raged out so hard that he broke his personal phone so now he can only communicate through his work phone.
The day goes on, he says they sent him home from work bc he had a panic attack, and then he starts telling me that its my fault that I never validate him, that I always have to be right, and he is always wrong and he hates his life with me.
Thank you for reading my post. Can you see where I failed? He does not FEEL validated. He says I never just tell him that he's right but I must have said it at least 10 times today. He complains that I never validate him, so I must totally be doing it wrong. Can you help me work through this?
Am I making the cycle worse through my words and actions? If that is the case, I need to stop that, I need to change myself and be better. Not just for him, but for myself and for my children!

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

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[MrRight]

How do you manage to survive this chaos?

This validadtion thing is driving me crazy too and I find myself saying some silly things - like when she says I'm always looking at hot women - how do you validate that?

"Feeling insecure about all the hot women I'm looking at must be tough"

BTW I have to search for stuff she cant find too -  mobile phone etc.

But she is the texting world champion - is capable of firing 50 texts and hour at me.

[isilme]

#1 - it's not your fault he has BPD, and that he reacts to stimuli based on his BPD.  You CAN'T stop his freight train of emotions.

The light may be an issue.  Heat prostration, dehydration, excessive tiredness, and yes, maybe over stimulus from the summer sun can all be messing with his internal chemical makeup.  H was recently diagnosed diabetic - I had found a few years back that his worst emotional down swings were based on low sugar - now I have medical proof to back it.  I think a LOT of our SOs all have some underlying nutrition or health issue that isn't the cause of the emotional instability but certainly fuels it.  So maybe now that you have identified SUMMER as a trigger, see if you can locate WHAT about summer causes such regular dysregulation. 

#2 - there is no magic word or phrase you can say, text, email, message, whatever, that will end a bout of dysregulation.  Once it's going, you need to get going, too, and set a boundary to protect yourself from verbal and emotional harm.  Leave, go to work.  Turn off the phone.  Be in a meeting, with a client, and force the pwBPD to handle their emotions on their own.  There will be a period of freak outs, 100 messages in the down time, but you do not have to read them.  You don't.  Why?  Because it's a bunch of ranting and raving from a purely emotional out of control person.  Why hurt yourself?  So stop blaming yourself.  You know your H gets off his recovery cycle in the summer - it is obviously nothing to do with YOU, you are just the easy target to yell at.

This is the big things I think we all need to work on learning - it is not about US.  We will get yelled at.  We will get blamed, often for crazy things.  But it's really all. about. them. and. their. messed. up. internal. emotions.

They seem to see us as a part of them that can take the pain they can't handle, so they dish it all off onto us, to get it out of and away from them.  We literally are the scapegoat, as in olden times, where the sin of a community was "sent" into a goat which was then sacrificed to leave everyone else free from sin.  Our feelings are sacrificed so theirs can be set free. 

#3 - Validation - this is fine when you are seeing a warning sign coming, or for changing how we communicate day to day.  Instead of saying, "Oh, it wasn't that bad to be cut off in traffic, we're still on time and nothing happened." you say, "That is so frustrating when someone cuts you off in traffic."

You do NOT validate the invalid - "Feeling insecure about all the hot women I'm looking at must be tough" is of course not a positive use of validation that will achieve what you want.  You would want to read about SET (sympathy empathy, truth) to both validate and then communicate your reality.

"You're always looking at hot women"
"It must feel bad to think that.  I would not like to feel that way.  I am only attracted to and /dating/married to/pursuing you."

I'm not great at it, either, and actually, in cases like this have kinda started telling H how I see it and that his reality is not mine in some cases. 
"You think I am ugly"
"That may be how you feel about yourself, but it is not how I feel, and only I can tell you how I feel.  You are trying to make me responsible for your own negative image of yourself."

Certianly not the best validation at all, but he stops about there most of the time these days. 

As for the OP and her mornings - I understand.  I am about 15 minutes late each day ebcause we share a car to get to work.  And, it sucks, but in order to meet my goal of being no more than 5 minutes late, I take on some added tasks at night and in the morning to get BOTH our things squared away so it goes smoother than it would if I left H to his own devices.  He is terrible at finding things, and has even accused me of hiding things so I can make him look stupid when he can't find them, and "laughing at him" when he can't find things. 

There are things I can let him "fail" at - creative ventures that only impact him, his desire to write he rarely acts upon, and things I can't let him fail at, so I intervene - paying bills, making sure we both have clothes clean and dry for work, etc.

My night includes going through the house to make sure things are in an easy place to find them in the morning.  Shoes, phones, keys, lunch bags are all in easy to see palces, clothes are at least dry, doors locked (he forgets, then forgets he's the one who forgot), TV off, nothing left out as far as food or things that could hurt the pets, then I go to bed.  I get up, and since he is the slow started, I make sure to arrange my schedule around his bathroom use, so I get up and brush my teeth, then get dressed, and make his quick breakfast while he is in the bathroom, swap, he is now getting dressed while I am in the bathroom putting on makeup and contact lenses, then we are both (hopefully) ready, and leave.  I do my best to not stand too "expectantly" by the door, as this is seen as being impatient can cause a fight.  Driving "wrong" can cause a fight.  Sighing from my own tiredness at my own insomnia is obviously a dig at him, and can cause a fight.  Walking "too loudly" based on my shoe choice can cause a fight. 

Mornings just suck.  I don't like to talk until I've been at work at elast an hour, so a fight is horrible.
 If you can get out sooner - great.  If you have a fight start, you've gotta go, talk to you at dinner, bye.  I find in our case a morning tiff, or one from the afternoon/evening before will usually resolve by lunch if I keep quiet. 

We want to make the fight go away, so we apologize, we try to do things WE':) want to be done if we were mad.  These things just fuel the fire.  Apologizing can often just reinforce the idea they were right, you need to be yelled at even more.  Trying to explain (JADIEing) will just invalidate and make them more angry.  So, it's often best to when you can, nip communication in the bud.  stop responding.  Trn off your phone.  Set a rule that you will not respond to texts or calls at work, unless it's an emergency and then the pwbPD can call the main number and your work phone if it really is an emergency.  They will NOT like this, but it's kinda a tough cookies situation   You do NOT need to be an emotional, verbal, or real punching bag at all.  The pwBPD is NOT going to change the dynamic, so you have to be the one who does.  And it's a really uncomfortable thing to do, really hard, and goes against all our wired-in responses. 

[Auspicious]

You don't have to respond to everything (I have to keep reminding myself of that too). When someone gets really wound up, they sometimes can't hear you, even if you are perfectly validating, etc.

It's perfectly OK to take a break from it 

[MrRight]

I find that when mine is raging she will usually want a resolution - an act or words from me to allow us to move on. She refuses to move on otherwise. The only thing that can save me is if her mum suddenly calls her on skype - she will vanish into her room and appear much later forgetting about the row.

how do you deal with

"If X happens - I'm going to blame you"

[5xFive]

MrRight, I don't deal with it very well, that's for sure! I've been thinking I must fail at validation when things are calm. I get comfortable and forget. Or truthfully, I'm kind of spacey so I space out and just go about my business and then he feels invalidated. I have trouble focusing on good days, I used to take medication for it and things were much better (as I mentioned to you on another post) but after I got pregnant I had to stop taking it, so focus is HARD. I can't start it up again until the baby is done nursing, and my goal is 24 months so 16.5 to go. Lol

Auspicious, you're right! I keep telling myself this too. Im not very good at setting boundaries, YET. But I know if I keep trying, I will get there. My fear is that he won't stick around long enough. He's stuck around this long, but things are worse than ever on his bad days. I don't think its extinction bursts, I'm not that skilled yet. I think it's just years of being disappointed with me.

Isilme. Oh my gosh. Thank you for posting about your evenings and mornings. I could have written that myself! I sometimes think to myself WHY am I doing all of this, he's a freaking grown man! But when I stop=chaos. It's just hard to care for myself and 3 other people while working one full time job and another part time from home job while he gets to go to work, come home and be waited on. It sucks. Some days it makes me feel useful and I like it. Other days I'm completely overwhelmed and I need a break. Those are the days when we argue (of course) because I'm tired and I don't handle tough situations very well.

[Auspicious]

how do you deal with

"If X happens - I'm going to blame you"

If BPD is involved, there is going to be blame ... .so just consider it an advance warning, 

Seriously though, either don't respond to it, or perhaps "I hope X doesn't happen either, I hate when X happens too."

[waverider]

I find that when mine is raging she will usually want a resolution - an act or words from me to allow us to move on. She refuses to move on otherwise. The only thing that can save me is if her mum suddenly calls her on skype - she will vanish into her room and appear much later forgetting about the row.

how do you deal with

"If X happens - I'm going to blame you"

This is the clue, forced distraction. Related to object consistency. An issue is only an issue if it is in front of their face. You standing there debating an issue is keeping it on the menu.

Often a pwBPDs aim in a conflict is not so much to "win" but rather not to lose, and to be above criticism. By default this normally means by winning (in their black and white way of looking at things). If there is a distraction and the issue goes away, then they escaped loosing and often that satisfies their motivation.

The issue of the moment is not the real problem, it is the emotion of the moment. eg a drama over a misplaced item is not about not being able to find the item, it is about them feeling blamed for loosing it. Insert a space, and followed by you not having any interest as to whose fault it is, and it diffuses.

how do you deal with

"If X happens - I'm going to blame you"

Let them, who cares? You know your reality, you dont have to defend it, even if it goes against your very nature. The blame game is rabbit warren, dont go there. They are simply blaming you first to ward against their perception that you will blame them... .remember in BPD land someone is always to blame.

Denial and blame shifting is a classic BPD knee jerk reaction, it's part of emotional immaturity just as a child would. Picture here a child with chocolate all over their face and you ask "where's all the chocolate?". Their immediate reply is "wasn't me, the dog did it, you must have left them on the floor, its not my fault". A pwBPD is always expecting to be accused of what they have done. In fact their preemptive denials often act to dob them in for something you had'nt yet even noticed.