The BPDs affect on me

[Kailin]

Hi, my husband was diagnosed with BPD a couple of months ago.  I found that learning about it and creating an emotional boundary between myself and him has helped me to improve greatly in my symptoms of PTSD and depression.  I have been doing a combination of therapy and CBT exercises and reading psychology books on my own for about 10 years now,  but this is the first time that I've actually experienced a real improvement  in my emotional health.  I've never been part of a blog  like this before and I wasn't sure how to use it but I was looking to find if anyone else had had a similar experience or  maybe understand why this  might have been the case with me？

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[Radcliff]

Welcome, Kailin!  I am fairly certain you will find people here who have had similar experiences.  Can you tell us a little bit more?  How long have you been married?  How did the diagnosis come about?  Are there particular issues with your husband that are the biggest at this point?

You might also find it helpful to read other threads on the board.  You can look at recent threads, but there is also a good search tool near the top of the page in the narrow green bar, between "Pvt Messages" and "Members."  As an example, you can type "PTSD," widen the search period to 90 days, and check to only search the "Improving" board, and you'll get a bunch of hits.

I'm glad you've decided to try the message board.  I've found it to be a great complement to self study and therapy, filling needs the other two tools just weren't filling.

[Kailin]

Hello, thanks for your response and advice. We have been married 17 years. We were married when we were 21. We've both been doing therapy and self help on and off for about 10 yrs. although I had received these diagnoses, the therapists my husband saw were confused about his diagnosis.

[Kailin]

We read many books and came up with some possible diagnoses on our own: anxious avoidant attachment disorder, a dissociative disorder (this was true and part of his recent diagnoses) dpd depersonalization disorder, were our top choices.

[Kailin]

I guess, since he is high functioning, the biggest issues that I'm having right now are trying to not take his anger and meanness personally, resisting his controling demands assertively and with love, not being angry and hurt when his actions and words show that he is not really able to care about my feelings or needs.
I've decided to stay with him and help him through this process. I've read several books on the topic of BPD and I've started seeing a therapist myself again.
Personally I'm now reading and doing exercises for assertiveness training, mindfulness, and I've just started the essential family guide to BPD workbook.

[Kailin]

Are you referring to the google custom search bar? If so, how do I expand the search to 60 days and where can I locate the 'improviing' section? I see pvt messages in the green bar, but I don't see messages

[pearlsw]

I guess, since he is high functioning, the biggest issues that I'm having right now are trying to not take his anger and meanness personally, resisting his controling demands assertively and with love, not being angry and hurt when his actions and words show that he is not really able to care about my feelings or needs.
I've decided to stay with him and help him through this process. I've read several books on the topic of BPD and I've started seeing a therapist myself again.
Personally I'm now reading and doing exercises for assertiveness training, mindfulness, and I've just started the essential family guide to BPD workbook.

Hi Kailin, Thanks for your post. Sounds like I am in the same boat as you with what you are experiencing. I am a bit more isolated, in a country where I can't get free books and don't have the money to order them. It sucks in all areas of life not having a robust, free library at hand... .on top of all else. I am wondering what you do with your own anger that inevitably builds up dealing with all this? Do you keep it all inside? Or, have ways to channel it? Wishing you well.

[Radcliff]

Hi Kailin, look for "SEARCH" in very small white letters on the green bar, just to the right of "PVT MESSAGES."  To set the time period, look for "Message Age" towards the middle right of the search page.  See if that does the trick, and if not, let me know. 

[Kailin]

Hi pearlsw,
I order iBooks or kindle ebooks. They are usually around $11 usd. For the anger I'm trying to do a lot of self care: exercise, eating healthy, walking my dogs, time with friends, reading, guitar practice, stretching, mindfulness practices, etc. I'm trying to plan my schedule so that I won't be spending long periods of time alone with him while still having some together time. Im still working out the kinks though and feel i have a long way to go before i can achieve the supportive compassionate woman with healthy boundaries that I am aspiring to be.

[Radcliff]

I guess, since he is high functioning, the biggest issues that I'm having right now are trying to not take his anger and meanness personally, resisting his controling demands assertively and with love, not being angry and hurt when his actions and words show that he is not really able to care about my feelings or needs.
I've decided to stay with him and help him through this process. I've read several books on the topic of BPD and I've started seeing a therapist myself again.
Personally I'm now reading and doing exercises for assertiveness training, mindfulness, and I've just started the essential family guide to BPD workbook.

Hi Kailin, it sounds like you have a really good plan.  You mentioned that after years of self study you finally started seeing some progress after the diagnosis.  This resonates with my experience.  I spent a couple of decades trying to figure out stuff on my own, and figured out maybe half of it.  When someone heard what was going on and recommended "I Hate You Don't Leave Me," the light bulb clicked on.  The stuff I'd figured out on my own was validated, and a huge amount of other stuff that was going on all clicked into a pattern that made everything feel less random.  The randomness of it was terrible, so once I was able to see patterns and sometimes avoid trouble, it was a huge improvement.  Reading IHYDM and "Walking on Eggshells," as well as "Loving Someone with BPD" helped me to develop empathy and not take things as personally -- things have improved in many regards, but it's still quite challenging.

[Kailin]

Hi again Wentworth, I will try your suggestions about accessing the search bar, thx again! Looks like we read the same books:). Ya this information has been really life changing for me in a lot of ways. I finally think I know my Mom is also BPD. I used to think she was just an alcoholic but the more I learned about alcoholism the more I realized that something else was also at play. It wasn't until I learned about BPD that everything started to come together. Although my Mother is not functional like my husband and her symptoms present much more strongly, looking back its so obvious that I've been playing out that same old dance with him. My life's motto has been "if im perfect enough they won't get angry or act crazy, their actions and feelings are caused by me". It's been a long time since I went through the 12 steps at alanon and learned about codependency, but I forgot the three c's: I didn't cause it, I can't cure it, and I can't change it

[Kailin]

Hi Kailin, it sounds like you have a really good plan.  You mentioned that after years of self study you finally started seeing some progress after the diagnosis.  This resonates with my experience.  I spent a couple of decades trying to figure out stuff on my own, and figured out maybe half of it.  When someone heard what was going on and recommended "I Hate You Don't Leave Me," the light bulb clicked on.  The stuff I'd figured out on my own was validated, and a huge amount of other stuff that was going on all clicked into a pattern that made everything feel less random.  The randomness of it was terrible, so once I was able to see patterns and sometimes avoid trouble, it was a huge improvement.  Reading IHYDM and "Walking on Eggshells," as well as "Loving Someone with BPD" helped me to develop empathy and not take things as personally -- things have improved in many regards, but it's still quite challenging.

[Kailin]

I know what you mean about randomness, the unpredictable nature of the mood swings and splitting made me feel crazy. Is your bp in treatment? Have you found that changing things on your side has gradually helped to regulate the emotions of your bp to some extent?

[Radcliff]

Hi Kailin, OK, when you mentioned an alcoholic mother and Al-Anon, you gave me a total 1980's flashback   We have a couple more things in common   And it sounds like we both went right out of that into our current relationships.  My wife and I were 19 when we met, though we didn't get married for another 6 years.

My wife is not in therapy, and the chances she is going to ever go are zero.  She has been very consistent for the 30 years I've known her that therapy is worthless and she has no issues when it comes to relationships (it's all me   At some level she must know she has issues, but she is absolutely steadfast, and I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I've seen a chink in that armor.  So when folks on the board talk about their pwBPD going to therapy, I'm excited for them, but I'm thinking "Wow, I wonder what life on that other side of the BPD universe is like."  Sorry, I kind of got going on that one, I'm pretty bummed about it.  There's a greater than zero chance we might get to marriage counseling, but she's backed out on a couple of promises there, and I'm not optimistic.

I don't think that you've talked about how your husband's diagnosis came about, or whether he is in therapy.  Is he actively working on things?  Is he taking any responsibility for his part in the relationship?

You mentioned that your husband is high functioning.  My wife is super high functioning, and even remarkably good at counseling others about people issues and life coaching topics.  She just has massive blind spots of her own.  It is so incredibly hard for me to wrap my head around how her people skills in outside settings are so good, yet within our relationship things can be so wildly out of control.  If her friends saw her chasing me around the house at 2 in the morning like a maniac, I think they would faint -- they come to *her* for advice and she gives good advice!  It can make it feel so horribly isolating, because I am the only person in the world who is living with all of her darkness (my kids get to gray, but with me it goes to full black).

You asked if I've had any success helping my bp regulate. 

The IHYDLM and Eggshells books helped me with empathy and helped me to see that my wife was not intentionally causing all of this drama, which in turn helped me partially to depersonalize things and not feel as threatened or react as strongly.  That was a noticeable improvement.  I also noticed that she tended to dysregulate around stressful times, so when a trip, holiday, relative's visit, etc. was coming up, I'd try to be more patient with my personal needs, be kinder and gentler, be more attentive, and generally try to be a better spouse (I am far from perfect, so there are and remain many opportunities for improvement   That extra effort in anticipation of stressful times also gave me a pretty good result for my effort. 

My BPD learning froze for 3-4  years after I read those books.  Other things (cancer recovery for her and career difficulty for me) were going on that made things rough and took our energy, and things got worse.  We hit bottom again about six months ago, precisely when my wife's mother died after a cancer battle and my work difficulties were continuing.  That's when Round 2 of my BPD education started -- I read more, saw a therapist for 6 months, and figured out how to use this board as a regular means of learning and support.

So what else have I added in Round 2 that's been effective?  I've come to understand the importance of validation -- how I sometimes invalidate her in clumsy ways that hurt her and how me becoming good at validation has gotten us out of several big late night crises (sitting patiently and talking/validating when I'm exhausted and sometimes want to walk away).  I've learned that when I'm tired or stressed to be extra cautious since my proficiency with BPD tools slips when I'm under duress.  I've also had some spotty success with boundaries and assertiveness -- that's a tough area for me.  It's very much a work in progress, but I am determined to learn to get better at it, since I've decided I cannot continue as we are now.  The therapy was particularly helpful for me to re-calibrate myself to reality and think about what things about our life together were rational and reasonable, and what was not; in other words, what I shouldn't have to put up with and what I had a right to strive for (I gave my therapist a lot of detail on the aggressiveness, crazy behavior, and violence, and said I suspected that we were not a typical couple on the verge of divorce and I was wondering if we were far far into dysfunction, and she basically said, "Yup, you sure are." (In the same month, I had a DBT trained therapist and a divorce lawyer both tell me, "Wow, you're in a really tough spot."  I had completely lost my moorings on what was reasonable, and now feel like I've gotten grounded again.  A few times, this has come in handy, because when I am confidently grounded, it helps me be assertive and set boundaries when it counts.  In the middle of this evolution, my wife was starting to get crazy, and was about to take my daughter out of the house in the car.  Based on previous scary events with cars, I knew I couldn't let this happen (if she every tragically hurts someone, it will likely be without intent, an "accident" when she has lost control and wrecks a car, or trips me and I hit my head).  In a firm voice that I almost did not recognize as my own, I said, "You are *not* going to take her out of the house and drive when you are this upset."  To my surprise, she backed down like I'd just waved a magic wand.  Looking back, I think it was my best imitation ever of a stern, protective father who you don't argue with.  That extreme is rare, but it made me see that on a smaller scale, daily assertiveness might be possible (before that, my record of assertiveness was roughly equal to the baseball performance of the Chicago Cubs who were so bad for almost a century that songs were written about how bad they were

OK, I think I digressed a bit in that last bit, but it helped me to write it.  Thanks for listening.  Hopefully there are some things in there somewhere that you find helpful.

[pearlsw]

Im still working out the kinks though and feel i have a long way to go before i can achieve the supportive compassionate woman with healthy boundaries that I am aspiring to be.

Love this! Very inspiring words!
Thanks for all!

[Kailin]

Af1947, thanks for sharing some of your journey with me. I can definitely see the benefit behind forums like these that allow us to give and receive validation as well as not feeling so alone while sharing our stories. I think having a higher functioning bp is a very invalidating experience. He is kind to everyone, highly intelligent, introverted but good in social circumstances most of the time. He is also kind and affectionate to me when we are with other people. He is a totally different person when we are alone however. His states are so different in fact that he often forgets what he said or did in another state. For many years I didn't share these things with anyone. I have no desire to harm his public reputation or to cause upsets in our social structure. Now Im trying to share some of it with my closest friends and therapist. I also have validation from him now that he knows about his diagnosis, not in the heat of the moment, but sometimes afterwards.

[Kailin]

 By the way, i seemed to have earned my search button somehow  

[Radcliff]

Hi Kailin, good to hear from you.  The length of my post was a little surprising to me when I looked at it this morning in the clear light of day.  Surely it could have been shorter; I'm working on that, sorry and thanks

Congrats on the search button

[Kailin]

Hi Wentworth, i was glad to see your long post. I value vulnerability and openness in people. I really liked what you said about when you were fatherly and authoritative and the effect it had on your bp. I always saw my bp Mom as this huge and terrifying monster. Sometimes I also put my husband up as the superior who held the keys to my value as a human and my self worth. I think one of the biggest gifts I've received from all this bp knowledge is recognizing that they are actually more like two year olds with emotional difficulties. Ive taught two year olds in Kindergarten and have had great success in helping them to work through behavioral and social problems. Unfortunately my two year old husband is frozen and not so easily consoled. When I speak to his angry scared baby when it shows up in a patient and dispassionate but firm way, i find it also calms him down. Like the books say, I assure him of my consern and empathy. Then I tell him the truth