Wanted to Post Update Here

[Cat Familiar]

TMD,
You've done it before and survived. It truly is daunting, but you've more tools now to cope and ways to access help. It's no fun to see the writing on the wall and know what you'll need to prepare, but knowing about BPD, he might change his mind when he sees how much work and complication it will involve for him.   

Cat

[AskingWhy]

toomanydogs, please, please have faith in yourself.     

I agree with BabyDucks about the C-PTSD.  You have suffered chronic stress and now your fight/flight is stuck on autopilot.

First, protect yourself and your assets.  With an H with so many diagnoses, you need to do this. 

You will survive.

Read, "Splitting:  Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder" by Bill Eddy.  You can buy this off of Amazon.

Above all, don't take this personally.  A person with BPD, NPD or any other disorder would have treated any other person the same way.  It's not you or anything you did or did not do.

Hug your dogs and animals.  The value of pet therapy cannot be underestimated.  They can heal.  Why do you think they take dogs to patients in hospitals?  They are natural healers.

Also try meditation to help your stress response (the amygdala!) to calm down. Try the "yoga breath" that Dr. Andrew Weil teaches on YouTube.  It's crazy, but it will work in time.  It won't be weeks but even months to show results.  Sometimes it helps just to calm down your breathing and breathe from the belly.  It sounds crazy, again, but it works.  Do this daily.  Your brain will thank you.

PTSD in any form is very scary.  Almost anyone in a relationship with a pwBPD can have C-PTSD.  The constant drama keeps the psyche in high alert.  Over months or years, this takes its toll.  My uBPD/uNPD H would rage for the smallest things, break objects, punch holes in walls and otherwise, well, be BPD.

BTW, the is no such thing as too many dogs.   

[babyducks]

Hi TMD,

How are things going?   How are you feeling today?

[toomanydogs]

Hi TMD,

How are things going?   How are you feeling today?

Ducks,
  You just made me cry. I feel alone and invisible. Abandoned. (I'm not. I have lots of friends), but having you just ask really helps.
  I just posted on the family law thread about restoring H's hard drive because of concerns he may have child porn on it, and because his searches for "Kill" outnumbered searches for "divorce." Sobering.
  If you get a chance to pop over there, could you give me your opinion?
  On a much happier note, we are having a birthday party for my grandson who turns a year today. My granddaughter spent the night, and we will now head out to do "girly" things, like getting a manicure.
  I'll check the boards later.
Thank you for asking,
TMD

[toomanydogs]

toomanydogs, please, please have faith in yourself.     

I agree with BabyDucks about the C-PTSD.  You have suffered chronic stress and now your fight/flight is stuck on autopilot.

First, protect yourself and your assets.  With an H with so many diagnoses, you need to do this. 

You will survive.

Read, "Splitting:  Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder" by Bill Eddy.  You can buy this off of Amazon.

Above all, don't take this personally.  A person with BPD, NPD or any other disorder would have treated any other person the same way.  It's not you or anything you did or did not do.

Hug your dogs and animals.  The value of pet therapy cannot be underestimated.  They can heal.  Why do you think they take dogs to patients in hospitals?  They are natural healers.

Also try meditation to help your stress response (the amygdala!) to calm down. Try the "yoga breath" that Dr. Andrew Weil teaches on YouTube.  It's crazy, but it will work in time.  It won't be weeks but even months to show results.  Sometimes it helps just to calm down your breathing and breathe from the belly.  It sounds crazy, again, but it works.  Do this daily.  Your brain will thank you.

PTSD in any form is very scary.  Almost anyone in a relationship with a pwBPD can have C-PTSD.  The constant drama keeps the psyche in high alert.  Over months or years, this takes its toll.  My uBPD/uNPD H would rage for the smallest things, break objects, punch holes in walls and otherwise, well, be BPD.

BTW, the is no such thing as too many dogs.   

Thanks, AskingWhy.

I have read "Splitting" and am in the process of rereading.

I am thinking, after reading the diagnosis for cPTSD as opposed to PTSD, that I fall in the former category. I will call a psychiatrist this week--got the referral from my primary. My heart rate is way too often over 100 for no reason, and given my age I'm concerned.

I'll ask you what I just asked ':)ucks. I just posted a thread about restoring my H's hard drive because of concerns he may have child porn on it, and because his searches for "Kill" outnumbered his searches for ":)ivorce" by about 3 to 1.

I have to go. I'm getting ready for my grandson's first birthday party.

Thank you for responding to me. Right now, I cannot believe how bad I need to know I'm not invisible.
   

TMD

[babyducks]

Hi TMD,

How was your day with the grandchildren?       I hope it was peaceful and relaxing.

  If you get a chance to pop over there, could you give me your opinion?
 

I did pop over and read your post.   my first thoughts I probably can't post here because they look like
shheeesh what #$% and #*& stupid #$#,... .I would probably get banned for offensive language.   I am going to let the senior members on Legal take a swing at that one because the legal complexities are above my head.

I will pick up one part of that thread, because you've mentioned this before

When he is psychotic

My understanding of psychosis is that of a lay person so I am wondering about your thoughts.

I understand psychosis to mean an impaired relationship with reality with either or both delusions and hallucinations.   My partner would sometimes dissociate so badly she appeared psychotic, she certainly dissociated so badly she became amnesic.   She would sometimes have brief psychotic breaks due to lack of sleep.    They often manifested during periods of intense weather.   She has driven a car with both hands out the window because 'the wind knew where the car should go'.   Gone out into a blizzard not dressed appropriately because 'snow is warm'.    often she had that psychomotor overflow thing.   her breaks tended to be brief in duration.   My P often said 'no one is psychotic 100% of the time'.    I understand  schizophrenia is different than bipolar.    I understand that paranoid schizophrenia is a whole different sub type.

I am wondering about your understanding of psychotic.   I think we all tend to define things by our experiences with them.   My experience, well I am not sure how to explain this,... .I guess I would say that since my experience was personal it tended to skew my perspective.   Made it hard to see the forest through the trees so to speak.     I thought I was prepared to handle the being on the roof in the middle of thunderstorm waving a golf club type stuff but I never really stepped back and looked at things from the 20,000 foot elevation.    I never thought about if I am legally and financially tied to this person what would it mean for me and my future to have her involved in a car accident where lives were lost.   perhaps I was blasé?    or perhaps like my P said I tended to project my positive attributes onto her just as she projected her negative attributes onto me and neither was accurate.

I'm rambling - sorry.

'ducks

[babyducks]

if you are not already overloaded I would point out Wools excellent post on managing emotional flashbacks over on coping:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=315252.0

[toomanydogs]

if you are not already overloaded I would point out Wools excellent post on managing emotional flashbacks over on coping:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=315252.0

That was really helpful. The gut wrenching sobbing I'm doing has been scaring me because it feels like it'll never stop, and I will die. Seriously, that's how it feels.

I now feel like I'm armed with knowledge and maybe more self-acceptance, so I can recognize that it's that little girl in me not understanding the present moment doesn't mean eternity.

As far as triggering, one of the reasons I have a medical marijuana card is because I recognized that being with my H was a trigger in itself and was re-traumatizing me. (Okay, TMD, pull back from judging yourself for staying in an environment that re-traumatized you.)

In answer to your question about having a good day with my grandkids: Yes. And yet when they left, I cried. This time, I'm fairly certain I was crying at the prospect of losing my home (and I know better than to pull myself out of the present and put myself in the distant, dismal future. Better to envision a loving future.)

After I stopped crying, I looked at dating sites for seniors. I'm not ready to "date" but I am ready to expand the people in my circle.

And after that, I went out with the big kids--friends my age--and had a really good time. Checking in with myself, I am acknowledging that didn't sleep great, but I'm taking advantage of waking up so early to write.

Here's to a good day,

TMD

[toomanydogs]

BTW, the is no such thing as too many dogs.   

LOL. Forgot to respond to this. I agree in theory. In reality, I have two elderly dogs (14 and 15), who didn't get along when they were young; they really hurt one another badly, wracked up $1000s in vet bills, and now when they are the equivalent of 90 year old women, they still try to fight.

I mean, they can't hear, can't see. They're both arthritic, yet when they get close to one another they growl and bear their teeth. And I'm too old to put up with all crap, so I keep them separated.

So, yup, I agree, there's no such thing as too many dogs, unless two of them try to pick fights.

   
TMD

[Cat Familiar]

The gut wrenching sobbing I'm doing has been scaring me because it feels like it'll never stop, and I will die. Seriously, that's how it feels.

This reminds me of when I did a breath seminar--I forget what it was called, but it was about releasing held emotions. There were many people in the room, we were all lying down on mats, music was played and we were instructed how deeply to breathe. After a while, I started crying and I felt like I was crying about a lifetime of hurt, and that it would never stop.

Apparently others were having the same experience. I think the seminar lasted about three hours. By that time, I felt like a wrung out sponge. I felt dry, empty, but it was a good feeling.

I'm not an emotional person and I seldom cry and when I do shed a tear, it's typically about something related to animals. So it was truly an odd experience, but it was very beneficial. My therapist had recommended it. She said it would be the equivalent of a few months of therapy.

If there's something like that you can find in your area, I would recommend doing it. I did it shortly after my dad and a favorite cat had both died. It was a great way to process a lot of grief and to get to a place where I had more emotional resources to deal with a pending divorce.