I can’t stop questioning everything I just said

[Depression = 72% of members]

When I came to this community it was a few days before my birthday, I’m 41 now.  I posted to the board about improving an existing relationship.  However, over this most recent weekend relations between me and my pwBPD got much worse.  I think I went in search of a community like this days before because I knew that it was coming, or at least I suspected that something significant was about to happen and I couldn’t do it alone, not this time.  Before this most recent meltdown we were on our longest streak of getting along well in the past year.  The streak was 3 weeks.  I knew the way I was managing my contributions to the relationship was wrong.  I was walking on eggshells all the time, lying about things to avoid confrontations, hiding things from her (namely any interaction with my ex-wife about my son), and being very invalidating at times.  Plus, I’m sure there have been many other things I could have been doing better in order to maintain the peace.  I’ve read some of the resources this site has and I can see that I have plenty of room for improvement.  I think early on in our relationship, while we were heavily infatuated with one another, I was much more inspired to learn everything I could about BPD and putting my new knowledge into practice.

With her fresh from treatment, lightly medicated, and going to an awesome therapist regularly (sometimes I joined too for marriage therapy if any warning signs emerged) we were doing great. I was laid off from work with a nice severance package around that time so I was around all the time for almost a year.  My bipolar was treated and I joined an outpatient program to address my difficulties with depression and anxiety.   Just as the program was ending, my father died.  My pwBPD was supportive and came with me to the hospital every day while he was fading away.  Around this time I think I lost a lot of my focus on her.  My package from work ran out and I still wasn’t working, my pwBPD had to go to work full time which she resented because she planned to go back to school full time and I told her I’d try to cover the bills while she studied.   Heath insurance ended, so did my medication and therapy.  I took a night job in a factory making 85% less than I did before.   My depression and anxiety were out of control.  I was having panic attacks 2-3 times a day.  I was spending all day in bed.  Then we moved to a bigger place so my son and step daughter would have their own rooms.  Over several months I slowly got my mind back, landed a better job, and was starting to enjoy life again.  It was a dark time.

During all this darkness, almost immediately after my Dad died, my pwBPD went back to raging often.  She lost patience with my emotional issues quickly, like maybe a few weeks.  She’d mock me, swear at me, call me names, and so on.  I wasn’t validating her as well as I did in the beginning.  I lost my focus on her and was fighting stay alive, suicide was a very real possibility for me.   I began lying and hiding things.  I would do the bare minimum to curb her rage and fear of abandonment with empty comments and distracted observations.  I began hating her.  She made every day a nightmare from my perspective.  I hated her for not allowing me to take care of myself.  I now know that I had the power to help myself the whole time, I just decided to hide from her rage instead.  Now, that I am feeling a lot better I still have this hatred and resentment.  

I thought that I could rewind my experience to before I went through this long depressive episode.  Get back to the formula that was working for us.  But, I don’t think I love her anymore.  I don’t think I’m improving my approach to her in order to “fix” us.  I think I’m doing this to end us with the least amount of collateral damage as possible.  

I find that when I’m having a lot of anxiety around my relationship with my pwBPD thinking about living alone again, with just my son, is the fantasy I turn to in order to calm myself.   Imagining an end to this if a great comfort.

Here is my confusion, and my biggest problem.  I can’t stop doubting myself.   I can’t stop questioning everything I just said.  :)o I still love her?  Can I put the last year of darkness behind me?  Will memories of her calling me terrible names and mocking my depression by making fun of my voice and dancing around like a caveman repeating my words with disgust  ever soften?  When I have those memories now my hands get cold and clammy.  When the phone shows a txt from her my heart immediately starts pounding with fear.  I don’t know if I can ever get back to “doing the work” to validate her and assure her that I am not going to abandon her all the time.   And if she’s not treating her BPD why would I try so hard?

My pwBPD is a good person and deserves love.  I just don’t know if it’s worth the pain anymore.  

[Steeplechase]

When I came to this community it was a few days before my birthday, I’m 41 now.  I posted to the board about improving an existing relationship.  However, over this most recent weekend relations between me and my pwBPD got much worse.  I think I went in search of a community like this days before because I knew that it was coming, or at least I suspected that something significant was about to happen and I couldn’t do it alone, not this time.  Before this most recent meltdown we were on our longest streak of getting along well in the past year.  The streak was 3 weeks.  I knew the way I was managing my contributions to the relationship was wrong.  I was walking on eggshells all the time, lying about things to avoid confrontations, hiding things from her (namely any interaction with my ex-wife about my son), and being very invalidating at times.  Plus, I’m sure there have been many other things I could have been doing better in order to maintain the peace.  I’ve read some of the resources this site has and I can see that I have plenty of room for improvement.  I think early on in our relationship, while we were heavily infatuated with one another, I was much more inspired to learn everything I could about BPD and putting my new knowledge into practice.

With her fresh from treatment, lightly medicated, and going to an awesome therapist regularly (sometimes I joined too for marriage therapy if any warning signs emerged) we were doing great. I was laid off from work with a nice severance package around that time so I was around all the time for almost a year.  My bipolar was treated and I joined an outpatient program to address my difficulties with depression and anxiety.   Just as the program was ending, my father died.  My pwBPD was supportive and came with me to the hospital every day while he was fading away.  Around this time I think I lost a lot of my focus on her.  My package from work ran out and I still wasn’t working, my pwBPD had to go to work full time which she resented because she planned to go back to school full time and I told her I’d try to cover the bills while she studied.   Heath insurance ended, so did my medication and therapy.  I took a night job in a factory making 85% less than I did before.   My depression and anxiety were out of control.  I was having panic attacks 2-3 times a day.  I was spending all day in bed.  Then we moved to a bigger place so my son and step daughter would have their own rooms.  Over several months I slowly got my mind back, landed a better job, and was starting to enjoy life again.  It was a dark time.

During all this darkness, almost immediately after my Dad died, my pwBPD went back to raging often.  She lost patience with my emotional issues quickly, like maybe a few weeks.  She’d mock me, swear at me, call me names, and so on.  I wasn’t validating her as well as I did in the beginning.  I lost my focus on her and was fighting stay alive, suicide was a very real possibility for me.   I began lying and hiding things.  I would do the bare minimum to curb her rage and fear of abandonment with empty comments and distracted observations.  I began hating her.  She made every day a nightmare from my perspective.  I hated her for not allowing me to take care of myself.  I now know that I had the power to help myself the whole time, I just decided to hide from her rage instead.  Now, that I am feeling a lot better I still have this hatred and resentment.  

I thought that I could rewind my experience to before I went through this long depressive episode.  Get back to the formula that was working for us.  But, I don’t think I love her anymore.  I don’t think I’m improving my approach to her in order to “fix” us.  I think I’m doing this to end us with the least amount of collateral damage as possible.  

I find that when I’m having a lot of anxiety around my relationship with my pwBPD thinking about living alone again, with just my son, is the fantasy I turn to in order to calm myself.   Imagining an end to this if a great comfort.

Here is my confusion, and my biggest problem.  I can’t stop doubting myself.   I can’t stop questioning everything I just said.  :)o I still love her?  Can I put the last year of darkness behind me?  Will memories of her calling me terrible names and mocking my depression by making fun of my voice and dancing around like a caveman repeating my words with disgust  ever soften?  When I have those memories now my hands get cold and clammy.  When the phone shows a txt from her my heart immediately starts pounding with fear.  I don’t know if I can ever get back to “doing the work” to validate her and assure her that I am not going to abandon her all the time.   And if she’s not treating her BPD why would I try so hard?

My pwBPD is a good person and deserves love.  I just don’t know if it’s worth the pain anymore.  

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[babyducks]

Thank you for the honest and gutsy post religispill.

I don't know if you have ever had the experience, here on this site,  of reading someone's post and saying Holy #$%  that's me.   I feel exactly like that.   You put into words some of the stuff I have felt and do feel.

I too struggle with some horrible bouts of depression.    and right now I am exactly where you are with

 
Here is my confusion, and my biggest problem.  I can’t stop doubting myself.   I can’t stop questioning everything I just said.

When I have those memories now my hands get cold and clammy.  When the phone shows a txt from her my heart immediately starts pounding with fear.

My Ex and I are no longer together.   Her choice.    I do see her frequently in public places where I am required to be.     When I see her, when her car is in the parking lot across the street from me, I nearly panic.

and what's worse, it's like I have adopted or maybe integrated her vicious critic and now when I go and do something,   I criticize myself, the same way she would.   

I just wanted to say I feel your pain.    and can't wait to see how this thread plays out.   thanks for opening the topic.

'ducks

[Steeplechase]

Babyducks -- thank you for the reply. 

I really need to figure out how everyone is using that "quote" feature on these posts... .

What you said about your inner critic scares me.  I realize now that a lot of what I thought was charming about me, my quirks and stuff like being a daydreamer, always kind of spaced out and lost in thought now feels  like an affliction.  My pwBPD brings it up so often as a flaw in both me and my son.  She points it out as a terrible weakness and has even criticized my intelligence over it.  I now feel bad about it.  I feel like I've passed on some curse to my son as well.  I stress about it often.  When I'm around her I am very careful not to zone out or seem distant in fear of a lecture and a slew of passive aggressive insults.

Damnit!  Before her I was just a dreamer, kinda artsy, and full of ideas and thoughts. Now I'm ashamed of it and feel like something is wrong with me.  Shame on me.  How did I let someone hijack my self awareness?

 

[AskingWhy]

Shame is one of the things that plague partners of pwBPD.

Between your own issues (that you are dealing with), and your recent loss of your father, you have a lot on your plate.

Don't fault yourself for being "hijacked."  It happens to many of us.

In my own case, my uBPD/uBPD husband went from kind and caring husband to a raging, demanding bully.  It took about two year from the time we married to full-blown dysregulated rages.  H was frequently abused by his X W who is uNPD, and their children, all of whom butter him up when they want money.  He is horribly enmeshed with his children, especially the daughters who treat him more like a husband than a father.  Often H dysregulated when his X W was gouging him for child support, money he knew was not going to his children but to fund their mother's new marriage to a lover.  (His X W cheated on him and then divorced him.)  As a result, H projected his rage onto me.  

Put at the bottom of my H's priorities, my self-esteem took a nose dive.  I no longer was the same person as when I married.  I was once happy, spontaneous and had great confidence.  I became depressed for many years as the children took priority in their father's heart and thoughts.

You will slowly learn to trust yourself as you move forward.  As you improve in your own issues, you will feel better about yourself and begin to see the problems with your W are not of your making.

[Cat Familiar]

I too was deeply damaged by my BPD/NPD/ASPD. He undermined my self-confidence, belittled me, mocked me, and generally tried to make me as miserable as he was.

Thankfully after I left that relationship, I found a great therapist who helped me regain my confidence, self-respect and learn to build better boundaries. 

[Steeplechase]

@askingwhy -- Thank you for sharing some of your story with me.  It gives me more hope that I will be soon start to see some improvement in my own self esteem.    It sounds like your H's relationship with his children is disturbing.  My pwBPD shows a lot of resentment towards my son when she's angry with me or if his Mom's presence is somehow manifest.  I confronted her last weekend and told her that she either had to be nice to my son or stay away from him.  She's kept her distance ever since.  I hate that she won't have breakfast with us or say goodbye to him when she leaves for work, but it's better than talking to him only when she wants to criticize him or discipline him. 

@Catfamiliar -- I've been without health insurance for several months so no therapy for me   I plan to enroll in benefits soon though, I just got a promotion recently.  Let the Therapist interviews begin! I can't wait.