He has PTSD, but looks a lot like BPD

[Hoopla]

This is my first post here--thanks for reading.

Someone else posted about their partner who has PTSD, but whose symptoms strongly mirror BPD. I too came on here because I just finished the book "Stop Walking on Eggshells" and most of it really blew my mind as to the similarities. I guess this version of PTSD would be called complex PTSD, which can most closely resembled BPD.

I've been working a lot on boundaries for myself, as well as communication and extraction tools when he flies off the handle.

The rages won't ever happen out of the blue with him (which I think would be more common with BPD,) but pretty much only when I try to talk about my feeling re. his behavior toward me, how his actions affect me, my fears, or when I question him about something he's somehow uncomfortable with.

It doesn't take long until he grabs what I say, twists it, makes it all about him, rages off on all sorts of perceived meanings of what I said, onto cognitively distorted reasoning, and ultimately, a panic attack, upon which he needs to end the conversation and be left alone.

A lot of our conflicts are about honesty. I don't have any reason to believe he's ever cheated on me or lied. But he is secretive to a point that's been making it very, very hard not to assume everything under the sun. He says that, due to his childhood sexual abuse (source of his PTSD) he's gotten in the habit of being very private and secretive about things. Though I understand that, it's not very conducive to our relationship, especially when he starts panicking and raging when I try to get to the bottom of things. 

Now, everything I know about people tells me that's a sign of something to hide. But with PTSD and possibly BPD in the mix, I don't know anymore. 

He was in therapy for 2 years, but he abruptly ended it about a year ago. After months of not telling me why and what happened, he confided that his therapist had essentially raped him. Yes. I feel awful saying this, but I don't know what to believe about that. Apparently he reported it to the medical board and apparently, they couldn't find enough evidence to bar the therapist. But I have no evidence of any of the above. He now refuses to see another therapist, saying he's so severely re-traumatized, he can't. That, of course, is a problem.

I don't know, maybe I'm just upside down at this point, but I often find myself wondering what's actually truly going on... .

I guess I'm shopping for communication tools and/or more insight into how others have coped with similar behavior.

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[Tattered Heart]

Hi Hoopla,

I'm sorry that things have been so difficult for you in your relationship. You've found a great place for support. You mentioned that your H will get upset any time you confront him about his own behavior or things that you think he is trying to hide. This makes a lot of sense. pwBPD have an intense fear of rejection and when confronted with their own behavior, they begin to fear that since they are "bad" that they are being rejected,  and so they lash out at the person they believe is rejecting them.

Could you share a little more details about how you question your H about things? It's possible that you may be able to re-phrase things in a way that can get past the shame and rejection he feels so you can address the issue or at the very least do so in a way that is seen by him as being empathetic.

[Hoopla]

Thank you for reaching out, Tattered Heart. Yes, I've often wondered about the "fear of rejection" element of his reaction. That's why I always make sure to ask him questions in a reassuring tone and try to give him the feeling that no matter what he tells me, it's alright.

 A reason he has shared for why he may be reacting this way is that being pushed to talk about something he doesn't want to talk about makes him feel like he's losing control, which, in turn, triggers him. He always needs to be in control about what we talk about (when it's about emotional subjects,) when we talk, for how long we talk, and in what manner we talk about it.

I have tried a number of approaches trying to speak to him about these things. From making myself very vulnerable, sharing my emotions to very calm, fact-based, and non-confrontational to humor even.

None of these approaches have worked. He will give me some sort of unsatisfactory and often quite contradictory answer to my question, and if I continue to ask questions (because his answer didn't quite make sense) the dismissing, invalidation, deflection, rage, and panic will start. He will accuse me of not listening or that I have some sort of awful suspicion in my mind (which, I admit, has become true over time.) He's convinced he answered the question, while I feel like his answer just opened up 10 new questions that need answering. We can't just talk calmly about a question I have and move on, which just makes these questions ten times larger than they (maybe) even are.

I'm always calm, I choose I-statements, I inquire with genuine curiosity and interest. I'm at a loss.

[Tattered Heart]

Interesting. It makes me wonder if the avoiding reaction is more of a PTSD reaction than BPD. Some of the things he has experienced may be too much for him to handle sharing with just you, which I can imagine is frustrating since he won't go to a T because of his past experiences.

When I see conflicts over power (which is what he makes it by needing to regain control) I try to let the other person have the power back. One way may be to give options.

He shares something hard. Your response might be to simply say "Thank you for sharing that with me. I know it was hard and I feel like I have a better understanding of things. I still have a few more questions to clarify though. Would you be ok with us talking about 2 more things?"

or

"Thank you for sharing that with me. I know it was hard and I feel like I have a better understanding of things. I still have a few more questions to clarify though. Can I ask you a couple more questions now or would you like to take a 30 minute break?"

How do you think he would respond to something like that?

[Hoopla]

Interesting. It makes me wonder if the avoiding reaction is more of a PTSD reaction than BPD.

He shares something hard. Your response might be to simply say "Thank you for sharing that with me.

Definitely, when we are talking about anything related to his trauma, that is how I react. Or rather, I don't ask about it, press him on it, or even ask him to clarify when I'm confused about what he's said. It's his trauma and I'm just glad he shared.

But... .this doesn't work so well when something isn't overtly trauma-related and has something to do with me. For example, he guards his phone like a hawk and a few months ago, I saw him trying to delete a conversation on there so I wouldn't see it. Naturally, I was shocked and asked him what the heck that was about. He swore up and down that he wasn't trying to hide something hurtful etc, but he quickly flipped and had a panic attack. It took 2 (!) months of me trying to talk about it but him needing to "calm down" until we could finally discuss it.

He told me he was afraid I'd see this woman had harmlessly gotten in touch with him and he wanted to avoid conflict, so he deleted it. He also says that this is a trauma thing, trying to avoid conflict as to not get triggered.

It's taken everything in me to believe him, because, really, I don't have any evidence to the contrary, but my worst fear is that I'm being manipulated here and I just have no way of really getting to the bottom of things.

This is just an example. He hasn't, as far as I know, cheated on me or is in any other way dallying around with other women. I'm making the conscious choice to "just trust him," but really, this dynamic of my alarm bells tinging, then getting muddied by his explanations and reactions, and having the whole resolution process feel like pulling teeth... .is really wearing me down.