Have I reached maximum capacity for pain? Raging, police called, I'm at a loss

[ILuvABorderline]

I'm afraid that after another HUGE, next-level, blow up, that I'm shutting down. Even more so than I already had.

It started at about 12 am this morning. The usual tirade about lack of time spent with him, I don't care about him, etc.  (History: He usually stays up all night and sleeps all day. He worked nights for 20 years and hasn't broken the habit since he has been out of work. He is very hard to wake up. Blames me for not ensuring he gets up, etc.)

I confess that I do need to be more intentional about spending quality time with him. Somewhere along the way I have developed a strong aversion towards it. I understand this is a trigger for him but I somehow make myself immobile with anxiety worrying about potential blowups, etc. It seems "safer" while he is sleeping. Making any sense to anyone? I don't know how to overcome this. I start feeling extremely anxious starting around 3pm and it only gets worse. I try to busy myself or if the kids aren't home I will usually rot my brain with Netflix while I panic on the inside.

So I got into the bedroom that he lives in around 8 or so. We talk for a bit and things seem okay until he realizes that I am dozing off around 10:30ish. Eventually, things start to snowball and the stage is set for Act 1. An angry verbal assault. A couple hours on and off of this is par for the course. I fall asleep at some point.

Act 2: I wake with a start, not realizing why I woke up. Then I hear another fist hitting the shower wall. He is in the shower and doing one of his usually things, intermittently punching whatever he can reach. Not so bad, I'm pretty used to this. I cover myself with blankets, surround my head with pillows and remain still and quiet in preparation for what will happen when he gets out of the shower. It is 4 something AM. Verbal assault continues with pacing, hitting things, slamming things, etc. His tone of voice is reaching that pitch that tells me I need to buckle up and prepare for full on war. He continues to escalate his behavior. He is continuously taking to/at me about anything and everything negative and awful about myself. I don't reply or participate by arguing. Feeling kind of numb and dead on the inside. He interprets my silence, even though he has talked nonstop and I was acknowledging I heard him, as me ignoring him. I try to tell him that I don't know what to say and this just pisses him off further. Really I don't. How do you reply to that? There is no right answer. I just sort of feel like a small animal trying to play dead to get the scary predator to leave it alone and go away. I'm in a ball on the bed protected by pillows and covers. This is how I "flight."

Act 3: At some point, as he continues in his rage, he decides to go into the living room and wake his 18years younger than him baby sister, who is asleep on the couch. I sit up in the bed. I think about squeezing my big self into the small space between the bed and his bicycle. I try it for a bit. I get up and go back to sitting on the bed because I fear that seeing me hide like that might upset him even more. I think about the glass nearby and how little thought he gave to me the last time he threw something and busted ceramic and glass near my face. I hear him yelling. No. That is not a strong enough word. Screaming, in a total rage, level 10 episode at her. I hear the wall or something being hit. I hide by sitting on the bed, too scared to go stand inbetween the Borderline Beast and a young woman I love like she is my daughter/sister/best friend. I am ashamed of myself and my cowardice. I imagine myself walking into the living room and throwing myself over her to protect her but I remain glued to the bed. Scared of making things worse. She is 24. I am so saddened by my lack of assistance to her, I feel even LESS on the inside. Shutting down, feelings going away.

Act 4: He comes back into the bedroom. Says awful things about her, about me, about how if she calls the police he is going to make sure I go to jail, too. How I am going to lose the kids. How he doesn't trust me with them, etc. I don't remember what he said or did exactly, maybe hit something? I remember screaming in terror, yes TERROR, at the scariness of the situation, while he is yelling at me not to cry now, that he doesn't believe my tears. I stay sitting. Frozen. Hiding in plain sight. Tells me he is going to take a bottle of his pills. That the paramedics won't get there in time to pump his stomach. I believe him, but I don't move.

Act 5: He has disowned his sister. Wants her off of his property. She has called the police. The police enter our house and he "SPLITS." As in the Borderline Beast has left the building and in it's place is a calm, rational, well-mannered man who is just having a little disagreement with his wife. She is a terrible housekeeper, cuts him off from sex, etc. Police come to check on me. I answer their questions. Because he has threatened his life to both his sister and myself, the police decided to have him take an ambulance ride to the hospital for evaluation. The sun has come up by now. It is sometime between 7:30 and 8 am. While they are allowing him to collect his bag, he is saying nasty things to me but not overtly so. Just that he doesn't trust me, doesn't want me in the house when he comes back, how I'm losing the kids. An officer tells him that is Verbal Abuse and that everything he is saying is being documented. Shocked me a little bit. If they considered THAT verbal abuse, what would they think of the REAL tirade? He mentioned how he would be getting a restraining order for his sister and how he would be filing charges against me for CDV. You know, for that one time in the fall of 2016 that I punched his friggin' bicep. They take him to a local hospital.

Act 6: 10am, I hear the iPhone alert playing on an iPad. This is one of his many ways of remotely getting attention. Guess what? He is released from the hospital. Checked out just hunky dory, peachy keen, fine, fine, FINE. I have to hurry and grab things and leave. Came to his dad's house, who left to pick the wonderful Hubs up. Said he wanted to go back to the house and that neither myself nor his sister better be there. FYI, kids have been with grandparents this weekend and know nothing of the disaster.

I just needed to put all of this out there somewhere to people who knew what this life was like. I fight the bitterness and resentment that I feel when I look at other "normal" families. I understand everyone has their issues, but jeez. I am at a point where I am at a complete loss. Feeling a tad hopeless. My SIL has basically said she will not be in the presence of her brother again and does not want the children around him unsupervised, either. Told me if anything like this had happened in front of them she would call Child Protective Services herself. She works with kids and was abuse as a child by their crazy mother. I get where she is coming from. I don't know what to do. I haven't worked in 10 years and when I did I owned my own business. I have two kids 9 and 6. I homeschool them. My husband owned the house before we were married. It's his. He can come and go as he pleases. No way to keep him out or be safe from him. I have a small amount of money from my first husbands life insurance and I own a piece of land. I have thoughts of putting a Tiny House on it for just me and the kids. Maybe also one of those little shed houses as a schoolroom? I would only have a power bill to pay for each month. I don't know. This is my fantasy of having a safe spot. A place I can go to that I can legally prevent him from stepping on. I'm still hoping he will get help and this will work out. I have no  intentions of preventing him from seeing the kids when he is acting in his right mind. I just need a haven.

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[pearlsw]

Hi ILuvABorderline,

What you wrote here was absolutely riveting. I was in fear along with you, and wondering what would happen. I have to admit I am glad the police were called. This is all too far. When someone rages like this they are really taking advantage of us because... .Well, it is amazing how when the police show up the performance changes. We must never forget that despite mental illness there is still a measure of responsibility, especially if they were willing to release him because he "checked out" fine.

I am so sorry and saddened that you experienced such fear. 

You pose a question: "Have I reached my maximum capacity for pain?" How would you answer this today? Is this someone you can continue to live with under any circumstances? What would have to change in order to be under the same roof?

with compassion, pearl.

[ILuvABorderline]

I don’t know, Pearl. I really don’t. I saw him for a bit tonight. He just repeated ever awful thing he had said through text and in person this morning. He tries to force me to reconcile. He got pissed off when I told him that I didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to talk and that I wasn’t sure how I felt. On the Borderline rollercoaster. When I told him that if he didn’t stop texting me I was going to put my phone under my tire ( bad move on my part) he came rushing out of his dads house and towards my van. I locked the door. He told me to roll the window down. I told him no and then he started bashing my van with some unknown object. He cracked my freaking windshield and put two dents in my hood. I drove off terrified but then the cold numb feeling crept in. I can’t find my feelings. It sounds stupid but if feel dead. I blocked his number temporarily and he sent me a message through iPhone alert that he would go where the kids went. That he would be with them at all times. I am thinking of sleeping in a parking lot because I’m scared he might come to our house in the middle of the night. (Kids are with grandparents)

[Bright_80]

ILuvABorderline,

I'm worried about you. Praying for safety and some sense of peace for you. It sounds like he is not a safe person to be around right now. Do you have somewhere else you can stay? Friend or family?

[Ceiba2017]

Hello ILuvABorderline. I'm sorry that you have had to endure this. This sound pretty similar to a big blow up my husband had about 3 and 1/2 months ago. I did drop the BPD bomb knowing it might wreak havoc but i was so fed up. It started at about 9pm and the rage went on for hours. It escalated at a certain point with him breaking things and hitting himself until finally the police show up at 3:45 am. They talk to him and get him to calm down enough so I could go upstairs and lock the door and try to sleep. Of course he wakes me up 2 and 1/2 hours later playing piano and sobbing. I had to just totally listen and validate for about an hour that morning, after I was already drained. It took all I had.  I did the same thing the whole next day. The day after I felt burned out and resentful. I tried to talk about my feelings when things seemed calmer but he blew up again, drove to my work, waited for me to get out and demanded to go on a walk. Talking was impossible and he threw his wedding ring on the ground, ran away to the parking lot dropping his jacket along the way, left his shoes on the ground and then drove away glaring at me.  When I went home that night he forced me to listen to him for another two hours. I couldn't take it and left the house for an hour. I came home and went to bed so angry. The next morning I packed my bags and left for two months. Things seemed like they were improving and I went back for a month and left again a week ago.

This is not the first of his rages this has been reoccurring for some time. But I also resonated with what you said about your SIL.  My SIL also forbids her children from seeing my husband even though he had a good relationship with them. She's afraid that he will harm them due to his mental instability. It's sad but his explosive behavior has been tearing people apart.  I'm right now in the process of trying to detach but it's excruciating. All i can say is whatever decision you make things will be tough.  One of the books that helped me the most was the 'Stop Walking on Eggshells" book by Randi Kreger.  I found that it introduced me to the idea of boundaries so I could begin to protect myself.  I hope you find better days ahead for you and your children.