The higher his blood sugar level, the more irritable he is... this morning 250

[isilme]

So we’d gotten down to 140ish fasting sugars, then yesterday it jumped to 200, this  morning to 250.  I’m not sure if he’s got a fever pushing it up, thermometers do t seem to read him, but he’s all over the place emotionally and my surprise half day off I may not get the rest I wanted.  Too wet to try to trim a shrub we need cut back, it’s stormy, also too humid to paint the front door as I wanted, and have a migraine hiding behind my eyes and asthma is kinda bad last two days, so I know he feels funky too.  I just don’t want a fight, or a day of nit picking.  But he’s already gone off, mildly but too much for me right now, based on a tv show triggering him.  Sigh.  Hoping I can go take a nap and be left alone.  The higher his sugar, the more irritable he is, he’s taking his meds, not sure why it’s been creeping up worse and worse.  His diets no better but not worse, his exercise has been less but it wasn’t good to start.  

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[isilme]

And getting screamed at for buying jelly instead of jam

[isilme]

And everything he finds wrong in life and in the world is now being yelled about, and of course I am unable to leave, I have either an allergic food reaction or food poisoning which is making him madder.  He never wants to do anything but not all can say is that he’s tired of not doing things... we just spent a weekend at a comic con, last weekend.  I am so tired of the irrational contracting statements.  So it’s all my fault because I don’t respect him enough to buy the right groceries.  He’s not gone to get groceries, alone, in like 3 years, and that was a one off as it was, I’m with him or I’m going alone.  I know logic isn’t going to work, I’m just venting. 

[Harri]

Ugh.  That sound so annoying to deal with isilme. 

I hope you feel better soon.

[isilme]

And now he’s demanding I go find a hotel, leave.  I a, being ‘passive aggressive ‘ because I didn’t want to go into them office and get yelled at to ask him about dinner.  So this man who yells he’s not a child is mad his sick tired wife did not go beg from him what to make for dinner.  I can’t drive right now.  I’m not going to risk it with how I feel. 

He is ignoring that I am sick, tired, not tired, exhausted.  The poisoning has passed but I am sore, this kept me up in cramping pain all night, no sleep, my MCAS meds are a mess today,

He’s mad I ruined his holiday... the holiday he never wants to do anything for.  He has no energy to grill, doesn’t want to go anywhere to see fireworks, etc.  but suddenly he is insisting it was all a big deal to him.

Know what I wanted? To be left alone to rest or work o things as my body allows.  His excuse, ‘I feel bad all day everyday, too’.  Yes, but you can control sugar a lot more than I can control random allergic reactions to everything I breathe, touch, or eat.  I would take diabetes over this.  I’d be managing my diet better, if it meant my feet would hurt less and I’d not be going blind.  Guess he doesn’t care, he’s the victim.  Poor him, got jelly instead of jam, oh my his wife sucks.  100s of groceries, and about one item in 5 trips is wrong... that’s totally a passive aggressive f you, right?

He has been watching a tv show and lots of angry feminist rants, and his mom makes misandrist comments all the time, and so he yelling at the tv characters, in-line ppl, his mom and his sister when he’s yelling at me.  He’s mad at me for making new friends with my k itting club, I knew that would be a trigger.  His last batch of ‘froends’ were horrible users, and me and another friend encouraged him to break ties with hem... he’s made no effort to see his steady, trustworthy friends.  Hell, he insisted I drag my 102 fever to dinner with his boss a few weeks back... he can’t deal with being a person, and so needs me there to buffer.  So I dragged my snotty self there and tried to not be gross.

 I am so tired.  In the bedroom now, going to sleep on the couch tonight, but I will take any sleep I can get.  I hate this.  He takes any mistake I make as a personally planned attack, not, she’s tired, she forgot, grabbed an item that looks the same save for one word.  Last time he got like this is was hot dogs.  At least he’s not been physical.  I know his sugar is a big part.  His birthday is coming, too. And he feels fat but wants to blame me cuz me being sick prevents him from exercising.  Hope I can get thru tonight and he can reset. 

[isilme]

So now I'm at work and can type.  He's ignoring me this morning.

Basically, I think this is a bunch of projection - he doesn't respect himself based on lots of reasons, having BPD alone would be plenty but now he's got diabetes and it's affected a lot of his body, feels bad about his appearance, so he is currently obsessing over how "women" just don't respect men.  He watches a lot of things that validate this mindset, like super feminist videos online, so he can accuse me of being mean to him, of thinking badly about him, that's right, THINKING...

He's already convicted me of thought crime and so when I really do make a mistake, like buying grape jelly instead of grape jam from the online curbside service he can attribute it to me being passive aggressive and use it as a way to demonstrate how I know buying the wrong groceries "hurts his feelings" and so I wouldn't make an honest mistake... and buy 100s of things right and make literally what amounts to less than 5% in errors.  I haven't got the energy for aggressive or passive-aggressive.  I just want to be left alone right now.  I don't have the energy for mind games, for him shifting on what he's yelling about, for him insisting I leave.  I might just do it at this point. 

We had a surprise half day on Wednesday - he wakes up feeling crappy, I was tired and knew a migraine was starting.  I called in for the morning since we had the afternoon off anyway, he did the same.  His sugar was 250.

I go grab us some lunch, try to let him know I am not feeling very well, my head is hurting, vision coming and going.  I take some OTC stuff for it, saving my Rx meds for later.  I don't give him the rundown of how I am exhausted, my arms feel like they have no strength, I really need to just sleep today.  We watch a show we'd both seen in the 90s, he starts to go off on something, decides I am arguing (I wasn't) and things went downhill from there, for like an hour he could not let it go.  He has projected two characters from the show onto me. I know high sugar makes him irritable, low sugar makes him rage to a dissociative level - low for him... not an actual low (that would be like 70, we can't get him under 100, hell 120).  He can hit 120 and freak out. 

I try to be positive and shift the mood, I think it was mostly successful?  I went, tried to take a nap to clear my migraine, did not work, I get up clean a little, and cook a dinner kit, it had poblano peppers on it which I questioned if I should eat since they are high histamine, all peppers are.  I could not remember if I'd had issues in the past, and so only used half the pepper, meaning we both at about 1/4 of it.  All in all, I had a Subway chicken sandwich, potato chips, plus dinner of flatbread with pineapple, bbq sauce, onions and poblano, and a cup of coffee.  I felt a little heartburn, queasy, a few hours later, ate a bowl of cereal to calm it down.  We stayed up stupid late to watch a movie - I acquiesced because he gets "sad" if we "go to bed early like old people".  4 am is not like old people.  That's when they wake up.  On purpose.     I'd noticed some gastro issues and bloating for a few days with things being slow, I took one Dulcolax which usually isn't bad to me, thinking it's work while I slept and things would be fine when I woke up - went to bed about 4:30 am.

By 6 am, I am in abdominal cramping pain, end up in the restroom being sick both directions, mostly it feels like I (sorry TMI) just large amounts of gas that need out.  It wasn't like lots of food product, and I was dry heaving, not vomiting because my stomach was actually empty.  H sleeps thru all this, I get back into bed about 10 am, try to sleep, pain is off and on.  He wakes up, I tell him I'm sick with something like food poisoning, he seems nonplussed.  Food poisoning is the best I can describe it, but it could very well have been a bad reaction to the drug, OR a histamine intolerance reaction to the pepper.  I have no way to know. Yay, MCAS.  And he has taken no time that I can tell to read anything or learn anything about my condition, and barely listens, and I frankly don't want to chase him to make him.  All he cares about is making fun of how much medication I take, and how the weird vials of cromolyn are much bigger to store than his diabetes meds. 

He did something nice, made me toast and eggs, then went to make him toast and eggs.  He must have felt okay-ish because he never cooks anymore.  He sits and waits for me to make food happen, often without giving me adequate input as to what he will actually eat to keep me from wasting my time making food he won't even try.  While making his food, he went for the newly purchased grape jam.. and freaked out it was jelly.  Told me I was demonstrating my lack of respect for him by not making sure to click the right thing... that's I'd have made sure for other men I know, like my boss or male coworkers (he went weird there).  It all circled around if I respect him I will never mess up, to which is stated, no, I do respect you but I am a human being and will make mistakes.  Then he fell into ranting about his mother and sister and brother a bit upset his family wants us to come to visit but he doesn't want to go, back to me disrespecting him because "I've told you not to mess up on groceries before!".  Because a purple jar and another identical purple jar can't be mistaken, innocently.  How he's mad he has "no friends" and that "yall" (me plus a couple we know) "made" him get rid of other friends - these guys weren't friends.  They used him for free drinks and were into drugs, ran off other friends, and overall are just not people we even enjoyed being with - we'd groan when something came up they wanted to do - not a loss.  Instead, H ignores or doesn't remember friends we still have, even if I try to get him to do something with them.  He went off, again, on the knitting club - I'm not supposed to go if he's not been provided with food and my "chores" aren't up to speed.  He's mad I have a place to go (he does, too, but doesn't like the people, all he can do is mock them), and am making new friends of a sort.  They are all 60+-year-old grandmothers, but okay, I'm having wild times talking about casting yarn onto needles in different ways.  Whoo. 

Yesterday was full of being sent from the room "like the child you are".  (huh?  or the child he thinks I think he is?)  After a while, he went to the studio, closed the door and as in there for hours and hours.  I was still cramping, in pain, no more urgent feelings, just pain, so I sat in the living room and played a game for several hours.  I wasn't paying much attention to the time, and I was not going to go poke my head into the studio to ask him anything.  I was enjoying not being yelled at, was not going to walk into that.  He came and went form the room, but where it's situated, I had no way to see if he got food or not. 

10:30 pm, he comes in mad I didn't make him dinner.  Bear in mind, I've been sick all day.  All day.  Had I bee able to go lie down and not be yelled at, I may have recovered, but I did not get that.  I had water yesterday, plus the toast and eggs he made me in the morning.  I was afraid to eat more, and had no appetite anyway - I often don't have much appetite, being more tired than hungry on average.  But, I was being passive aggressive by not making him dinner (I never make him food without getting confirmation of what he wants... food has been wasted when I've picked dinner).  It's the not that he was being so unpleasant I had no desire to go ask him, and that food made me feel yucky and that I ha;f ass figured he'd have grabbed the other half of his subway sandwich if was was actually hungry, right?  No, I was being a bitch and denying a diabetic food.  A diabetic who has already shown today he could get his own food, a diabetic who CAN drive but refuses who could have at any time gone to get food... no, I failed to be mommy, when I am not supposed to be mommy, and provide him with food.   

He also went on and on about how he had a terrible holiday (he gives 2 effs about the 4th, won't even go look at fireworks most years, hates driving out of town to see them, hasn't felt up to BBqing and made no mention of plans to BBQ) and how I ruined it by being sick and by being a bitch.  Poor him, didn't even get a hot dog on the 4th (could not have possibly driven himself to Sonic, right?)

No matter what, he had more yelling to do, and so he did it. 

I do ALL grocery shopping (plus all cleaning, laundry, 99% of the cooking, pet care, yard care when I can or I'm the one to make all arrangements to get it done). 

His part?  Take 15 minutes a week to put things onto a shared list online.  I'm the one who either goes in person to the store or takes the time to recreate the list on the curbside order and then goes, picks it up, brings it all in, puts it all away.  Now, with asthma so by the time I'm done unloading the car I need a break.  And since this is a hot topic, I panic when the store is out, or I can't find something.  And I DO try to get every damn thing exactly as he asks for it - this is a common freak out - I have to wonder if his mom forgot things he wanted and got stuff his siblings asked for instead. 

I know it's not about the groceries.  It's about him feeling no one respects him.  He likes to equate respect with fear when in this mood.  So in 24 hours he has threatened me, told me he should break my hand next time I get the wrong things at the store, told me to get a hotel and get out of his house, that I deserved to be beaten as a child by my mentally ill parents because look at how passive aggressive I am, of course, they smacked me. 

I can't make him feel respect when all he does day in and day out is talk badly about himself.  How he's ugly, fat, not a man, geriatric (by choice. manage your sugar you'll feel better), has a loser job, how he's not accomplished his [grandious] dreams, blah blah blah.  I know the BPD makes him project all internal feelings onto me so he doesn't have to face them as his problems, so he can now feel justified in being mad at someone, me, to process those feelings.  I am just tired.  I clicked jelly instead of jam on a list of over 20+ items.  The text is small, I missed the word.  I typed in JAM, but the list included jelly and I didn't realize it.  And I have to wonder if that had not been an issue if I'd bought the right item, would he have found another thing to freak out on me about as the day progressed?  Because I got sick?  Or because his sugar is so high he's got diabetic PMS? 

I just need to type all this out here, now, so I won't have it bouncing around in my head later.  I am still too tired to feel much right now.  Or the increased serotonin and dopamine in my system from my MCAS treatments are making me less triggered myself.  I feel low-level frustration right now, more of a "can't you get yourself together?" feeling, than a panic, yet, over how long this will last, and when it will end. 

[isilme]

ok, he at least responded about going to lunch.  Will see if I get the silent treatment, or yelled at more. 

[MiseryMarriage#3]

I have enjoyed reading your posts.  You have had some very insightful things to say.  I thought, wow, she really knows BPD.  You should be a therapist.  So, I started reading more.  I can see why you know so much.  Wow. 

I had a couple of questions, because I worry for myself.  I wonder if your diagnosis has to do with all the negative emotions that you have to feel/experience/endure because of this person.  I feel like I am in the worse shape of my life because of all the misery I experience with him regularly.  Second question is why do you stay?  For me, I'll tell you straight up.  Finances.  He has shown growth and progress but some of the stuff he pulls I would have bailed on him a long time ago if I didn't need him in some regard.  Sorry if that sounds terrible.  I just wonder.  Do you love him?  Do you worry if he would be okay without you? 

I'm sorry for what you experience with this man.  What a miserable human!  I hope that this is not the day-to-day norm.  If my issues with my BPD were like that daily I would be homeless and live under a bridge before putting up with that kind of stuff.  I'm just trying to understand why people do what they do.  Myself included.  He has a tempter tantrum/rage fest/meltdown about once a week.  I catch him in lies regularly.  And he drinks once a month.  That's his pattern.  I'm trying to break him of it.  We go to counseling.  And I've put some pretty severe and painful consequences in place if he does this stuff.  He agreed and signed the document.  I can't accept some parts of his BPD.  I don't know if it's setting us up for failure or at the very least giving me an out when I do leave him.  We'll see. 

[isilme]

MiseryMarraige#3,

I love him.  That's why I stay.  I tried my best about 13 years ago to make up my mind if staying, even if we never got married would be a more fulfilling life for me, or if I should strike out on my own and give life a shot without him.  I've stayed 10 more years, and we finally got married 3 years ago. 

I am broken myself, I know it.  You can't have my childhood and escape damage.  I try my best to be a good person, and also recognize when I am feeding my own codependency rather than trying to be a healthy member in the relationship.  I try.  People who were raised by damaged people often seek out damaged partners - H saw my codependent need, my reviser, the flip side of BPD and I saw what I knew, albeit in a less order of magnitude. 

On good days, which there are quite a few, he gets me pretty well.  And I think I get him.  We share so many common interests, and when I can get him out of a funk, I am able to enjoy life more.  But as chronic illness takes a toll on him, it is inevitable it will take a toll on me.  This happens even in the most healthy marriage with the best-adjusted people on the planet. 

Bad days, I come here. 

His sugar is still 20-30 points higher than his best "norm" but we've made it to the pool 3 times this week to exercise.  We both took it pretty easy, I told him I need to watch my asthma, don't want a fit in the pool.  He saw my purse-bag with my inhaler and epi device, and got scared - I don't think he has internalized just how sick I am myself, and how much I need to rebuild of my stamina... but that's ebcause I know it scares him.  I find that "trickle-truthing" him is the best method - start with a small idea (she carries and epi-device, her doc told her to) and then once he's sued to it, tell him I need to be cautious about stings and bites... then later, about unexpected strong scents. etc. 

Ever read the Hobbit?  When Gandalf takes the dwarves and Bilbo to Beorn's house, he cautions them to not all come at once, Beorn won't like it.  So he has them come two at a time, only when he signals it's safe... So Beorne ends up with 13 dwarves and a hobbit in his house, but because they didn't all rush him at once, he's cool with it.

That's my life.  When I can radically accept things, and things are mostly even, I think it's an okay life.  When my emotional resilience is way down, and I am physically hurting and tired, I need help.

[MiseryMarriage#3]

@isilme Thank you for your honesty and candor.  There's so much on here about the bad sides of people with this condition that I wanted to inquire about what keeps people going.  I want to quit often.  Thank you for your insight.