How to deal with life when the person you love has BPD ?

[Depression = 72% of members]

No one told me it was going to be like this. It was always semi hidden and the love I had for her covered so much of what was wrong but when you throw a child into the mix, everything changes and all of a sudden it turns into a suffocating octopus who’s only intention seems to be to suffocate you. All those little things that we ignore, those irritating habits we have, suddenly turn into life changing events. All the past is ripped from its roots and thrown at you while those who were there, those who were responsible for some of the things that happened are once again loved and cherished.

Your child begins to feel something is not quite right and begins to levitate towards you and the significant other now feels a further threat and adds that to the endless list of things you are doing wrong, things you are doing to consistently undermine her very essence.

The dishwasher is loaded to irritate her, my toothbrush is left on the side or the cupboard door left open are now situations being created because I know they will irritate her but I don't and never would.

I have not changed, I still wake up every morning feeling the same, happy to be alive, looking forwards to the days events, who I will meet, what will happen? I sometime still feel like a child on a summer holiday in the French countryside. I love everything about my life and hopefully always will but every morning I'm confronted in the kitchen by silence, and huffing and grunting and questions driven by anxiety and negativity and my stomach begins to become knotted as the day starts. She begins to obsess around our son and I feel like I don't exists in the room. I'm told the bin is too full, there's no food, the porridge is too hot and so the first lists of everything that is wrong begins.

I check the computers history and there is a stream of people from facebook she's been checking on and searches for non existent ailments that my son is suffering from, then the searches for how to cope with depression, anxiety and hopelessness. But I thought it was me who was the one behind all her problems or at least that's what I'm told every day, not her abuse as a child or the violence inflicted on her mother by her abusive father. Feelings of abandonment and fear she tells me about on days when everything needs to come out, then as quickly as it appeared, it disappears again.

This will repeat itself hour after hour, day after day and then, finally at night time it's a film, as talking is just too difficult. Then bed and more silence and we sleep and then it continues the next day.

So my question is, why is it that it's so difficult to find groups, other people suffering from having to live in this endless negativity and why is this condition the shape shifter it is, never knowing from day to day where we will be or what it will be like. I live in the UK and know this is on the rise but all I want to do is talk to others affected and begin to understand how to live with it.

[Fuller]

No one told me it was going to be like this. It was always semi hidden and the love I had for her covered so much of what was wrong but when you throw a child into the mix, everything changes and all of a sudden it turns into a suffocating octopus who’s only intention seems to be to suffocate you. All those little things that we ignore, those irritating habits we have, suddenly turn into life changing events. All the past is ripped from its roots and thrown at you while those who were there, those who were responsible for some of the things that happened are once again loved and cherished.

Your child begins to feel something is not quite right and begins to levitate towards you and the significant other now feels a further threat and adds that to the endless list of things you are doing wrong, things you are doing to consistently undermine her very essence.

The dishwasher is loaded to irritate her, my toothbrush is left on the side or the cupboard door left open are now situations being created because I know they will irritate her but I don't and never would.

I have not changed, I still wake up every morning feeling the same, happy to be alive, looking forwards to the days events, who I will meet, what will happen? I sometime still feel like a child on a summer holiday in the French countryside. I love everything about my life and hopefully always will but every morning I'm confronted in the kitchen by silence, and huffing and grunting and questions driven by anxiety and negativity and my stomach begins to become knotted as the day starts. She begins to obsess around our son and I feel like I don't exists in the room. I'm told the bin is too full, there's no food, the porridge is too hot and so the first lists of everything that is wrong begins.

I check the computers history and there is a stream of people from facebook she's been checking on and searches for non existent ailments that my son is suffering from, then the searches for how to cope with depression, anxiety and hopelessness. But I thought it was me who was the one behind all her problems or at least that's what I'm told every day, not her abuse as a child or the violence inflicted on her mother by her abusive father. Feelings of abandonment and fear she tells me about on days when everything needs to come out, then as quickly as it appeared, it disappears again.

This will repeat itself hour after hour, day after day and then, finally at night time it's a film, as talking is just too difficult. Then bed and more silence and we sleep and then it continues the next day.

So my question is, why is it that it's so difficult to find groups, other people suffering from having to live in this endless negativity and why is this condition the shape shifter it is, never knowing from day to day where we will be or what it will be like. I live in the UK and know this is on the rise but all I want to do is talk to others affected and begin to understand how to live with it.

[Sylfine]

Hi Fuller!  Welcome to the boards.  I can't speak to your situation personally as my uBPD person is my mother - I don't have to live with her.  But please know you are not alone!  There are many people on these boards in very similar situations as yourself.  Once you can recognize the BPD "script" or "player's handbook", it will help deal with it from your POV.  Please make sure to check out the Tips and Tools, and the pinned posts at the top.  Don't be afraid to vent.  Sometimes just getting it all out and hearing validation from others is such a relief.  Hugs hun!