Managing a traumatic life event and subsequent implosion

[Makava]

I posted about nine months ago about my then ex-girlfriend, who split me hard and blocked me. I only figured out about BPD after the breakup. About three months ago, she called me back and essentially wanted to reconnect, which ended up happening.

In general things have been going MUCH better - while BPD specifically has never come up, she's sought significant mental health treatment that she hadn't been seeking before, for childhood traumatic experiences and dysregulated emotions. Without using the term for the disorder, we've discussed the symptoms and behaviors in pretty fine detail. We've also been able to develop a very honest rapport about her mental health treatment, history, and problems. She's comfortable sharing her emotions with me in a way that simply wasn't true before. Although she's split me a few times, all the reading I've done has proven immensely helpful: I try to calmly validate her feelings, give her space, and not overreact. Within a few hours she almost always comes around entirely, apologizes, and everything is okay.

Here's the new challenge: due to a series of unrelated life events, her progress has taken a very sharp downward turn. She was the victim of a violent mugging that ended with her being concussed with the butt of a gun, and two days after, was rejected for a job promotion that was very significant for her. And the result has been chaos: suddenly (and understandably) she has become virtually too scared to be alone or leave her apartment. That in turn has fed a lot of revisiting of childhood traumas, and an avalanche of anger and anxiety. And a lot of the worst symptoms have returned: eating disorder, self harm, suicidal thoughts. This all culminated a couple days ago with a terrifying day where she had, for lack of a better word, an hours-long fit. I was literally pleading with her to stop hurting herself while she shut herself in the bathroom and hit herself in the head and banged her head on the sink until she likely reconcussed herself. The next day she had calmed by taking a prescribed sedative but I'm still worried sick that we'll see a repeat, and particularly that she is going to cause some kind of lasting brain trauma by repeatedly reconcussing while recovering from the initial one.

She is speaking to her therapist about this, but the explosion of problems seems far beyond what can be plausibly addressed in a one-hour therapy session. The last few months have suggested to me that I can manage the day-to-day insecurities and emotions pretty well, and of course being the victim of a terrifying violent crime is a pretty good excuse for a breakdown, but I'm still just not sure how to deal when this happens. Any advice for dealing with these lowest lows, particularly when they're attached to traumatic events like this, is strongly appreciated.

[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.

[bugwaterguy]

That sounds horrible - I don't have any advice - but there are people who care about you and her.

Do you feel safe?  Have you researched residential treatment options?

[Makava]

Oh I'm perfectly safe. She gets uncontrollably angry but, as she's told me explicitly, she directs it towards herself, hence her punishing herself with self-harm and disordered eating behavior. Part of what is upsetting is that when she's very dysregulated, she can describe, with seeming calm detachment, exactly how she feels and why she's doing what she's doing, but she can't stop herself from doing it, because "it helps."