I don't know what to do

[justcantgiveup]

I read Stop Walking On Eggshells and finally realized what is driving the insanity that I have been experiencing for the last 3 years. The book describes my boyfriend so completely that suddenly everything made sense. From his initial idolization of me to his inability to control any emotion he has. When he is mad at me I am a terrible person and he will say the most horrible things he can think of. He has intense rages and the smallest trigger can set him off. It is getting harder and harder to bring him back down when that happens. He is constantly accusing me of cheating, the allegations sometimes are so bizarre like he actually seems to lose touch with reality. He forces me to text with him, literally 100's of texts all night long, and if I say I'm stopping he threatens me. I am sometimes afraid of him. He can also be the most loving, generous and affectionate man I've ever known. This relationship has me in knots all the time but I can't let it go. I'm afraid for us both and I don't know what to do.

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PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[judee]

Can I ask you.. does he ever seem aware of this behaviour? does he ever apologise?

[justcantgiveup]

Hi Judee, He is very aware that his anger is off the charts but he twists everything to make it my fault. He will occasionally offer a partial apology but it will always come with recriminations that I caused him to act out like that. He turns every word I say around and makes it into something I didn't mean. I have spent countless hours trying to explain myself to him and he dismisses every thought and feeling I have. It's incredibly frustrating. When he gets triggered [and that can be over the tiniest thing] it's impossible to bring him back down until he has expelled so much anger. He has almost no control over his emotions. That includes love and affection too. It's like his feelings are too big for him and it means I am on a constant emotional roller coaster with him.

[bugwaterguy]

It sounds like you are in a difficult place.

Stop trying to argue with him when he is accusing you of things.

When someone is in a highly emotional state - the logical part of their brain shuts off.  When you say he "loses touch with reality" you are 100% correct.  Anything you do to JADE (justify, argue, defend, or explain) will fail.

This sounds counter-intuitive, but have you tried agreeing with his feelings?  When he accuses you of cheating, could you say, "I would feel awful if I thought you were cheating on me.  That sounds horrible to feel that way."

Again - no logic or argument - just tuning into feelings.

[judee]

It sounds exactly at the level of my ex(he was diagnosed BPD) ... he would too turn it over to me whenever he lost it over something that made no sense to me. Or was even completely misheard/ understood by him.
It happened once (with a lot of patience and me repeating what I said) he finally understood what I was actually saying and he admitted he made up a whole narrative that wasn't true in his head. It was shocking to me because it never happened before, nor again after that one time
But then that would tip over as well into him continuing saying : ' the fact I make things like that up and falsely accuse you makes me a sick, SICK person.'
Which resulted again in me trying to convince him he wasn't and it is not that bad.
It is agony because no matter which way the argument goes it ends up in him feeling shame and rejection. I felt powerless and at the same time invisible.

I guess, as stated above ..keeping calm and validating his feelings are the only things you can do. And hopefully get to a point where he sees more clear what he is doing.

[mitten]

Isn't it amazing that once you learn about BPD, everything becomes so much more clear?  It just clicks.  I'm curious, how did you first learn about BPD, or hear about Stop Walking on Eggshells?   For me it was a late night google search about mood swings after we had a silly argument. 

[Seeleygirl]

He is very aware that his anger is off the charts but he twists everything to make it my fault. He will occasionally offer a partial apology but it will always come with recriminations that I caused him to act out like that. He turns every word I say around and makes it into something I didn't mean. I have spent countless hours trying to explain myself to him and he dismisses every thought and feeling I have. It's incredibly frustrating. When he gets triggered [and that can be over the tiniest thing] it's impossible to bring him back down until he has expelled so much anger. He has almost no control over his emotions. That includes love and affection too. It's like his feelings are too big for him and it means I am on a constant emotional roller coaster with him.

It sounds like you and I have the same boyfriend. I’m sorry I know exactly how you feel this is my pwBPD exactly. I would love to offer you help but I’m still navigating this whole thing myself. All I can say is that with my guy what seems to work is just not saying anything if you can. Trying to explain that I didn’t say or mean what he’s accusing me of saying/meaning just made everything worse. I will say non-committal things like OK or just nothing at all because he can’t tolerate listening during his “moments”. He doesn’t actually hear anything I say. Later on he is generally a little more able to converse about it but he still insists that I “take too long to explain” (this is anything longer than 5 seconds) or that things didn’t happen at all the way I think they did. And this is someone who agrees he has BPD but he insists that the worst symptoms of it aren’t the BPD. He says things like “he can’t always be wrong” or he “doesn’t want everything blamed on the BPD”. It’s frustrating because I don’t want him thinking that he’s a terrible person and you’d think that the BPD would be a perfect excuse for the behaviour that he himself doesn’t even like, but for some reason he’s just stuck in this place where he doesn’t want to read anything about it or do any of the DBT. All I can say is that it is marginally better since he learned he has BPD (even though this usually isn’t the case I understand) and he’s definitely better if you don’t engage in any kind of exchange when he’s exploding. I hope that helps. I’m sorry you’re going through this. Just make sure you’re safe and if you have any worries that he might be violent you should take that very seriously. ((HUGS)

[judee]

Isn't it amazing that once you learn about BPD, everything becomes so much more clear?  It just clicks.  I'm curious, how did you first learn about BPD, or hear about Stop Walking on Eggshells?   For me it was a late night google search about mood swings after we had a silly argument. 

Well he actually told me after two weeks or so that he got diagnosed with BPD a couple of years ago. I asked him what it meant for him. He explained he had severe fear of abandonment and could have suicidal thoughts. He kind of left out the anger. I thought I could handle it. It wasn't until right before we broke up I started reading about it and now it all makes sense. Good for you you figured it out by yourself..  I am also trying to get my head around it still , I hope I could be of more help to you but I hope at least you feel that people here have your back and have similar experiences...