(Almost) first post - don’t know how to make a decision

[joanpilot]

I posted on the staying board but it was in a quite disorganized way and I’d like to try again.

I don’t know what to do. Or I do know what I should do but I haven’t been able to do it. I am in a three year relationship with someone I suspect has BPD. For the first year or so of our relationship, I was dazzled by her intelligence, sophistication, taste, wit, sex appeal — as I have read from many others here. We moved in together about 18 months ago and the situation has completely deteriorated. There were things that I recognized as red flags in the first year that have become infinitely more intense and that no longer feel balanced by her strengths.

I always felt that she angered quickly; that we sometimes had long arguments that were confusing and upsetting to me; that she was not totally aware of how dysfunctional her previous relationships or family of origin were, or at least that her light tone when she told stories about them didn’t match the content she was describing; that she sometimes became unpredictably very cold or harsh; and that she could be controlling, dismissive, and critical. We also had some major areas of incompatibility—I always thought I wanted to have children and she didn’t. But because I also thought she was very charming, cosmopolitan, brilliant, and attractive, I was willing to overlook some of these things. I thought that I was having a relationship with a difficult but special person, and that what she offered was so rare and compelling that I could live with her problems and even give up on a more conventional life with kids.

When we moved in together the red flags became giant horrifying conflicts. I still am not sure how to convey what happened and at the time it was completely overwhelming and terrifying, I did not know which way was up and I still feel shocked and confused. I don’t know how important the content is, and I will save it for another post, but I can say that in response to various triggers—sometimes things I did, other times things she believed (usually wrongly) I thought, other times basic facts about my life and especially my own history of trauma—she entered into multi-hour rages including screaming, self-injury, suicide threats, rapid-fire and very cruel berating, following me around our house, refusing to let me leave and blocking me physically from leaving, refusing to let me sleep until I answered the bizarre charges she was leveling against me, etc. I definitely reacted poorly (also, I was truly shocked! And I stayed shocked for months) — I would always try to justify or explain myself, it wouldn’t work, and then after many hours of this I would also get very distressed or furious. I also allowed, if you can call it that, many areas of my life to be controlled by her because I was afraid of her rages and also did not want to hurt her feelings, and it started to feel like almost everything hurt her feelings.

It is a long story and I could keep typing indefinitely but I’m not sure what parts matter and what doesn’t matter anymore. She recently started DBT. She does not think she has BPD; my therapist thinks she has BPD (and also that she’s abusive). I know that I can’t diagnose her, but I can see that she meets, as far as I can tell, literally all of the criteria. So I also think she probably has BPD or at least some BPD behaviors, and I also think that some of her behaviors are abusive.

I read Walking on Eggshells and have also read many of the posts here. I am trying not to JADE, I am trying to validate her when she’s upset, and I am trying to set boundaries—for instance, I don’t continue conversations when she is shouting or berating and I don’t respond to accusatory or threatening texts. She has also made some incremental improvements in her worst behaviors; she’s stopped following me through the house shouting when I try to leave the room, for instance.

This brings me to my fundamental problem. It is almost impossible for me to justify staying in this relationship, to myself or to anyone else. My close friends, who I have shared some things but not everything with, seem scared for me and clearly think I should leave. We have been in this hellish cycle of arguments and every time, after some huge crisis, I have been able to put my hurt aside and trust her again. Now that I’m seeing things more clearly I can’t do that in the same way. I thought that her problems were episodic and would mostly or completely go away relatively quickly with some intensive therapy, and now I am seeing that this is a delusional belief. Whether or not she has a PD she has some extremely deep-seated behavioral, cognitive, and emotional problems, which may improve over a long period of work but will probably never completely vanish.

In my day to day life I am very unhappy and very focused on survival. Even when things are okay, I am on edge — always ready for crisis, ready to validate and then disengage. I can’t see her the same way anymore. And yet I still am not leaving!

For those of you who left, how did you do it? For those who stayed, how did you create moments of intimacy and mutual trust with a disordered person? She can tell that I’m disengaged from her and that is, in its own way, also causing me problems.

[ForeverDad]

She recently started DBT. She does not think she has BPD; my therapist thinks she has BPD (and also that she’s abusive). I know that I can’t diagnose her, but I can see that she meets, as far as I can tell, literally all of the criteria. So I also think she probably has BPD or at least some BPD behaviors, and I also think that some of her behaviors are abusive... She has also made some incremental improvements in her worst behaviors...

While it is good that she is not in outright Denial that is so common with BPD, no one knows how much long term progress she will make.  Therapy is a great start but will she stick with it and not just (1) try to fake it or (2) claim she's all better after a few token sessions?  Meaningful therapy is neither quick nor easy.

It is almost impossible for me to justify staying in this relationship, to myself or to anyone else. My close friends, who I have shared some things but not everything with, seem scared for me and clearly think I should leave.

You are in the midst of the chaos and confusion.  Ponder the aspects of the four-plus F's, four or more responses to stressful encounters: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn, Flag, Faint.

On the other hand, your family and trusted friends are not inside the box, they're on the outside looking in, they can see things objectively while you're experiencing everything subjectively.

Try this approach... imagine you're in their shoes wanting to help a friend to recover his life, what would you tell him, encourage him, strategize with him, support him?

For those of you who left, how did you do it? For those who stayed, how did you create moments of intimacy and mutual trust with a disordered person? She can tell that I’m disengaged from her and that is, in its own way, also causing me problems.

My life before I arrived here many years ago was quite similar to yours, life was great at first but over time poor behavior developed and the rants, rages and threats became more frequent as well as the other myriad problems, mostly in private scenarios away from others' notice.  My ex refused therapy (unless it was for me ) and all too soon my marriage - by then some 15 years - imploded.  It was a scary End since by then we had a preschooler.  I was only partially prepared, and even that was almost accidental since I didn't learn of Personality Disorders, therapists and peer support until we were separated and facing divorce.

I suggest you sit down and be honest with yourself.  It is what it is.  Accept it.  Listen to your counselor.  Also determine your legal options and risks with a few legal interviews or consultations.  (The divorce process does not make everyday common sense and there are a number of traps and missteps to avoid.)

On a lighter note, I've garnered a collection of snippets from assorted novels I've read in recent years that resonate with our experiences here in peer support.  Here's one on the reason to proceed with that difficult first step, because the following steps are much easier once you've chosen a better path.

Yet again I've come across passages that reminds me of our efforts to enlighten our members.

Kelly Bowen, "Night of the Scoundrel", chapter 10
"Of late, I've reflected on lost moments, I suppose. Moments where a different choice, a different action, a different twist of fate would have changed everything."
Ashland looked down, once again turning the rose over in his fingers. "Yet all of those moments are gone. You can remember them or forget them, like them or hate them, but you cannot change them. Only the moments to come can be changed."
It gets easier once you take that difficult first step:

Kate Noble, "Follow My Lead", chapter 26, pages 354-355
Totty smiled. "And you seem to have a choice before you."
Winn breathed in, for the first time in minutes. Her gaze betraying her as it found its way back to the door. All you have to do is open the door... he had said. If you feel a fraction of what I do...
"What would you do?" Winn asked finally, her resolve crumbling.
"It's not my decision to make." Totty shrugged. "But I would ask... do you love him?" Totty let go of Winn's hand, patting it, and turning up the steps. "Answer that and the rest will come easily."

[livednlearned]

In my day to day life I am very unhappy and very focused on survival. Even when things are okay, I am on edge — always ready for crisis, ready to validate and then disengage. I can’t see her the same way anymore. And yet I still am not leaving!

It's kinda overwhelming and, for some of us, terrifying to leave. If you're a sensitive person in general, your nervous system might be jacked up and it's hard to think when your emotions are flooded, which they often are when you're processing abuse in an intimate partnership.

Anyone who thinks it's easy to leave these relationships cannot imagine how hard it can be.

Don't be hard on yourself -- this is really difficult stuff. Leaving takes some planning.

For those of you who left, how did you do it?

Very carefully. Ask lots of questions here. Plan in advance for all possibilities. Go through scenarios in your mind that may be uncomfortable to think about.

What concerns you the most? You know her best (and yourself). What parts of leaving would be the hardest for you? What would you feel comfortable doing? What does your therapist think would be best for you?

If she has tender cycles, that's helpful. She's doing DBT, which is also helpful. You're learning skills too. Some people get swept into high-conflict in defense and then it's like two people with BPD traits. DBT is helpful for anyone -- there are a lot of good skills that anyone can benefit from. Would you consider doing something like that too? It might be helpful so you can speak a similar language, although it depends on how she responds to that kind of support.

For those who stayed, how did you create moments of intimacy and mutual trust with a disordered person? She can tell that I’m disengaged from her and that is, in its own way, also causing me problems.

What does the disengagement look like from your perspective?

In what ways can she tell it's different? In my experience with different loved ones suffering with BPD traits, the disengagement they perceived was always there. What changed is that I started to actually feel disengaged.

Is it similar for you?

[joanpilot]

Thank you both for responding. I really appreciate your advice, I don’t think anyone in my life understands what’s been happening.

I know that if I were giving advice to a friend I would tell them to leave. I also think I keep getting drawn back in by her moments of tenderness and lucidity, and she is not in outright denial that she has a problem.

“What concerns you the most? You know her best (and yourself). What parts of leaving would be the hardest for you? What would you feel comfortable doing? What does your therapist think would be best for you?”

My therapist is asking me to consider why I am staying in an abusive relationship. She hasn’t said more clearly than that what I should do. I have told my partner that I wanted to leave or was leaving before. I don’t feel good about it because I know saying it without following through makes the relationship worse. I said it for the last time about a month ago, and I didn’t follow through then because her response was to tell me very clearly that she understood that her behavior was hurting me and that she was working on it in therapy. Before that, she’d been in another long phase of telling me everything was my fault.

“What does the disengagement look like from your perspective?

In what ways can she tell it's different? In my experience with different loved ones suffering with BPD traits, the disengagement they perceived was always there. What changed is that I started to actually feel disengaged.

Is it similar for you?”

I’m not 100% sure what this means — “the disengagement they perceived was always there. What changed is that I started to actually feel disengaged.” She has accused me of disengaging before and she’s been right before. This time it’s going on for a much longer period of time and it does feel different to me — I do FEEL disengaged, rather than feeling briefly very hurt (and so acting quieter and more withdrawn).

From my perspective, I used to believe that she was a difficult, troubled, but basically rational person who was temporarily mistreating me because she was having some kind of episode of mental illness. When she was kind for a few days, I would more or less mentally erase the horrible things she’d done right before that and decide that now, finally, the person I fell in love with was back. I can see now that this doesn’t make a lot of sense, and it led to me feeling really shocked and horrified when the next incident happened.

Now I see her as a person with major difficulties in thinking rationality and behaving appropriately who might, if something triggers her, launch into a verbally abusive episode at any time. I feel guilty writing this because she also has many good qualities, but I think it’s true.

I think she can sense this mental shift. I also am acting differently — I am less warm, less physical, smile less, and show less enthusiasm for her and our life. But I also react more calmly when she starts shouting, crying, or making demands.

For the past week she has been having daily episodes where she says that I am hurting her by being cold and that, if she’s going to stabilize, she needs me to be warmer. But I just can’t fake something I don’t feel and I don’t think I should.

Thank you so much for your help and advice.

[joanpilot]

I would be willing to do DBT, also, and I can see that although I believe she instigates these conflicts I have also participated, sometimes (after many hours of her berating) becoming angry and saying cruel things as well. Once she starts she can’t seem to stop — unless I just remove myself, which I am now doing much more consistently.

I don’t know how to respond when she blames me, either furiously or in total despair, for “hurting her” by doing things like going to a work event alone. Or, in this case, by smiling less and acting sadder but calmer. I know I’m not responsible for her feelings in a broad sense, and definitely not her behavior. I can also see she feels abandoned (even if being calm but sad is not abandonment) and I understand why. It feels like no matter what I do and no matter how much I try she is still blaming me.

[livednlearned]

Being berated for hours is awful. I really feel for you on that, it's hard to express to people what that feels like and it's pretty common for people to feel pushed to their limits.

High Conflict Couple by Alan Fruzetti might have some useful suggestions for how to navigate those episodes. I believe his work is based on DBT skills for couples. Some people assume the book is for two people with a PD but honestly these conflicts can get so strange and confusing and frightening it's not hard for the non-BPD person to react in kind.

A lot of people here found these episodes tended to get worse at night, in anticipation of the "abandonment" felt before going to sleep. Are you experiencing that?

I’m not 100% sure what this means — “the disengagement they perceived was always there. What changed is that I started to actually feel disengaged.” She has accused me of disengaging before and she’s been right before. This time it’s going on for a much longer period of time and it does feel different to me — I do FEEL disengaged, rather than feeling briefly very hurt (and so acting quieter and more withdrawn).

After the merger fantasy where they feel boundary-less, many people with BPD will perceive disengagement even when it's normal, like a partner feeling tired and wanting to go to sleep. That might feel like you disengaging to her, but it's just ... you're tired.

Does that make sense? It's like a highly sensitive surveillance system scanning the environment for perceived threat (of abandonment, or disengagement) with many, many false positives. A yawn while she's talking feels like a threat to the very seat of her being. Not responding to a text within .2 seconds is a sign you don't love her.

Once you are truly and fully disengaging in order to protect yourself, the threat level she detects is now on tilt and what she feared most is now happening -- you are pulling away. She has created the very thing she fears most, almost like confirmation bias. Except because she has a weak sense of self she cannot see that she's accountable for the behaviors she's projecting onto you.

It's a severe mental and emotional injury.

It's a good idea to journal what you're experiencing because reading about the abuse cycle during a tender cycle will become important.

If you had to pick a ratio of good times to bad, what ballpark would it be? 

[eightdays]

For those of you who left, how did you do it? For those who stayed, how did you create moments of intimacy and mutual trust with a disordered person? She can tell that I’m disengaged from her and that is, in its own way, also causing me problems.

My experience was that once I recognized the problems weren't going away and I became disengaged, there was no workaround I could do to mitigate the effect that was having on my partner other than lying about what was going on with me.   It took me several months to come to acceptance that I had to leave, and it was hard.   Be patient and kind to yourself.

[joanpilot]

Thank you - I’m sorry for taking so long to respond. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks.

Yes, I have noticed it gets worse at night. I’ve never thought about that as related to abandonment but that makes so much sense — I really have never been able to understand why there was so much conflict right before bed. Or even on nights when we weren’t having conflict, why she always seemed to feel hurt or resentful when I wanted to go to sleep.

And yes, she perceives disengagement even when it’s normal, like if I can’t respond to a text. Once she got totally enraged and stormed out of a restaurant because I checked my work email when she was talking — which is a little rude, definitely, but her reaction felt totally disproportionate. But she certainly perceives disengagement more now.

I’m really struggling to meet and manage her complaints about me. She can be incredibly intense. I usually see there is a kernel of truth in what she’s saying but it’s dialed up to an 11. It feels like unless I validate that, yes, I behaved horrifically by being quiet and short-tempered for 5 minutes, and she hates me, and she feels miserable all the time and it’s my fault, and I never do anything for her, and I’m the dysfunctional one — the argument WILL NOT end. I’m trying to lean into the idea that I actually do not have to argue just because she wants to, I can disengage, I can say I can’t talk to her unless she brings it down, but this strategy also results in painful scenes. Sometimes it takes days for her to calm down.

Thank you all for being here.