I found myself often having to justify, defend, explain etc. physically and mentally draining
When with doctors thinks she's one very arrogant nature has had doctors tell her she speaks like a doctor and not a patient and to speak to them like a patient When with Lawyer thinks she is one Didn't follow her doctors orders ended back in the hospital more times than I can count OCD tendencies if something is on her mind everyone has to stop what they are doing even if a boundary drawn plows through it. You could say I'm in the middle of something or with the kids and it's this will only take a minute Multiple calls to work over nothing Multiple calls again over nothing if not out with a group, or my family Vindictive and wants to get back at people lies and spreads rumors Aggressive mom and dad dad is knight in shining armor who has lifted his hands, his daughter can do no wrong A Facebook and Bravo TV fanatic Entitled
[This message edited by Caretaker1 at 7:29 AM, May 1st (Thursday)]
There are a number of books out there on Borderline PD and I would recommend looking at one for family members and friends of BPD individuals.
Classic non-clinical sign of someone that has BPD...they make every close relationship around them feel crazier than them. To those that are not close with them, the BPD is charming, yet extremely manipulative.
Although each PD can be found in both men and women, this PD (part of the Cluster B personality disorders), is usually found in women, much like histrionic PD. Narcissistic and Anti-Social PD are usually found in males. Again, even though there are predominant trends amongst gender groups, both men and women can have any of these PDs.
Just as an FYI, I work in the mental health field and I didn't mean to go off on a mini lecture. Sorry.
Some classic characteristics of BPD...
- thrives on chaos - impulsivity - frequent displays of anger - becoming angered easily and quickly - never wanting to be by themselves - very opinionated - attempts to persuade others' opinions (splitting, triangulation, etc). - shifts their judgment of others quickly - will engage in physical confrontations - Poor self-image - emotional instability (hot/cold feelings in minutes/hours) - strong need for affection and reassurances - can go from intense clinging behaviors to wanting to be emotionally distant - difficulty trusting others (suspicious/paranoid) - usually smart individuals, very witty and funny at times - common behaviors include: shoplifting, stealing, drug/substance abuse, self-injurious behaviors like cutting, binge activities, suicide attempts, etc.
These individuals usually have a history of frequent job losses, having to go to the hospital, broken commitments, etc. There is also a high frequency of sexual, physical and/or emotional abuse.
Overall there are a ton of family of origin and pathological features that you deal with. Insight is usually not great. They know they have erratic/dramatic behavior, but figure out a way to blame it on the people around them.
Hope this helps...sorry if I went a little in depth with it.
“Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so."
She did say she was raped as a child something she shared during our marriage and not before.
My WH was diagnosed as Bipolar I, that hits him really hard during his major depression cycles, manifesting with psychotic depression. We found all this out just in the past couple months.
With him, he manifests increasing persecutory paranoia, "lack of insight" - which is the technical terminology for inability to understand both the emotional affect he is manifesting (rage) and being able to recognize the emotional affect in others, major anxiety, and some pernicious delusions about what's real and what's not.
If you go back to my last posts - the beginning of this year - you can read one of the depressive cycles in full motion - from both of our perspectives, as I posted in Reconciliation and he in Wayward.
Was your XWW ever on any medication? We've started on it in the last few weeks after a roller coaster of finally starting to understand what we were experiencing; he could switch from being the kindest and most empathetic person I know to someone who becomes abusive during high stress. The duality can't quite be believed unless seen first hand.
I saw a lawyer to start divorce also during this, but have put it off with the new information. Bipolar is a physiological brain chemistry issue - not a personality disorder. The level of how bad the brain chemistry is off can be a pretty wide scale of manifestations and severity. Bipolar I means it hits harder.
I'm not trying to talk you out of divorcing - believe me, I get it. But it has helped me to know that some parts of the relationship were real, weren't just something I'd imagined. It's helped both of us to know that both parts of him exist. We are seeing both a psychiatrist and a psychologist to get it managed.
[This message edited by Reality at 11:58 PM, April 30th (Wednesday)]
She's in her 40s going on 18. She's been abusive and I was last on her list. She's someone else's problem now. I had suspected Bipolar I for years. She's been on more pain meds that would kill most of us. I don't have the same value system of this jerk. I was once a confident man, it's returning. Living with her and her manipulations, lies, had been way too hard. I often tell family and friends I can't explain the behavior behind closed doors as it sounds so bizarre. You'd be open jawed and say how did you last this long?
How do you deal with these people ? I tend to have as little contact with her. Weekly I get nasty texts.
[This message edited by Caretaker1 at 9:42 PM, April 30th (Wednesday)]
In our case, we're still separated and our interactions are pretty limited and supervised as we see what medication(s) do to help him even out, in addition to therapy specifically designed to help him understand and manage what's going on inside him. In the past week, I've seen enough of "him" back to start to hope.
But in the past, I tried to deal with interacting with him by a whole lot of talking and putting my feelings aside to try to understand his. For a long, LONG time, I'd try to reason him out of the bad behaviors - try to bridge the conflict with our kids, try to explain why people were responding to what he'd say or do, try to give him examples and metaphors to try to re-engage his empathy - but now, with the diagnosis and the medications, I have more confidence in saying, "Nope, that's not real." I would try to see his view, try to find commonalities and understand why he felt the way he said he did - no matter how awful the things he was saying about me personally were, but now I know there's a firm line between reasonable statements and outward manifestations of the brain chemistry being off. Really firm lines of what interactions you will allow are necessary, like I'm sure you've seen already. Giving them empathy doesn't help once they are into the active side steps from reality.
In the end, it's just as you said, there's a place that can't sustain any hopes of recovery. People have to be receptive to treatment; even if that means being grudgingly walked into it, like in our case. If my WH hadn't retained enough self awareness to understand he needed help - that continuing to traumatize his family wasn't something that was "just him being him" - there wouldn't be any hope now. That sounds like where you are in the relationship. I'm so sorry.
However bizarre it feels to try to explain what you've experienced, you should try to people you can trust. It's like living with someone who is cyclically in "the fog" and it can mess up expectations of reasonable behavior. I've been trying to talk more about it all as I go back to re-sort out what was "him" and what was "brain chemistry." Having someone you can trust to validate it all is both necessary and healing.
I've got our kids in counseling; keep that in mind for your girls. They'll have their own set of experiences in dealing with your XWW. Best wishes for all of you.
When WH's mom justified his first set of affairs and blamed me, I learned where the line of emotional intimacy was with them. Sadly, WH's experience with them has been just as toxic to him personally. He formatted a lot of what was "normal" off of the bad behaviors he watched growing up. You're completely right about what you can depend on from your WW's family; learning bad behavior and having it supported and enabled precludes your XWW's family from being an asset to either of you. Just like with your relationship with XWW, find that line of comfortable accessibility with her family and stick to it.
Kudos for the counseling for your girls. I hope you are, too. If you haven't started yet, look for someone who specializes in understanding bipolar and/or the like. We had to change counselors initially because the counselor had no experience with bipolar and kept framing the episodes as just a difference in "perspectives." He actively enforced WH's psychosis and paranoia and blamed a "lack of communication" as the reasons for the episodes. That kind of misdirection can throw on additional damage that is completely pointless.
