# We had a fight and he physically pushed me away and is giving me the cold shoulder



## EllaSuaveterre (Oct 2, 2016)

I'm heartbroken. I imagine he's hurt too, because this kind of behavior from him is bewilderingly uncharacteristic. I don't think this has _ever_ happened before, that he has physically reacted to something I'd said and then proceeded to go to bed and pointedly ignore me. 

First, for context, I have a mental illness (borderline personality disorder) which causes my emotional reactions to be much more intense and my tolerance for fear and other uncomfortable emotions to be much less than most people's. This means that when I am upset, my first and most prevailing thought is "I need to get away from this situation, no matter what." Often, this leads me to consider suicide as a first resort rather than a last resort.

My husband and I were reading the news and I read about the concentration camps in the US (how they're detaining illegal immigrants in camps in Texas, how the UN has listed these camps as "concentration camps" and how people are calling it a massive human rights violation and the precursor to a second Holocaust) and I began crying. My husband is an immigrant, here legally, from England. He held me while I cried. 

And then I said, "If they take you, I'm going to kill myself." To which my husband responded by literally pushing me away, shoving me out of his arms. It wasn't a violent shove, but it was forceful. He walked over to the other side of the room and said, "That's not going to happen! You're crazy!" I didn't argue with that or even disagree because generally thoughts that go, "If X happens, I have to kill myself to escape the pain X will cause." tend not to be my most rational and sane ones. I did tell him, very calmly, "Hey honey, please don't push me away like that, even if I say something that scares you."

He did not respond. He went to bed immediately. I followed him and put my arms around him. He didn't hold me back, so after a minute I kissed him goodnight, left the room, and now here I am, slightly suicidal and very alone. This isn't at all the first time I have expressed that I want to die, especially in response to political goings-on. Before, he's simply said that whatever is overwhelming me would never happen and I'm being irrational, but he's never actually turned me away like this, and never before refused to speak to me or hold me. 

How could he respond like that? Is it so offensive, or so unbelievable that I would rather die than live to see the love of my life tortured and killed in a concentration camp? Is that so radical that it warrants a physical reaction followed by stone cold silence??

The whole thing happened very fast, like in 15 minutes. I feel so alone and rejected. He has never before physically pushed me away from a hug, and he has never refused to speak to me or refused to cuddle me. What in the...?! How do I make this better?? Is this going to become a pattern?


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## EllaSuaveterre (Oct 2, 2016)

I was up all night on the couch, feeling ill. When he woke up this morning and came to the living room, I asked him, "Are you still mad at me?" He said, "I wasn't mad at you to begin with, I just... I was sad that you feel that way." I said, "I see. Next time something like this happens, can you try not to shove me away?" He said he didn't remember shoving me away and he didn't think he did. I clung to him and said (and kissed, and nuzzled, and hugged) an extra-long goodbye at the door. 

I think I forgive him for being detached last night, but far more definitely, I know I need his presence and his reassurance.


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## 269370 (Dec 17, 2016)

It's like reading a play with you two 
Glad you sorted it out. I don't personally think there's a chance he will be deported so maybe take it easy with the cyanide 
Did he get his willy fixed? Everything working now?


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## TeddieG (Sep 9, 2015)

Ella, thank you for the description of what happens to you because of BPD. It explains a lot about my h's behavior. But here's a question. When you feel fear, you express it, and so far your h has been a safe place to do that. But since he is an immigrant himself, might some of those images and stories have rattled him too, and might he be feeling some insecurity and fear (even if it is irrational and he's totally safe here), enough that when you said if anyone takes him away . . . might just have triggered something in him? Part of the delicate balancing act of a marriage is to accept the support and safety of your partner, but also to give it. Maybe it was just a split second where something triggered him at the same time you needed reassurance.


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## BigToe (Jun 2, 2011)

Stop scaring yourself with fake news. Follow FOX NEWS and you will be living in the real world.


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## Evinrude58 (Jun 16, 2014)

He didn't shove you Ella. He was just bewildered at your reaction and didn't know quite how to deal with it, since your fear and emotions were so over the top. 
I wouldn't read much into it. I wouldn't keep on about it. I really believe based on what you wrote, that he feels he just let go of you rather than shoving you away. Your man sounds incredibly patient with you. That can only come from love.

Enjoy your day,
Ev


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## Edmund (Apr 1, 2017)

BigToe said:


> Stop scaring yourself with fake news. Follow FOX NEWS and you will be living in the real world.



This is totally wrong advice. Everything “reported” on Fox News channel is either totally slanted Republican conservative propaganda or completely false. Republicans live in a totally different universe, not the real world.

Ella, as far as news goes you need to read various different media both conservative and liberal, but also sources with old fashioned journalistic integrity, who actually report what is happening without instructing you on how you are supposed to feel about it. It might be good for you to take a break from news for a while this election year.


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## Edmund (Apr 1, 2017)

Ella, please don’t ever consider attempting suicide. That is never the answer. PM anyone on TAM and I am sure they will help you cope with the issue you are facing. Also, find out the suicide hotline telephone number and write it down where you can find it, should the urge become overwhelming. Believe me, this world desperately needs you and other people with a huge heart just like you. God bless you.


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## Edmund (Apr 1, 2017)

EllaSuaveterre said:


> I was up all night on the couch, feeling ill. When he woke up this morning and came to the living room, I asked him, "Are you still mad at me?" He said, "I wasn't mad at you to begin with, I just... I was sad that you feel that way." I said, "I see. Next time something like this happens, can you try not to shove me away?" He said he didn't remember shoving me away and he didn't think he did. I clung to him and said (and kissed, and nuzzled, and hugged) an extra-long goodbye at the door.
> 
> I think I forgive him for being detached last night, but far more definitely, I know I need his presence and his reassurance.



This is why they say never go to bed angry at each other.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

Ella, I think you need to take a lot of responsibility for all this. Your reaction to this topic is way over the top. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for your husband to have to deal with this.

The UN calls the holding facilities for illegal immigrants concentration camps? You think it's a precursor to a holocaust? The UN is the same group of people who have tried to pass international laws that make it a punishable crime to say anything bad about Islam (you know throw people in concentration camps and/or execute them for having a personal opinion). They have been talking about also prosecuting and imprisoning anyone who question global/warming and/or climate change.

I also recall a discussion here on TAM some time ago in which you said that you believe that the US will need to throw those who disagree with climate change into concentration camps and maybe even execute them to save the planet.... or some nonsense like that. 

So it's ok when it serves your purpose? At least people in the immigration holding facilities have rights, are fed, and are not being executed. They are being sent back to their home countries at our expense.

And then you think that the US will start throwing legal immigrants into these places? This is so far out that that it's hard to even process.

While it might be nice to have a husband who puts up with your overreactions to things, you need to learn to take responsibility for your own emotional state and not expect him to play along. This is a heavy burden to dump on him.


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## Spicy (Jun 18, 2016)

Curious Ella...did your H know all these things about your personality before he married you?

He is an _*extremely patient*_ man. When I read your posts I always am amazed at what all he is able to handle and not get annoyed. To share something about myself in this regard (not comparing your situation)... I was married for over 20 years to someone with mental illnesses and deep paranoia. I loved him very much, clearly like your husband does you. I am also a strong person emotionally. Plus, I'm happy. I thought he was like that too. By five years into the marriage it was becoming clear that he was none of those things. In spite of all of that, it was quite a huge challenge for me. The love and mental stability only carried me so far.

Since you are so young, and already know your issues, perhaps he knew what he was getting into before he married you. I did not. My marriage ultimately failed because I ran out of the ability to help him anymore. For me it was so draining and exhausting, all day, every day with the parinoia, sadness and neediness. Also the constant talk of suicide as a solution. I simply "ran out" of things to say or do to help.

I don't think your H was being overly physical with you. Try to go easy on him, because ultimately, he's quite a gem.


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## Keke24 (Sep 2, 2016)

OP, are you receiving counseling for your BPD?

As a diagnosed BPDer I can relate to the constant suicidal thoughts. They are easily triggered and are very compelling in the moment. On the few occasions I expressed them to my current partner, his reactions only exacerbated the thoughts. He would not acknowledge them at all and I could sense him distancing himself from me emotionally. It hurt terribly and that rejection would trigger even more negative thoughts that would leave me wallowing in a depressive mood for days after.

Yes it would make me feel a whole lot better if he responded in a caring way but would that be best for me/best for us in the long run? As a result of my BPD therapy I now know the answer to that is a resounding NO. A positive response from my partner will only enable my dysfunction, feeding the thought connections in my brain that have established a stronger-than-average internal link between emotional distress and suicidal tendencies. The more I feed these thought connections the more I strengthen those links, the more automatic these suicidal thoughts become as a logical response and the lower my ability to control them in the future.

The first rule in my BPD therapy is to Know Myself. We as BPDers have a responsibility to understand our symptoms and triggers and use whatever tools necessary to manage them and reduce the burden they impose on our partners. Hence if we are aware that these suicidal thoughts are irrational extreme responses, it is our responsibility to address them. Focusing on whether your husband's response was appropriate serves to justify the suicidal thoughts you expressed. Why bother, his response is no more extreme or inappropriate than your own suicidal thoughts. So rather than putting the burden on him to respond appropriately, you need to be taking more responsibility to behave appropriately and respond rationally to stimuli. You should not be expecting him to "give you a pass" to respond irrationally because you have BPD, while you then take him to task for his failure to respond appropriately to your irrational response. 

Know Yourself OP. You know by now that this immigration stuff is a major trigger for you, do not indulge it. I have come to realize that anything surrounding CSA is a massive trigger for me and I now know I cannot allow myself to give into temptation to read news about it or enter into discussions on the topic. Initially when my therapist advised me to do this I would think "well won't others at work wonder that I don't think it's a big deal or I'm callous or condoning it" when a case came on the news that was the hot topic in the workplace and I refused to participate in the discussion? But that was my need for approval/sensitivity to criticism talking. 

So yes, Know Yourself OP and avoid giving these suicidal thoughts and the accompanying negative automatic thoughts (NATs) the light of day. They are not deserving of the space they occupy in our minds or the emotional burden they impose on our partners.

PS: EleGirl's post above presents the perfect opportunity to practice for staying away from discussions you know will trigger you.


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## EllaSuaveterre (Oct 2, 2016)

@inmyprime -- Yes, everything's fixed (mostly) on the sexual aspect of things, and sex is slowly getting better. Check my thread on "Sex in Marriage" for more info there.
@TeddieG -- Quite possibly. yes. The same thought occurred to me, and might have been my conclusion, had he not said this morning that what I had said didn't scare him (and nor was he afraid of being taken), but my reaction _did_ alarm him.
@Edmund -- I'll be alright. I very often have suicidal thoughts (as in several times a week) but they're not something anyone in my life should concern themselves over. It usually passes within a few hours, and if I can wait it out I won't be so miserable by then. No need even for the suicide hotline, because the feeling of wanting to die to escape passes so quickly. Thank you for your concern, but I assure you it's not necessary. 
@Spicy and @Evinrude58 -- I am no longer upset with him for being rough with me. He's not usually one to gaslight, so I'm going to take him at face value when he says he doesn't remember pushing me away. And though I cannot say whether this is true either way, it might be possible that I merely perceived that he pushed me away when all he did was let go of me. As to whether he knew about my issues when he married me, he knew I was mentally ill, but at 18 I had yet to be diagnosed with depression (onset at 19) or BPD (I probably always had that but was diagnosed at 21). So there were a few things he came into the marriage not knowing, but my family and I tried to make sure he was going into it eyes wide open regarding my precarious state of physical and mental health.
@Keke24 -- This seems to me to be a rather extreme point of view. To clarify, you think that it's inappropriate to express to your partners at _all_ when you're feeling suicidal, and you think that the healthiest response to your pain on their part would be to just go cold on you and refuse to respond at all? If this is in fact what you said, I must disagree. My husband is not generally an emotional man, so I don't expect him to stay up with me for hours and hours trying to calm me down. In fact, I don't really need him to. As I mentioned to Edmund, that kind of intervention is unnecessary. With proper self-care I can make the suicidal thoughts go away within a few hours. But on the other hand, I do expect kindness and compassion in response to suicidal thoughts, or any other unpleasant emotions. I don't believe this my husband's expressing sympathy over my ill moods in any way exacerbates or prolongs them. I don't expect him to expend _much_ energy on soothing me, but a hug and a, "sorry to hear that" would be nice. Which is, in most every case but this, what he provides. We as humans do need people's support and reassurance when we're upset, BPD or not, and I don't think it's right to sequester yourself off from other people's support just because you have an illness which makes you have need of that support far more often than most.


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## jlg07 (Feb 24, 2017)

Ella, in all fairness you probably scared the crap out of him with the talk of wanting to kill yourself over that particular topic. I think he wanted to have some time to think about it himself, and MAYBE he wanted to jolt YOU to make you realize how far you went down the rabbit hole.


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

I have a long term friend who has BPD. She is a wonderful person, but struggles with her disorder, obviously.

The main problem with being her friend (or partner) is that she cannot really empathize with me or anyone else, yet she constantly wants empathy from others for her various constant dramatic mental states. So when we get together, she will talk for hours about her issues, her feelings, her life, all with great dramatic flair. Then it will be my turn to talk, and she cannot listen more than a few moments before she is in some way pulling the topic back to herself.

No matter how much I love her and no matter how many times I have tried to explain to her that I eventually get tired of just listening and I also sometimes need support that I don't receive, since in her heart she does love and support me, and since her disorder is really rather severe, she honestly doesn't know, see or realize that everything is always about her. In other words, since everything really IS about her in her mind, she doesn't even really know what I mean because she can't really fathom anyone else's feelings in a deep, meaningful way.

I understand the disorder and I have read a lot about it. She does love me, she simply can't see outside of her own mind.

The last time I saw her, she wanted to come see me because she had a lot of good news to share with me (for once). I was super happy about the good news, but the meeting was the same as usual: She talked about herself for 3 hours until I was exhausted and couldn't wait for her to leave.

Then about a week later, she texts me while she knows I am at work and says "please call, it's an emergency". I leave my desk to call her, and she goes into a long rant about something that went bad in her life that day -- and then is telling me that she is going to commit suicide and the reason she wanted to talk to me was because I needed to know the whole story so that when they found her body I will tell everyone what "really happened".

She has threatened suicide during every relationship she has ever had as well. And typically, her partners were extremely angry at her and one even broke up with her over it.

With me -- there is an extra layer to this. I have had a very traumatic situation that was surrounding a suicide attempt by someone I love very much. This has had life long effects on myself and everyone in my family. My friend knows this and knows the whole story and why and how it affected me so.

Yet in her frantic state, she had no empathy for me. She was just trying to elicit empathy from me, trying to get me to engage with her disordered thinking. Trying to get me to act in some way (not sure what she wanted me to do, I think she just wanted me to be scared and beg her not to do it or something. And since her situation that she was claiming to be suicidal about had to do with her having somewhere to live, I think she may have also hoped I would say "oh just live with me!").

But it just pissed me off. I had finally had enough. Everything is always about her, her feelings, what she is going through. It doesn't ever dawn on her that other people have just as vivid and intense feelings as she does and that her drama and suicide threats are abusive to those around her. We are not health care professionals. We are simply struggling to deal with her erratic behavior and still hold our boundaries, while also honoring our own feelings. My friend has no way of understanding how much she hurt me that day, I get that. She can only think of herself and her own feelings, I get that too. But those things do not mean that I cannot be hurt, that I do not have the right to protect myself from her drama, whether she understands that or not.

I basically told her that I can't help her, that she would need to call 911 if she needed actual help from anyone, that she knew my previous history with suicide and that therefore I was out of the conversation. In other words, if you do kill yourself (which I knew she would not), I cannot do anything to stop you and it will harm ME to have to listen to you discuss your suicidal thoughts, therefore I guess I will have to just let you die in order to protect myself.

She then went off on a text rant...typing all of these abusive things that have happened to her in her life and childhood (interesting though that suddenly she was sending stories about things that she had told me different versions of in the past...in other words, hysterical exaggeration and no doubt, some of them were straight up lies...the "truth" is pretty fuzzy in her world). I just let her rant on and on in text. Didn't respond. At the end of the night I simply said in text "ok, let me know if you are alive tomorrow or not". 

The drama passed, she was no longer suicidal, another day in the life.

I haven't talked to her much since, and she recently texted me and said "I understand that you have distanced yourself from me and I understand why...I just wanted to let you know everything is changing, so much better, so many good things".

She does not really understand why I distanced myself from her. She can intellectually understand it, but she can't truly understand it. Because she doesn't have empathy. She can't put herself in my shoes and feel the pain and fear I feel when *I* am triggered about suicide (nor can she put herself in anyone else's shoes or feel their pain.) That's one of the saddest parts about this disorder. You can't make real connections with people if you cannot understand their feelings and are constantly consumed with yourself and your own feelings.

Ella, threatening suicide is abusive. I know you feel that in the moment you just feel how you feel and you "can't help it". But whether you will ever understand it or not (likely not), your husband has feelings that are just as valid as your own. Telling him you would kill yourself over anything, but more specifically, over something that has to do with him, is painful to him and isn't fair and is abusive to him. 

Your first post shows very clearly how you don't understand anyone else's feelings.

Keke's post was very good.

You will continue to have suicidal thoughts, perhaps for your whole life. But if you want to make this someone else's problem, you are being abusive to that person. Your husband, like me, is not a mental health professional and should not be used as if we can "talk you down" from a suicide. It is cruel of you to expect him to absorb your suicide statement as if it shouldn't hurt him. He is not a rock. His feelings are as important as yours.

My friend finally pushed me past my limits of being able to empathize with her. I now just see her as potentially dangerous to me because at any moment she could do this again.

If she does, I will simply block her phone number and never look back.

I hope this gives you an idea of how you come across and what it does to the people around you.


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## Steve2.0 (Dec 11, 2017)

Very sad on many levels.
Children being separated from their parents is a frightening thought. If I let the hamster in my head play with the idea of my son being taken away and having to survive on his own without someone caring for him I will be in a very negative place.

I really think you need professional help... and If you have it then I think you need a new & better doctor.

There are thousands of sad stories out there... You dont need to imagine that each one will happen to you. You need to learn to control the voice/thoughts in your head that let you wallow on those thoughts. Save the battles for the struggles in life that actually happen instead of wasting energy on 'imaginary problems'

As your husband... I would be terrified to have you as my wife. Every little road bump or hiccup in our lives might result in you killing yourself... Great, that's not 1000 pounds on my shoulders. What happens if he needs to bring home bad news? Poor man is going to be terrified of how easily you can break.

Find a way to strengthen your mind & your resolve.


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## EllaSuaveterre (Oct 2, 2016)

@Faithful Wife -- I have always been under the impression that "threatening suicide" referred to the act of _willfully, intentionally, and maliciously pretending_ that you feel suicidal when you don't, in order to elicit a reaction or a favor from people. As you say, your friend wanted a place to live, and you interpreted her suicidal gestures as a way to get you to let her live with you. There was a motive. But if what you say is true, that the _nature_ of saying you wish to kill yourself is abusive, even if you have no external motive in saying it, then that means that I am abusive when I threaten suicide _even though_ I genuinely feel suicidal and have no hidden motive in saying so.

That is not at all an easy pill to swallow. Because there's not really anything I can do to fix that except to never ever express a suicidal thought aloud again, as Keke suggested. I don't want to do that. I mean, I can apologize to him, and I'd mean the apology sincerely, but if I were _never_ to say I want to die again... well, that just seems _impossible_. Like holding one's breath, I can only suppress my intense emotions around others for so long.

I often make the mistake of assuming that other people won't be shocked or upset by my suicidal thoughts because my suicidal thoughts don't shock _me_. I forget that other people are not constantly exposed to my "mental background noise" like I am, so it might shock them to hear when I finally say one of those thoughts aloud. I certainly didn't mean to hurt my husband with my suicidal thoughts and words. It's only in hindsight that I can see that it might have scared him. Yes, it must have scared him, but I don't want to be considered abusive for doing something that I can't help. And if I am, well, that's not good. And not feasibly fixable either.


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

EllaSuaveterre said:


> I often make the mistake of assuming that other people won't be shocked or upset by my suicidal thoughts because my suicidal thoughts don't shock _me_. I forget that other people are not constantly exposed to my "mental background noise" like I am, so it might shock them to hear when I finally say one of those thoughts aloud. I certainly didn't mean to hurt my husband with my suicidal thoughts and words. It's only in hindsight that I can see that it might have scared him. Yes, it must have scared him, *but I don't want to be considered abusive for doing something that I can't help*. And if I am, well, that's not good. And not feasibly fixable either.


You CAN help it, you can not say those things and find a way to soothe yourself. I know you don't want to be "considered" abusive, but it is abusive to tell a loved one that you are going to kill yourself in the situation you said it. Again - you are only thinking of yourself, your thoughts and feelings. If you had normal empathy, you would understand why it is abusive.


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## EllaSuaveterre (Oct 2, 2016)

@Faithful Wife -- thank you, by the way, for sharing your experiences. It does help me to see, a little, how other people view me. It's very hard to hear that I could cause y friends and family suffering when I don't intend to.

Steve2.0-- I see. I wouldn't at ALL want or expect my husband to blame himself for my suicidal ideations, even if he were somehow entangled in them. Like, if he brought home bad news that made me want to die, it wouldn't be his fault that I wanted to die, and none of the blame or responsibility for my resulting feelings goes to him.

Furthermore, I recognize that there's a crucial difference in wanting to die, and actually having a plan to kill yourself in the immediate future. When I am overwhelmed emotionally, I fantasize about dying as a means of escaping the feelings I'm experiencing. If I'm not alive, I can't feel overwhelmed. I recognize this, that I use suicide as a placeholder for overwhelm, when I cannot imagine a way to cope with my emotions. But even if you were to hand me a bottle of pills and leave the room during one of those moments, I would likely not kill myself. On some level I recognize the feelings that I am desperate to escape will pass eventually and so I don't need to kill myself right then. 

One in ten people with BPD do kill themselves, and seven in ten have made a serious attempt to kill themselves, but I have not yet attempted suicide. Other people might think I was really going to do it, rather than that I merely _want_ to die so I can escape what I'm feeling.

If, somehow, my husband assumed that I was actually going to attempt suicide right then (as opposed to only wanting to), I can see how he himself would want to escape the situation, and he did so (by physically leaving the room and going silent). I wish he were not as overwhelmed by _my_ overwhelm.

I suppose, rather than cease expressing my overwhelm altogether, I could simply state "I'd be overwhelmed if..." rather than, "I'd kill myself if..." because the former statement is probably more accurate. It would be less upsetting to my husband. But my overwhelm is not normal overwhelm. It needs more powerful words than just the bare facts to fully encapsulate it. I think this is the only point at which @Faithful Wife might be mistaken. Yes, as borderlines, we do have trouble with empathy. We also feel as though no one on Earth could have feelings as powerful as ours. But maybe that's actually true, that Borderline fear is more powerful than regular, normal-people fear, and Borderline sadness is worse than normal sorrow. Why else would we feel the need to, for example, self-harm or make suicidal remarks as a response to that fear and sorrow?


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## Rowan (Apr 3, 2012)

OP, I think you need to find better words. If you are aware that you are not contemplating actually killing yourself at that moment, then you should not threaten suicide. Doing that to your husband is really unkind and unfair to him. By telling him that frequently, you're forcing him to decide each and every time whether or not you are serious. Whether or not you're an immediate danger to yourself. That's a huge burden. He is not inside your head. He cannot know whether you're really intending to harm yourself right this moment or not. As someone who loves you, he would necessarily feel immense guilt and responsibility if he ever miscalculated and assumed you're not serious (as usual), when in fact you really did mean it this time and actually did it. You're asking him to play a guessing game with your life each and every time you express that to him. It's got to be terrifying for him. And incredibly exhausting. 

Perhaps it's time to learn a new phrase. If you truly plan to harm yourself, that's the time to say so. If you are aware that this is your usual fear reaction kicking in but you're not in danger at that moment, don't say you're going to kill yourself. Instead, you might say you are feeling lost, are terrified, are upset, are afraid, are overwhelmed, or that you need help soothing yourself. There are ways to ask for the help you need in the moment without making your husband have to guess if this is really the time you're imminently suicidal, or if what you really need is his help managing your overwhelming emotions.


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## Ursula (Dec 2, 2016)

Steve2.0 said:


> Very sad on many levels.
> Children being separated from their parents is a frightening thought. If I let the hamster in my head play with the idea of my son being taken away and having to survive on his own without someone caring for him I will be in a very negative place.
> 
> I really think you need professional help... and If you have it then I think you need a new & better doctor.
> ...


I agree with this ^^^.
@Faithful Wife and @Keke24 had really good posts, along with many others here.

I agree 137% that your husband is an extremely patient man. Have you ever given any thought to what might happen if that patience runs out one day? I'm with @Steve2.0 in that I could never be married or in any sort of relationship with someone so fragile. I would be scared to do anything other than smile and pretend that life was rosy. And, on the flip side, if I were that fragile, I wouldn't expect anyone would want to be with me either. 

And yes, threatening suicide IS most certainly a form of abuse. I would make the same suggestion as Steve and say that you need to go talk to a professional, or find a different doctor to help you through this. I really do fear for your safety should your husband ever tire of being put through more of this.


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## EllaSuaveterre (Oct 2, 2016)

@Ursula -- I will make a note to specifically discuss suicidal thoughts and gestures in therapy. I couldn't get in until next Friday (eight days from now) but we'll see then.

And yes, I do think about what would happen if his patience ran out. Ironically, my knee-jerk answer is "I'd kill myself." Which tells me that I have no contingency plan for that and am too overwhelmed by even the thought of it hypothetically happening to try to create one. My therapist's advice for that scenario specifically is simply don't think about what would happen if he left me, because she firmly believes he will not leave me at any point in the foreseeable future.

@Rowan -- What I said last night was "If they take you away (that is, if he were to be put in a concentration camp) I'll kill myself." Even if he were to take me literally, the chance that I'd kill myself is directly proportional to the chance that he'd end up in a concentration camp in the foreseeable future. While I understand, now, in hindsight, how suicide threats in general would frighten him, I fail to see how that one would. Still, your point about choosing softer wording (choosing accuracy over conveying the intensity of my emotions) stands.

It actually took me a few hours (and some sleep) to understand that I wasn't suicidal to begin with; I just wanted to escape my emotions. In the moment, it FEELS like I would kill myself given the opportunity, and only given time to settle down do I later realize I wouldn't have. How am I supposed to temper my wording when I don't even realize in the moment that the wording needs to be tempered?


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## Ursula (Dec 2, 2016)

Rowan said:


> OP, I think you need to find better words. If you are aware that you are not contemplating actually killing yourself at that moment, then you should not threaten suicide. Doing that to your husband is really unkind and unfair to him. By telling him that frequently, you're forcing him to decide each and every time whether or not you are serious. Whether or not you're an immediate danger to yourself. That's a huge burden. He is not inside your head. He cannot know whether you're really intending to harm yourself right this moment or not. As someone who loves you, he would necessarily feel immense guilt and responsibility if he ever miscalculated and assumed you're not serious (as usual), when in fact you really did mean it this time and actually did it. You're asking him to play a guessing game with your life each and every time you express that to him. It's got to be terrifying for him. And incredibly exhausting.
> 
> Perhaps it's time to learn a new phrase. If you truly plan to harm yourself, that's the time to say so. If you are aware that this is your usual fear reaction kicking in but you're not in danger at that moment, don't say you're going to kill yourself. Instead, you might say you are feeling lost, are terrified, are upset, are afraid, are overwhelmed, or that you need help soothing yourself. There are ways to ask for the help you need in the moment without making your husband have to guess if this is really the time you're imminently suicidal, or if what you really need is his help managing your overwhelming emotions.


My thoughts while reading through these posts are this: Ella sounds like the story of the boy who cried wolf.

Ella, you really do need to think about finding different words. You threaten or say you want to kill yourself so many times that the one time you actually do mean it, no one will believe you. Your posts have demonstrated that you really don't understand what this could be doing to your husband or your relationship. You acknowledge that you need to change it up, but then say "yeah, but…"


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## EllaSuaveterre (Oct 2, 2016)

Because I don't realize, in the moment, that I'm not being accurate. Last night, it FELT to me like my statement was literal. 

Today, I'm no longer feeling that acute fear, and so I'm able to look at the situation and determine that if I had had immediate access to a suicide method, I wouldn't have used it.


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## Ursula (Dec 2, 2016)

EllaSuaveterre said:


> And yes, I do think about what would happen if his patience ran out. Ironically, my knee-jerk answer is "I'd kill myself." Which tells me that I have no contingency plan for that and am too overwhelmed by even the thought of it hypothetically happening to try to create one. *My therapist's advice for that scenario specifically is simply don't think about what would happen if he left me, because she firmly believes he will not leave me at any point in the foreseeable future.*


Find yourself a new doctor. Absolutely no therapist on God's green Earth should be doling out advice such as: just don't think about it; he won't leave you. If this is a legitimate concern of yours, your therapist should be helping you to find a way to work through the thoughts and feelings that come with this concern, not brushing it under the rug.


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## EllaSuaveterre (Oct 2, 2016)

BPD often comes with paranoia that one's friends and partners will leave, so sometimes recognizing thoughts about him leaving as paranoia and deciding that you'll not act at all on them and distract yourself, especially when he has given no signs that he will leave, is the healthiest option.


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

EllaSuaveterre said:


> @
> I suppose, rather than cease expressing my overwhelm altogether, I could simply state "I'd be overwhelmed if..." rather than, "I'd kill myself if..." because the former statement is probably more accurate. It would be less upsetting to my husband. But my overwhelm is not normal overwhelm. It needs more powerful words than just the bare facts to fully encapsulate it. I think this is the only point at which [MENTION=47736]Faithful Wife might be mistaken. Yes, as borderlines, we do have trouble with empathy. *We also feel as though no one on Earth could have feelings as powerful as ours*. But maybe that's actually true, that Borderline fear is more powerful than regular, normal-people fear, and Borderline sadness is worse than normal sorrow. Why else would we feel the need to, for example, self-harm or make suicidal remarks as a response to that fear and sorrow?


The reason you feel no one on earth could have feelings as powerful as yours is because of your lack of empathy.

People with normal empathy understand that other people's feelings are valid and are not more or less powerful or important than anyone else's. There are plenty of non BPD people who have suicidal thoughts and who actually commit suicide. 

You - - due to your disorder - - don't understand that yours are not the only important feelings in the world.

As an exercise in empathy, you should always just ask yourself, how would I feel in that person's shoes?

In this case, that question to yourself would be more specifically, "how would I feel if my husband told me he would kill himself, for any reason?"

Instead of constantly reviewing only your own feelings, trying to put yourself in the shoes of others and assuming that their thoughts and feelings are just as important as your own, as a regular exercise, should help you over time.


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## Ursula (Dec 2, 2016)

EllaSuaveterre said:


> BPD often comes with paranoia that one's friends and partners will leave, so sometimes recognizing thoughts about him leaving as paranoia and deciding that you'll not act at all on them and distract yourself, especially when he has given no signs that he will leave, is the healthiest option.



So, if you can distract yourself in one regard, you should be able to take steps to find different words to express your feelings instead of threatening suicide to your husband as well.


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## Hope Shimmers (Jul 10, 2015)

Ella, I think your problem is much more complicated than BPD.

You may or may not have BPD. Either way, it doesn't explain what you/your husband are experiencing.

You are WAY too much in your own head. You are extremely intelligent, for one thing. And your mind is always working. I believe you are way more intelligent than you come across on this forum from your posts/actions.

I don't think your husband can keep up with you, and I think you play on that. 

That's it for my assessment/diagnosis via internet (insert detailed disclaimer here). What I will say, though, is that no matter what/how much of what I said is actually true, your H is a human being. And, as a human being, he has a limit. And you are going to hit that limit, probably sooner than later.

You need to be a partner in the marriage. Not a child in the marriage, like you are now. A partner. That means that, at the VERY least, you take care of yourself as an adult would. Your husband deserves being married to a stable, adult woman. Do you agree?

You cannot expect him to pick up the emotional pieces of your reactions day in and day out. NO human being can do that. He's doing it now, but rest assured that he won't do it forever. So my advice to you is to focus your obvious intelligence in a much more productive way -- ANY productive way -- and then give your adult self to your husband. For once. YOU give to him, instead of the other way around.

Best of luck to you~


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## WonkyNinja (Feb 28, 2013)

BigToe said:


> Stop scaring yourself with fake news. Follow FOX NEWS and you will be living in the real world.


I'll have to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you were being sarcastic. 

"Fox News" and "the real world" should not ever occur in the same sentence.

A very good resource for rating news agencies is https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/. They rate the different news outlets quantitatively bye accuracy, quality of reporting, response times to issue retractions and the use of emotionally loaded headlines.etc. etc. They do group the outlets by political bias and Fox is rated as Right Bias. Fox is badly rated for sensationalized headlines but so is CNN. Well worth looking up to decide where you choose to get your news.


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

Ella, a few things I found that helped with s-wife's BPD were:

- simplify life for her. Not lie blatantly or anything like that but remove Do another Care conditions from the table. That way we can avoid the constant crisis mode.

- predictive behavioral modeling. I could predict to a tee her behavior after a particular input and acted accordingly if it was something she did not need to worry about.

- cognitive behavioral therapy. Thankfully I had the class in grad school and could follow most of the process with her. DBT is considered even better than CBT.


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## Bluesclues (Mar 30, 2016)

Faithful Wife said:


> EllaSuaveterre said:
> 
> 
> > @
> ...


I agree with this. But in addition you need to question how you could make the suffering of others about you at all. And only you. It is a giant leap to get to your husband being taken in the first place, but okay, your imagination went there. And once there it was about you, how you would feel. How overwhelmed you would be that you would kill yourself. Your imagined suffering would be so much greater than your poor husband who is being tortured in an imaginary concentration camp? No empathy at all. I would bet he wasn’t scared that you mentioned suicide again, he was at his wits ends with your selfish thoughts. I think it is better he temporarily shut you out than lose his patience and explode. 

I don’t believe he was “just sad” you felt that way. 
I think he was angry and fed up and was able to regroup the next day and say “just sad” to placate you. I hope he keeps having the strength to do that because it is exhausting. Does he have a support system to vent to? Who can he share fears of his own with?

I have two close relatives that are BPD. The constant drama and anxiety has impacted multiple families and generations. I apologize if I am projecting.


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## EllaSuaveterre (Oct 2, 2016)

Hope Shimmers said:


> Ella, I think your problem is much more complicated than BPD.
> 
> You may or may not have BPD. Either way, it doesn't explain what you/your husband are experiencing.
> 
> ...



I think that a lot of people look at me, see my writing style, and think, "Someone that verbose has to be really intelligent. And someone that intelligent has to have mastery of her emotions. 

Not so much. I am repeatedly baffled when people assume a high IQ, or a huge vocabulary, or the ability to express myself eloquently, somehow equates to having total command over my mental states. I may have the intelligence to understand what I'm doing and why, but that's where the wisdom you seem to be perceiving comes to an abrupt halt. 

For example: I am cognitively aware that I am childlike. I am aware this is because I spent my childhood and adolescence being very, very ill and reading fantasy novels and doing not much else. I am also aware that because of that, I have developed a central part of my personality that consists of the idea that I am helpless against most aspects of adult life and I need someone to take care of me, but that my strength and control over my life rests upon being able to persuade others to love me and look after me. I am aware that most people anymore see this as a character flaw. (They certainly didn't ten years ago.) 

But that's where my knowledge ends. I do not understand why people think my modus operandi is so bad, so hurtful to others. And I especially don't understand why they think my core beliefs (I am singularly fragile; ergo I must persuade others to look after me or I will suffer unimaginably) are things that can be changed in any marked and lasting way.

As to whether my husband deserves a stable, adult partner... I don't know. Part of me wants to say Yes, he does, but that's not what he signed up for when he married me. Part of me wants to say No, he doesn't, because that's (again) not what he signed up for when he married me. Part of me wants to dismiss the question as irrelevant. My husband fell in love with me when I was 16. I was a literal child, and I was absolutely an emotional child. Reading back over my blog posts circa 2009 actually exhausts _me_. If you can believe this, I was tenfold as florid and melodramatic then as I am now. He married me, mostly, eyes wide open. My parents openly expressed in front of us both that they were so glad they could pass me off to Mr. Suaveterre so that they wouldn't have to look after me full-time anymore. My mother took me husband aside shortly before we were engaged and had a long and frank discussion about what he could reasonably expect from me in a marriage. It was exceedingly evident that he married a child, that he wanted to marry a child, that he would love me in spite of my childishness. In fact, judging by the fact that he bought me a pink, fluffy, Hello Kitty canopy bed to retire to when I'm not feeling well, he for the most part sees me in the way that I see myself-- as eternally the fragile waif to his white knight. 

That's one reason that I cannot always put myself in another's shoes. Would I want to have to talk someone down if they were worried about me being possibly kidnapped in the future? Good heavens, no!! I simply lack the fortitude. But he doesn't. He's the stronger of us two, so maybe the exercise doesn't apply. When my husband got home, he actually brought up last night before I could. He wanted me to tell him again why I perceived that he'd shoved me. I said I was overemotional last night, and was probably misconstruing his overwhelm as a sort of violence. I apologized for that, and for expressing that I was suicidal last night. He seemed in a good enough mood, and accepted the apology, and we cuddled.

Could he be, as others have suggested, plastering a smile on his face so as not to upset me, whatever he once felt for me gradually eroding into resentment and bitterness, compounded by every outburst and episode? Maybe. It's not impossible. It's improbable enough, though, that I needn't act as though that's what is happening. Which, in hindsight, is probably how I should have treated the whole concentration camp thing, but I haven't had five years of my parents and therapists telling me not to worry about the latter issue the way I have about the former issue.

I intend to discuss suicidality in my next therapy session. My therapist tells me she does not necessarily expect that I will ever be fully independent, but as part of DBT, we happen to be working right now on balancing out the things I can do for myself versus the things I still need (not want, actually _require_) help with. It's going okay(ish). And as to your suggestion that I find an outlet for my intelligence, I have. I attend college classes. I have something like a 3.9 as a GPA, I'm in the honor society, and it appears I'll likely graduate with honors as well. No idea what I'll do once I graduate next semester, but though I've brought it up, my therapist seems to think we've more important things to discuss than how I'll cope with being out of school.


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## EllaSuaveterre (Oct 2, 2016)

Bluesclues said:


> I agree with this. But in addition you need to question how you could make the suffering of others about you at all. And only you. It is a giant leap to get to your husband being taken in the first place, but okay, your imagination went there. And once there it was about you, how you would feel. How overwhelmed you would be that you would kill yourself. Your imagined suffering would be so much greater than your poor husband who is being tortured in an imaginary concentration camp?


Yes, other people have brought this to my attention. 

I don't know any more than you do why I cannot naturally pull myself out of my own perspective when someone I care about is (actually or theoretically) suffering. I don't know how to fix that any more than you do. The pain I'm in due to a loved one's suffering is too great for me to be able to focus on soothing them, even in cases in which soothing their pain would also put an end to my own. I do not understand this, either. And even if I did, I probably wouldn't have the cognition, or fortitude, or emotional intelligence, or whatever it is that most people are blessed with, to fix it


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

EllaSuaveterre said:


> Yes, other people have brought this to my attention.
> 
> I don't know any more than you do why I cannot naturally pull myself out of my own perspective when someone I care about is (actually or theoretically) suffering. I don't know how to fix that any more than you do. The pain I'm in due to a loved one's suffering is too great for me to be able to focus on soothing them, even in cases in which soothing their pain would also put an end to my own. I do not understand this, either. And even if I did, I probably wouldn't have the cognition, or fortitude, or emotional intelligence, or whatever it is that most people are blessed with, to fix it


You can't fix it. What you can do is manage it. By learning to filter yourself, not speak everything that is on your mind (or if you already filter, then you need to filter much, much more), and learning to self soothe instead of expect others to soothe you. Then combine that with the suggestion I gave you - - ask yourself "how would I feel if my husband said he was going to kill himself, for any reason?" and then as you contemplate HIS FEELINGS, instead of your own, you will over time learn to emulate normal empathy. The more and more you do this, the more and more you will manage your outbursts and actions and even your thinking.

On the other hand, if you want to continue to tell yourself that you are helpless in all of your thoughts and actions, then you will remain helpless.

You are not, but believing that you are, you will remain so.


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## EllaSuaveterre (Oct 2, 2016)

I've spent the whole evening reading books and articles relating to BPD, empathy, and suicide, and I really don't think empathy-- that is, understanding what another person is feeling in a given situation-- is my problem. Even in my first post, my second sentence was "I imagine he's hurt too..." That's a display of empathy in itself. I understand and can accurately gauge the emotions of others. (So, apparently, do most PWBPD, according to what I've read.) The thing that I can't do, in the moment, is control my own emotions. Even if I am aware in the background that my husband is frustrated, overwhelmed, and confused, I can't get away from my own pain long enough to process what I know about my husband's feelings in any meaningful way. 

In the concentration camp scenario, I did not imagine that my pain would be objectively WORSE than my husband's. Yet I still couldn't think about his pain (although I knew that he would be in pain-- worse pain than me) because my own pain was consuming every last bit of my available mental energy.

Acting to try to help someone else's, rather than stop my own pain at any cost, when we both need to be helped, is the thing I struggle with, and that's not the same as lacking compassion or empathy.

Your advice-- to try and force myself out of my own head-- still very much applies, but it's hurtful that you would believe I cannot have empathy. I can and I do; I just can't USE it because all my mental resources are, not by any conscious choice of my own, focused on myself.


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## As'laDain (Nov 27, 2011)

@EllaSuaveterre, if your husband loves you as much as i love my wife, then its painful for him to hear about you killing yourself. 

that said, he is probably tougher than you think. so dont fret over your mistakes, just love him. 

you worry too much.


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## Keke24 (Sep 2, 2016)

EllaSuaveterre said:


> @Keke24 -- This seems to me to be a rather extreme point of view. To clarify, you think that it's inappropriate to express to your partners at _all_ when you're feeling suicidal, and you think that the healthiest response to your pain on their part would be to just go cold on you and refuse to respond at all? If this is in fact what you said, I must disagree. My husband is not generally an emotional man, so I don't expect him to stay up with me for hours and hours trying to calm me down. In fact, I don't really need him to. As I mentioned to Edmund, that kind of intervention is unnecessary. With proper self-care I can make the suicidal thoughts go away within a few hours. But on the other hand, I do expect kindness and compassion in response to suicidal thoughts, or any other unpleasant emotions. I don't believe this my husband's expressing sympathy over my ill moods in any way exacerbates or prolongs them. I don't expect him to expend _much_ energy on soothing me, but a hug and a, "sorry to hear that" would be nice. Which is, in most every case but this, what he provides. We as humans do need people's support and reassurance when we're upset, BPD or not, and I don't think it's right to sequester yourself off from other people's support just because you have an illness which makes you have need of that support far more often than most.


OP, are you able to recognize that you are demonstrating 'splitting' in your post above, a classic symptom that is characteristic of us BPDers? 

At no point did I point to an all or nothing approach to verbalizing suicidal thoughts, or the extremity of a cold response from the spouse of a bpder as being ideal. One need not apply the rigidity of a polarized approach of never speaking your truth or always speaking it. We can exist in a middle ground of taking the experiences day by day and working to manage the suicidal tendencies as they come.


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## Keke24 (Sep 2, 2016)

EllaSuaveterre said:


> I've spent the whole evening reading books and articles relating to BPD, empathy, and suicide, and I really don't think empathy-- that is, understanding what another person is feeling in a given situation-- is my problem.


Indeed BPDers are often described as lacking empathy however the literature leans towards being self absorbed. The BPDer is so preoccupied by their thoughts and feelings that it is difficult for he/she to have a balanced understanding of the impact of their behavior on others or a true grasp of the shared reality of the situation at hand. 

It is said that bpders lack emotional maturity, demonstrating the emotional development of a child. The self absorption mimics the child's behavior of being preoccupied with their feelings and getting their needs met while also lacking the ability to self soothe.


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## TeddieG (Sep 9, 2015)

EllaSuaveterre said:


> I think that a lot of people look at me, see my writing style, and think, "Someone that verbose has to be really intelligent. And someone that intelligent has to have mastery of her emotions.
> 
> Not so much. I am repeatedly baffled when people assume a high IQ, or a huge vocabulary, or the ability to express myself eloquently, somehow equates to having total command over my mental states. I may have the intelligence to understand what I'm doing and why, but that's where the wisdom you seem to be perceiving comes to an abrupt halt.
> 
> ...


As someone who has struggled to translate intellectually/cognitively grasped concepts to the level of emotional IQ, I get where you're coming from here. As I child I used to escape to my closet and read and practice my writing (for a while I was a calligrapher); I escaped the tension in my house from an alcoholic father and a codependent mother who just wanted to keep the peace and end conflict so she censored us, and I responded by hiding out with books. When I returned from grad school and retrieved some books that I'd left at my sister's house, she said my reaction to being reconnected with them was like a reunion with friends. But in real life, I have to deal with humans of all stripes, and some of them are a real challenge. Even so, I have learned to constantly recharge my empathy chip. I think it is Steven Covey who says relationships are like a bank, and if there are not enough deposits, too many withdrawals will empty the account and end the relationship. People make withdrawals from me all the time (selfish people, people without empathy, there's even a person in my workworld who may have BPD - either that or she's spoiled rotten and treats the boss like he's her daddy). I still try to find a way to have empathy for those people. 

But in the part I've quoted, I'm wondering about growth. I had to grow out of my tendency to live in my head, at least part of the time, and become mindful, conscious, and aware that people around me are complicated. They can have an influence on my situation but they don't have to control it. You may have been young when you met and married your husband, but you do have ways, approaches, of seeking growth? Or does your life revolve around your BPD? I'm not really asking, even if it sounds like it, if you've watered and fed the practiced and intentional neediness that BPD seems to cause for you. Rather I'm asking that in the process you've gone through of getting a diagnosis, learning about your disorder, have there been any helpful and useful steps provided to engage when you feel these overwhelming moments coming on? For me, during this thing with my now ex h, the power to put one foot in front of the other has come down to acknowledging how I feel, THAT I feel it, and thus it loses power over me. I don't want to be an emotional wreck, nor do I want to be seen that way; I don't want to be needy, I want to be independent and self-sufficient. People grow and change, and the biggest catalyst for that is dealing with the stuff, the fears, the anxieties, that life throws at us. Are you interested in growing? Are you do like the status quo?


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## Faithful Wife (Oct 31, 2012)

EllaSuaveterre said:


> Acting to try to help someone else's, rather than stop my own pain at any cost, when we both need to be helped, is the thing I struggle with, and that's not the same as lacking compassion or empathy.


Actually this ^^ is the very definition of lacking compassion and empathy, due to your own self-absorption.

Someone else's pain = not as important as my pain

Your pain whether real or imagined = must stop at any cost, even if it hurts the other person more

- - - -


A perfect illustration of this is the story I told about my friend. I have a few things going on in my life, pretty big things. My mother is ill and lives with me and is almost entirely dependent upon me. My brother is in a situation that also requires a lot from me as he is disabled, and not only cannot help me with our mom but needs help from me himself (he went to the ER again yesterday...one or the other of them is in the hospital or at the doctor at least once a week). My friend knows these things but as usual, won't really want to listen to me talk about them, basically just the bullet points are all I can get out before she has returned the conversation to herself. She also knows about the other event I mentioned where a suicide attempt rocked my whole family to the core and there are life long consequences to all of us. 

So in the middle of my day at work, which is not a very good place to get a call from one of your best friends saying that she's gonna off herself - - she had absolutely no compassion or empathy for me in that at all.

Did she consider my feelings? What I have been through or what I am going through? Did she consider that I really don't want to be upset like that from talking to her and now have to go back to my desk and try to pretend it didn't happen? Did she consider what I went through the last time someone close to me tried to kill themselves (for real, not just a threat like she was making)? Did she consider that maybe I didn't have the emotional strength or fortitude to handle her phone call? Did she consider that I am already the emotional care taker to 2 very needy people who depend on me? Did she remember that she has done this to me before and that I really have no belief at all that she would actually do it? Did she think for one moment about me or what this might do to me? Did she think maybe I didn't need or want to read books full of texts from her the rest of the day, trying to make me feel bad for stepping back, trying to make me go over with her (again) all of the dark things in her childhood that have nothing to do with me? Did she remember that I have already several times come to her aid in dozens and dozens of situations and that nothing ever changes no matter how much I help? (thank god she finally stopped asking me for money at least)

Nope. She did not consider any of that. As you said, she just had to deal with her OWN feelings at any cost. And that cost was my emotional well being. She didn't care about me at all in this situation.

Note to anyone who knows me who is planning to kill themselves - - I have been down that road and have my own pain and turmoil about it so DON'T CALL ME. Call 911 and leave me out of it.

Her pain always trumps the pain of those around her, or so she feels in her head, like you do.

I'm trying to give you some idea of what it is like to be around someone like this and HOW MUCH HARM THEY CAN DO.

Someone else mentioned the boy who cried wolf. Yep. It's like that.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

EllaSuaveterre said:


> Yes, other people have brought this to my attention.
> 
> I don't know any more than you do why I cannot naturally pull myself out of my own perspective when someone I care about is (actually or theoretically) suffering. *I don't know how to fix that any more than you do.* The pain I'm in due to a loved one's suffering is too great for me to be able to focus on soothing them, even in cases in which soothing their pain would also put an end to my own. I do not understand this, either. And even if I did, I probably wouldn't have the cognition, or fortitude, or emotional intelligence, or whatever it is that most people are blessed with, to fix it


We can train ourselves in new ways to interpret events and handle our emotions. 

Basically, you were taught by your parents and even yourself to react the way you do to events/issues. You were ill when you were young so everything was all about you. You buried yourself in books filled with high levels of drama. My bet is that most of the main characters in those books were also very needy women who were child-like and needed someone to protect them and take care of them.

Think of Pavlov's dogs. Their brains there trained to get hungry and salivate when they heard the bell. Likewise your brain has been trained to put out chemicals that turn on hyper drama, hyper emotions, and hyper neediness to anything that is emotional.

How do you change this? You have 100% control over your emotions. Sure you might have an initial reaction that lasts a few seconds. What differentiates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom is that we have the ability to stop an emotional reaction within seconds, stop and think about it and change our interpretation and our reaction.

You can retrain your brain to handle emotions and your actions differently... in any manner you chose.

For example, when you are calm, think about some situation in which you became very emotional and your emotions turned to putting yourself first. In your mind, relive the situation but this time stop at the point where you initially reacted. This time think about the other person. Think about the pain, physical and/or emotional, that they must be in. Their pain is very much as real and strong as yours. Think about things you could do to help them whether it is just holding them, talking to them.. or anything else that might help them. Just stop thinking about yourself.

I've read some things on this type of therapy that teaches people to change how they react... basically to reprogram their brain to react differently.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

EllaSuaveterre said:


> I've spent the whole evening reading books and articles relating to BPD, empathy, and suicide, and I really don't think empathy-- that is, understanding what another person is feeling in a given situation-- is my problem. Even in my first post, my second sentence was "I imagine he's hurt too..." That's a display of empathy in itself. I understand and can accurately gauge the emotions of others. (So, apparently, do most PWBPD, according to what I've read.) The thing that I can't do, in the moment, is control my own emotions. Even if I am aware in the background that my husband is frustrated, overwhelmed, and confused, I can't get away from my own pain long enough to process what I know about my husband's feelings in any meaningful way.
> 
> In the concentration camp scenario, I did not imagine that my pain would be objectively WORSE than my husband's. Yet I still couldn't think about his pain (although I knew that he would be in pain-- worse pain than me) because my own pain was consuming every last bit of my available mental energy.
> 
> ...


It's interesting to look at the difference between three words: sympathy, compassion and empathy.

Sympathy is the act of feeling for someone (“I am so sorry you are hurting”).

Compassion is a caring concern for another’s suffering from a slightly greater distance and often includes a desire to help. 

True empathy requires that you step outside your own emotions to *view things entirely from the perspective of the other person*.Empathy involves feeling with someone (“I feel your disappointment”). Empathy involves not just feelings but thoughts, and it encompasses two people—the person we are feeling for and our own self. 

What you feel is not empathy because your feelings are not from the perspective of the person who is suffering. It's from your own perspective.


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## Anastasia6 (May 28, 2017)

I haven't been diagnosed with anything but have some problems understanding others feelings and actions my whole life.

Things I've found helpful are similar to what you've been told. 

When you are overwhelmed with the thought of your husband being taken, first close your lips, ask yourself is this reasonable? 

Second whether you are able or not to distinguish reasonableness don't talk until you can answer how will others feel about what I'm saying? Stop defaulting to I'm going to kill myself. At least out loud. Maybe you aren't highly intelligent but it doesn't take that much to think before you speak.


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## Laurentium (May 21, 2017)

EllaSuaveterre said:


> Reading back over my blog posts circa 2009 actually exhausts *me*. If you can believe this, I was tenfold as florid and melodramatic then as I am now.


That seems like an encouraging sign.


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## She'sStillGotIt (Jul 30, 2016)

Edmund said:


> This is totally wrong advice. Everything “reported” on Fox News channel is either totally slanted Republican conservative propaganda or completely false. Republicans live in a totally different universe, not the real world.


Oh yes, because NONE of the mainstream media is slanted to the left. No sir. It's all fair and impartial reporting. Some the idiotic comments on this board are nothing if not entertaining.

Ella, your husband came here *LEGALLY*. He's not a criminal like the illegal aliens the liberals are fawning all over.


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## samyeagar (May 14, 2012)

I see several similarities here between you and my wife, though her reactions seem to manifest more in disproportionate expressions of anger rather than fear. Hers also have a selfish component.

A recent example, and one thing that happens quite frequently in similar forms was we were at the grocery store, and something my wife wanted was out of stock. She became outwardly angry and started ranting, and her rant was was from a place of persecution and paranoia. In the moment, she felt as if the store had specifically chosen not to order the item she wanted because they knew she wanted it, and they were out to deny her and anger her. They were out to screw her over.

She threw what I can only describe as a tantrum for the entire rest of the time we were in the store, including vague snarky remarks to the employees who went back into the stock room to see if they had any that just weren't on the shelf. This is a recurring behavior in most situations where things don't go the way she feels they should when it involves other people who provide a good or service. She takes it as a personal affront, a personal attack, that she was specifically targeted. She is later able to self reflect and realize that there was nothing personally directed at her, but in the moment, she is simply unable to control the feelings, and resulting outward burst of anger.

The vast majority of the time, I am able to handle the situation, help her through it, diffuse it, but sometimes, as was the case that day, I am just too exhausted to do so. I just walked away from her, created physical distance while she was ranting. That only exacerbated the situation, and led to the anger being directed at me personally, and I knew it would, but at that moment, I didn't care. Regardless of how it made her feel, I was not in the wrong walking away, and I was not in the mindset to deal with or manage her behavior.


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## Personal (Jan 16, 2014)

@samyeagar I don't get it. What's the appeal of being in a relationship with someone who behaves like that?


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

She'sStillGotIt said:


> Oh yes, because NONE of the mainstream media is slanted to the left. No sir. It's all fair and impartial reporting. Some the idiotic comments on this board are nothing if not entertaining.
> 
> Ella, your husband came here *LEGALLY*. He's not a criminal like the illegal aliens the liberals are fawning all over.


You'd be surprised how easy it is to get into hot water with the authorities while on a green card... 

And we liberals aren't fawning over every illegal alien. Only the cute ones who know how to cook .


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## EllaSuaveterre (Oct 2, 2016)

Personal said:


> @samyeagar I don't get it. What's the appeal of being in a relationship with someone who behaves like that?


There's probably plenty there. Extreme anger is just one facet of someone's personality. That same person might also be really fun at parties, or very beautiful and fashionable, or honest and hardworking, or really kind and sweet (when she's not angry) or incredibly skilled at playing piano or arranging flowers, or any number of other wonderful qualities. People's erratic behavior is just one single side to them, that doesn't always present itself, and maybe the good vastly outweighs the weekly tantrums at grocery stores. I mean, I have no idea who samyeagar's wife is so it's all pure speculation on my part, but they're still happily married so there's got to be some very good reasons he still loves her.
@samyeagar, I have some questions for you if you don't mind.

How do you tolerate your wife's behavior? Is it difficult to tolerate?

What makes her outbursts "worth staying" to you?

Does she ever try to make it up to you (or express that she wants to make it up to you) after the fact? What does she do to that end, if so? Does it ever "work" and make you not-frustrated with her anymore?


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## EllaSuaveterre (Oct 2, 2016)

I was watching a video on BPD and manipulation, and I just had a realization. In my affair, in 2014, one night the OM and I were video chatting, and he said something, I forget what, and I reacted and started crying my eyes out. And he started degrading me for being "manipulative" and "an attention seeker" and to stop "abusing him" with my emotions until I had a full-blown panic attack and vomited right in front of him. He wouldn't shut up until I somehow stopped crying, at which pont he denied having said any of the things he had just said 15 minutes ago.

That's why I get disproportionately hurt and offended if someone online calls me an attention seeker. THAT is why being called "abusive" or "manipulative pushes my buttons and drives me to research these things for days until I find definitive proof that I can unveil to everyone and somehow make it to where no one ever calls me abusive ever again. Because I'm reliving something horrible and trying to protect myself.

I have no idea what to DO with this information, but there we go.

The difference is that the OM had malicious intent and you guys don't... but how to convince myself that the distinction is relevant? Or that it's pointless to try and change someone's mind about me? I can't start thinking that and actually believing it-- I can't stop being triggered-- until I get rid of the feelings behind the trigger. How does one even DO that? How does one actually get rid of anger and hurt?


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

Easy.

Every human action has an intrinsic value. The motive, essentially.

OM's motive is rather clear and rather selfish giving it a rather high intrinsic value. TAM post motives aren't quite like that, having a much lower intrinsic value to those making the posts.

To not trigger... That's where therapy and skills come in. When you encounter such statements, look for the reasons they're made and choose a path that makes sense. Try to plan out things to avoid finding yourself triggered. I know it's easier said than done but that's where therapy helps.


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## EllaSuaveterre (Oct 2, 2016)

True. This is true. I can see that the OM was trying to paint any negative emotion I had as monstrous so that he could train me not to react with anything but silent subservitude whenever he did anything to hurt me, that I would take the blame for reacting to his maltreatment. You, collectively, have no such intent. You're trying to get me to see an alternate viewpoint. Even though it makes me profoundly uncomfortable, that's not inherently an attack on my personhood, even though it feels that way to me. Now I guess step two (perhaps I should have worded it better) is to, as my therapist would say, make "the feelings match the facts." How does one do that part?


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

That's a bit harder. Start by making sure you can separate feelings from facts. If you're highly emotionally charged, the line is fairly thin between the two. To be honest, it is for most people . That's how we get into political discourse. 

Feelings tend to be more general manifestations of our emotional state. Facts are specific instances of reality. Look for causality between the two.


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## EllaSuaveterre (Oct 2, 2016)

I suppose I have proven myself capable of learning from my mistakes, even if only out of the fear of consequences. I have stayed up all night again tonight (I have no idea why staying awake all night is now my most-used maladptive coping mechanism, or even how I think it helps me cope, but I digress) thinking about the political situation and how statistically likely it is or isn't that I our my family could be taken away to a camp somewhere to be tortured to death, and thinking about how I could painlessly kill myself before it got to that point, and wondering how many days and weeks of life I could squeeze out of the next 2 to 6 years before I'd have to end it because they'd come looking for me. 

And my husband woke up. And made coffee. And complained that I'd left my coffee cup on the counter again. And I apologized. I did not ask how he could care about a coffee cup when we have to flee to England or we're going to die. I did not ask him to reassure me that he'd somehow protect me from nazis. I did not mention that I was upset because I had no idea where people get opiates that are strong enough to kill a person painlessly. I didn't even tell him that I was grateful he'd somehow managed never to let it slip to his coworkers that he is a liberal and an atheist.

Instead I just gave him the usual I-love-you-have-a-good-day-at-work pleasantries and tried really hard to school my face into something resembling contentment. Which got a little easier when I saw that genuine love and contentment were lighting up his face when we held each other. 

God knows how he can ever be so normal and happy when I hear people comparing events that are going on right now as I type this to the start of the Holocaust.


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

Ella,

I don't mean this to be condescending in any way but I find your descriptions of your mental states captivating in a way, and in some ways I can relate to them...although I do not have BPD...my diagnosis is anxiety. I experience intense emotional flooding at times (for me it is panic attacks which are akin to feeling like death is imminent) and when I am in one of those flooded states I am essentially in fight or flight mode. My brain has shut off to all logic and reason and I am unable to do anything but just survive through those moments. 

My reaction is different to yours, however... when I am in a panicked state my only desire is to flee...get away from everyone and everything and be alone until it passes. This includes my husband and children, who are those closest to me and who I normally feel safest with. When I feel so profoundly out of control I also feel deeply ashamed of it, and I think that is one of the reasons I sequester myself until I can get myself back to "normal". I do not want to subject anyone else to my fear and irrational behavior. 

I take medication that makes a night and day difference to me, and I thank God that I live in a time when medication is an option to help me control this illness. I am not sure if there is medication for BPD but I think it's encouraging that you are in therapy. Do you ever share your posts here with your therapist? 

Sometimes I wonder why I am so mentally broken, when it seems like everyone else has themselves together. Sometimes I tell myself that there's no way that "normal" people feel this level of emotional/fearful flooding that I experience or else we'd all be locked in padded rooms without a functional society... but that can't be true...can it? Surely others feel things as deeply as I do, logic says that they probably just have better coping skills than I do. 

In the end I get by each day by taking my medication, and being incredibly thankful that my husband and children love me despite my flaws. I think your husband is a good man and that you can continue to grow your marriage by continuing to work on yourself in therapy. 

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk


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## samyeagar (May 14, 2012)

EllaSuaveterre said:


> There's probably plenty there. Extreme anger is just one facet of someone's personality. That same person might also be really fun at parties, or very beautiful and fashionable, or honest and hardworking, or really kind and sweet (when she's not angry) or incredibly skilled at playing piano or arranging flowers, or any number of other wonderful qualities. People's erratic behavior is just one single side to them, that doesn't always present itself, and maybe the good vastly outweighs the weekly tantrums at grocery stores. I mean, I have no idea who samyeagar's wife is so it's all pure speculation on my part, but they're still happily married so there's got to be some very good reasons he still loves her.
> 
> @samyeagar, I have some questions for you if you don't mind.
> 
> ...


As you rightfully pointed out, there are many facets to my wife. In spite of her anger, she is very kind and compassionate. Loyal, almost to a fault. She is very low maintenance materially, and doesn't need a whole lot of stuff to be happy. She also has very low expectations of me in that the way I live my life, the things I enjoy, the things I do align quite nicely with her love languages and her feelings of happiness security and fulfillment in the relationship. In that regard, it makes it quite easy to be in a relationship with her because I can just be myself and not have to be overly conscious of how my normal state of being will affect my relationship with her.

Most of the time, I am able to tolerate her outbursts by simply being there, and letting her rant herself through the initial flare up, and then discuss the situation rationally. She is aware, and most of the time is able to even identify and feel as things are building, but is unable to stop it. I think the thing that makes it the easiest for me to deal with it is the fact that I know and am confident in the fact that I am almost never the actual cause of her anger. I don't feel compelled to try and fix unfixable situations such as a grocery store not having the product she wants. I don't take her rage personally, feel any guilt over it, or anything like that. I know it has nothing to do with me, and is not mine to own. I also don't feel any need or compulsion to fix any of the repercussions of her outbursts.

Perhaps my biggest difficulty in dealing with them is that I do not entirely shut off and ignore them, or pass them off as her just being her in case there is actually something I have done to rightfully trigger it, or that there is something that I actually need to do. Basically, I do try and sift through all the noise to see if there is actually something there, if that makes any sense.

She is very aware of her disproportionately angry responses to situations that wouldn't even be a blip to most people, or at the most a minor irritation. She also acknowledges how difficult it is on me. Not that I actually need her confirmation, but it is nice that she does reassure me that I am not the cause, nor a trigger for her.


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## samyeagar (May 14, 2012)

EllaSuaveterre said:


> I suppose I have proven myself capable of learning from my mistakes, even if only out of the fear of consequences. I have stayed up all night again tonight (I have no idea why staying awake all night is now my most-used maladptive coping mechanism, or even how I think it helps me cope, but I digress) thinking about the political situation and how statistically likely it is or isn't that I our my family could be taken away to a camp somewhere to be tortured to death, and thinking about how I could painlessly kill myself before it got to that point, and wondering how many days and weeks of life I could squeeze out of the next 2 to 6 years before I'd have to end it because they'd come looking for me.
> 
> And my husband woke up. And made coffee. And complained that I'd left my coffee cup on the counter again. And I apologized. I did not ask how he could care about a coffee cup when we have to flee to England or we're going to die. I did not ask him to reassure me that he'd somehow protect me from nazis. I did not mention that I was upset because I had no idea where people get opiates that are strong enough to kill a person painlessly. I didn't even tell him that I was grateful he'd somehow managed never to let it slip to his coworkers that he is a liberal and an atheist.
> 
> ...


I found this very interesting as my wife wonders the same thing about me, and I'll tell you some of the things I tell her. As much as we would all love to save the world, most things are far beyond our control, or our ability to actually do anything about. The other important thing is to remember that most of what you are seeing and hearing from both sides over the past decade are nothing more than completely off the rails hysterical rhetoric designed specifically to terrify people.

It is also important to remember that the biggest difference between todays political discourse and that of a hundred years ago is simply access. Attitudes are no worse than they have always been, but never before has anyone and everyone in this country been able to say anything they want, when ever they want, to the rest of the world instantaneously with virtually no repercussions. Add to that the fact that most people are too lazy and ignorant to actually fact check, critically think and sift through things. It's far easier to just circle the wagons into rigid tribalism and defend your team at all costs. It's just way easier that way.


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## samyeagar (May 14, 2012)

Also with my wife, there are times where I will bring certain nuances to her attention that she herself may not notice. Last night, there was a good example of this.

Her grand mother passed away over the weekend, and we were at the visitation last night, and the funeral is today. I was able to go to the visitation, but unable to take the day off work to go to the funeral. My step son was also able to make it to the visitation, but he also had to work today, so couldn't come to the funeral. They were having a hard time finding enough people who could be, or wanted to be pall bearers, so my wife and step son were talking about it. My step son told my wife that he had already had to take a fair amount of time off of work, but if they absolutely needed another pall bearer, he would talk to his boss, and they would figure something out so he could be a pall bearer. Later last night, my wife was telling my step daughter about the conversation, and her recounting was that step son was going to tell his boss to "shove it if he didn't like it" and was going to be a pall bearer if needed. The nuance here is that yes, it would be the same end result, step son being a pall bearer, but whereas the actual conversation had a completely cooperative tone, my wife heard and conveyed a very adversarial tone.


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

Maybe you should consider a different therapist.


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## kag123 (Feb 6, 2012)

samyeagar said:


> Also with my wife, there are times where I will bring certain nuances to her attention that she herself may not notice. Last night, there was a good example of this.
> 
> Her grand mother passed away over the weekend, and we were at the visitation last night, and the funeral is today. I was able to go to the visitation, but unable to take the day off work to go to the funeral. My step son was also able to make it to the visitation, but he also had to work today, so couldn't come to the funeral. They were having a hard time finding enough people who could be, or wanted to be pall bearers, so my wife and step son were talking about it. My step son told my wife that he had already had to take a fair amount of time off of work, but if they absolutely needed another pall bearer, he would talk to his boss, and they would figure something out so he could be a pall bearer. Later last night, my wife was telling my step daughter about the conversation, and her recounting was that step son was going to tell his boss to "shove it if he didn't like it" and was going to be a pall bearer if needed. The nuance here is that yes, it would be the same end result, step son being a pall bearer, but whereas the actual conversation had a completely cooperative tone, my wife heard and conveyed a very adversarial tone.


I think that's interesting that you can pick up on your wife's interpretation of events vs what really happened. 

I wonder a lot about my own disordered thinking... it is an odd thing to be cognitively aware of your own disordered thought processes. 

When I was younger I certainly suffered from falling into the trap of confirmation bias... only seeing what I wanted to see and filtering all incoming information through that lens. It is something that I try very hard to be mindful of and to actively reject. 

Have you ever tried pointing it out to her? 

I only realized it was a problem when I moved out of my parents house and started to live on my own, and quickly realized that both of my parents constantly filter actual events into a retelling of them that shows bias and emotional affect that wasn't there originally. A few times I became the victim of the "rewriting of history" and was assigned intentions I certainly did not actually have (being made to sound like I had an attitude that I did not have) and I found it very hurtful to be on the receiving end of that. 

I also realized that some people do this without giving it any thought... and truly believe that their version of events is the truth and that anyone else's version cannot be accurate. 



Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk


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## Blondilocks (Jul 4, 2013)

samyeagar said:


> Also with my wife, there are times where I will bring certain nuances to her attention that she herself may not notice. Last night, there was a good example of this.
> 
> Her grand mother passed away over the weekend, and we were at the visitation last night, and the funeral is today. I was able to go to the visitation, but unable to take the day off work to go to the funeral. My step son was also able to make it to the visitation, but he also had to work today, so couldn't come to the funeral. They were having a hard time finding enough people who could be, or wanted to be pall bearers, so my wife and step son were talking about it. My step son told my wife that he had already had to take a fair amount of time off of work, but if they absolutely needed another pall bearer, he would talk to his boss, and they would figure something out so he could be a pall bearer. Later last night, my wife was telling my step daughter about the conversation, and her recounting was that step son was going to tell his boss to "shove it if he didn't like it" and was going to be a pall bearer if needed. The nuance here is that yes, it would be the same end result, step son being a pall bearer, but whereas the actual conversation had a completely cooperative tone, my wife heard and conveyed a very adversarial tone.


Sam, your wife is extremely immature. She related the conversation in that way because it makes her sound like a hard-ass and she thinks it will make her appear to be more important than she is. The same goes for her temper tantrums in stores. Ditto her swooning over other men in your presence. Living with a drama loving teenager is not for the faint of heart.


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## EllaSuaveterre (Oct 2, 2016)

kag123 said:


> Ella,
> 
> I don't mean this to be condescending in any way but I find your descriptions of your mental states captivating in a way, and in some ways I can relate to them...although I do not have BPD...my diagnosis is anxiety. I experience intense emotional flooding at times (for me it is panic attacks which are akin to feeling like death is imminent) and when I am in one of those flooded states I am essentially in fight or flight mode. My brain has shut off to all logic and reason and I am unable to do anything but just survive through those moments.
> 
> ...



There are not medications for BPD specifically, but there is a certain type of therapy (DBT) that is said to all but work miracles regarding the management of the condition if the patient really throws herself into it and gives it her all. I have been in DBT for about 4 years now, and my breakdowns are somewhat less often and _much_ less severe. I no longer self-harm through cutting, though I do still occasionally self-harm through starvation/anorexia. I no longer feel the need to _consciously_ overdramatize as a way to get support; any over-the-top emotions I feel are truly my own, though I may look back in hindsight and say, "I did not truly wish to kill myself last night; I was overwhelmed and wanted to escape the situation, and there is a difference." I can now _sometimes_ understand that being overwhelmed does not necessitate dying, which is huge for me. So I'm slowly getting there. I do take Prozac and Wellbutrin though, for the concurrent anxiety and depression that may or may not stem from the BPD. It helps somewhat.

I do show my therapist my posts here sometimes, especially when someone says something to which I take offense and I want to work through why that idea triggers me.

Also, I think that we really do feel things more intensely than others, precisely _because_ we don't have the coping skills they do. So it's both. I've learned a fair deal about the process of self-soothing, and the goal of learning to self-soothe is to stop the emotional spiral as early as we can. To recognize and understand that we're beginning to feel afraid/angry/depressed and do something about it _before_ that emotion has a chance to translate into destructive actions. Eventually, if one masters this, one can halt the emotional spiral before it even produces destructive _urges_. Because neurotypical people's coping skills are often innate, or learned at a very early age, they use their coping skills almost effortlessly, long before their emotions have the chance to escalate to the level that ours do-- the level of overwhelming pain that prompts things like panic attacks and self-injury. So in this way, we _do_ have it worse than the normies, and I think it's patronizing and very ignorant (though that ignorance is probably not ill-intended) when someone who does not have any mental illnesses or feel suicidal on a thrice-weekly basis could have the gall to say their emotions are as intense as someone who must constantly, consciously fight to stay alive and safe.


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