Hi @amrh90
cc: @Captain24, @MatchaToad, @tyme, @Oaktree
Hi @amrh90
I would like to reiterate what @MatchaToad advises about making your wellbeing as independently stable and supported as much as possible.
I don't have any diagnosed mental health (MH) issues, but I am in a fractious relationship with someone that has a complex PTSD and has had various diagnoses of BPD, bipolar and cPTSD.
From what I have experienced, much of her perception of the relationship is just like a normal person to some extent, except it is turned up to '11'. She has struggled to relate in times of stress and conflict, where much of the triggers are understandable but just confused. And I have very little capacity to present a coherent reason as to why she is mistaken. It is tragic that I cannot just get her to listen to me when she reasons about the world around her, and particularly my perspective of what is going on. It is particularly frustrating when her reasoning is just a simple misunderstanding of technology or timelines. This is just the way she is when she is stressed. However, I know enough of how her mind works under stress and the triggers that 'set her off'. But even still, it is difficult to let her wind down without being triggered myself. So the advice that was listed about boundaries, etc.. are absolutely essential. I would also add that if you can add to all of those points one of 'consistency', I think it really helps in making conflict quicker to eventually resolve.
The other point I would add is a little more harder to build a coherent framework about. I don't know if I can do it justice, and it is probably because I am still working it out as I go. In a nutshell, I think the opening statement that I wrote has some merit: that your sister is just like us but her internal processing is turned up to '11'. And if there is some merit to that, then there is the possibility that we are able to also work along side them; you with your sister and me with my partner.
A long time ago I somehow got my hand on a self-help book called "If you meet Buddha on the road, slay him" by a psychologist called Sheldon Kopp. He quoted a allegory about two different outcomes when two different travellers come across a rural village that is in a state of panic. As the story went, when the first traveller comes across the villagers, he found them cowering at the edge of a vegetable crop. On hearing of their lamentations, he understood that they were all scared that a monster was lurking in their crop. On investigation, the stranger found that instead of a monster in the crop, there was merely an overgrown pumpkin. These villagers were ignorant of such a vegetable, and so the stranger tried to console them and educate them on the benefits of such a vegetable. However, he made no impact on their panic and confusion, so he used a scythe to server it from it's vine and then split the pumpkin into two to revel the flesh. Although he tried to explain that it was a tasty source of food, the villagers couldn't listen and reasoned that if the stranger so easily slayed the monster, that they themselves could be in danger. And so in defence, the villagers chased the stranger outside the boarders of the village. The next day, another stranger came across the same fearful villagers, but instead of trying to reason with them, he understood their panicked frame of thinking, and behaved as they did. He pretended to cower, snuck away with the villagers and sheltered in their homes. Eventually, once he had established trust, he was able to calmly communicate his experience, and of course, the story ends with the villagers utilising the vegetable into the farming and diet.
I think this tale relates to two different approaches that I have used with my partner, and with some of the same failure and success as was concluded the tale.
I have found that if I have external stability and boundaries that shield some of the ramifications of the conflict with my partner in her 'altered state', it is possible to 'travel' with her without being distressed by her destructive behaviour and confused perception. It requires the safe-space infrastructure that @MatchaToad listed to ensure that I am not derailed and that the normal necessities of mortgage repayments, etc are all serviced in the 'real' world. But if I have that structure, then my own thinking and engagement also is altered, too. And furthermore, I benefit from this engagement.
I think in my relationship, I am beginning to understand that much of her experience has led her to act in much the same way as those villagers. Although outwardly her behaviour reads as dominant and harmful, the more I understand the links between her current thinking and her past, the more I understand her behaviour as merely panicked and defensive. In our worse case scenario where I do not consider this quiescent power dynamic, we are triggered by each other and our conflict spirals out of control. In reality, my position is much more stable and without the burden of PTSD. As such, I am actually the dominant one when she is acting as the 'dominant one in conflict'. The more I emulate the second stranger, the more I can balance the dynamic and the better we resolve the conflict and strengthen the bonds in our relationship.
But reasoning is easier on paper than it is in the middle of a crisis. It is easy to get triggered and become defensive myself. However, if this is just 'normality turned up to 11', then there would be the same misunderstandings in the larger social space. And that is what I am hypothesizing: our society is replete with power dynamics and national narratives that make us within that 'normal' bell curve the villagers, not either of those strangers. Just look at the national condoned position of Zionism verses Palestinians, or all the wars that we are in against demonised brown people. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm convinced that if either of us was privileged to be analysed by Karl Jung brought back from the dead, we would both be convinced that there was a myriad of unconscious drivers that our consciousness suppresses, but our psyche are composed of.
And so in some way, our relationship to our sisters and partners are a way for us to come to terms with ourselves, as much as a possibility of reconnecting with our panicked and distressed loved ones.
It is just a thought, and it is possibly just a wish. But perhaps there is some merit in this conception.
Best of luck, @amrh90
