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Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

DeterminedSenior Contributor22 Jan 2018, 1:25 pm AEDT

Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

This thread is a follow on (or starting over) from my previous thread Caring for a wife with borderline personality disorder – sequel to diary of wife's hospital stay, I wanted to start over and in order to leave all the trauma and negativity of last year behind me and start fresh.

Those of you who have been following our family journey will know that after a number of hospital admissions for my darling I was encouraged by my councillor to implement some boundaries (lovingly implemented guidelines, not rules to be enforced) as well as self-care for myself as what we were doing was clearly not working and my health was /still is being affected.

Well after a smoother than expected start the boundaries and self-care were forgotten with my darling having a complete melt down and further lengthy hospital admissions due to high risk of self harm and a genuine attempt to leave us. The last 6 months particularly have been quite difficult for us all. S2 particularly had a lot of issues at school during this time and is currently seeing a councillor.

The purpose of this new thread is to again document our journey of healing, working on implemented boundaries and commitment to self care. As with the previous thread this is so that I can have a visual plan for myself with some accountability to follow through with plans in place and in the hope that it may help others in similar situations to ours. And so that I can track our progress. This was especially helpful in the last thread leading up to Christmas when I was feeling down about our current position to review what I had written and see just how far we have come.

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In response to: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

DeterminedSenior Contributor22 Apr 2019, 9:33 pm AEST

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Thanks @Former-Member much appreciated.

I just got an opportunity to tell darling mum is coming in the morning and she actually happy. That takes a big load off to be able to relax tonight and hopefully get some rest.

In response to: Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

DeterminedSenior Contributor23 Apr 2019, 7:47 am AEST

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Morning all,

@Former-Member all quiet on the home front. I actually managed a decent sleep and have woken feeling rested. I have my mum at home to help out and the boys are above average compliant considering it is the first day back at school after holidays so able to relax and concentrate at Uni. I am still feeling mildly anxious and resentful however so a good opportunity to work on some emotional resilience strategies.

In response to: Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

DeterminedSenior Contributor23 Apr 2019, 8:51 pm AEST

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

@Former-Member

Here is where I usually share about the trials and successes in supporting my family.

The people here have been a invaluable support since I landed here in the middle of a crisis.

In response to: Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

DeterminedSenior Contributor23 Apr 2019, 9:02 pm AEST

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

@Former-Member today went better than expected.

After my fretting about arranging a 'minder' for darling and how she was going to respond she actually really enjoyed my mum's company and is going to ask herself if mum can come again tomorrow as she is worried about being alone. This is a big step for darling to verbally admit this and take a positive step to manage it.

In response to: Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

SmcSenior Contributor23 Apr 2019, 9:18 pm AEST

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

🙂 That's very good to hear @Determined.

In response to: Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

DeterminedSenior Contributor23 Apr 2019, 9:31 pm AEST

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Thanks @Smc

Still quite anxious and worried but at least darling has some insight at the moment. This makes a big difference.

In response to: Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Unknown userMember24 Apr 2019, 9:44 pm AEST

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Continuing to remember you and yours @Determined .

In response to: Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

DeterminedSenior Contributor24 Apr 2019, 10:02 pm AEST

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Thanks @Former-Member, all quiet here atm. Thinking of you and Mr D also.

Darling had my mum and sister keep her company again for the day which was good, nice to see her smiling when I arrived home and I was able to focus at work. Unfortunatly it doesn't last for long but at least she gets a small reprieve from her thoughts for how ever long that lasts.

We are going to visit FIL tomorrow, still in out of town hospital with some form of viral infection.

In response to: Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Unknown userMember25 Apr 2019, 8:04 am AEST

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

Whether or not mum would be prepared to do a routine weekly visit while you are out might be something to consider @Determined . Limiting the time might help prevent them wearing each other out. Would there be anyone else you might know who you could ask to visit Darling +/- FIL, even once fortnightly? I know that friendships are difficult for our loved ones.

In response to: Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

DeterminedSenior Contributor25 Apr 2019, 11:58 am AEST

Re: Supporting my wife who lives with Borderline Personality Disorder while maintaining self care.

@Former-Member mum does usually visit for an hour or so most weeks and there is a friend darling goes out to coffee with every week or 2.

I agree though that too much time becomes a chore resulting in anti-social behaviours. Bit of a fine balancing act there.

Having mum visit yesterday was good because darling was going to come and tag along with me at work 😬

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SANE acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures; and to Elders past and present.

SANE values diversity. We are committed to providing a safe, culturally appropriate, and inclusive service for all people, regardless of their ethnicity, faith, disability, sexuality, or gender identity.