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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 Contributor17 Mar 2018, 1:34 pm AEDT

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

Haha @Former-Member, I have often been told I am not a typical bloke so I could be leading you up the garden path.

For me my darling has had most success when quietly supporting and encouraging me rather than getting worked up because things are not happening on her timeline or how she thinks they should be done.

When looking at my personality type (based on love languages book) I need positive affirmations and encouragement, so any perceived negative input is seen as rejection and not good enough so I loose interest and motivation. (Both physically and emotionally). I have tried to work through this both myself and with the help of a psychologist but still a work in progress.

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

Unknown userMember17 Mar 2018, 1:58 pm AEDT

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

We are all a work in progress Bro ... I fail miserably so often ... I think as carers when we are giving so much and trying so hard to hold things together that we can be sensitive when we get criticism or advice about areas we need to improve in. I know I felt it the other day and I readily admit I do feel uncomfortable if I do not understand things, do you think this means that I have control issues? (I won't feel offended if you say yes)

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

DeterminedSenior Contributor17 Mar 2018, 2:31 pm AEDT

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

I often wonder the same a about myself re control issues and have been told I am too controlling @Former-Member, it think it all comes down to context of the situation though. If it comes down to wanting to create an environment that is safe and where our loved ones can be happy I do not see it as a negative thing.

For me and it may be similar for you, a big part of the 'control' perceptions is about subconsciously running scenarios and backup plans to keep my darling safe and our family, anything outside of these scenarios makes me anxious and uneasy about the unknown. I would like to believe that makes us caring rather than controlling so no I wouldn't say you have controll issues.

I would like to myself let go a little more and have trust in the syatem etc. But in the midst of a crisis or following a crisis I think that would mean no longer caring about the outcome. I hope I never reach that point no matter how hard things are.

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

AppleblossomSenior Contributor17 Mar 2018, 2:42 pm AEDT

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

Just like EGO is not necessarily a dirty word,

there are many times when CONTROL is needed.

@DeterminedI was laughing thinking of you pushing mower down a garden path flanked with knee high grass and @Former-Member chasing you with a rake.

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

Unknown userMember17 Mar 2018, 3:05 pm AEDT

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

That is something I might just possibly do @Appleblossom ...

I desperately want to trust more too @Determined, I think with better communication it might be possible. For me trusting does not mean that I don't care about the outcome, I think it means that I have confidence that the treatment given is appropriate and necessary and outweighs the risks that are involved.

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

DeterminedSenior Contributor17 Mar 2018, 10:22 pm AEDT

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

The biggest thing I have to work on personally @Former-Member is to let go of things that are outside of my control and not feel responsible accept responsibility for things that are outside of my control 😞

I agree with you that improved communication may help with this.

I agree that having trust in the system doesn't necessarily have to mean that we don't care, I think what I was trying to say is that letting go completely and not being affected when things go wrong. ?? or not having any fear or reservations about what the future may hold ?

Now I am confusing myself... might give up...

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

DeterminedSenior Contributor17 Mar 2018, 10:29 pm AEDT

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

I managed to get the bulk of the mowing done today @Former-Member, well the bits that can be seen from the house and road anyway. Darling still managed to point out a section that I had missed because I did not think it was too bad.

We went out for a family dinner tonight, I wanted to treat the family with some of the additional work I am doing this coming week given I will not be around as much as we would all like.

End of next week would have been more wise as I now have some work to catch up on but it was a case of acting on an idea before actually considering the logistics of it all. It was a nice night and nice to be out as a family. It is a venue the children really like as it has child friendly activities, gives darling and I time together at the same time.

Trust your time out tonight has been a success.

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

Unknown userMember17 Mar 2018, 10:58 pm AEDT

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

@Determined

Spontaneity always a good result for me..

good that you get some together time and the children enjoy themselves too

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

Shaz51Senior Contributor18 Mar 2018, 4:02 pm AEDT

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

How are you and your darling today @Determined

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

DeterminedSenior Contributor18 Mar 2018, 5:21 pm AEDT

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

Hi @Shaz51 how are you today?

All tired and grumpy here. Another night of broken sleep for me with bad reflux. Now have an annoying cough from the reflux.

We all went to church this morning, Darling would have preferred stay in bed but made an effort to come out with us all.

After lunch I have been at uni all afternoon doing group assesment work for a group presentation tomorrow. Darling was not looking verry well this morning but I was relieved to she had picked up when I got home from uni and was doing homework with S2.

Early start and long days for me every day this week so not good that I am tired before I even start.

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