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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.

Unknown userMember10 Apr 2018, 3:23 pm AEST

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

Hey @Determined
We all need to let off steam ... hope we weren't too helpful ...

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

Unknown userMember10 Apr 2018, 4:02 pm AEST

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

@Determined
'being too helpful' = offering unwanted advice when you really wanted an ear

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

DeterminedSenior Contributor10 Apr 2018, 5:22 pm AEST

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

Appreciate the input @Former-Member

Also answered some questions I did not know how to ask or if I should ask.

There are some relationship aspects that I am able to understand when things are uncertain that I find it difficult to accept when things are more steady.

Sometimes it feels as though because I have made a commitment to stay and support my darling no matter how hard things are that she feels she does not have to try at all. (That is not intended as an attack on my darling, just acknowledging some emotions). Hard to explain that without being too personal.

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

DeterminedSenior Contributor10 Apr 2018, 5:32 pm AEST

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

Things seem to be going ok at the moment after starting the new med. Still a long way from me being able to relax but relative to a couple of weeks ago I am at least able to leave her alone and with the children.

A few little OCD traits (if I can call it that) have emerged that I am watching, more out of curiosity than concern.

Also unsure as to why dose of the new med was increased today when things seem to be improving. Darling wants me to come to her next review in 2 weeks to ask. I just need to find a way to ask as in seeking understanding without it being perceived as questioning judgement.

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

Unknown userMember10 Apr 2018, 6:58 pm AEST

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

Hearing you Bro ...

@Determined re: meds perhaps saying your Darling asked you to clarify as she was not quite sure how you will know when therapeutic levels have been reached particularly as she seems to be responding well and is keen to take the lowest dose needed for symptom relief. Of course there is Dr Google ...

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

DeterminedSenior Contributor10 Apr 2018, 7:04 pm AEST

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

That actually sounds like a good approach @Former-Member I think he would probably respond ok to that approach.

Have done a bit of dr google today and it seems that it is a low starting dose that she is currently on.

Hard not to be anxious around increased risk of side effects as dose increases. Particually when food and fluid intake is not optimal.

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

SmcSenior Contributor10 Apr 2018, 9:20 pm AEST

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

@Determined I think it's fairly standard practice to start meds on a low dose so that the person's system has time to adjust to them. Full dose from the start is more likely to bring on reactions. Our daughter was only started on a full strength dose of the meds she's on when she was in a clinic, and they could closely supervise her reactions.

Re. yesterday's post- as long as it was helpful for you overall. I was pushing my "disclosure boundaries" a bit too, but perhaps an anonymous forum is the best setting for doing so? This stuff's hard. We all need a chance to talk it out sometimes.

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

DeterminedSenior Contributor10 Apr 2018, 9:50 pm AEST

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

Thanks @Smc 🙂

I understand the starting a low dose and slowly lifting it to avoid side effects so if it was not working or limited effect great and makes sense (have been there plenty of times before) but my query is why the need to lift it if the low dose has served its purpose. (In this instance the suicidal ideation seems to have lifted).

Very much appreciate you 'pushing your boundaries' yesterday, yes it was helpful, and in seeing things from both sides of the equation also.

Yes some of this stuff is hard but it does help to talk about it and definitely only possible in an anonymous setting like this.

something that I have wanted to ask about but never know where or how to start 😞

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

SmcSenior Contributor10 Apr 2018, 10:03 pm AEST

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

Fair question re. meds. Sounds like something to check with the doctors.

Glad yesterday was helful. I'll be off to bed soon, so hope you get a good night's sleep.

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

DeterminedSenior Contributor10 Apr 2018, 10:07 pm AEST

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

Im off to bed myself soon also, have an early start tomorrow

just tidying up some homework questions and corresponding with group member for tomorrows class and I am done. managed to achieve more in the last 2 hours or so than I did in the 10 before that while I was at uni. nothing like a little preassure to promote progress lol

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