Connect with people who understand what you are going through, seek advice and surround yourself with support. We're free, anonymous, and professionally moderated 24/7.

47,612Members
1,358,869Posts
1,400,000Visitors

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.

2306 replies

71 - 80 of 2,306

1...7 8 9...231

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

Unknown userMember10 Feb 2018, 11:09 am AEDT

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

@Determined
I found in crisis mode that after a few nights of little sleep I would eventually crash but could not say I felt rested.

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

DeterminedSenior Contributor10 Feb 2018, 2:44 pm AEDT

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

I know what you mean @Former-Member

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

Bubbles3Senior Contributor10 Feb 2018, 3:12 pm AEDT

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

Hows you mrs going @Determined

Whats happening with her. Just to help me understand. Sometimes i need to no so i can help my self only if thats ok. Up to you

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

DeterminedSenior Contributor10 Feb 2018, 3:31 pm AEDT

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

Not so good at the moment @Bubbles3,

I wish I knew what was happening then maybe we could do something to help her through. She doesn't even know herself.

We had a significant self harm incident last weekend that saw her in emergency for the day connected to an ecg and drip. At the moment I am only leaving her for short periods and even then only with one of the children so not leaving her by herself at all.

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

Bubbles3Senior Contributor10 Feb 2018, 3:34 pm AEDT

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

Thats not good @Determined

Hope things get better for you both

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

DeterminedSenior Contributor10 Feb 2018, 3:36 pm AEDT

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

Thanks @Bubbles3, hope things are improving for you also.

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

DeterminedSenior Contributor11 Feb 2018, 10:28 am AEDT

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

Well I actually slept last nigjt but I certinally don't feel rested.
Really worried about my darling so have skipped church again as I am not leaving her alone. She says I am overreacting, maybe I am after last weekends attempt but I dont think so.
She is still talking about life being too hard and the only option not being here. She has also indicated that she has a plan. I have made the home as safe as I can but can do nothing to stop her gaining access to her plan outside of the home. Nor do I know if she hasn't already got something stashed away 😓

Sorry about my ramble, just need to think out loud.
Dont know what to do.

I would like her to get out of bed and freshen up so we can go for a drive to be out of the house. I feel the longer she lies there the worse she is going to feel but at the same time don't want to cause any distress to make things worse either 😢

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

Unknown userMember11 Feb 2018, 10:41 am AEDT

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

hello @Determined

so sorry reading back over the last few pages that another hospital rush occurred....

very draining for all concerned...

sadly many people who work in the emergency section and even other parts of the hospital have only had the basic training in mental health...

they do nothing towards improving stigma around mental health...

disrespectful discussions are often the case and very callous to me contravening the phrase duty of care..

your wife is probably not motivated and drained...feeling helpless following the event and outcome..

is your mother able to come for a visit again...that seemed to perk her up...sometimes just having a third party makes so much difference..

the same happened for me yesterday...I did not want husbands son and wife to come...when they arrived she looked so concerned and caring I broke down...hugged her and said I was so frightened that you werent coming!!!...I had no idea that I felt that way...)

thinking of you and pleased to hear that you have had some self-time....

are there any people at the church whom your wife feels comfortable with or are they acquaintances only and perhaps not that understanding re mental health?

the other thing I thought of was a family activity in the bedroom....a fun boardgame while she sits up in bed....some silly time...or perhaps you are all too drained.

just wanting so much to offer help..

please take care

mohill

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

DeterminedSenior Contributor11 Feb 2018, 10:56 am AEDT

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

Thank you for your reply @Former-Member
I have just been talking to a phone counselling service so feeling a little more confident myself.

I dont think the hospital staff were unprofessional at all, far from it, more that they misjudged the severity of our situation. But then even the mh team and het own pdoc accepted her explanation for what happened so cant blame them for that.

We have lots of fantastic support arround us, I just have to ask.
My only delicate problem there is getting practicle help without my darling feeling 'babysat' or not good enough to be doing tasks that are just too hard for her at the moment.

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

DeterminedSenior Contributor13 Feb 2018, 9:41 pm AEDT

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

I am having a really hard time holding it together tonight.

Storms rarely worry me but for some reason tonight heavy rain and thunder is really hyping me up. Lack of sleep is probably not helping.

S2 has been in attitude overdrive since I picked him up from school, S1 has been niggling all afternoon making it worse, Darling can sense my anxiety and keeps hammering me about being angry, bub is in his cot screaming and wont settle... I just cant win....

I think sub-consciously I am worrying about how itnis going to work when I go back to Uni. Feeling useless about some basic tasks I have not had the motivation or energy to complete.

Today has been one of those days where it would be so easy to just give up and walk away. That is not and never will be an option, just acknowledging that some days it would be easy.

71 - 80 of 2,306

1...7 8 9...231