Caring4Corny

You have made my day, saying that @Corny .... if I can inspire one other person I consider that pretty awesome ..... and you are inspiring to me too. You are helping to support my hope for my hubby, although it would take a pretty monumental change at this stage to reinstate a sense of marriage as it was ..... whatever we have in the future I think, by circumstance, will be something else. I hope he will receive treatment, and I hope I can walk along with him if he does ..... but I can’t spend all my thoughts on it cos realistically there is a chance it may never happen, if he can keep flying under radars and projecting success.

I hope you do pick up the pen again.

@Corny

Sending ever so gentle thoughts your way as you prepare to return home. I am wondering if you have you a friend or family member you could make advance catch up arrangements with pre-disharge, perhaps for the day after you get home or very soon after?

I am sure you are inspiring more people than me @Faith-and-Hope and most definitely would be role modelling healthy behaviour to your children.

You're husband can most definitely improve his condition, I guess what is so tricky is that every individuals response to treatment is different. What works for one person, won't work for another. Even lifestyle changes have varying impacts on people, some people get lots of benefit, others a little bit around the edges.

Its a really difficult one @Faith-and-Hope when the body is at the centre of a mental illness that is driven by obsession by no fault of the patient, its just the nature of the looping thoughts and rigid beliefs that come with that MI.

Its not only how your husband relates to himself that is the problem, but body image and how we think about our bodies impacts physical intimacy and can breakdown relationships and marriages. Something that starts with a fixation of their own body, can begin to impact a couple to the point where it stops physical intimacy and it snowballs from there.

It seems to be the same for heterosexual couples and LGBTI couples and I think that this obsession with looks really impacts a person's ability to connect with another. You can also feel very judged if you know the other person has insanely high standards of beauty and it can be an intimacy killer amongst many other intimacy killers out there. Not an easy one to navigate that is for sure, and your husbands mental health condition would be making working on the marriage doubly as hard. I know you are very committed to him but the loneliness of the constant rejection would be tough to live with.

Do you ever ask yourself if the shoe was on the other foot would your husband have stuck around Faith?

Corny

Thanks for your kind concern @Former-Member I do have siblings in Sydney and my doctor is hoping to line up a case worker for me. I have appointments in the diary and I will see my friends also. A lot of them are shift workers or live outside Sydney so it can be tough to catch them, everyone has their own problems to deal with, but I am trying to make sure that the walls don't close in. Living alone it can be hard to gauge how you are going but it can be peaceful too and I am looking forward to some privacy. As long as I see my doctors regularly I should be OK.

Of course 3 and half months in hospital is hard to bounce back from for anyone and it won't be easy for me. Its been another hard year, and I have a lot to work through in therapy but I am trying to remain hopeful and not compare my life too much to others because it just makes me so sad. There are other people suffering worse than me and I try to remember all that I am grateful for.

Corny

Yeah, I have asked myself that question @Corny, and believe I know the answer to it, but I have to be true to myself and my kids ..... and they want what I want in this situation ..... but if we get to the point of feeling that we can’t stay our ground, I think we will know that too.

@Corny

Having privacy again = 😀

Comparing ourselves to others = 😬

I only asked @Faith-and-Hope because you are an emotionally intelligent women and I can tell you are not the sort of women that buries their head in the sand, so I figured these sorts of thoughts would play on your subconscious and could bring you down, as they would me.

Some people are happy to ignore those thought lines and may even invent an alternative reality to make staying more comfortable, but truth has a way of seeping through the smallest of openings.

Because I had to care for my parents MI's from a very young age and never experienced age appropriate responsibility I give and give and give and give.

I have done 11 years of therapy and I started this thread because I have been conditioned to ignore my needs, desires, hopes and dreams, and put others before my own. It wasn't that I was weak, my father was genuinely narcissistic so it came with a lot of threat and manipulation. He demanded other people take care of him and would feel lost at sea if he didn't have someone waiting on him hand and foot along with constant company. I never really stood a chance of being anything but self-sacrificing. But it doesn't work. I feel unfulfilled.

I guess only time will tell how it all transpires for you both. Very hard for all.

Corny

After sharing with others for 20 years @Former-Member I am happy to have some adult privacy.

Corny

Yes @Corny .... I think you’re right about that .... only time will tell. It’s such a mixed bag.

I feel for you so much in your situation. My Mum was a child-carer of an unwell parent, and the degree of NPD-like behaviours in my hubby’s childhood environment speaks volumes. We all do the best we know how, and sometimes that is being a constant giver. I think that has been some of my hubby’s role, and now he doesn’t know what to be if he is not being “this”.

I am so pleased to hear you are working on giving to you, and what your needs are. It’s part of the reason I have sought counseling. In part it is to have a voice, but the other part is to work out how to refocus, and decide what I need as an individual. So glad you opened this thread @Corny .... glad you’re here 🙂

You deserve that @Faith-and-Hope . As women, self sacrifice fits like a glove and it is modelled to us by the previous generations, unless the women in the family are very self-focused, which also can happen a lot.

Narcissism is on a continuum. We are all self focused and we are all looking out for ourselves, but if your husband experienced the top end in his childhood from his parents that would have completely warped his thinking and changed his sense of identity in a bad way.

You grow up with a heady mix of feelings of worthlessness but also having to be the saviour and self sacrificer... you begin to believe that your worth is only realised when someone else is taking from you and it becomes a pattern. Expressing your needs can result in rage and aggression from the self absorbed parent. You end up feeling empty and you don't know why.

I feel for him if he was subjected to that, its been really interesting how many people on the ward have vocalised similar home environments and personality in at least one parent.

I hope that your marriage can come back to life but it does take two to do that.

Corny