PowderfingerSenior Contributor
Lost all interest and residual feelings of anger and hurt.
@BPDSurvivor you may have some helpful advice here for me too.
I will call her my ex partner for now because I did end the relationship. It is yet to be determined if we will reunite at some point. Probably later rather than sooner. This however is not the point of my post.
Right up until I ended the relationship, my ex was undiagnosed. I stick by her through the good and bad. Lots of support from me towards her. I have C PTSD with severe depression and anxiety. I knew a lot about mental health since I have been in the think of it for the last six years since my official diagnosis.
It took me a long time if getting her to go see a doctor. A lot of fights, alot of damage caused, a lot of hurt and pain. I still stuck by her and supported her. Why? Because I truly loved her deeply.
Long story cut short, she got her diagnosis recently. I was with her every step of the way, psychiatrist appointments, doctors appointments and so on. I never forced myself into any of her appointments, only if she wanted me in there would I accompany her. I would support her as much as I could and leave decisions up to her.
One day, we weren't in to see the doctor. I wasn't very well that day, (major migraine) and I had been stressed that week about a few things. Mainly money because I knew it would be coming up that soon I would be supporting us both a bit more financially. The doctor was prescribing something and it was going to cost an ongoing fortune I knew we couldn't afford. I burst into tears in the doctor's room and said we couldn't afford it.
The doctor suggested I no longer come into. my then partners appointments. I felt very hurt by it. Prior to that she was all for me. Saw how loving, caring and strong I was for my ex.
Not long after that, maybe a few days my ex had a go at me. Said to me you do not get to decide what I take and don't take. Don't bring your exes into it or your past. I was so hurt. Actually more deeply by my ex than the doctor. Why? Because I had disclosed the hurts and traumas of my past long before this happened.
My best friend died in 2013 and some other traumas happened. The whole journey with her, at times I was related Ving those traumas. I never really acted them out, I was suffering internally and was quiet about it. It was really hard because my past traumas left me in so much fear of the same thing happening again and I couldn't get control of my overwhelming fear and powerlessness. When my best friend died, I knew what was going in with him. I was angry with some of his medical doctors prescriptions because he was eating them like candy.
Anyhow, I tried so hard with everything. His death really shook me. Some days I think It be moved in, other days, I feel like I haven't budged an inch. It's still has to be that I tell myself I did all I could. We lived together and he died at home. That makes it even harder for me, because it is not like I was someplace else when he died.
My ex knew the story. I don't tell everyone. I only share it when and if I want to.
Long story cut short, with the doctor's treatment towards me and my exes treatment towards me, it was a double whammy. I didn't express how much it hurt me. It just would have led to an argument and I would not have been heard. After processing for weeks and reflecting in the whole journey, I decided that I was not going to be involved in any aspect of her care nor her mental health. No doctors appointments, no psychiatrists, no meds, no therapy, no checking in with her, just nothing.
I honestly didn't and don't want to be a carer for her. I'm actually supposed to intervene when she wants to self harm or it escalates to something bigger. So, Ii can only be involved now and then with conditions, bit not at any other time. That's how what I'm supposed to do and that's my directions.
Well to be frank, I don't accept what I'm supposed to do or to follow directions others have given me. At no time had antone including my ex asked how do you feel Lee, how have you been coping, do you have support? Just nothing. It's all just focused in the person who "only appears to be struggling" People picked and chose when It was my exes partner and when I wasn't. After all this happening, I completely withdrew.
I no longer offer anything anymore. I haven't gotten over the hurt, I can still feel it there.
I've been a carer my whole life, and to cut an extremely long story short, I was a horrifically abused carer. I know longer care nor am In carer for the people that abused me. I'm not responsible for caring for them now, nor upon their end of life.
As for my MI, I never did get support from my partner. She did a lot that re traumatised me and she knew my traumas. I had shared them with her. She attacked everyone of my greatest fears to re experience repeated past trauma. I had mental breakdowns. I forgave her each time.
Currently, I focus on me and much less in supporting her. There are some things about her treatment she us receiving that worry me, but my voice got taken away. I can't always help my fears being stronger than me. Not when I endured horrific trauma. But that does not seem to matter to anyone. It's just I I I and me me me. I actually called it quits in taking any interest or putting any energy into helping her anymore after that. I guess perhaps by helping her maybe I crowded her by not allowing to learn for herself by making mistakes. At the very least she owns it completely if she does make a mistake if her own and can learn from it. I just do my best to focus on me.
@BPDSurvivor in your experience and from your experience was it better for you to go through your own process on your own terms? Also if you could, what would you say to the people that are in the other side if also being impacted by a diagnosis of their partner, what it was like prior and what it continues to be. I think lots of self care for ourselves is imperative.
