What's it like for you when they have an "up" mood?

Started by rubixcube, January 31, 2019, 11:22:57 AM

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rubixcube

My ucovertBPDw has been having a bit of an "up" mood for the past few weeks. I can tell there's still an egg in the shell, but overall she's been relatively happy. I'm being careful not to trigger anything, and using MC as much as possible.  Her focus is on an upcoming party, and not on her daily responsibilities now,  and her enabling mom has just left after having been around for over 2 months (essentially full-time caring for our 2 year old daughter). my wife has been busy arranging, re-arranging, and re-arranging, and re-re-arranging our house for TWO months. Something changes literally every day.

I'm starting to feel some fog again I think. When she's in an up mood, I start thinking I'm the crazy one, I get confused, forget the insanity form her down moods, and just start to question reality. It's easy to see things when she's ion a down mood, but I lose sight of it in her up moods. I guess it's this pattern that's an unconscious gaslighting of sorts. It makes me feel nuts!

I was just hoping to hear other perspectives on how you feel when your SO is in an up mood, and how long those moods can last. Sometimes my wife's up mood is a day, a couple days, sometimes a week or two, and I've even seen a couple months even. Now, even in the up moods I'm still walking on eggshells because I know she can be triggered. At least now I understand that the triggers are anything that can cause her to feel inner shame(real or imagined). MC is a huge help, as well as no JADE.


I love you guys!

coyote

I had a friend tell me one time "don't get too happy in the good times or too down in the bad times. One thing for sure they will always change." So I guess I kinda apply this idea to a lot of my life, including SO's moods. I kinda just take it as it comes.
How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.
Wayne Dyer

The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Do you understand?
Capt. Jack Sparrow

Choose not to be harmed and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed and you haven't been. -Marcus Aurelius

rubixcube

coyote,
Thanks! I used to fall for the "the up moods are the 'real' her" thing. Once I became aware that there may be a PD and learned a bit, now I'm a bit withdrawn when things are "up". I don't trust them because I've learned the mood will shift back down at some point. I wonder if it ever balances out. I guess I let her mood swings effect me too much. "If mama ain't happy, ain't no one happy" kind of thing.

Do you experience those ups and downs a lot still? I think I remember reading something you wrote about your wife working on herself and how that has made all the difference in your relationship? If you do see the ups/down, have you seen any pattern for how long they last or is it "random"?

coyote

Rubix I used to look for patterns; hormone cycles, moon phases, high tides, etc. Once I figured out there was no pattern and set boundaries against abuse regardless of her moods, things got better. I really can't say she has worked all that much on herself although maybe she has. I do know her moods have stabilized but I tend to think it was more due to me consistently enforcing my boundaries than anything else. This along with other tools ie., no JADE and no Circular Conversations has helped. Seems as I changed my responses her behavior has changed. I hope this helps. 
How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.
Wayne Dyer

The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Do you understand?
Capt. Jack Sparrow

Choose not to be harmed and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed and you haven't been. -Marcus Aurelius

rubixcube

Actually, it does. It makes a lot of sense to me and confirms what I started noticing from not JADEing or getting into circular conversations. Excellent.

Blackbird11

My H is in an up mood right now. It honestly makes the house feel lighter. Energy is calm. He's cracking jokes and being the person he is to people outside the home. It's nice and also confusing as I'm still emotionally intertwined with this version of him, which is the reason I haven't been able to just leave. I'm still in the fog, I guess. I hope over time it will become clearer.

Associate of Daniel

When I was married I initially used to fall for the up moods.

They were more frequent in the beginning and lasted longer.

I felt relieved during those times. I used to think that he'd managed to sort out whatever had been troubling him and he was "back". 

But looking back, his ups were bordering on manic.  He'd want to do things at impossible times, in impossible time frames and with money we didn't have.

Even having ds didn't change his attitude when he was on an up. He just didn't seem to get that babies' schedules take precedence.

I was the voice of reason and I used to hate letting him down by saying "no" or not joining in.  The times when I did join in weren't enjoyable to me as they were crazy, disordered and usually doing something I wasn't interested in.

Gradually the ups became less frequent and shorter.

Often he'd ring while on his way home from work and be very happy. By the time he got home 45 minutes later he'd be sullen and silent treatmenting again. I used to think, "What's happened NOW?"  And of course he'd never tell me. It was very frustrating.

Since he left over 6 years ago he's just permanently down , with me, anyway.  Never smiles. Is constantly angry and overreacting to nothings.

It must be a horrible way to live. I often feel very sorry for him.

I don't have any social interraction with him at all. Everything is done by email.  It's better that way, although the written abuse is bad.

I don't miss the ups or the downs.

And lately I've begun to suspect his uNPD wife writes the emails that are calm (signing off as him) and he writes the more volotile ones.

Interesting. And extremely frustrating. She should not be writing/organising anything or having anything to do with me.

He is capable of being the responsible father but the fact that he doesn't want to and that she pushes herself into places she doesn't belong because she needs the attention, means that he gets away with not being a connected father.

Sorry, I distracted myself.

AOD

Mary

For me, it feels really wierd in that the "up" mood means uPDh is very religious. Praying, reading the Bible, going to church(es), etc. By all appearances, he looks like the real deal to outsiders. It makes me wonder if I'm  out of line. But I know that underlying the "up" is me towing the line.
Mary
For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called. (Isaiah 54:5)

openskyblue

My NPD exhusband would have up moods that could border on mania. Lots of great plans, things that HAD to be done around the house or with the kids, etc. It got so extreme that for a while he had a bipolar diagnosis and was on meds for it. (Or pretended to take the meds, always hard to know with him, since the final diagnosis was sociopathy.)

At first, I'd buy it, try to believe the hard times were over and my husband "was back" or was finally better. Then, I realized that these upswings happened after he'd gotten a good dose of NPD feed — recognition of work peers, new client, etc. As he got older, he needed more and more NPD feed, but he'd alienated so many people by his behavior that he got less. Life got real fun around our house when he came down, oh boy.

My advice: Don't trust the up. Your wife just got 2 months of NPD feed from her mom. It's diagnostic that she's busy changing around things in the house, which might be a stand in for trying to change herself internally so she can accept herself, which NPDs pretty much can never do.. Once she finishes that, my bet is that things will go south.

Hang on to yourself and keep the boundaries.

Cascade

While he's certainly more pleasant to be around when he's feeling up, sometimes I find his up moods a little annoying. I think it's because they feel a little fake. He's also more clingy when he's feeling happy, and follows me around the house.

guitarman

You are not responsible for anyone else's behaviour or thoughts. How they cope with your reactions and behaviour and cope with their own behaviour is up to them.

That has been a huge life lesson for me. It's so freeing to finally understand and to learn to accept it.

My uBPD/uNPD sister is so loveable, kind and caring when she's happy and in a good mood. However she can be so vile, abusive and demanding when she's upset. I used to think that it was me who triggered her bad moods but it's not. Her inability to self soothe quickly after being triggered was not down to me.

Observe don't absorb, be a lighthouse not a lifeboat and staying calm helps me to cope. Also the Medium Chill and Grey Rock techniques as well.

I still feel tremendous guilt but I talk to myself and say that I am not responsible for what comes out of my sister's mouth, her behaviour and thoughts. I of course don't say that to her as she would only twist it all around if I did so that she became the victim and blame me for upsetting her. She can't cope with her own thoughts or behaviour so has to have someone to blame. She has no insight into why she's so lonely. It's because she alienates everyone by her own behaviour towards them.

We can start to mirror someone else's behaviour for a quiet life. That way madness lies. It's OK to be happy and enjoy life when someone else is sad or upset.

Kris Godinez the author and counsellor who specialises in Narcissistic Abuse Syndrome calls the ups and good behaviour intermittent periods of positive rewards. She explains that the good hormones released in your body during the love bombing and good times make you feel fantastic and can be as addictive to you as crack cocaine. Then you become hooked needing more and more. You forget, forgive and make excuses for the bad times always wanting the good times to return. Your abuser becomes the drug pusher who supplies the good hormones. They can give or take them away at any time. They are in control. Abusers are all about power and control.

I know it sounds extreme but it really resonates with me and explains a lot of my thinking and behaviour over many decades.

Targets of abuse will do anything to get the good hormones. That is why many people return to their abusers even after extreme physical, emotional and psychological abuse. It now makes sense to me.

I hope this is of help to you.

Best wishes

guitarman X
"Do not let the behaviour of others destroy your inner peace." - Dalai Lama

"You don't have to be a part of it, you can become apart from it." - guitarman

"Be gentle with yourself, you're doing the best you can." - Anon

"If it hurts it isn't love." - Kris Godinez, counsellor and author

vonmoot

Oh yes! The "up" moods are the trigger for that dopamine fix.  It is the hook that keeps us going.

A really good torturer knows that constant pain will not work.  The pain has to be varied in duration and intensity.  That is how to break someone.  PDs have an innate sense of this.  Boundaries help.  For me, I just roll with it.  I know that every peak will have a valley.  The valley's depth is as high as the peak's height.  I don't get very excited about it.  When she is in that down mood, I used to think, "what can I do to fix it?"  The answer is nothing.  It is not up to me to make her happy.
The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven.
The Great Divorce. C.S. Lewis

rubixcube

Quote from: openskyblue on March 23, 2019, 08:35:28 AM
At first, I'd buy it, try to believe the hard times were over and my husband "was back" or was finally better. Then, I realized that these upswings happened after he'd gotten a good dose of NPD feed — recognition of work peers, new client, etc.

Oh man. This nails it. It's almost surreal to watch it happen. Narcissistic supply is provided somehow and her mood lifts to an almost giddy, manic state. ay not last long, but it feeds her for a little after some recognition or praise from people we know.

I've actually been off the forum for a few months. The up mood lasted a while, I got complacent, slipped into caretaking again to keep the peace, then a whole lot of things came crashing down.  I've made some progress being assertive and trying not to feel guilty when narcs try to manipulate me. I'm discovering that one of the things that makes enforcing boundaries difficult for me is when I may be having what I think is a CPTSD flashback triggered by my wife's narc manipulation or rage.

Recently I saw intense hatred and rage in her eyes. I noticed I kind of turned off, and days later I still feel a sense of nervousness and fog maybe. It's like cortosol is rushing through my system still. I feel avoidant and don't want to go near her, just wishing she'd leave.

I did set a big boundary with her recently though. When she was raging the other day, calmly I told her that if she doesn't take initiative and go to therapy to work on our relationship, I'm going to have to ask her leave. Is this a good boundary, or does it cross into the I'm trying to control YOU, instead of protect ME spectrum? In my implicit, personal translation it translates to something like "I need us to be working on ourselves in order for this to work. If we're not working on ourselves we need to call it quits". I'd love to hear some thoughts! I'm not very good at boundary setting.

capybara

rubixcube: I think it's ok to say the PD needs therapy as a condition for you to stay in the relationship. This sounds like a good boundary to me. You're not willing to continue with things as they are now, and that's ok!

11JB68

For me it's part of the intermittent reinforcement. I spent most of yesterday worried how a project went with ds and uPDh. Came home, thankfully all was well. What a relief. But it's that not knowing, always being on edge, knowing that o one little could set him of and ruin a whole day etc...

bohemian butterfly

Quote from: vonmoot on May 07, 2019, 12:46:17 PM
Oh yes! The "up" moods are the trigger for that dopamine fix.  It is the hook that keeps us going.

A really good torturer knows that constant pain will not work.  The pain has to be varied in duration and intensity.  That is how to break someone.  PDs have an innate sense of this.  Boundaries help.  For me, I just roll with it.  I know that every peak will have a valley.  The valley's depth is as high as the peak's height.  I don't get very excited about it.  When she is in that down mood, I used to think, "what can I do to fix it?"  The answer is nothing.  It is not up to me to make her happy.

Wow, very insightful. 

And as someone else pointed out, when the ups are manic!  Yikes!  Sometimes he does the work of three men in one day.  But, he also expects everyone else to be the same way. 

GentleSoul

Helpful thread, thank you every one.

I now realise that the "up" moods my uPD husband has are mania rather than a non-pd balanced happiness, as other people shared above.  I used to see them as if all was ok with my husband.  I now feel is part of his illness.  Both the up and down phrase.

I used to like to think the up part was the real him but I am mistaken.  It is all him. 

It has levelled off a lot but I very much feel this is purely because of me setting boundaries, medium chilling, not buying into his attention seeking. I think he will basically do as much as I let him get away with, much like a young child would.   


rubixcube

I found this yesterday and it's very relevant. In particular, it's speaking about how to begin to heal when you're abused by a covert narcissist. I would argue that a quiet borderline fits here as well. I guess any abuse from someone on the narcissist spectrum could apply...

Quote
"The main premise behind the exercise is that we must stop isolating the good times and our positive view of the narcissist from the abuse that occurred. "

https://fairytaleshadows.com/how-to-heal-from-narcissistic-abuse/

This is very in line with what coyote said.  The up moods aren't the "real" person. They are both. Somehow in codependent/rescuer hope that they'll change it's easy to split the person into good/bad, up/down moods, happy/angry. That's quite a rollercoaster! I really need to work on this.

My "real" wife is a a mentally ill person who has good moods and bad moods, experiences CPTSD like flashbacks, like myself, and at the core of her personality is deeply damaged, regardless of her current mood.

SonofThunder

#18
Yes, its easy to relax into and therefore let your toolbox guard down during the good times.  Having been married for 28+, mu uPDw does, imho start to reveal some pattern.  I laughed out loud at Coyotes reply of looking for "hormone cycles, moon phases and high tides.."  I do feel that with my uPDw, the PD bad times are definitely heightened when there is a stressful time/event going on where my wife is involved and she is in the crosshairs of other peoples opinions/judgement.  I also find that May-September is a long period where there is plenty of bad times.  I sometimes wonder if SAD (seasonal affective disorder) is at play.  My uNPDf is highly volatile/energy filled in the May-Sept period and suffers depression/lethargy in the winter and has been diagnosed with SAD.  Im not sure if SAD can be a pattern in PD's, but my decades of journaling would surely show that pattern as well in my wife.  In the winter blues my wife tries to blame all her troubles on me and states  "things just need to change".  In the summer, shes so hyped up that im just in the way and holding her down, therefore again "things just need to change". 

Rubix, you mentioned prepping for a party....my wife likes to have parties but not because shes a social butterfly, but because she likes being the perceived center of attention.  Prepping for one has been exhausting and only the my inner circle knows how PD stressful the whole prep is.  My wife ALWAYS goes way overboard on food supply and decor and with her terrible time management, its a total madhouse in the hours just before party-start.  Then, when the clock strikes party-time, she disappears to her room, gets herself all decked out stunning and leaves me (the person who hates parties and most social events) to welcome everyone in and put on my social face to those i dont see except at parties.   15 minutes in, my wife strolls downstairs into the welcome of the already-mingling guests and receives a fanfare of praise from the party admirers.   

When the party is over, my wife takes off her party face, states just HOW MUCH cleanup there is (because she did it up like a wedding reception) and then starts to take inventory of herself and just how good she did, how much she worked and how everybody loved it.  But at the same time, starts crap-talking about who rsvp'd but no-showed, who didnt rsvp at all (and will never be invited again) and who showed up without rsvp'ing.  When were done cleaning up at 2-3am, she will claim that it is way too much work and shes not doing it again.  Next year is a repeat. 

When i came Out of the FOG, i told her that she has full rights to have and enjoy a party, but that the opposite is also true for me, and told her i would be present for the party, but setup and cleanup, she would need to get help elsewhere.  She presented her earful and then the next time, i bowed out and she recruited my adult son and his wife, which worked out well and the ST I received over my non-participation was way better than the circus of the many years prior. 

As everyone stated, stay focused on the toolbox and be ready at all times.  I know its exhausting but if were going to stay in the marriage (50% rule), its a requirement for our own protection and for minimizing the PD bad times as much as possible.  You are surely not alone in your experiences.

SoT. 
Proverbs 17:1
A meal of bread and water in peace is better than a banquet spiced with quarrels.

2 Timothy 1:7
For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.

Proverbs 29:11
A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back.

rubixcube

Parties...

SoT, you nailed it.
I have almost the same experience here. My uB/NPDw(quiet Borderline or vulnerable narc. Not sure) goes all out to make things pretty and elegant(just for show of course), doesn't plan her time well at all, then stresses out just before the event. When she's stressing she starts attacking me as if I caused her stress. Then when I don't react with her I am accused of being unsympathetic, etc. The event starts, she puts on her smile, receives narcissistic supply as admiration for her presentation, expects me to just act like her behavior moments ago didn't hurt me, and on it goes. When the event is over, the mess stays out for a while, she begins to feel shame/guilt that she didn't clean up, she starts thinking she did made a fool of herself at the event, and its all downhill. Once her shame kicks in she starts projecting it onto me, accusing me with scoffing looks of contempt, etc. When I don't ignore her cold behavior and talk to her about her feelings I'm suddenly the tyrant again. What a trip.

Another thing she does before events is rearrange the furniture. In fact, furniture at our house is rearranged definitely every week...

When would attempt to travel together in the beginning it was a miserable affair. I started calling it "travailing" instead of traveling. That was a red flag I didn't pick up on, for sure.

Sorry... went on a tangent from the topic. I guess it could be related. an up mood comes easier, it seems, when there's a source or narcissistic supply. When that's gone, it gets dark.... or the moon.. ;)