I find myself so scared of her trips

Jsinjin · October 18, 2023, 10:24:22 AM

I've posted many times. Two weeks ago my uOCPD spouse took a trip and while she was gone I had incredible anxiety that was nearly crippling. She does two behaviors that really hit me hard 1) learning background details then using these in an interrogation to trap me. In this case she will gather info from our kids or other areas where she learns about what is going on. Then she asks an innocent question "what time are you picking up kid number 3?" I answer "she said 345 because she has some leadership activity after school". Her, "you realize that this is 15 minute she is missing from XYZ class and if she doesn't inform her teacher and what if she doesn't get the work and did you ask her how many times she has left school early and ..." And the approach is an attack. That's just one example and it's a real one. This kid is a SENIOR IN HIGH SCHOOL, the third and her sister and brother are already well into college and the senior is already accepted to college and the class she is leaving is one where she has good grades. I don't care about the rules of how many hours you miss for a kid who is 18, a senior and has senioritis so bad she already has one foot out the door for college. But this is just one example. She calls at random times expecting me to review things "what are you fixing for dinner?" is a sample question but it can turn into "where are you buying hamburger buns" and then an attack on how much cheaper they are at one grocery store vs another. And the list goes on and on.

The next is the return home. She goes from space to space interpreting everything in the house "who threw away the harbor freight coupons?" Is something that would be yelled from the recycling bin. If no one in the house answers it will be repeated as a questions and escalated until loud angry behavior starts. Her concern in that case was that even though the coupons were out of date, she "likes to keep old ads around to understand the economic impact different businesses have on the town". I don't actually believe that but it's the common reason why we keep every single ad and piece of mail that comes in (she is involved heavily in local city government politics as an elected official and that's her common reason). I thought innocently that an out of date ad from a discount hardware chain couldn't be important and shouldn't need permission to recycle since it is addressed to "occupant".

But that's just the start. The investigation moves through the house from place to place every time she leaves and returns.

Two weeks ago when she left I had a physical and mental breakdown and today she is gone for a one day trip and the calls have already started and im losing my grip on my control and really feeling down and afraid once again. I keep trying but this type of behavior just doesn't ever fully go away. I think it's her own anxiety and control. She wants to control what our daughter does and "missing class for any reason is wrong" in the world of absolute right and wrong.

And the things in the house are hers and hers alone. They are not mine or shared in decisions. The decision to move or change or adjust something should be fully discussed from emptying the wastebaskets to taking my old clothes to Goodwill or cleaning the dogs water bowl.

We have tried to talk about this together but it always lapses back into these behaviors overriding everything else. I go into phases of horrible depression and deciding things like quitting work or running away and have to go to extra counseling to calm down. I never had depression or anxiety before and over the last 10 years it has become my medicated life. I have shared that this is hurting me but these types of behaviors seem so much more important to her than my health.

moglow · October 18, 2023, 12:54:02 PM

Sounds like trauma based responses, one after another. I get it. You know what's coming and live it, then when it actually happens you live it again. And when it's brought up later, more of the same. It's a vicious cycle from which there seems no exit. There's no pat answer other than asking that you try to remind yourself that her imaginings are not yours. Her forcing them on you doesn't make them yours. The incessant questions for which there's no "right" answer other than whatever she demands in the moment, also not yours. She demands answers that a. you don't have, and b. is found insufficient no matter what she's told. Interrogations over, literally, garbage. Battered if you do, battered if you don't. You'd think she'd be exhausted by it all herself and seek some help, but alas no.

In my mother's world, you're truly doomed if you do, doomed if you don't. Eventually I shut down rather than have much of any dealings with her at all other than the most superficial. I imagine at this point your children totally get that mindset.

But that fear remains - you know what's going to happen, come what may. Can you get help learning to shut that off, at the least separate yourself from the visceral responses? It's truly not your stuff, it's her bombarding you with hers.

SonofThunder · October 18, 2023, 03:14:58 PM

Jsinjin,

Im sorry your wife abuses you and your kids in this manner, preying on all of you for her own self needs in her disorder.

Hypothetical question:

Your doctor tells you today that living with this abuse is 100% going to have a yearly incremental, debilitating and permanent effect on your ability to move your body, starting at 0% on January 1st 2025.

On January 1st of each year following, you will lose exactly 25% of your ability to move, and in 2030 be totally paralyzed. No medication available to assist, only removing yourself from abuse will stop it, and you have until December 31st 2025, to be free from the abuse, or the next day lose 25%.

What will you do?

SoT

notrightinthehead · October 19, 2023, 01:28:05 AM

Jsinjin, how high would your anxiety be if you didn't answer your phone?
Left the house when the screaming starts?
These would be sensible, self protective measures. You know you are being abused and you don't have to stick around for it.

escapingman · October 19, 2023, 03:21:49 AM

Jsinjin, you are pretty much describing my uNPD/OCDPxw. Things went so bad that I had only two choices, break free from the abuse or literally die. I understand more than well what you are going through and how hard it is to break the cycle, but this is no way to live Jsinjin. You must find a way to cope with her abuse, or leave. I know the moment my path to freedom started, it took 6 years from that until I was finally free. I messed something up, actually I missed a flight and she kept calling and messaging to have a go at me. I simply just decided I ain't answering, I missed the flight it's my problem, she blamed me for ruining whatever she was going to do the next day that had nothing to do with me or me coming home one day late.

Stay strong Jsinjin, I hope you find the strength to heal.

Cat of the Canals · October 19, 2023, 11:46:10 AM

Quote from: Jsinjin on October 18, 2023, 10:24:22 AMWe have tried to talk about this together but it always lapses back into these behaviors overriding everything else.

Unfortunately, this is why many of us end up choosing LC or NC. You can only bang your head against a brick wall so often and so long before you realize that the only person that can change her behavior is HER. And she chooses not to. She has been told and shown repeatedly how her behavior impacts you, and chooses to do nothing about it, chooses to not seek help. It IS a choice.

square · October 19, 2023, 12:44:59 PM

That's incredibly hard, it's not normal, and you're being abused.

I could be wrong, but I don't get the idea that you have any (real) hope she'll change. That's good. She's not going to change. That's not even a general statement I'm making about PDs. I'm talking about your wife, who is explicitly constructed to not merely resist but to utterly demolish change.

If there was ever a person on this board who was dealing with a PD who might change even a little, it's not you, Jsinjin.

I think that you are looking for a way to change yourself to tolerate her better.

You've run out of road on that.

You've done everything. There is nothing you haven't done to try to tolerate this. You've lived with it, tried to ignore it, tried to be empathetic, tried to be numb to it, tried to assert yourself a bit, tried to draw the line at increasingly smaller and smaller places. You've tried to give up.

I don't know the details, but you've already had at least one and likely several cracks in your very soul. You've tried to jam yourself into such a small, nonexistant space you actually damaged your Self.

Jsinjin, there are only two roads from here. The same one - and it gets absolutely not one bit better. Not one iota. And the other one, the road you don't know but it leads away from this insanity.

You're a great guy. You deserve to live in peace. The problem isn't you.

Poison Ivy · October 19, 2023, 01:19:56 PM

Jsinjin · October 25, 2023, 08:14:22 PM

I need to stop coming here. I don't know what to do or where to go. I just sit and wait for the random explosion. I never know how things will go when she gets home from her job ora trip. My anxiety goes through the roof and I just worry about having to justify what may or may not be different. I've stopped bringing in the newspaper or mail because anytime I do it she begins going through it angrily asking what is missing or where it is. There is a pile of wall street journals in the driveway with plastic covers that just flutter in the breeze. I thought if I stopped bringing them in she would stop the angry demanding of where it is and if I had thrown away any of the ad fliers that are in it but now they just pile up like we live in a trailer. I sneak the vacuum out to vacuum my office and try to put it back the same way it was sitting in the closet so she doesn't get mad that I might have sucked up something "valuable". I keep thinking things will get better or that I can ignore them but I keep getting worse. Right now she just went through the paper bag pile on the floor of the pantry and just yelled if anyone had done something with the paper bags because it seems like alot are missing. We have to answer or she will get angry but no one will know even if she suspects. It wouldn't be so bad if she was just concerned about stuff but she is so angry about the random things. And it's not mad at us. It's mad about the social impact of the potential for a waste of paper bags that may go in recycling or may be misused and wind up in a landfill. I don't understand how she is so afraid and angry about the tiniest things, an egg gets broken, someone finds a free promotional cup has a crack and leaks and throws it away, I decide a pair of socks has too many holes and throw it away. I lead R&D for one of the largest tech firms in the world and I'm not trusted to throw away mail ads for local hardware stores. I can't give away patches to kids in the local scout troop as awards from my own eagle scout days before I ever knew her because "we don't know how valuable they are". They're mine! Just a bunch of stupid patches I collected through years of trading them in the 80s and I can't give the local eagle scouts a few when i site on their board of review.

I just sit wishing she wouldn't come home or at least come home engaged in her political stuff so that a set of triggers doesn't call me up over and over again to justify over 20 questions. I keep shaking now. That hasn't happened in a long time. When I stopped fighting and tried to ignore everything it got much worse. The house literally fell apart at the seams with human garbage along the halls and in the yard.

I live on an estate. 2.5 acres in a wealthy section of Texas in a huge house on a lake in a big city. I'm not allowed to mow, I'm not allowed to cut vines or branches that hang or fall, I'm not allowed to fix the fence for fear it's wrong, a flood two years ago resulted in a boathouse somewhere breaking up and junk floated up onto the shore and when I dragged it to.the trash in the front for city bulk pickup she dragged it back concerned that it might not meet the city requirements and she wanted to check those. There is a pile of debris from someone else's boat house that has been in the front side yard for over a year and I've been told "do not throw it away, I want to make sure that it isn't breaking any codes". My company provides a home office setup and her deepest concern was when they shipped.me an updated home monitor setup and I gave the old ones to the local school tech center. She wasn't sure if that was allowed as a donation and what would the company think. Except it's not her job or her stuff. How does she live in so much paralyzed fear while still attending every single school PTA function for every single school every week and month in the whole school district (she is in the school board)? How does the memorize and recorded everything every other candidate or board member says or does in. Minute detail watching the transcripts of the board meetings and state school finance committee meeting s untile she has them memorized and she can't allow us to send in the tax return for months because there is a 4.75 receipt for a daughter's medication that isn't accounted for in the accounting. I just dont understand it.

escapingman · October 26, 2023, 03:26:24 AM

Jsinjin,

You know what you got to do, you can't live like this. I don't think there is anything else anyone can say, I am sorry if it sounds harsh but you are coming back here writing the same story without seemingly doing anything about it. Living in these conditions is going to have a massive effect on your health and how long do you think your body will cope with this stress?

Boat Babe · October 26, 2023, 04:12:15 AM

Quote from: Jsinjin on October 25, 2023, 08:14:22 PMI need to stop coming here. I don't know what to do or where to go. I just sit and wait for the random explosion. I never know how things will go when she gets home from her job ora trip. My anxiety goes through the roof and I just worry about having to justify what may or may not be different. I've stopped bringing in the newspaper or mail because anytime I do it she begins going through it angrily asking what is missing or where it is. There is a pile of wall street journals in the driveway with plastic covers that just flutter in the breeze. I thought if I stopped bringing them in she would stop the angry demanding of where it is and if I had thrown away any of the ad fliers that are in it but now they just pile up like we live in a trailer. I sneak the vacuum out to vacuum my office and try to put it back the same way it was sitting in the closet so she doesn't get mad that I might have sucked up something "valuable". I keep thinking things will get better or that I can ignore them but I keep getting worse. Right now she just went through the paper bag pile on the floor of the pantry and just yelled if anyone had done something with the paper bags because it seems like alot are missing. We have to answer or she will get angry but no one will know even if she suspects. It wouldn't be so bad if she was just concerned about stuff but she is so angry about the random things. And it's not mad at us. It's mad about the social impact of the potential for a waste of paper bags that may go in recycling or may be misused and wind up in a landfill. I don't understand how she is so afraid and angry about the tiniest things, an egg gets broken, someone finds a free promotional cup has a crack and leaks and throws it away, I decide a pair of socks has too many holes and throw it away. I lead R&D for one of the largest tech firms in the world and I'm not trusted to throw away mail ads for local hardware stores. I can't give away patches to kids in the local scout troop as awards from my own eagle scout days before I ever knew her because "we don't know how valuable they are". They're mine! Just a bunch of stupid patches I collected through years of trading them in the 80s and I can't give the local eagle scouts a few when i site on their board of review.

I just sit wishing she wouldn't come home or at least come home engaged in her political stuff so that a set of triggers doesn't call me up over and over again to justify over 20 questions. I keep shaking now. That hasn't happened in a long time. When I stopped fighting and tried to ignore everything it got much worse. The house literally fell apart at the seams with human garbage along the halls and in the yard.

I live on an estate. 2.5 acres in a wealthy section of Texas in a huge house on a lake in a big city. I'm not allowed to mow, I'm not allowed to cut vines or branches that hang or fall, I'm not allowed to fix the fence for fear it's wrong, a flood two years ago resulted in a boathouse somewhere breaking up and junk floated up onto the shore and when I dragged it to.the trash in the front for city bulk pickup she dragged it back concerned that it might not meet the city requirements and she wanted to check those. There is a pile of debris from someone else's boat house that has been in the front side yard for over a year and I've been told "do not throw it away, I want to make sure that it isn't breaking any codes". My company provides a home office setup and her deepest concern was when they shipped.me an updated home monitor setup and I gave the old ones to the local school tech center. She wasn't sure if that was allowed as a donation and what would the company think. Except it's not her job or her stuff. How does she live in so much paralyzed fear while still attending every single school PTA function for every single school every week and month in the whole school district (she is in the school board)? How does the memorize and recorded everything every other candidate or board member says or does in. Minute detail watching the transcripts of the board meetings and state school finance committee meeting s untile she has them memorized and she can't allow us to send in the tax return for months because there is a 4.75 receipt for a daughter's medication that isn't accounted for in the accounting. I just dont understand it.

There's nothing to understand. Other than that your wife is deeply disturbed and abusive. You didn't cause it, you can't change it and you can't control. ALL you can do is save yourself and the children. Religious and social and economic ties be damned. Save yourself while you still can.

notrightinthehead · October 26, 2023, 06:34:30 AM

Jsinjin, you sound so desperately sad and hopeless. I don't understand why your ceasing to come here would improve your situation.

You describe a mentally disturbed person when you talk about your wife, someone severely unhinged, out of control, and abusive. Maybe where you live it's ok to be such a hoarder, where I live social services would intervene and put the hoarders under mental observation. Again, someone who screams and throws things would be placed under observation when she threatens others, as your wife does, you and the children.

For a while you seemed to have regained hope and some confidence, have you lost your safe place again? Is there nowhere you can go to and feel safe?

It's so painful to finally admit to yourself that there is absolutely nothing you can do to change another person, no matter how much you sacrifice yourself or love them. She chooses to behave that way. She shows you who she is. And you can choose to stick around for more abuse or you can protect yourself.

Xyz · October 26, 2023, 12:31:36 PM

Jsinjin,

I am so sorry for your situation and for the pain you are in because of it. I hope you keep posting here.

If you are comfortable answering, will you please clarify something; are you saying that there was human waste in the hallways of your home?

For what it is worth, coming from an anonymous poster on the forum, I am concerned about your constant shaking. I am concerned about you.

You had been posting that your cottage was a safe place to which you were able to go; is that currently an option for your safety and health?

Lookin 2 B Free · October 28, 2023, 01:22:02 PM

JJ, I hope you won't stop coming and posting. We all have a right to be here and share whatever is happening no matter what we are or aren't doing about it.

From admin about the forum "please avoid making blanket statements like "You *should* do this and that" ... people need to come to their own conclusions in their own time frame. "

We care about you and want to support you. Your posts are very helpful to me, having grown up with an OCPD (& hoarder) parent and continuing to deal with some of this stuff in another relationship. It took decades for me to understand she has a mental illness, plain and simple.

I'm glad you're getting professional help for the trauma. Recovery for us is usually not a one & done deal. Two steps forward, one back. You've made a lot of progress in recent times, and that isn't wiped out by setbacks. It does sound like you could use more steady support during these tsunamis - extra T sessions? CoDA? checking into a multi-day trauma recovery program? arranging NC during and after trips? Does your T have some suggestions?

For me, being in the middle of a trauma response brings overwhelmingly hopeless, helpless, paralyzed and frantic feelings where I think about doing rash things to escape the panic and am as unable to respond to the situation as a small child. It's nightmarish. Sometimes I can remember basic advice from my trauma T and can follow it. Usually I have to retreat to a safe place for a time.

The innocent question leading to the OCPD assault is very familiar to me & I understand that's what it is from the very start. The same Q from anyone else would be fine. It's scary and has taken a lot of time for me to say "I'm not talking about, answering Q's, listening to, that anymore." I do better and worse at keeping that boundary depending on how disempowered and FOGgy I'm feeling. Years of trauma T has helped me get in touch with my anger, which helps empower me at times.

I'll be keeping you and your family in my prayers. <3 <3 <3

losingmyself · October 30, 2023, 10:22:51 PM

Jsinjin, I hope you keep coming back here, and sharing your story. Sometimes we have to tell the same story many times before we can actually step back and see our lives. I, and many people here can understand where you are, at varying levels of severity.
I felt like I was repeating myself, but the support never stopped.
I have a vision of her coming home and starting in with you. Except you're busy, playing a board game with your kid, or involved in a really good book or movie. When she asks, you just respond "Hu?" And "Oh. I don't know" then back to wherever your attention is.
She'll have a fit. Try to ignore it. Let her get so mad, she's bouncing off the walls. Seems everyone has been saying the same thing.
It's not you, it's her! I'm sorry for what you're going through. Hope to hear from you!