Exhausted Psych Nurse Husband - 16 Years In, Just Realized It's BPD

[Oblivious_nurse]

Hi everyone. I'm completely drained tonight, so I apologize if this is brief. Honestly, my brain is so fried that I'm having ChatGPT help me write this just to get the words out and introduce myself.

I've been married for 16 years and we have 3 kids. Professionally, I'm a psychiatric float nurse. The heavy irony is that I've spent years managing acute crises on the floor, but I have been completely blind to the one in my own house.

Years ago, my wife told me she was diagnosed with BPD. At the time, I was just starting out in nursing, confused it with Bipolar, and basically just lived in denial about it. I adapted to the chaos just to survive.

This current crisis actually started back on Monday. I reached an absolute breaking point and eventually got a hotel room just to get some physical space and rest. Instead of letting me breathe, she went into a massive extinction burst today. She weaponized our kids, used a local power outage from a storm to try and force me to come home and "rescue" them, and hit me with intense DARVO and guilt trips when I tried to hold my boundary.

I finally told her my phone is going on Do Not Disturb for the night, but my nervous system is absolutely shot. I'm just sitting in this hotel room realizing I am deep in the F.O.G. (Fear, Obligation, Guilt) and that every behavior I'm seeing perfectly aligns with BPD.

I don't have the bandwidth to write much more right now, but I just needed to reach out to a community that understands. Any support, or just validation that I'm not crazy, would mean a lot tonight. Thank you for reading.

It is honest, it gives them the exact timeline of how long you've been running on adrenaline, and it perfectly sets the stage for them to step in and offer support.

[square]

Hey there,

Welcome.

I've experienced that "nervous system is shot, trying to cope" situation. I'd like to congratulate you on being in a hotel, phone on DND, reaching out to a community that understands.

Probably you are feeling guilt and uncertainty about this, but I would like to LOUDLY assure you that you not only have a right to care for yourself, but you MUST!

It's hard to soothe a nervous system going off like this, but this is your alarm telling you that you must care for yourself and you must change something. 

Tonight, do whatever is most calming. It might be to research this issue, or it might be to just watch fun or calming videos. Whatever you want, go ahead.

When you're ready to share more, come back. Many people here have experienced an evolution of understanding about the disordered person in our lives, about ourselves, and about what boundaries really are and the right way to approach them.

The only question is - are your kids okay tonight?

If yes - have a good night.

[MaxedOut]

Agree with square and totally familiar with that situation O.N. - I can't quite bring myself to call you oblivious 

As you may know from your professional background, there is also a high co-occurance between bipolar and borderline (it took me a loooonnnnng time to see the BPD because of the bipolar and diagnosis of such but once I learned more and dove deep into the differentials is was clear both were in play).

I remember those hotel nights - both for the level of chaos, destabilization, and lashing out that led me to a hotel and the windown of a fried nervous system. I won't say I enjoyed those stays but I did almost always have appreciation at the point of going to bed and feeling *safe* - even when physical stuff was not in play, the hypervigilance about how/what/where my wife was when in an episode meant going to sleep with some level of uneasiness. And having my system spike when the phone did anything (good job on limiting that- I didn't until actually seperated and that was a mistake).

[Oblivious_nurse]

You guys are wonderful. Thank you all so much for the support.

Just to give a quick update on how things escalated: last night, we ended up talking and I held all my boundaries. She absolutely hated it. Right in the middle of this, a brief 20-minute storm rolled through and knocked out the power. Instead of waiting for it to pass, or going to her mom's or sister's house nearby (which she claimed was "too dangerous"), she packed up and drove an hour away to a friend's house to be "safe." That was the point where I finally put my phone on Do Not Disturb.(our house is rural so we do loose phone service in storms so thats legit...)

Unfortunately, that DND setup caught up with me this morning. I had actually taken today off work to deal with all of this and get some rest, but I forgot to tell her. Even though I reassured her multiple times last night that I was completely safe, she checked my location on Life360 and saw I was still at the hotel when I was supposed to be at the hospital.

To make matters worse, she ambushed our close mutual friend and convinced her I was in the middle of a severe mental health crisis. If she actually thought I was in danger, I don't understand why she wouldn't just call the hotel for a welfare check or something. Instead, she drove to the hotel herself. She sat outside blowing up my phone, telling me I'm "hurting the kids" (emotionally, of course). (and of course my wife didnt call to wake me up till she got here...i had actually took the dnd off this morning and had went back to sleep, she only texted me at first, and called when she got her....ugh)

I had to text the friend back, apologize for the confusion, and explain that I've actually been in contact with my psychiatrist and my therapist this entire time. I did ask our friend to please make sure the kids are safe—thank you guys for that advice, as the sheer amount of manufactured drama can sometimes make you forget your priorities.

So, I am kind of figuring out where to go from here. I am sure I will end up talking to her eventually.

[xredshoesx]

welcome to the group @Oblivious_nurse,

i'm in a profession that deals with a lot of mental health issues as well but it wasn't until after my ex and I broke it off for the last time after like 7 years of push/pull cycles the bells went off for me and then I started to make connections between my dating habits and how it relates to being raised by a personality disordered parent and grandparent.  even though don't have kids I feel like my wins with my DH and all the adulting things I did with no help from the biological family make me a cycle breaker.

I feel like you are taking some steps to get back to you and model a healthier way of being an adult for your kids and we are here for you as you need to share/vent and get support.

[hhaw]

Welcome, Oblivious Nurse:

I hope you find a way to calm yourself, by learning ways to engage your Parasympathetic Nervous System.....this shuts down fight or flight reptilian brain.

Right now you're overwhelmed, your tank's empty, and your kiddos really need you at your best.  YOU need your best too.

I'm familiar with living in reactivity mode.....the PDs know how to dysregulate us....it robs us of choice.

Good news. Restoring choice is possible, but requires noticing your internal world, IME.  You seem pretty good at clocking your experiences.  That's step #1.

Cultivating a split second, before falling down reactivity rabbit holes, gives you a second to restore calm, and  choice again, IME.

If you fall down everyone's reactive rabbit holes, with them, you're operating without reason, logic and creative problem solving frontal cortex access.

If you resist reactivity....
for a split second even.....
you have the ability to respond and be responsive in the best possible way....for your kids, and for yourself.

Research how to calm your Nervous System. 
Pick strategies that make sense, and try them out. Cross arms and pat shoulders like parting a baby, splash cold water on face, breathe deeply filling lungs from bottom to to like a vase, touch grass, push on a wall HARD, if all else fails, bc survival brain needs to act....or focus on a neutral part of your body, and breathe into that for a while.  Whatever makes sense to you....try it....even though it feels hard.  It's ok. It gets so much better.

Find a good trauma informed therapist....and be very very kind to yourself. Contemplate sitting in non judgemental awareness....see your life from a mile in the sky observer mode.....
embrace radical acceptance...
 and try to release all the expectations, the shoulds and have-to's.... they're keeping you tied in knots.

Just breathe....let it all fall away ....get some emotional distance on it..... radical acceptance in place..,..see what's really there.

Good luck.