How can i help my wife who has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)?

Question

My wife has been diagnosed with bi-polar, depression, and schizophrenia, but i read about BPD and realized that she fits this disorder more than any other. She told me she had depression when we were dating and other than feeling very lethargic some days, i never noticed it. It was only a few months after we married that she started showing other symptoms such as extreme irratibility, mood swings, shopaholism, anxiety, threatening suicide, avoiding all contact with her friends, and trouble concentrating on anything.

After the first incident when she got violent, i called the police who WAY overreacted to the situation and almost had her in prison. Her therapist had to show up in court to plead to the judge to send her to a mental hospital. I vowed to myself and her to never trust the police again. She was there for 2 weeks and was ok for a while after she got out, but relapsed a few months later. I had tried doubling and subsequently quadrupling her medications which seemed to make her even worse with the higher doses, trying alternate meds which all had crippling side effects, and hospitalizing her 3 other times which only worked temporarily.

Last year, she just stopped taking her medication and improved dramatically. She still had issues, but it was not nearly as bad as before. It was manageable. Recently, though, it seems to be getting worse again. The slightest thing i do, even if it is not bad, will set her off.

What can I do to help her calm down?

☂ · Answer

I was going to recommend "I Hate You Don't Leave Me!" as well... I'm glad it's so widely known that I'm not the only one recommending it.

"Last year, she just stopped taking her medication and improved dramatically."

Let me guess... She missed the manias? She didn't "Improve", she shifted symptoms because when you have mood swings like people with BPD and/or Schizophrenia do, "Normal" feels Slow, Sluggish, and Boring...

Medication is a NECESSARY PART of treating such SEVERE MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES!

You are dealing with someone that is permanently and unfixably broken... The goal is not to cure her but to stabilize her enough so that she doesn't become a threat to herself or others.

Suicide rates for BPD Sufferers is staggering... 
The overall quality of life for people with Schizophrenia is horrific...

1 in 5 people with DEPRESSION alone, something that is like the sniffles compared to the black plague of BPD/Schizophrenia, takes their own life... Statistics on BPD/Schizophrenia are far far worse so you should start treating this as if it is terminal cancer because it is a terminal disease if you don't have her getting treatment.

But from what you're saying, she has never been diagnosed with BPD.

You need to take her back and get her properly diagnosed first and foremost because if it's not a proper diagnosis, that could be one of the reasons why treatment has failed thus far.

If she's not suffering from Schizophrenia then being on medication to treat Schizophrenia is not appropriate...

Nothing can really be done until you stop arm-chair diagnosing and you get her a stable treatment team of people that will care for her LONG TERM and not doctor hop because finding an appropriate treatment regime is impossible if you don't have doctors observing her symptoms and monitoring her medication and therapy.

This is not something you'll do for a few years then be able to move on in life... This is a life long, biological disease that will need constant treatment until the day she dies.

And then you need to worry about any kids you have because the mental health of the mother alters the genetic potential for mental illness, addiction, and physical problems just by being off her medication and swinging during pregnancy... And having a mentally ill mother that can't properly respond to the needs of a child alters their epigenomic development even more and is implicit child abuse on top of the genetic potential to inherit mental health/addiction issues!

You marrying someone with such profound problems is like signing up for the Army... You're in it for the long haul and it might just kill you and you're going to watch as those around you fall...

ladyinpurple · Answer

There's a book called I Hate You Don't Leave Me out there that I highly recommend you read. It's written for people with a loved one who suffers from BPD. It's a very enlightening read.

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How can i help my wife who has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)?

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