Showing posts with label BPD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BPD. Show all posts

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Dark

My husband has been gone so much for work, it feels impossible to talk to him.
How do you just open up about having been suicidal to someone who wasn't there or even reachable at the time?
How do you turn on the faucet to pour out emotions and stories that happened when the one you love and are trying so hard not to hurt or run from was away?
He's in bed, asleep. Despite my questions, and my attempts to talk today, I feel like my words were wasted. If he has feelings on any of what I'm going through, he's not showing them to me, and he's certainly not talking about any of it.
I hate that I make him deal with this, with me.
I feel like I'm slowly drowning in a tar pit- slow, dark, hot and never-ending.... and oh so eerily quiet.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Candidate

I've never attempted suicide.
That statement has been a source of pride for me, especially when so many of my closest friends have at this point.
Today, though, I was a candidate for suicide. It wasn't any one thing- the fact that our post is trying to ban service dogs, the fact that my husband and I are now staring down the barrel of our first deployment together, the fact that I've been through child abuse, two rapes and a myriad of other abusive situations, the fact our apartment reeks of mold, everything to do with the army... It's not just one thing. When my husband's boss (e7 type for you military-savvy folks) told my husband that I "needed to learn" to be in situations that put me into flashbacks, well, I couldn't come back up.
I begged him to leave me tonight so I could do it without feeling guilty.
He wouldn't, and neither would Buffalo Boy.
I guess I don't get out of it all that easy.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Family, Love and Being Scared Out Of Your Mind

The Nerdy One mentioned today, in passing as he thought he'd mentioned it before, that his unit is looking at deployment in November-December time-frame.
Now, having been an Army wife for two years, a Soldier for more than four now, and soon-to-be Army wife again, well, there's no surprise when the word "deployment" starts getting thrown around- it's part of daily discussion, what-if's and just-in-case's. We are a nation eternally at war, there's no escaping the possibility.
Before I try to rationally explain the implications and total freak-out I'm experiencing in my head, let me tell you what our last few days have been like.
Recap: Wednesday afternoon, my husband calls me to tell me he'll be leaving for an overnight field problem/range the following morning. I avoid asking what time until many hours later, when he says he will be leaving the house around 0330. Thursday, bright and early, he's gone, and I'm too on edge to sleep. I manage to pack a lot of anxiety into that day, then spend much of the evening with a friend from treatment, who discusses his not-quite-ex-not-quite-girlfriend having Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and the symptoms he lists ring all too true of myself. My husband comes home around 4 Friday morning, and we crash-hard- until he leaves for work about two hours later. We knock out as early as we can Friday night, only to wake up to a leak in our apartment ceiling at 0630 Saturday morning. We call the front office, and leave a message when nobody answers. Nobody returns our call.
Husband then goes off to help his friend move for the day, and I head back to my friend's house, because I simply don't handle alone well, and, fortunately for us, neither does my friend right now. We watch tv, and hang out through the afternoon. Then I get my husband, and we come back to my friend's house for a few more hours, coming home after that to find it is nearly raining in our apartment. The "rain" progresses for the next few hours, until we're calling ever emergency maintenance number we can find, and demanding they do SOMETHING. The water has been shut off by around six this morning, and, now, at eleven at night, our apartment still hasn't completely dried out- and all that was effected was carpeting, walls, cabinets and ceilings, thankfully.
Now, about half an hour ago, The Nerdy One mentions we're looking at deployment in about nine months....  This means he'll be out of the Army within months after returning from this deployment. I text my friend, I'll call him Buffalo Boy, and tell him what's going on.
Now, Buffalo Boy has gone from being a friend I see regularly to FAMILY in the last couple days. He's saved my life with the information and support he's given me, and probably saved my marriage in more than one way. He's the first person to get my trust in a non-relationship and completely unconditional manner. I trust this guy, I know his values, habits, emotions and I've never understood what it's like to have a "family member" where there wasn't a question of some sort of perversion. This guy has my back, and it doesn't matter time, place, or anything else. He's my brother.
I found my brother in the looney bin, that could only happen to me.
Anyway, The Nerdy One and I are discussing possibilities and Buffalo Boy is reassuring me that, no matter what, he's going to watch my back, even if it means protecting me from myself sometimes.... and it does.
I can't lose my marriage, I can't wreck it or hurt my husband... I've made too many crappy choices in my life, and I won't go back to allowing that to be my norm....
I'm scared out of my mind, but somewhere in my gut, I know that this will happen, and that between my husband and my new-found Brother, I will prove something to myself, and, frankly, that's not a whole lot more comforting than knowing my husband will spend roughly nine months in harm's way.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Talk

So, my husband spends a LOT of time at work lately.
He's been working for nearly two days straight, with about two hours early this morning at home. He finally came home this evening, and I tried my best to bring up what I'd learned about the BPD.
"Honey, do you know what borderline personality disorder is?"
"Yeah."
"How much do you know about it?"
"I mean, I've heard of it before."

....I didn't really know where to go from there. I gave up.
This man is my best friend, truly, but, it's frustrating to feel like you're talking to yourself sometimes. This isn't the first conversation that's fallen flat because his attention was elsewhere, but I personally feel like it's probably the most important. I just want to be able to tell him I know why I've been so crazy my whole life, I finally get it, and... I don't know. I know he would tell me it's great, and then he'd get distracted by something else, and I love him for who he is.
That sure doesn't mean he frustrates me any less, though.
He was tired today, he's going to help his friend move tomorrow, and Sunday we go bowling, and I'd REALLY like to go to church, finally.
And then it's Monday and back to the Monday-Friday only seeing each other long enough to figure out what we're doing for dinner and we don't even talk while we're eating anymore.
He knows I feel this way. I don't want to make him sound like a bad guy, he's not.
I just don't handle life well, I guess.