I Am NineOneFour

Now that we are in full swing of a divorce and she is trying to wipe me out financially (and probably will do so), I’m taking this space to record my memories of her abusing me so I do not forget. She always made everything so so hard.Just simple tasks turned into overly-complicated life-altering stressful insanity.

I made the bed for the third time in six months. Because who cares.

And I remembered that she demanded that I help her with making the bed every day. Every single day. No one was ever coming over. She just wanted to make the bed every day. And not infrequently after making the bed she would go back to sleep in it.

And everything had to be exact and precise to the inch (not exaggerating as she would measure) and there was not one single time that I wasn’t verbally abused during the process. And the bottom sheet had to be precise. And then the top sheet had to be precise. And then her weighted blanket had to be precise. And then the comforter had to be precise. 

And then I had to be abused for shoving all the covers onto her side of the bed. Miraculously, after I was banished to the sofa, her covers continued to be an ongoing issue being “shoved” onto her side of the bed.

I remember her getting pissed off if I accidentally moved the covers by SITTING on the bed.

Good news: things are a *bit* better. There have been no more hallucinations or complete derangements.

Emotional meltdowns, eh, one a day or so? Completely unacceptable objectively but - and this is fucked up - I am sort of glad when it’s only one per day.

She’s respecting my 10:00 pm curfew. She ain’t liking it, but she’s respecting it. I’m working on a schedule for naps too since she suddenly decided that I “never schedule naps”. I responded “well, maybe I should” and she did NOT like that one bit.

I’m trying to get ahold of a therapist but they won’t respond to my email and won’t answer their phone. It continues to amaze me how utterly awful some counseling organizations actually are. I guess I’ll give them until the end of the week and then try someone else. 

She’s still only able to make it to the toilet and the kitchen. She’s eating a little each day, which is good. She’s honestly trying to get her food and be at least a little self-sufficient, which is excellent.

Mustard 

However, today, I found out my workload basically just doubled. Which I suppose is fine. It’s job security and...since it is a thing that I just heard about, I’m definitely not the one who dropped the ball on this project...so I will be able to finesse a reasonable due date for my own part of the project, which is probably, hell, June? There’s SO much to do, I doubt I could reasonably get it done by June. But it is a bit stressful to find all this out all of a sudden and this change is happening in February, so I wasn’t sure for a long while today if I had to put in some all-nighters (but probably not) to get my stuff out by February.

I’m being intentionally vague about my work.

But I’m pretty stressed, particularly since I suddenly had to do an impromptu presentation live over Zoom to my entire team about the change. I somehow pull that off for my boss’s boss, who is leading the meeting, and thank god the following didn’t happen until I was done and the topic was over. It was bad enough to have this happen at all.

The meeting with my boss’s boss and our entire team is still ongoing when she starts having an emotional meltdown in the bedroom. And she’s yelling/calling/yelping whatever. She’s in distress. 

Now, I’m probably an asshole for this, but I was in a meeting and she knew today was meeting day. Although she didn’t know I was in a meeting at that precise time. She did know I was AT WORK. And I should only be interrupted if there’s a fire or someone is bleeding, basically. I don’t mind her using the kitchen and stuff and cleaning (when she does) but I’ve got my headphones in for a reason and I really can’t hear.

And a lot of times she’s started yelping and been in distress and it’s been minor and over quickly. So I waited to see if she kept going and therefore was REALLY in distress. And she kept going so I tossed the headphones and ran into the bedroom.

She had had an emotional meltdown because she couldn’t get the cap off the mustard.

I lost it. I told her I was in an important meeting and she can’t do this type of thing. I am AT WORK and should not be interrupted unless it is an actual emergency. She has to control her emotions somehow. We can’t do this again.

She kept trying to redirect and obfuscate by saying she was trying to feed herself. I told her that wasn’t the issue. I am 100% encouraging her to feed herself and do things herself and be self-sufficient. What the problem is is her emotional meltdown, not the fact that she was trying to do better. She told me I was yelling at her and I told her she started yelling at me. She refused to believe this until I told her I heard her through my headphones in the other room. She was yelling and in distress and naturally I have to stop what I’m doing and come check! What if it was an actual emergency!!!!

She said I should have told her I was in a meeting. I was like, one, when was I going to do that? Two, meetings change during each day. Three, just because I’m not in a meeting does NOT mean that I’m available to be pestered or interrupted! I’M AT WORK!!!! 

I told her she thinks that her emotions or needs trump everything, including work. And on a macro level I guess that is true. But during work, I have to WORK. I have to be present. I have to be mindful. I have to concentrate. I cannot be interrupted and attacked and terrified or whatever during the goddamn workday.

She once again started talking about but it was the food and not about the emotional meltdown and I told her she wasn’t listening and I had to go back to the meeting.

And of course the cats were eating each others’ food and I told her this and said “I am not three people!!!” I cannot work and watch the cats and be her therapist simultaneously.

This is my diary of verbal and emotional abuse and other fun stuff that I have to deal with as the husband of a wife (whom despite everything I love dearly and she can be very nice and sweet half the time) who has Borderline Personality Disorder, Major Clinical Depression, ADHD, PTSD, and possibly OCD. On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 - okay, 5 - total decompensation)

12/22: 2

12/23: 3

12/24: 5

12/25: 5

12/26: 5 (I TOLD HER OFF HERE AND LOOK AT THE BEHAVIOR SWITCH)

12/27: 1 (she was actually sweet and I thought it was because I told her she could move to Colorado but it was because she was love-bombing me because I told her off)

12/28: idfk anymore 2 maybe

12/29: 2-3

12/30: 3

12/31: 4

Happy 2023

Fuck me.

12/31 was generally sane. Apart from the usual.

1/1 I am typing this at 8:56 am and it has taken us TWO HOURS for me to get to the grocery store because she can’t just communicate like a human.

No, she has to have a 30 minute bonding discussion where we discuss all the relevancies and irrelevancies about going to the store.

I’m stressed because I hate driving and I hate parking and she knows that. Does that matter to her? No. Is that on her radar? No. Doesn’t know, doesn’t care.

No, the focus is always on her and her needs.

In the past, I have had 100 of the following discussions:

ME: Hey, I’m going to the store this weekend, let me know what you need.

HER: I can’t talk about that right now.

ME: Okay, just whenever then.

This never happens.

No, unless I PUSH it, and then I get shit on for THAT, she won’t bring groceries up until the morning of when I’m already stressed to the max and then she wants to have some kind of rollicking 30 minute stream of consciousness shit.

I told her all of this basically:

1. I shouldn’t be the only one going to the store. Yes, you can’t go right now because you’re drinking but you didn’t go before you drank either, and yes, we had Covid, but you didn’t go to the store before then either! And yes, we still have Covid, but there is no reason you can’t go.

2. The burden of bringing up the list should not be all on me. And if I bring it up, then I shouldn’t have to bring it up again. And if I bring it up again, you getting mad at me for bringing it up again is really shitty.

3. YOU should bring this up, not me.

Cue the excuses. She doesn’t go to the store because Covid. She doesn’t bring up grocery discussions because they’re stressful or because I’m talking too loud, or because I’m talking to fast, or whatever other bullshit reason her BPD is making her say instead of addressing the problem.

I told her our communication sucks. I brought up that it took me 4 tries to get her to talk about a mysterious charge on our credit card and 8+ tries to get me to have her review the email reply to the lease renewal. FFS.

TWO HOURS OF THIS. TWO HOURS.

Two hours of bullshit and guess what she wanted me to add to my shopping list?

- a burrito

I’m not sure how this came up but she said she was trying to get over the trapped feeling that takes hold of her when the bedroom door is closed. And I said the requirement of having the bedroom door open was controlling and upsetting. That I was constantly having to walk on eggshells (yes I used that exact phrase) out in the living room to not wake her. That every time I made food, clinked silverware or plates, attended hyper kitties, made toast, opened food packages, etc. that I was going to wake her and I was frankly terrified that she was going to lash out at me. It was giving me panic attacks.

She asked what she had lashed out at me about previously and I choked down a laugh because really? Holy shit. I started listing them and got three of them out of a list that was honestly already in my head about 15 or so in length and growing as I recalled more and more incidents. She shut me down at three (LOL) and said that she’s made her peace with the noises I have to make out in the living room when she is trying to sleep.

But that’s not the point. She’s basically said “I’m not going to abuse you any more, so why are you acting scared still?” But I had a larger point to make. My point was that it doesn’t matter if she’s made her peace with it, her brain hasn’t. 

On multiple occasions, AFTER she had said that a certain noise level was acceptable, upon waking up her brain is so scrambled that it’s like raw BPD manifested itself into her consciousness. So if I inadvertently wake her, she comes out in a rage/panic, goes off, I calm her down or explain why she has her head up her ass (example provided below), she drinks her shot or takes her pill or goes to the bathroom or whatever the hell she is doing out of bed, and then I DON’T THINK SHE REMEMBERS ANY OF THIS LATER. 

(or if she does, it’s hazy and confusing - but I did not think of this until later)

And that alcohol makes this far, far, far, far worse. And makes her memory of these incidents far, far worse.

And she kind of freaked. Which is sort of fair if she doesn’t remember abusing the fuck out of me.

She said she was trying so, so hard to be nice. And she kind of has, in comparison to when she was fucking sleep-depriving me like an inmate at the Abu Gharaib prison complex in 2002. And I said yes, you have been nicer this past week or so.

Alcoholism

I mentioned that when she beat alcoholism before she didn’t beat it on her own through sheer willpower, that she attended meetings and went to the hospital a couple of times. 

She again refused to go to the hospital or the doctor’s office and chastised me again for bringing it up. 

I asked if she was attending AA or equivalent meetings. She has not. Which I know. She said they were useless. Well, my own WW meetings she badgered me into attending WERE useless.

She got upset af and said she had been doing stuff to help like doing all this reading. Um...no. I told her that was not a good answer. Reading is not going to help her stop. That’s ludicrous. 

So then she said she had joined Facebook groups and was doing workbooks. Well, this was news. I was interested. I asked which Facebook groups and she went on some weird ramble about depression and electroshock therapy? I asked her to explain and it still didn’t make sense so I gave up. The thing is, I can tell when you’re on Facebook because it tells you when your friends are online. She hasn’t been on for two days. And that was to answer a message I sent her. I doubt she has visited these groups, if they exist at all, very recently or very frequently. 

I asked about the workbooks and she said she was going through them. Well, I didn’t remember her ordering any new workbooks in over a year and I do remember her maybe reading some workbooks or something for a couple of days maybe back in August or something, but she was in the library.

So I asked where the workbooks were because there are no workbooks around her bed. She said the library. They are in the library. Yes, these are the workbooks that she had completed years previously and maybe she did read through them but that was months ago and clearly, even if she IS attending these Facebook groups or reading these completed workbooks, they clearly are not working.

I didn’t say that out loud. I just....gave up caring for a bit. Either 1) she really thinks these relatively trivial efforts are helping despite all evidence to the contrary, 2) she knows they are not working and is just trying to get me to stfu, or at worst, 3) she just made all that shit up in her head to gaslight me. 

She was then going off on how she had even bought this special pencil with which to work these workbooks like it was something to be appreciated! I remember that was around 2017. So these are workbooks she completed five years ago. And she’s babbling on about the pencil because? 1) she’s gone stream of consciousness insane? 2) she is deliberately using it as an ineffective distraction technique? 3) her brain in BPD mode is only allowing her to think in feelings and she suddenly remembered the pencil that she was quite proud of, etc.? Probably 3.

And then she asked for a little more time tonight because she was upset. And because I’m a spineless ballless assless douchecanoe, I said yes. And since I was getting worked up myself, I just wanted peace because I was about to just fucking go off and I don’t want to do that.

And then I realized that whether intentionally or not I had just been DARVOed. 

Again.

She didn’t get what she wanted though as she fell asleep on her own at around the time that she was supposed to before I extended the time anyway.

So where are we?

Right where we were, I think. I confirmed that she either thinks she can beat this on her own, or doesn’t want to beat it. I was holding out hope that maybe the carrot of getting to go to Colorado to spend time with her family would cause her to get her shit together. I am not hopeful. 

Moving anywhere is a huge pain in the ass no matter who you are. And she would need to find out if sis wants her there, if there’s a place for her to stay, if there’s a place for Theo to run around without kids and dogs, and then how to get her and all her shit (and Theo) there in one piece.

That’s a heavy lift.

Like, that’s a process that’s going to take a minimum of...six months? And could get derailed at any point in the process?

And it’s frankly overwhelming. So as a master procrastinator who is relatively comfortable, she’s not going to do it. She’s not going to get that ball rolling.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why not tell her sister?

Sister does not know about the drinking, at least this round of it. Sister knows she is depressed and actually told her to leave me and come live with her last year but that was before the move to Colorado. If I asked sister she would tell her and then I would be destroyed.

Why not tell her mother?

Same reason. If Mom, bless her, had been in charge of the secrecy surrounding the D-Day landings, our capitol city would be New Berlin today. Parental units are retired and may not want to do anything. I wouldn’t blame them. Her mother said the last time we did all this that this was the last time.

Of course, I also said that at the time and look at me now.

They have room and they have means. She would hate where she lives and I really doubt she would want to go with them. She wants to be with her sister’s family.

Why not call 911?

1) She can mask like no one you have ever seen. Even if paramedics or cops came in here, she isn’t in enough distress that they would definitely take her to the hospital, and they certainly wouldn’t with her protesting it. 

2) Whether or not she is taken to the hospital, she will know I called, or that someone I told about her condition called. Either way, I will be destroyed.

Why not have someone else call 911?

I’m trying to figure that one out. It can’t be anyone reading this because she’ll know I told someone somehow. It has to happen organically and with a plausible reason so I can keep plausible deniability, like a neighbor calls 911 after a screaming match or something. But I don’t want it to be known that it was a neighbor or our landlords or anyone that would take heat from her. 

Shit.

She just asked about the lease renewal. Fuck.

That means that she doesn’t think anything is going to change. Or her mind is so disordered that she doesn’t remember the conversation about her moving to Colorado two days ago. Or she doesn’t want to move but doesn’t want to say that?

WTF?

If I ask her she freaks.

I tried to ask her about a weird bill on our credit card (and we think we know what it is and it’s a recurring charge that shouldn’t have been set up as recurring) and I HAD TO ASK HER FOUR TIMES before she could deal with the subject long enough and then she had questions questions questions. How often was it? How much was it? Well, I didn’t know. I figured she knew wtf it was because it was a website she frequents and that I have never been on, except maybe in passing. And I still couldn’t ask her about the OTHER charge for a streaming service we no longer use. I wanted to cancel that too but can she talk about this subject after talking about the first subject?

No.

Like, just to ask her a question: “Do you want to move to Colorado?” I think would engender several possible responses, none of them helpful.

1. “I don’t know.”

2. “I’m not sure I want to deal with [cold, heat, whatever]”  (or some other irrelevant verbiage that doesn’t answer the question - this is always in response to what her disorder thought I asked her which was “How do you feel about...?” These responses that answer a question that was not asked all are descriptions of her current feelings. She initially processes a question about a topic and tells you verbally how she feels about that topic. Which doesn’t ever answer your question.)

3. “FUCK YOU”

4. “WHY ARE YOU BRINGING THIS UP AGAIN ARE YOU TRYING TO GET RID OF ME???”

And then the next question is: “Can we call your sister and find out if she’s cool with it?” Which might engender several possible responses, some of them helpful.

1. “I don’t know.”

2. “She’s out/off with the kids/incommunicado” (or some other irrelevant shit that doesn’t answer the question)

3. “FUCK YOU”

4. “WHY ARE YOU ASKING THIS QUESTION ARE YOU TRYING TO GET RID OF ME???”

I can’t deal with this and I need therapy and that’s my next goal. I tried to get a therapist set up today but I just don’t have enough spoons.

Edited to add: if this is the first post you read you probably don’t understand why I don’t just contact her sister or her parents. They would tell her I contacted them and why and she would freak.

Good news: I broached her moving to Colorado with her sister’s family.

Also good news: She didn’t freak out. She was interested until her mental disorder annihilated her brain. I saw her getting stressed about it and I saw the moment where her brain appeared to go offline and she just yelled she couldn’t talk any more about it right then.

Additional good news: Sister and family have kids but they also have a lot of friends and a decent support network in Colorado and they can (and will if I tell them to) check in on her and Theo and make sure she is not neglecting herself or him. 

Ummmmmm: Sis hasn’t agreed to this at all yet. She doesn’t even know about it. I think she will though. I can’t bring it up because she’ll tell my wife and then we’re doomed.

Bad news: She is the world’s worst procrastinator. She won’t call her sister and she won’t make plans to move unless she gets zapped with an electronic cattle prod repeatedly. And this is a major move. She would need to make sure sis is okay with the move, figure out where she is going to live in an apartment or with sis or whatever, and figure out logistics of how to get there. She absolutely will not do any of this. Or, if she does do them, the earliest she will likely complete these tasks is like, the year 2026.

More Bad news: She isn’t capable of getting there and in her current state, sis isn’t going to want to take her and neither is anyone else other than MAYBE her parents back in Texas, but I doubt it. They’re retired and they have room for her and they’d take care of Theo (we have left him in their care before and he was fine) but would they want to take this on at their age? And would she want to go there? I am very doubtful. I also can’t ask the parents as her mom has yet to meet another human with which she hasn’t shared every confidential utterance ever said to her.

So therefore, she has to get sober (or at least MORE sober than she is now) before we can even get going on this plan.

And that’s an issue. Because if she could get sober then all of this would be moot. The problems arise here because she’s virtually bedridden. If she was physically capable (and therefore wasn’t drinking), I’d be okay, you can take care of Theo, see ya.  

To get her sober, at least where I live, she would need to go to the hospital to get dried out, which she absolutely refuses to do.

I can call 911, but.....what is the reason? They show up and I bet it will be when she’s pretty much okay and she can mask her illness pretty well. They may not even take her. And the last time this happened, she made me swear to never do this again.

So I can call 911, but she’ll hate me forever. Which means we can’t negotiate financial separation and she’ll try (and likely succeed) in taking half my savings. That means I basically won’t be able to retire and will have to work until I die, or nearly so.

So I’d rather we part amicably, plus I really don’t want all the memories over the last 13 years to turn to complete shit because I end up hating her. 

I hope she doesn’t want that either.

So I need to figure out a way to get someone else to call 911, and no, if you are reading this DO NOT DO THAT.

The 911 call has to come from someone where it cannot be traced back to something I said or did. There has to be a plausible reason why someone else (neighbor, building management) called 911 that doesn’t involve me.

And I have NO idea how to do that. So let me know on the different social media I am on (Fark, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit) if you have any ideas. Or just DM me on here if that option exists for you. Because I just am at my wits end.

Is that a whiff of ozone I smell?

At least the emotional and verbal abuse are less. I think she has noticed a marked change in my demeanor and the energy in the home has definitely changed and she doesn’t know why.

I’m spending much less time in the apartment and much less time talking with her. She gets mad if I suggest food or taking pills so I said I’m not going to remind you any more about them apart from your sleeping pill. 

We negotiated she takes the sleeping pill at 10:30 and I go start my Critical Alone Me Time at 11:00.

At 10:30, I get her sleeping pill and she gets upset that I’m trying to force pills on her, but she has said she has to take it. And you know what happens if she doesn’t take it? She keeps me up ALL NIGHT with bullshit.

So she says she needs a shot before she can take her pills (there are more pills she takes in addition to the sleeping pill). So she gets the shot. Then she has to wait for the shot to “go down” before she can take the pills. This takes us to 10:45. Then she takes half the pills and leaves the sleeping pill and another pill and I’m like wtf. She says she’ll take the others in a bit and isn’t feeling well.  I’m like, I want to go to sleep at 11. 

It was 11:20 when she finally took her last pills and I read her a BestofRedditorUpdates bedtime story.

So I said, “this takes too long. The goal is that I get to start my Critical Alone Me Time at 11:00 so we will have to start earlier than 10:30.”

I wasn’t feeling well, possibly because of the screaming and yelling and insanity going on around me. So I told her I was laying down on the sofa.

Note: I am exiled to the sofa. The story is elsewhere in these posts from hell.

She woke me up screaming “It’s ELEVEN FORTY!!!!” and I said so what? I’m trying to relax and I don’t feel good. LEAVE ME ALONE.

Again, “It’s ELEVEN FORTY!!!” WHO CARES WHAT TIME IT IS? I NEED TO BE BY MYSELF. YOU USED TO UNDERSTAND THAT.

I basically went off finally. The points I made were:

1. This is a shitty life. Is this REALLY how you want to spend your days? With your husband reading shit off the internet to you? This is the peak? I guess it’s awesome for you because you can just lay there and go in and out of consciousness, happy as a lark while your husband lovingly reads to you, but for everyone else this sucks.

2. We can’t go anywhere. I can’t go anywhere. We can’t travel. I can’t travel. We can’t watch a movie. I can’t go to the movies. I can’t go hang out with my board game group. I can’t go to the waterfront. We can’t have sex. We can’t go out to restaurants. I can’t even go to the store. She says “Then go!!” I said, and you literally just attacked me and left me three insane voice messages because I went to the store! I said I can’t even go to our local and she got defensive and I said because the last time I went there you went apeshit and texted me and called me and destroyed it. I told you I needed it to blow off some steam and you said I could go and then you went crazy. Well, of course she didn’t remember that.

3. The green sign for the store is not normal behavior. She has effectively imprisoned me and this is controlling and sick. No other spouse has to put up a sign telling the other spouse where they are. People who are not insane do not need to know the whereabouts of other adults 24/7.

4. She keeps interrupting my sleep when I respect her sleep habits no matter how inconvenient or shitty they are. She refuses to let me be alone. I need me time. I need time by myself. And she used to respect that. And I refuse to put up with it at all anymore. 

5. Her drinking is out of control. She can barely make it to the toilet and the kitchen.

6. I can’t do this anymore. I am at the end of my rope.

7. She doesn’t realize it and probably won’t accept it, but she is having dissociative episodes where she is not connected well to reality. I gave her some examples.

8. Her behavior is causing me panic attacks and needs to stop. 

I’m sure all of this fell on deaf ears. Neither of us could take any more and she refused to address any of it, because of course she did. 

Her response to us not being able to go anywhere was “because it’s cold out” and I lost it and told her she was lying. We can’t go anywhere, and I told her this, because of her DRINKING. It’s 55 degrees out today it’s not fucking cold. I furthermore told her that her brain doesn’t listen to what I’m saying, it just hears what I say and then thinks of a counterargument, however stupid it is. Her brain just wants to win the argument. There is no collaboration or attempt to come to a solution, conclusion, or mutually beneficial arrangement.

She did the same thing with the panic attacks, and that really horrifies me. Her response to me saying she is giving me panic attacks is that my behavior is also giving her panic attacks, and she will no doubt reference me going to the store causing a panic attack.

These things are not the same, but it won’t matter, because just like conservative fascists, she is able to muddy the logical waters enough that an actual explanation of why these are two different things is impossible to put succinctly.

HUSBAND: Your behavior is giving me panic attacks!

NORMAL SPOUSE: Oh god! That’s awful! What am I doing and how can I change to make sure this doesn’t happen again? 

HER: yOuR bEhAvIoR iS gIvInG ME pAnIc AtTaCkS

Minor Fuckup on my part.

So I am developing plans to get out of the apartment from time to time and this morning my excuse was we were out of ham and soon to be out of rum. So I told her verbally a couple times I was going to the store and she fell asleep so I headed out. I didn’t put up the green sign next to her bed that signifies to her that I am out of she wakes up and I am not physically present in the apartment.

This is asinine and controlling but typical borderline behavior.

I had my volume down on my phone because I showed her a video and then turned the volume down because she hates it when I play random videos at volume which is fair.

So I missed six calls and three voice mails.

I called her back and she freaked out that I was gone. I reassured her I was out getting groceries as I told her and wasn’t going anywhere and all was well and felt like an absolute douchebag.

I saved the voice mails to another device and I listened to one of them. I could only listen to one. It was horrible. She was so scared and in so much pain just because she didn’t know where I was.

Like, I think most couples expect to generally know where each other is, but if her dad left fit the store without telling anyone maybe someone would call him but no one would lose their minds over it.

Earlier today I tried to ask her how she thinks this ends. I got nowhere of course. She just grunted/growled in a hostile manner and that’s her sign to back off.

I’ll do a post later about communication challenges.

But I now know I will get nowhere with negotiations or trying to be friends or an amicable split. She will go full meltdown and I’ll need to protect myself and others.

Today we tried to start an argument about the length of the side of a square meter.

I know.

She is all about arguments and standing up for yourself. I told her I’m just exhausted and tired of arguing.

Now she’s mad and melting down that we weren’t invited for the holidays by anyone when she’s systematically ignored any attempts from family to get together here and made it clear we weren’t traveling. So her problem is merely we didn’t get a formal and perfunctory invitation. It’s not like we would have gone or wanted to go anyway.

I can’t decide help but wonder if she manufactures crises and slights so as to have a meltdown.

She feels exiled from her family. When the time is better I’m going to suggest she visit them.

Stay tuned for more holiday hijinks!

And now a few messages from our sponsors: Xanax, Thorazine, and Clozapine!

Update: she woke up to pee and made certain to make enough screams and cries to wake me up. I was already awake but pretended to be asleep again.

She is having a rough menstrual cycle and it’s sucks. I think it is contributing to her hallucinations.

Now she is talking about a plant that you can have in your garden that will wipe it all out and it sounds like black science but it’s real. And it’s going to be hard to find.

Uh sure okay. I guess this is better than being targeted? Maybe this black science plant is in Kentucky with the horses and cello vocalists.

I’m just gray rocking this today.

I really just wish she would sleep. I wish she would let me sleep.

Update 2: She woke up AGAIN and again made sure to scream and cry enough to wake me. I maybe got an hour or two.

Now I’m the only person who has ever told her about AM and PM. And she is having a migraine or something or other.

She left her burrito out to warm. I thought she accidentally left it out of the refrigerator and put it back. We have had these style burritos before although it has been a while and have traditionally left them in the refrigerator.

She melted down because her burrito was too cold.

Like, full on meltdown. I shouldn’t touch her stuff, I’m a bad human, etc.

And we finally got it to where it’s warm again and we’re settling down and she can’t unwrap the burrito packaging and starts freaking out so I get it started for her and then ask her if she wants to watch something while she eats and she yelled at me because she needs to do ONE THING AT A TIME.

First meltdown of the day and here we go!

First Meltdown: DARVO

She got upset about something I do not remember what it was. It was innocuous.

She brought up an incident several meltdowns and days ago where she had provoked me to such an extent, I pounded my fist on the bed (but nowhere near her) and called her a dipshit. If I recall correctly, I pounded the bed twice and called her a dip shit once. With all of her emotional disregulation, I do not recall which incident this was. After pounding the bed I left the room to cool off and she was MAD when I left. I definitely remember that much.

I normally do not pound anything or call her a name, so I had to have been provoked beyond endurance. Doesn’t make it okay of course. But I do find it astonishing that she can yell and scream at me and make up lies about me, but I can’t raise my voice or express any kind of anger in response.

So she brings this bed pounding incident up to DARVO me and says how scared she was at the time. Note: she was not scared at the time and did not attempt to leave nor tell me to leave or stop or anything. And she wants an apology.

DARVO (an acronym for "deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender") is a reaction that perpetrators of wrongdoing, particularly sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior.[1] Some researchers indicate that it is a common manipulation strategy of psychological abusers.[2][3][4] An abuser denies the abuse ever took place, attacks the person that was abused (often the victim) for attempting to hold the abuser accountable for their actions, and claims that they are actually the victim in the situation, thus reversing what may be a reality of victim and offender.[2][4] It often involves not just "playing the victim" but also victim blaming.[3]

I figured okay so I apologized. A real one, not the “I’m sorry if you were offended” apology. And I said I’d try to not let it happen again. Sincerely.

Of course that’s not good enough because she wants to have a fucking argument and I’m not giving her one. So then she tells me how I called her “names that no one should ever ever be called” (the draaaama) and now I was pounding FIVE times on the bed.

I told her I apologized already and what else did she need me to do?

And then she said how we never talk about her hurts and her stuff.

I had to prevent myself from laughing out loud. Like, every fucking day is Her Personal Emotional Meltdown Day. Every time she takes a drink and for several minutes afterward, I have to remain still and quiet or she throws up or accuses me of trying to make her throw up. She demands do much of my time I cannot sleep. She gives no care to my emotional state or boundaries or needs unless I get firm and parental on her. Every day her needs are catered to. Every day she gets to do whatever the fuck she wants to do. On my salary.

But no we never talk about her shit. No no never ever. Never comes up. Except every day. Every day or nearly she’s decompensating and I have to deal with her emotions but we never ever talk about…

No fuck, I can’t. I just can’t.

I’m over here terrified to tell her that she’s causing my panic attacks and she’s sitting there butthurt that we aren’t dealing with her shit. She’s saying we talk about my shit all the time.

She asked if I was laughing at her and I said no the situation was so bad it was awful which isn’t incorrect exactly.

So I told her she was the source of my panic attacks.

Her entire response: “oh, we already talked about that.”

Your husband just informed you that your behavior is giving him panic attacks and this is your response?

Unbelievable.

Note:

She does NOT like it when her version of events is challenged, even calmly and logically. Maybe especially.

Second Meltdown: Dropped Towel on Floor

Wakes up, melts down thinks it is 7 am and I just returned from grocery store. Literally she forgot the last five hours.

She was okay for a second but drunk af and in the process of getting back into bed she dropped the towel she was laying on and that made her lose her shit entirely. Then after she finally got the towel how she wanted it, crying and screaming the entire time, then she needed me to stay in the bedroom. After about 15 minutes she calmed down and fell back asleep.

Literally NOTHING was wrong. She just dropped the towel on the floor. NO ONE was interacting with her. And she wakes up, loses her shit, blows up me trying to relax and nap, drops a towel, and loses her shit some more.

Third Meltdown: Hit Her Head on the Headboard

OMG SHE WOKE UP AGAIN

This time she was okay until she hit her head on the headboard and she freaked the fuck out. Again. I literally had just told her to please leave me alone so I could relax and get ready to nap.

She literally just bumped her head. Yes, I’m sure it hurts and I actually am sympathetic but she needs me here in the room with her to cope with a bumped head? She had to scream and freak out and lose her shit because she hurt her head. Just run this logic through. How dysfunctional do you have to be if bumping your head however hard into your headboard produces a full scale meltdown?

Third meltdown today. Hell just in the last few hours.

Fourth Meltdown: Moving to Kentucky, Miming Cellos, and WTF

This menstrual cycle she is experiencing is BAD and that’s NOT HELPING matters at all. She’s got a mental disorder, she’s alcoholic and her perception is likely altered, and she’s hormonal af. I’m not saying this to excuse her actions (which are involuntary at least to a large extent anyway).

So she woke up AGAIN to pee.

This WHOLE TIME I am trying to get to sleep.

She is in a lot of pain on her period and fair enough but she peed (not much at all it turns out) outside the toilet and lost her mind again.

She yelled she didn’t want to move to Kentucky and I told her there’s no way in hell we would move to Kentucky. Then she said or any place like Kentucky and I agreed that we will never ever move to any place similar to Kentucky.

Then she said THEN WHY DOES IT FEEL LIKE IT?

I am not equipped to handle this level of mental illness.

She’s now trying to sleep (I think) but tossing and turning something awful. Every time she tosses around I tell her everything is okay she she subsides.

Then she mimed what I figured out was intended to be a cello. And somehow that was connected to Ukraine and a vocalist? She asked about it and I said I didn’t know but now I bet she had this Ukrainian song she’s been listening to going through her head. I guess?

My Funeral

She woke up AGAIN, this time to pee again, and I pretended I was asleep and SHE KNEW THIS because she literally just saw me.

So she goes back to bed and starts plaintively calling me: “Are you awaaake???” in that nauseating whiny baby voice. She THOUGHT I was asleep. And she DELIBERATELY woke me up by calling me pretending that she didn’t know or whatever.

So I ask her what’s the emergency because you woke me up it has to be an emergency, right? Um...no. It’s about horses. About poignant horses and some other shit about horses. She asked if I understood about the horses and I said I did not and that she was hallucinating again. She was adamant she was not, which does not bode well for future convincing her she has BPD (which I probably will not even attempt at this point, but that is literally her only exit from this illness). I told her two meltdowns ago she was freaking out because she thought we were moving to Kentucky. That gave her pause. Fighting crazy with crazy, LOL.

I figured out the sleep thing. Or rather the Internet made me remember.

Recap: The Story So Far

I have asked her repeatedly about the sleep crap. Just to recap:

1. Until 2020, she wasn’t thrilled with me taking naps, and I had no idea why, but she was okay with me turning in earlier than her so idk

2. During 2020 or maybe 2021, she started objecting to me taking late afternoon naps after I got done with work. Which annoyed me since I was literally getting my work done early so I could spend time with her and still have time to nap. Like, it wasn’t enough that I was spending some of this time with her; she wanted me to spend all of this time with her.

3. I take naps because I actually HAVE TO. I have always had insomnia and bad sleep habits. I can try to go to sleep at a reasonable hour and then I just lay there awake for hours worrying about everything under the sun. No thank you. 

<rant> Yes, I may die earlier because I take naps. I don’t give one single solitary shit. I’m taking naps and I’m sleeping when I want to because now that she has awakened me (the pun was RIGHT THERE) to how much I take sleep for granted. When sleep is denied you, you are seriously stressed and angry and insane. This is why it is literally banned by the Geneva Convention.</rant>

4. So first she forbids naps. I, stupidly, went along with this. It just basically meant I got less sleep but whatever. Maybe she was right. Maybe it would just magically reset my sleep cycles?

5. Yeah, no. That did not happen. I just lost sleep. I finally begged her, pleaded with her to let me take naps. She relented, but only for 20 minutes a day. I had to set an alarm, but I was so GRATEFUL I got to nap, I didn’t care. But this was literal torture. Like, this was so abusive, I cannot even wrap my head around it.

6. Yeah, no. It did not help. I really started feeling sleep deprived over time. I don’t remember now what finally pushed me over the edge but I ranted at her that the cats keep me from sleeping at night and she keeps me sleeping in the day and lack of sleep will fucking kill you. Hell, I don’t remember what all I said, but it was finally enough and she sort of relented. 

7. She has done horrible stuff, like yelled at me to get up when I was sleeping and triggered my PTSD and panic attacks. I told her to never do that to me again and a few days after yelled at me “ARE YOU GOING TO SLEEP ALL DAY????” Bear in mind, I had been asleep for all of maybe 90-120 minutes, maximum at that point. She sounded like a parent. She sounded like her Dad or something scolding their child. What the everloving fuck. That also triggered a panic attack but thankfully not a PTSD episode.

I Start Fighting Back

Yes, it took me WAAAAYYYY too long to get to this point, but I finally did. 

1. I went off on her and told her she was causing my panic attacks. I doubt this sunk in but whatever. 

2. I told her to justify why she didn’t want me to be able to sleep. What the fuck was her problem?

3. She first tried to lie and say that she lays in bed pining for me and I sleep ALL the time and she waits for me while I sleep. My head is so fucked up I believed this for a split second and then told her that is a lie, that isn’t even close to true. When am I asleep and you are awake? I wanted to know. She had NO examples. 

And she is always sleeping more than me. When she falls asleep, I am awake because I have chores I need to do and I probably want to come on here and write this insanity or just veg out or pet the cats or whatever. And when I wake up, she is rarely awake. And I’m up ALL the time because the cats wake me up or she wakes me up or I just wake up because I get to have a panic attack in my sleep.

So, no. She is not laying in bed pining for me and even if she is, she could oh I don’t know, DO SOMETHING? Listen to a podcast, call a relative, call a friend, whatever. 

The Answer: It is Just This Simple

I finally got it out of her. It is because when I am sleeping, I am “not here”. She believes sleeping = abandonment. Even if I am RIGHT THERE, if I am sleeping, I have abandoned her effectively in her head. 

Apparently, this is REALLY common among sufferers of Borderline Personality Disorder. Like, it’s a hallmark of it. 

From Stop Walking on Eggshells:  

Some people with BPD, however, find it difficult to evoke an image of a loved one to soothe them when they feel upset or anxious. If that person is not physically present, they don’t exist on an emotional level. The BP may call you frequently just to make sure you’re still there and still care about them.  

Earlier, I mentioned that she often becomes delusional when she is waking up or has drunk too much (or both, I guess). I mentioned the story that she thought that a spree killer was going to target grocery stores here and specifically the one I was (and still am) going to get our weekly groceries.

I should point out that she has maybe gotten groceries five times in the past five years. I go every week in the car. The car that I paid for. The car that I maintain. The car that SHE wanted and that I did not. 

I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s a good car. But I hate driving, I hate paying for parking, I hate it. I think it would be more cost effective to get groceries delivered since the sole thing we use the car for is groceries. I suppose we would also use it for emergency vet events, but only one of those has occurred so far. I believe we could use Uber/Lyft in these instances, but okay.

Anyway, I wanted to revisit this because although the first mention of this says everything that happened, it doesn’t illustrate the sheer insanity and terror at work here.

She literally tried to convince me that she could see the future (much like my father did, who turns out had the same mental disorder - go me) and that the future she could somehow see was a lone moody gunman targeting the QFC on Mercer Street.

I told her I have been going in the early mornings on weekends (I started this to avoid Covid and now it’s just routine) and that spree killers generally do not get up at 5 am to do spree killing.

She kept chanting “HE IS COMING!!!”

This was several conversations over several days. She did not alter what she believed was happening or what she believed she could see.

This was months ago and obviously no shooter has targeted any grocery stores in Seattle.

She could not explain scientifically how she knew any of this and when pressed gave no solutions so I told her until she had an explanation and a solution, I was not going to have this conversation again and she surprisingly said that was okay and never brought it up again.

Did she on some level know it was false?

12/22 TIme Boundary respected ish

Yeah, things were...okay for a bit there. Not great, not terrible. 

This is my diary of verbal and emotional abuse and other fun stuff that I have to deal with as the husband of a wife (whom despite everything I love dearly and she can be very nice and sweet half the time) who has Borderline Personality Disorder, Major Clinical Depression, ADHD, PTSD, and possibly OCD. This chronicles 12/21/22.

12/16 was a 2 on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 - okay, 5 - total decompensation)

12/17 was a 1

12/18 was a 5 (collapse in bathroom, puking on self, delusions, accusations, etc)

12/19 was a 1

12/20 was a 3, temperature meltdown

12/21 was a 3, detailed below

Sleep Studies

And then she started falling asleep when I’m supposed to be reading to her. And that’s actually fine. 

One, it means I read less to her, which is fine by me as I have other stuff I have to do or want to do (and I don’t mind spending time with her but she is too demanding of too much time each day). 

Two, she has a perfect right to sleep whenever she damn pleases. I’m not a fan of sleep deprivation and she has used sleep deprivation against me, long before she started drinking again. And this seems like such a weird thing, and needs further study both by me and by professionals. BPD sufferers apparently prevent their loved ones from sleeping and this is a thing? WTF? The top response of BPD significant others as to what they missed least about being in a relationship with someone with BPD was “lack of sleep”. Why do BPD sufferers do this to their significant others?

Three, she has some form of hypersomnia.

So it’s fine if she falls asleep. What’s not fine is I can’t tell if she has just closed her eyes or if she is truly asleep. And I end up accidentally waking her up because the last I knew, she wasn’t asleep and had just closed her eyes. And if I wake her up, all Hell breaks loose and here we go with BPD gaslighting, decompensating, delusions, blaming, the whole nine yards.

So emotional meltdown number one was over this.

Food Channel

The second mess was that she wants to take a pill, wait an hour, eat, wait two hours, take a second pill. And that would be fine if she had started that process at 4 pm, 5 pm, 6 pm, 7 pm, or 8 pm. She decides she wants to do all this and takes pill number one at 10 pm. Like, she literally got angry at me earlier when I asked her if she still wanted to eat and at what time because she hates if I ask questions.

if I don’t ask questions, she will push it to the firewall. I went off a little bit and said that I expect her to be ready to go to sleep no later than Midnight. On Worknights, I expect her to be ready to go to sleep no later than 11 pm. This means she takes her sleeping pill 15 minutes prior to the sleep time.

It’s like dealing with a toddler. If you don’t set a standard time to go to sleep, they abuse it. How can you expect your significant other to stay up past Midnight, particularly when it is YOU that is the fucking problem? She could have eaten earlier, she chose to wait. And it’s my fault because I want to sleep? Unreal.

So I set the following non-negotiable BOUNDARY: On non-worknights, she is to take a sleeping pill no later than 11:45 pm and be ready to get tucked in and go to sleep no later than 12:00 Midnight.

I plan to set the 11 pm boundary next week when I go back to work. 

I find it just pathetic that I have to do this but she almost cried when I did. Like, ANY BOUNDARY is a personal violation or something? Is this behavior new or did I just not see it before?

And then she has the audacity to ask if she can make food in two hours after she takes the sleeping pill at 11:45 and that would be like waking me up at 2 am but I was so just done so I was like, “sure, Theo will probably wake me up to be fed then anyway.” 

And he did. And she had her damn food, as far as I can remember. Nights are such a blur of sleep deprivation.

I’m glad she got food though as her nutrition is awful right now. I just wish she’d have any kind of understanding that other people have limits and needs.

Lunar Blood Ritual

So she missed a day of birth control meds. Despite my best efforts to get her to take her pills. Despite her ripping me a new asshole even today for trying to get her to take her pills. Bad things happen when you don’t take your pills. Which is why I want you to take your pills.

Jesus, she actually accused me of FORCING pills on her.

After me explaining “no, it is up to you if you take the first pill. You said you need to take it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s up to you if you want to take it. You don’t have to take any of your pills. I’m not forcing you to take any of them. You said you wanted to take them, not me.”

She asked me to help her with her pills in the first place, and I’m about done, I swear.

So she missed a birth control day and got her period and it’s BAD.

She hasn’t had one in a while and I get that it sucks and I am trying to be sympathetic.

I screwed up a few days ago and told her about decidual casts in case she ever had to deal with one. I was trying to be helpful. But I guess she took this as “I can talk to husband about in-depth gory detail about my period” and she did that for thirty minutes.

I have never experienced anyone who complains as much as she does, not even my mother, and that’s saying something.

But this is a legit complaint on her part about how much life sucks for her, and for women in general, and I listened.

However, I didn’t tell her about the play-by-play of my hemorrhoid surgery.  I feel that if our positions were reversed, I’d want my partner to know how AWFUL it was, but I don’t think I’d describe the actual excretions to them.

Her covers weren’t perfect and we had to have an emotional panic attack over it.

And then she had to attack me verbally because she thought I was going to change the temperature without warning.

She asked me what I wasn’t comfortable touching and I started to explain that I didn’t want to touch the temp because it’s really precise and I figured I’d screw it up and she’d get mad at me. I got halfway through that and she shrieked at me to DON’T YOU TOUCH THAT because in her head I was getting out of bed to change it.

It’s like her brain makes up scenarios to justify her shitty emotions.

Of course I’m the asshole because she’s having a panic attack so she can shit on me and it’s my fault if I get emotional or fight back at all. She literally wants to be able to have an emotional meltdown and say anything no matter how hurtful, and I’m supposed to calmly take it and then we can discuss it later.