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[Ladybt28]

yep sulking is passive aggressive and that's what he does, but behind my reactions to him and Tc may have hit on something with dialectical thing (it would apply more to him than me as his is a rare personality disorder)  is that before we met he had developed an "unhealthy coping mechanism" and psychs can't find out where it came from, which manifested itself in the first 7 years of our marriage in what is know as disassociative behaviour, which can be quite extreme but me in blissful ignorance didn't know anything about it then.  eg he could actually "check out" at any time or place (usually precipitated by some form of stress however small) and when I mean "check out" I mean I actually lived with a different person who did not love me or who "woke up" and couldn't understand why he was living where he was.....it sounds extreme...and it sounds to most just like bad behaviour but it was very real and I can honestly say that during these episodes he lost time...place...awareness, memory everything.  When it first happened he woke up one day, go halfway through the day as my loving amiable husband and then by 11 o'clock decided to leave me as he didn't know why he was married to me.    His disposition his voice, he demeaner changed completely and as this went on there were witnesses in the family who also said "what's happened to Brad - it's like he's a completely different person".  Mind you he could change back at the click of finger and not realise "he had been away".  But I didn't know any of this, it is something I learned and learned about and for which he has sought treatment, but I found it very traumatic.  It was particularly bad for 7 years and got less so after treatment.  I understood very early on he had the ability to become one of those people you hear about on the telly who walk out of their homes and are never seen by family or friends or children ever again...the missing...who go and lead another life....which is totally terrifying.

It is in fact a very rare, unusual mental health condition and psychiatrists loved him (athough it took me 7 years to get him to one.  How do you persuade someone who has no recollection of periods of time to believe they have a problem and it wasn't until his daughters begged him and he said alright I will see someone just to shut you up but there isnothing wrong).  Psych aways started the conversation with "oh I've read  about this in books but never actually met anyone with it" - well yippee I asked "do you know how to help"?  So over 20 years they have helped, only no one helped me with the scars, it left on top of my own insecurities.

Things have been under control since June 16 but when anything, however small, comes along to upset the apple cart together with my own stuff..I know I just can't handle it and I am terrified and on top of my traumatic menopausal journedy where I have been terrified anything I do may set it off, I just don't react well.

So yes Tc fear rules the day.  I have changed you are right but as we all know it is overwhelming and illogical and quite uncontrollable and intertwined with other "stuff". 

Birdy - OH leaving - and taking time out is my worst nightmare..it pushes so many buttons, it's unreal.  I think that although it was only stupid stuff about decorating, some subconscious thing set me off and I just lose all reason around those kind of "stressor" issues with him which others would take for granted, plus meno made me afraid of my own shadow  although that general idea in other things other than OH have gone.

It's like an uncontrollable bomb goes off in my head - thinking about our spat today, and my reaction to it and the things I have written...I think it is that fear which has made me loose the plot.  I am sure I would have been much worse if I wasn't able to write it down and maybe work it out.

OH is making dinner as we speak but I am still on high alert - you could be right Tc my reactions are heightened and I need to turn them down.  xx  much love to you all...I am so grateful.

I would love to tell you Birdy if I knew how to fix the self-worth and the negative self-talk and dealing with stuff you cant control - god I'd be the first in the queue to tell anyone how to get out of the shit we seem to put ourselves through as women generally.  If its not husband, partners, friends...it's parents, children and life in general.  I love you lot xx

[Ladybt28]

Nothing to be frightened about Birdy, it wasn't just fight's or words or an immediate stress trigger...we could just be bumbling along with the day, him telling me how much he loved me and how wonderful I was and be talking about all the things we were doing and about our life together, or putting the washing out, or doing the dinner or he had just bought flowers...ordinary life stuff and then....just like flicking a life switch...all gone.....and a new person in it's place, who didn't love me and looked at the flowers like they landed from another planet...and wasn't building a life with me.... and had no idea why he was cooking me diner...so no you don't have dissociative disorder I promise xxx  It's completely different from "shutting stuff out" because it's uncomfortable...I don't want you finding something else to worry about 

yep its a lot to deal with (when I describe it which I have only done 2 or 3 times in 20 years, it sounds too outlandish to be true, the kind of thing you read about in fiction, but believe me not fiction and I sound stark staring bonkers to myself) but so is being brought up in a cult, and abusive relationships and being abandoned Birdy.  How I wonder can the world be so awful? We hide too much from the world, I think in case we are judged.  One lady who wrote me a PM today said "no one speaks honestly" and "the world seems to be lacking in warmth these days", I think she is spot on.  Since being on the forum and "being honest" for the first time in my life about the rubbish stuff (actually out of pure desperation) I have found a world I didn't know existed and I am so grateful that no one judges here, and there is plenty of warmth and I'm not alone and there is so much goodness to come out of the awful stuff, if we share it.

How are we?....I'm exhausted and want to sleep for a week...which is all this emotion and fear and he still has a frosty core but is thawing.  There has been nothing close to "one of his episodes" as I call them...just a bog standard marital row....but for us nothing "bog standard" about marital rows...they may have unintended consequences down the line that I wouldn't see comng till they hit me like a train.

[Ladybt28]

It's the first time in my life, today I have not felt alone Birdy...and I am so grateful....more than words could say. Yet that feeling.... that absolute void, it's very scary and when it becomes an integral part of your life that you learn to live with year after year...that's sad and scary. You know it needs shifting but the process is beyond you because no one can tell you how to actually accomplish it and then what happens is it becomes a constant battle and search to control something that you have no idea how to control.  I think it's the futility of it all that really drags you under, if you find yourself staring at it in the cold light of day, rather than the battle itself.  The battle itself requires strength, and most of us are far stronger than we give ourselves credit for but its when we look back then the drowning starts.  Well that's how I see it anyway.  I'm not sure any counsellor unless they had been there to that extent themselves could ever "get it".

Yep...in my experience...life's s**t...more often than not! xx 

[CLKD]

Is OH getting ongoing support with his memory problems?  It sounds like a head injury-type issue, have you spoken to the Charity 'headway' [you may have said previously .......  ] who may be able to offer coping strategy for you if not for him. 

Many people 'shut off'.  Children lose the ability to talk .......... I think many who are on the autistic spectrum shut down in order to cope.  The hurting part of the brain closes which allows the person to function but not as others around are used to.  It's easier for a child to shut down than an adult who has learned to conform.

Different things trigger people, i.e. mown grass and smells; sounds - I go into fear mode if Mum calls to DH and I'm not there to see what the fuss is about  .  Many want to walk and walk until the problem goes away, however, most take the problem with them or have to return eventually.

Half a day at a time Ladybit28.   Maybe "I'm sorry for my part in the latest upheaval, are you able to let it go so that we can sort out today?" 

You keep telling us if it helps.  But I feel you need local support from a professional for emergency situations.

[Ladybt28]

No ongoing support for OH. It was difficult enough to get the first round of help.  Subsequent ones had to be requested by OH and he would only do that when it was crisis.  Last lot June 16.  Crisis means when and full blow episode which lasts more than a week. When we first met the "episodes" happened nearly every week, lasted an hour or half a day.  Then I realised that they could come and stay for 2 or 3 days.  The very worst one...I lived with a complete stranger who hated me for a month!

Firstly with most mental health people they cannot support what they don't understand, or they cannot see.  OH couldn't explain or recount what he couldn't remember!  MH professionals base their treatments on the premise "patient must seek help" but my issue in those early years was, he had no idea what was happening and could only take our word for it.  After the first set of psych visits which lasted nearly a year, there was a marked shift for OH, but it is something that will always be there.  In the early years I spent 24/7 on high alert, then there was improvement and on 3 occasions I have been lulled into a false sense of security because there have been gaps for years.  Then Boom...there are very tiny and I mean tiny warnings which are easily missed, sleeping would be one...or excessive tiredness, but when the "switch flicks", it is immediate and then we are stuck, with the "new OH" for however long and all that brings. The one in 2016 was a massive episode for him and it lasted about 6/7 weeks.  I actually sought a solicitor..I was in peri at the time, quite ill myself and not able to deal with it all.  The MH people don't consider me in this at all.  And there in lies the problem...my scars from the experience...are many and on occasion my reactions are subconscious when it comes to him.  I would never react with another human the way I can sometimes with him

Its not a head injury CKLD...His is described as an "extremely dysfunctional coping strategy" which they say he developed very young.  Despite MH exploration they cannot find the source event.  His, although sounds extreme to the average person is mild...the extreme cases of the behaviour can be found in victims of long term ongoing abuse, sexual or otherwise and the very extreme cases go on to develop "multiple personality disorder", which is why I feel I live with a "different person" when it happens. It will always be there, it is much better than it was, but my fears will also be there because there is not rationality, reasoning or logic attached to this part of the past.

I just have to sit it out when it happens, in the "episode" sorry doesn't make a difference because he has no idea why I am sorry or why I am important to him enough to be sorry!  In this instance where it was "just a row" I can be sorry but it wont stop the sulking...I have to sit that out too.

As I have said, only our sons and daughters and his sisters know.  His sisters don't believe it....the children have got to grips with it and my very best friend from school who is a rape counsellor and was instrumental in those first 7 years, turns out she has actually counselled a victim with multiple personality disorder which I thought at the time 20 years ago that "you only read about in books".  Now my friends on the forum know, it does help, particularly as now in meno and with all my own meno problems I have had and my past problems...the simplist thing seems to throw me off course.  Tc mentioned the fear of "relapse" in myself...I think that is what this is and why I got in such a state. xxx

[bear]

Hi again,

How are you feeling today? Your situation sounds really stressing. I have a schizophrenic/borderline sister who has promised to turn our lives into bloody hell, so I have an idea how you must be feeling, although I know your husband is a good person. I'm sorry I can't be of any help, I still have physical symptoms when fear/anger/frustration strike, but my anxiety levels have decreased a lot lately, just by accepting that I'm not in control (as I told you before). I'm not on HRT, I have tried and failed, but now I'm coping much better with menopause issues. Do you think your HRT is stable, regarding hormonal fluctuations?
Hope you feel better soon.

BeaR.

[Ladybt28]

I think in terms of the hrt, Bear it probably is stable although its taken a whole year (but then again, does an hrt regime ever become really stable...they are so up to fluctuations set off by other body chemistry???)  ... but the other things that go along with that which I find difficult and weird is that I was on AD's for 40 years and latterly of the 40 years on pain meds too but I gave them all up 4 years ago.  I am having to learn to live my life without all that, deal with the issues all those meds brought (the side effects, the feeling numb, the sleeping a lot and what that did to my life) and all the issues they masked.  I was put on them firstly at 15, so it's not like I learned to live a life without them and all my experiences and reactions have been framed around them.  It's a very weird feeling...in the 4 years without any of them but the hrt, I have experienced feelings good and bad that I have never really had before...throw in the meno thing and with it only just being sorted...it doesn't really take much to throw me off kilter from this "new me" and throw me back to some of the old patterns which are so familiar but which really don't have to exist anymore.   It took a while to realise that feeling better on hrt meant that I couldn't escape from Reframing 40 years of my own stuff.

What has been so wonderful is that when the blind panic set in I was able to get it all out on here instead of keeping it all inside and I think I have probably got my head round things a bit quicker and worked out what is going on. The support from the ladies means the total irrationality didn't take over and let me get stuck in the rabbit hole!  I don't have any actual friends to share with and before the forum I would have just got "stuck in my head" for months with things going round and round.  The ladies here know what its like...a giant washing machine on permanent spin! so yes I am better Ta very much  xx

Glad to hear your general anxiety has dialled down a bit...I think sharing and support here on the forum provides a bit of perspective. I find it helpful maybe that its what is changing the way you think about things...but it takes some getting used to.

[JayJay]

So just when I thought I had things sorted and for once in my life I as actually going go accomplish something and it was going to go right...well...its not, it hasn't and I'm so p'd off cos I fell into the trap of thinking it's ok.
And its not to do with the menopause really or is it?..or is it just the last 15 years of things being s*** that I have got used to it and I just expect it and then again...do I make it happen like some kind of sabotage.  I cant even find an appropriate place on the forum to post "fed up with the world generally...and why am I still here?" urgh 

As you can tell people, it's past midnight - down the rabbit hole again and its all about first world problems "the decorating" of the little office which has kicked it off, which has been a nightmare from start to finish...hardly a catastrophe I hear you shout, but no its brought up all sorts of things I thought were gone...but clearly not.  I am so tired of living...it's beyond a joke....how much more of life's crap is one person supposed to take before they just give up.  The "wonderful husband" is a "pain in the arse"...what goes on in his head?  What goes on in their heads?
I'm so bored I cant even be bothered to explain it but I feel  so upset I just had to write it down, I feel so upset...oh and by the way I know it makes no sense but I hope I will feel better when I have got it off my chest..or not?

40 years of crap all the kinds of crap you can imagine...and just when I thought I could cope with the little things turns out I can't.  Did my failings turn me into this loon, did I do something to deserve it or did the crap use up every ounce of energy and patience I have for anything however big or however small now I am some useless, insignificant, pedantic, wizened past it...57 invisable something?

Lost it this afternoon and evening and there is no rational person in my head.  Back where I was a year ago...there is no sane person in my head...oh dear what will you all make of it? ....but one thing I have learned is not keep this in..so now it's out..!
What's out? you say..I don't know just frustration I suppose....just fed up with the world.  x  rant over sorry

Good morning, Twin.
Could not have put it better myself
J

[Radoy]

I find when I get these feelings if I lean into them and accept them they lose their power.

[CLKD]

A neuro-psychologist would probably find this of interest.  Multiple PD crossed my mind as I dropped off to sleep last night  .  Coping within a different persona in order to survive.

Does he wear a tag, should he go walk about and turn up not knowing himself, he could be taken into safety and the returned home.  A neighbour has a tag as he has dementia.  It has his home phone number on, his GP contact number and his wife's mobile number.

[juliemargaret]

Hi ladybt28

So I'm on holiday and been without WiFi nearly a week and logged in soon as could as needed some more advice before tomorrow and then I saw you're post as I sent mine! (“Advice please ladybt28, hurdity, dotty etc”) I really hope you feel lots better than you did the other day.... I read through quickLy and with tears in my eyes and love in my heart. We are all here for you and each response post from the other women - birdy, tc, dotty, etc just shows you that- you are not alone and I'm so glad you reached out and shared and let that shit come out rather than residing inside lovely you. Keep sharing and shifting.  Sending you all my love. X

[CLKD]

sharing and shifting love it! 

[jillydoll]

Birdy?    🔝.   😆...............or did you mean to put that? 😆

[jillydoll]

Love ya Ladybt....

[juliemargaret]

Haha birdy those friends are shit friends. X