The Silent Rage or Silent Treatment

Ran across a few great articles about Borderline Personailty Disorder and the Silent Treatment. I snagged a few excerpts from the articles, and I can definitely say that every single one of them describes my life. Yay for me.

Quiet or "Acting-In" Borderlines and the Silent Treatment

"There is nothing fair or reasonable, healthy or appropriate about the silent treatment. It is abusive. Even if one needs time or space, one can surely say that and take responsibility for that. For the quiet borderline, the "acting in" borderline, in his or her passive-aggressive style of pulling and manipulating for control, the silent treatment is the ultimate abdication of personal responsibility.

Not only is the quiet borderline abdicating his or her responsibility to respect you, the non borderline, but he or she is also holding you hostage to it while blaming you for it."

The Silent Treatment

"When prisoners are being punished, they are put in isolation, because being isolated is one of the harshest punishments there is - other than physical abuse.

The silent treatment is a form of punishment, a way to attempt to control children and partners into doing what you want them to do. It is a withdrawal of approval, and can cause much fear in people who are vulnerable to this."

The Silent Treatment: When Your Partner Acts As If You Don't Exist

"...perhaps, in your relationship, he ignores you for days, weeks, or months... all of the time barely looking at you, barely speaking to you. If you ask him what is wrong, he ignores you or tells you curtly that everything is 'fine'. But he is jolly, pleasant, even kind to others.. to a waitress, to a coworker, to a child. Yes, he may be playing with your child, talking sweetly to him, while you, Mom, stand nearby and he barely looks at you. If you ask him something, his face is locked into a cold stare. His eyes are cold. There is no love, no affection anywhere in his face."

The Silent Treatment

"Receiving the silent treatment is a sign that emotional abuse is at play in a relationship. There may seem to be an actual reason for the silence, or the abuser might be considered delicate by loved ones. When bad feelings are provoked by the silence to meet the quiet person's needs, this act is still a form of abuse."

Angelic or Evil? Meh..Depends on the Day

I thought things were pretty good. Seemed ok. Getting along for the most part, much better than in a long time.

Lately Sven seems to like me. Things have been ok.....until this morning, when I began to be the focus of yet another silent rage. Ahh, Borderlines and their silent raging.

So.....I'm "evil" again, just in case you were wondering. (I know.. that's what you sit around wondering, lol). It's a cycle, and I'm not to worried about it. I'll be back to angelic soon, just have to endure the focus of the hatred for a little while. I'm getting rather good at it, actually. I'm surprised at how much it DIDN'T affect me this time.

So....Points for that, right?

Please Don't Leave Me

I heard this song recently, and I can't believe how much it describes Sven to me. I love Sven. Don't get me wrong. Sven is super sweet sometimes. He can be so tender and loving. And then, in an instant, he can be cruel -  almost heartless - and he knows exactly what to say to cut me to the very core of my being.  It's kind of a Jekyll/Hyde thing. 

I feel that the words to this song describe Borderline Personality Disorder. I think that Pink describes this disorder so well in this song. If you're not a fan of Pink, that's ok. I personally think a lot of her stuff is rather twisted, but maybe that's why it speaks to me. So.... if there ever was a Borderline Personality Disorder theme song..... I think this is it:

The thing I have discovered in my reading about Borderline Personality Disorder is the huge fear of being abandoned. Yet, despite this fear, they won't let anyone close to them, because if they do that person might abandon them. They absolutely crave closeness and intimacy, but they can't handle it when it starts to happen. It's so intense for them that they do something crazy and mean to get you to pull away. It's really quite sad. I have a friend who mentioned that his ex-wife once left this song on his answering machine. She's also a Borderline. He and I have talked at length about how difficult it can be, and yet we get so enmeshed with our partners and have such a difficult time not being codependent on them.

So what lines speak to me, in particular? Most of them, really. It's so dead-on that it stopped me in my tracks and I started to cry.  Sven has never harmed me physically, and I don't think anything like that would ever happen. But emotionally and verbally, it has been an extreme roller coaster for me.

I have tried to keep what I post very positive, and I will try to continue to do so. I really will, but I can't make any promises. I care about Sven and I know that he didn't ask for this disorder. But I didn't ask for it, either, and right now, I could use some support. I am facing some tough questions right now.

So...if you're out there...if you're reading this...I could use your prayers. Whatever it is that you do, I can use it. So.... light a candle, pray, chant, burn incense, meditate, sing, dance, throw starfish at the moon...I don't really care how you do it. Just know I would be ever so grateful for anything.

Realization

Sven and I were lying on our bed the other night and he actually was snuggling me while he was falling asleep. (The reason that's odd is because Sven doesn't like to be touched while he's sleeping.)  He was spooned up against my back and had his arm around my waist. Things have been really rough between me and Sven for a long time, and this was, well, a delightful suprise to me. I was thrilled at how good things felt between us. He was sleeping and I didn't want to move. It just felt so good to have him hold me like that and I felt safe. I felt peaceful. I felt whole, for the first time in a very, very long time.  

As I was drifting off to sleep, I remember thinking, "Wow, we did it. We're finally doing better. It's almost like I can't tell where his feet are and where my feet are...we feel like we just belong this way....." and I was jolted awake by him involuntarily poking me in the ribs with his fingers.... HARD. I was so startled awake that I said, "What!? What?" loudly enough that it woke him. He sleepily mumbled sorry and went right back to sleep. How bizarre, I thought, and I settled back into my sleepy, wonderful moment, peacefully enjoying how good it felt to have my husband hold me....until he started jerking his arm across my body...again, kind of hard. "SVEN, WHAT!?" I asked him.

He made some incoherent noises and grunted a little and went back to sleep. (The truth is, I don't know that he ever really was fully awake, lol).  It happened one more time shortly after that, where he was again pushing down hard on my ribs with his fingers repeatedly.

I lay there for a while wondering why he was doing this. I slowly pulled away from him a little and he stopped doing it. He kept his arm around me, but that didn't happen again, and we actually fell asleep that way, which I truly believe is a first for us. (Yes, I know, some people will think that's crazy). 

As I reflected on those events, the parallel that came into my mind the following morning was very clear. As I took the time to think about it, I settled on this and it just made so much sense to me.

It boils down to this: No matter how hard he tries not to, Sven will always "poke me in the ribs". It's just who he is.  It's part of the Borderline Personality Disorder that I believe he has. He wants intimacy. He wants to be close to me, but he's so afraid of that deep intimacy that he will create distractions or drama to poke me in the ribs and keep a bit of distance. It is very likely that I will never experience the deep, emotional bonding or connection that I crave in my marriage. The trick for me is still enjoying the bliss that I get with him when he's not poking me. It's difficult. It's hard to not be angry when things are going so well and he seems to create some needless drama or fight because he feels the need to protect himself.  Perhaps God was trying to help me understand Sven better. Perhaps I needed to have this experience so that I can later reflect on it and not get so upset, but rather remind myself that he's involuntarily poking me in the ribs in his sleep. It's like auto-pilot. He doesn't even realize he's doing it.

I love Sven. I really do. Realizing that I may never have the depth of intimacy that I desire is difficult for me, and I think I need to mourn or grieve over some of the things that Sven may never be able to give me. It doesn't make Sven a bad person. It just means I need to find a way to accept that I am asking for something he cannot provide and perhaps let go of that desire. I just have to pull away from him a little now and then so that he'll stop poking me.

The point is, Sven loves me. He really, really does. He just has a very hard time showing it sometimes. And I am learning that that is ok. I am number one in his heart, and that makes me a very lucky person. :)