Sufferer Ptsd Sufferer With Re-occuring Dreams

[NoAnna]

I am a 42 year old woman who suffers from PTSD as a direct result of my experiences with caring for my husband who was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) 6 years ago. I have been with my husband for over 10 years and there have been times when I have stepped in and risked my life to save his.

One night was very close and while my husband was rushed to hospital his parents called me and blamed it all on me. I have re-occurring dreams of watching my husband's funeral from a distance because I was not allowed to attend the funeral. I was not married to my husband at the time and subconsciously I guess I realised that they had the rights to exclude me had it happened that my husband didn't survive.

Even though I am now married to him and it would not be possible for this to occur, my re-occurring dreams continue.

It was after this event that my husband was diagnosed with BPD in which his therapists have discovered he contracted it as a direct result of his parents parenting and the reason why he came so close to taking his own life was something his mother said to him that had upset him that day. Meeting me at the age of 30 had no relevance to contracting his disorder. He'd been showing signs of it since he was 10 years old. The people blaming me were instead the perpetrators.

It is not possible for me to set the story straight and put the facts on the table as every time we have tried, it has been met with complete denial. However, by allowing them to know how much it affected me, it only meant that whenever I unintentionally offended them since, his mother would respond with blaming me for her son's ill-health and attempt on his life. Little do they know that I knew otherwise but it always reverts into the re-occurring dream coming back in full force.

I also suffer anxiety as a direct result of fearing that at any time my husband could become unwell again and repeat his BPD behaviours. Thankfully, his parents are no longer a part of our lives and I am trying to move on. At least I will no longer be subject to their blame games again.

 

[Binkie]

Recurring dreams are horrible, I really feel for you on that front, however it is not possible for a 10 year old child to show signs of developing a personality disorder. In women, the personality isn't fully formed until the age of about 24. In men, it's even later in life than that.

Can you suggest to your husband that he seeks a therapy such as DBT to help with the negative impact on your lives that his illness has? It may help if you both considered counselling as a couple, too, to help you understand each other better and learn what it i slike for the other person?

Back to these recurring dreams though - is it always you being stopped from attending your husband's funeral because he didn't want you there? It's important to remind yourself about the positives before you go to sleep - your husband is alive and in reality, nobody would stop you from attending his funeral should he die before you. I really think you need some therapy too. You say you have PTSD but in your post, you didn't say why other than to say it's due to your husband's illness - I am struggling to understand this but obviously things have happened within your marriage to cause you trauma, if you have been formally diagnosed with PTSD (have you?). I understand if you want to keep this to yourself, but it may help us to understand more about the dynamics between you and your husband should you choose to share that with us.

All the best.

 

[UnKnown-Self]

I am a 42 year old woman who suffers from PTSD.

Welcome to the group!

 

[ladee]

None of us are Dr's here But would like to add that personality disorders can start as early as one year old as research has shown. It can't be diagnosed until later because the symptoms mimic many things youngsters do in adolescence.
Which with that being said..it is relevant to your story that your husband apparently had a very difficult childhood.
Welcome! Glad you found us and hope we can help.
Happy that you reached out.
Hope you get the support you need. We are here for you.

 

[BlueOrange]

Welcome, @NoAnna . I'm glad you found this place, and I'm sad and angry that you had a reason to look for it.

Caring for and living with someone who has an untreated mental disorder can be really dangerous; please don't feel that you need to justify your presence here, or to disclose anything that you don't feel able to talk about.

I'm glad that your husband's parents are out of the picture, and that you and your husband are both in therapy.

When we dream, the mind is flooded with chemicals that make us forget - the biological function of dreaming is to allow us to forget. Sometimes, a dream is really upsetting, and we wake up filled with adrenalin. One of the functions of adrenalin is to say "Remember this! It's really important!" And so, when we're ready to move on from something distressing, we can get caught in a loop; trying to take out the garbage every night, and repeatedly spilling it on the living room floor.

My nightmares lost their staying power once I was in the habit of saying "It's good that I'm trying to forget this" whenever they woke me up. That soothing message reduced my adrenalin levels, and eventually I was able to forget.

 

[NoAnna]

Recurring dreams are horrible, I really feel for you on that front, however it is not possible for a 10...

Hi Binkie,

Thanks for your reply. Yes I have been diagnosed with PTSD and I go to therapy. My husband and I share the same therapist and he gets DBT. Rare for BPD people to embrace combined therapy, I know.

Yes the reason for the re-occurring dreams was his parents blaming me for 'almost killing him', an unjust response from his poisonous parents and yes since I married my husband I know there is no way they could stop me attending, like they did to my husband's sister's boyfriend when she passed last year. They told him he could not attend the memorial.

My other forms of PTSD are in direct relation to being there while my husband, psychotic at the time, stabbed himself in the chest twice in front of me aiming for his heart saying 'I'm leaving and will take you out too if you try and stop me'. He was distraught from something his mother had said to him on the phone earlier in the day and waited for me to get home, probably, unconsciously as a form of wanting me to stop him. I struggled with the knife and thankfully stopped him. My PTSD is common, I'm anxious a lot, can't look at blood, even on TV and at times can see (in the daytime) imaginary images of my husband hanging from a tree. He had never tried this but, at times when he was psychotic, he threatened to 'hang himself from a tree'.

Also, my husband has seen many psychiatrists and psychologists independent from each other who have all come to the same conclusion. His BPD symptoms first appeared when he was just 10 years old when he began punching himself, latter leading to other forms of self harm as a teenager.

I studied a lot about BPD purely in order to help save my husbands life at the time by getting a better understanding of it but I understand that there are theories out there that state that a person who has BPD can not have it until later teens, I have found other theories out there that state otherwise and my husbands therapists believe that beginning self harm at the age of 10 years old were the early warning signs of his inability to deal with his emotions and hence the start of his BPD symptoms and later diagnosis. BPD is so young to the world of psychology that I guess there is still much more research to be done through inter-generational research.

 

[Friday]

However, by allowing them to know how much it affected me, it only meant that whenever I unintentionally offended them since, his mother would respond with blaming me for her son's ill-health and attempt on his life. Little do they know that I knew otherwise

When I'm doing well-ish this is the sort of thing that amuses the hell out of me. There sheer level of antics assholes perform in order to twist the truth and outright lie to suit them, and blame everything else around them, just invokes this barely able to be contained :hilarious: :roflmao: :photogenic::playful::speechless::ninja: Of course, sometimes I don't manage to contain it, and just end up laughing in their face. Phew! That was lovely! Thank you for that. Look you're good for something. Isn't that a relief? <<< They don't generally take that well, but I really don't give a damn

When I'm not doing well-ish it makes me want to rip their spines out through their chest.

I don't have a lot of middle ground. Outright hilarious, or urge to kill, rising.

So I generally decide these people are dead to me, an act accordingly. People who need to be dead reminding me they're still stealing oxygen from the rest of the world piss me off no end, but it also provides a very easy answer to daily questions. Shall we have the corpses over for dinner? Nope. That would be 12 kinds of repulsive. Christmas time, should we buy presents for the dead people? I think pissing on their graves is sufficient, wouldn't you? We'll just make a note to do that later.

 

[NoAnna]

None of us are Dr's here But would like to add that personality disorders can start as early as one year...

Hi and thank you to all of the other responses I received whilst writing Blinkie a response. And yes, I agree with you ladee, even though I am not a specialist, in my husbands case, I believe that personality disorders can develop early too.

 

[NoAnna]

Hi and thank you to all of the other responses I received whilst writing Blinkie a response. And yes,...

When I'm doing well-ish this is the sort of thing that amuses the hell out of me. There sheer level of [...

Ha ha Tempus Fugit,

I felt like laughing at them in the face. At least their reactions for blaming me helped the therapists to understand the people that raised my husband and they were then able to zoom in on their toxic behaviours which helped with a quick diagnosis. ;)

 

[ladee]

Good for you! We have enough to deal with without the blamers blaming or enduring an inquisition.
You are here and you husband has an awesome wife! With that huge heart you are going to be an asset to our healing community.
Glad you are here!

 

[joeylittle]

understand that there are theories out there that state that a person who has BPD can not have it until later teens,

Cant have is just synonymous with 'can't be diagnosed'. No psych professional is capable of knowing whether a child's actions are indicative of a personality disorder, or merely are part of the chaos that is the developing brain.

Once someone reaches diagnosable age, then it's possible for doctors to look back - and in hindsight, see where the behaviors of the personality disorder may have begun forming and manifesting.

Basically, yes, his doctors could look at what is now known of how he behaved at age 10, and what his home environment was, and conclude that he was doing BPD-like things.

And at the same time - if they could get in a time machine - they would not be able to properly diagnose BPD at 10 years old, even if it really looked like it. A little bit because the diagnostic manuals prohibit it, but a lot because of good reason. Kids are chaotic. No true way of knowing what's going on up there.

That was a major tangent.

I'm glad you found the site, @NoAnna - welcome.

 

[Binkie]

Before anyone else disagrees with everything I say, personality disorders do NOT show themselves in child as young as ten and should not be diagnosed before the age of 16 (but unfortunately, they are). I've written many assignments about it, done a lot of research and wrote my uni thesis on the development of PDs. That is not my only experience, either.

Symptoms of a personality disorder which appear to be present in a child under the age of 17 are almost always attributed to a different disorder, such as Asperger's, for EXAMPLE. I wish I had said this from the outset, but hey, the same people jump on me whatever I say and are quick to tell me I'm wrong, regardless. You're (I'm) not allowed to have done extensive research or have a different opinion on this site!

I wish you and your husband well, NoAnna.