I need help. Please. Desperately. This will be a lot of information upfront but I will try and keep it as short as possible. I've been dating an amazing woman for about 7 months now. We started off bumpy to say the least. I wasn't honest with her in first 2 months about my home life. It's convoluted and messy and she was made to feel like a mistress. The situation has evolved drastically since then. She is my world. I do everything I can to show my devotion to her. Physically, emotionally and spiritually. I adore this woman.
I've done everything I can to remove stressors from her life. To protect her and give her a safe space. To just hold her and pet her gently or rub her feet until she falls to sleep. Her nightmares are better when I'm there at night so I've started staying more often , 5+ days a week. Now if I don't spend the night it's a fight. It's immediate dissociation and the walls go way up if she asks if I'm leaving ( usually for less than 24 hours to spend time with my kids). I know this is a common reaction for those that have PTSD. It's a struggle for me. It feels like I'm letting her down to fulfill other obligations.
I can deal with that for the most part though. I struggle with the second reaction that's becoming more frequent. We were both raised by narcissistic mothers. She grew up in shouting matches and looking for the words that would inflict the most pain. I also had a physically abuse father so I coped by just hunkering down and hoping for the best. When she gets into flashbacks this most beautiful woman I've ever met turns into something mean and intentionally cruel. Showing compassion for her past doesn't help. Offering her anything she wants doesn't help. Acts of love and service don't help. Disengaging makes it worse. Logic doesn't help.
She blames lashing out at me as my fault or frequently all men's. Frequently the triggering event has nothing to do with me. Just I'm the easiest target as I'm there and I love her. Arguments from the beginning completely unrelated to the current subject are brought up. And the shortly after the verbal abuse begins. Every single raw spot. Everything I do is worthless. All my actions. Just in general I'm worthless. I'm back to feeling like a scared kid. And it rips me apart because the only thing keeping me sane during it is trying to comfort her.
And after its all done its one of two responses. "It's your fault, you gas light me" or "I was triggered, I've got nothing to apologize for". If I say anything more about how the episode made me feel it's deemed I'm victim blaming.
So the questions. How do I help her? I want her to feel safe and when we are good we are amazing. And how do I survive her trauma without hurting her? She is taking pieces of me with her and I have my own mental struggles.
I guess it's relevant to point out. I have major depressive disorder and aniexty with panic attacks. It has be suggested that I too have PTSD from childhood physical and emotional abuse and is something being discussed in therapy. However my symptoms and reactions are not as severe and are almost exclusively dissociative in nature. She is diagnosed with PTSD and several therapists have suggest bpd as well but she refuses to acknowledge the later.
I've done everything I can to remove stressors from her life. To protect her and give her a safe space. To just hold her and pet her gently or rub her feet until she falls to sleep. Her nightmares are better when I'm there at night so I've started staying more often , 5+ days a week. Now if I don't spend the night it's a fight. It's immediate dissociation and the walls go way up if she asks if I'm leaving ( usually for less than 24 hours to spend time with my kids). I know this is a common reaction for those that have PTSD. It's a struggle for me. It feels like I'm letting her down to fulfill other obligations.
I can deal with that for the most part though. I struggle with the second reaction that's becoming more frequent. We were both raised by narcissistic mothers. She grew up in shouting matches and looking for the words that would inflict the most pain. I also had a physically abuse father so I coped by just hunkering down and hoping for the best. When she gets into flashbacks this most beautiful woman I've ever met turns into something mean and intentionally cruel. Showing compassion for her past doesn't help. Offering her anything she wants doesn't help. Acts of love and service don't help. Disengaging makes it worse. Logic doesn't help.
She blames lashing out at me as my fault or frequently all men's. Frequently the triggering event has nothing to do with me. Just I'm the easiest target as I'm there and I love her. Arguments from the beginning completely unrelated to the current subject are brought up. And the shortly after the verbal abuse begins. Every single raw spot. Everything I do is worthless. All my actions. Just in general I'm worthless. I'm back to feeling like a scared kid. And it rips me apart because the only thing keeping me sane during it is trying to comfort her.
And after its all done its one of two responses. "It's your fault, you gas light me" or "I was triggered, I've got nothing to apologize for". If I say anything more about how the episode made me feel it's deemed I'm victim blaming.
So the questions. How do I help her? I want her to feel safe and when we are good we are amazing. And how do I survive her trauma without hurting her? She is taking pieces of me with her and I have my own mental struggles.
I guess it's relevant to point out. I have major depressive disorder and aniexty with panic attacks. It has be suggested that I too have PTSD from childhood physical and emotional abuse and is something being discussed in therapy. However my symptoms and reactions are not as severe and are almost exclusively dissociative in nature. She is diagnosed with PTSD and several therapists have suggest bpd as well but she refuses to acknowledge the later.
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