Hello everyone. First time post here.
My girl and I have been together for just over 4 years, and its been a pretty rocky road. She told me up front that she was a PTSD/Anxiety sufferer and I've done my best to support and love her the best way I can, and for the most part its worked out great.
But, there's one behaviour I just can't seem to get my head wrapped around, and after 4 years of this, she's starting to get angry at me for "not having figured it out yet", and I'm starting to think maybe she's right.
See, I beleive her case to be a fairly mild one. She's highly functional, socially popular, good job etc etc, but when we get behind closed doors she's capable of some pretty wild mood swings. She was in hospital last year and was basically told she had traits of PTSD, Borderline Personality, as well as OCD. The PTSD diagnosis she's had for years, as a result of years of rape/violence trauma as a child.
Anyway, things will be going along swimmingly, everythings good, we're in love, bright future ahead, and then suddenly this dark "anger" cloud shows up...usually at times when there's a lot going on. Its usually not triggered by anything I've done, although sometimes it is, and it seems to come most of all from her feeling out of control.
I can usually spot these in her behaviour. I know that when she starts doing things she doesn't normally do. Like getting really nitpicky about stuff ("the ketchup goes on the second shelf, not this one") Starts to get all control freaky in the car when I'm driving (that lane is moving faster, get in it. Can you speed it up? Turn the heat down. You have the windshield wipers going too fast etc etc) and she just begins to get really quiet and somber at home, while putting on a happy face for everyone else except me.
All my instincts tell me to just back off and give her some room. Ask her if she needs anything, ask her if she wants to talk, but basically just leave her be.
The problem is, that seems to be the last thing she wants. The more miserable she treats me, the more she seems to need me...and the more chance that I have no idea what to say.
We did this thing in a marriage counselling course about "love languages" and she indicated through that that hers is "words of confirmation." She needs talk. And I get that.
But how do you keep talking, lovingly and confidently, as though nothing is wrong, to someone who's an angry brick wall who won't even give me a clue of what she needs to hear?
And of course, its that catch 22 that gets me in trouble, because I begin to get frustrated, and she can tell even if I'm hiding it. That in turn sets her worse, and next thing you know its a blowout. Then we're not even talking about what the initial issue is, only picking apart my behaviour, motives, the way I reacted/didn't react, how I don't understand etc etc and then this is followed by her saying that my "defensiveness" is the reason for all this in the first place.
Its a big vicious circle, and after almost 5 years, I'm not any closer to having an answer to my delimma.
She usually apologizes later, although I'm convinced a little part of her seems to die every time she feels she has to. So it doesn't last forever. Its in the midst of things that I have no idea what to do.
Am I the only one who has this particular problem?
My girl and I have been together for just over 4 years, and its been a pretty rocky road. She told me up front that she was a PTSD/Anxiety sufferer and I've done my best to support and love her the best way I can, and for the most part its worked out great.
But, there's one behaviour I just can't seem to get my head wrapped around, and after 4 years of this, she's starting to get angry at me for "not having figured it out yet", and I'm starting to think maybe she's right.
See, I beleive her case to be a fairly mild one. She's highly functional, socially popular, good job etc etc, but when we get behind closed doors she's capable of some pretty wild mood swings. She was in hospital last year and was basically told she had traits of PTSD, Borderline Personality, as well as OCD. The PTSD diagnosis she's had for years, as a result of years of rape/violence trauma as a child.
Anyway, things will be going along swimmingly, everythings good, we're in love, bright future ahead, and then suddenly this dark "anger" cloud shows up...usually at times when there's a lot going on. Its usually not triggered by anything I've done, although sometimes it is, and it seems to come most of all from her feeling out of control.
I can usually spot these in her behaviour. I know that when she starts doing things she doesn't normally do. Like getting really nitpicky about stuff ("the ketchup goes on the second shelf, not this one") Starts to get all control freaky in the car when I'm driving (that lane is moving faster, get in it. Can you speed it up? Turn the heat down. You have the windshield wipers going too fast etc etc) and she just begins to get really quiet and somber at home, while putting on a happy face for everyone else except me.
All my instincts tell me to just back off and give her some room. Ask her if she needs anything, ask her if she wants to talk, but basically just leave her be.
The problem is, that seems to be the last thing she wants. The more miserable she treats me, the more she seems to need me...and the more chance that I have no idea what to say.
We did this thing in a marriage counselling course about "love languages" and she indicated through that that hers is "words of confirmation." She needs talk. And I get that.
But how do you keep talking, lovingly and confidently, as though nothing is wrong, to someone who's an angry brick wall who won't even give me a clue of what she needs to hear?
And of course, its that catch 22 that gets me in trouble, because I begin to get frustrated, and she can tell even if I'm hiding it. That in turn sets her worse, and next thing you know its a blowout. Then we're not even talking about what the initial issue is, only picking apart my behaviour, motives, the way I reacted/didn't react, how I don't understand etc etc and then this is followed by her saying that my "defensiveness" is the reason for all this in the first place.
Its a big vicious circle, and after almost 5 years, I'm not any closer to having an answer to my delimma.
She usually apologizes later, although I'm convinced a little part of her seems to die every time she feels she has to. So it doesn't last forever. Its in the midst of things that I have no idea what to do.
Am I the only one who has this particular problem?
