spidermonkey123
New Here
Hi there,
I have just joined as I'm feeling in a bit of a predicament and I really need some outside perspective on what's happening in my relationship. My partner has PTSD and anxiety from childhood trauma and abuse, retraumatised a few years ago from an incident related to an earlier one. In the past 2-3 years we have had these things happen (amongst other htings):
- He was bullied at his work leading to him injuring himself and having to have surgery.
- A massive roof leak that meant for 5 months we had 100-150L of water pouring into the house through ceilings in 5 rooms any time it rained, so we were up all night having to replace buckets/trays etc. - massive source of anxiety for both of us
- My mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer
- He was diagnosed with PTSD, but his therapist wasn't helpful
- He had an anxiety attack and put his fist through a wall breaking his thumb so more surgery
- His mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer
- My mom died
- He was bullied at work again and had to leave his job
I think there is more, but this is all of the stress and trauma we've been going through. We've been together 13 years. Over the past few years things have gotten much worse. I had finally convinced him to see a psychologist, but the two he has been to have not been very effective, one got too friendly, and both decided to space out sessions as he was 'doing ok' despite him still being suicidal and having episodes just as frequent. We're at the point where he struggles to take care of himself, from everything like feeding himself to doing things. He often spends all day on the couch if we don't eat the right thing at the right time. We've had some trouble as with his two injuries in the past while he had about 4 months each time that he couldn't use his other hand at all so had to do all the cooking and cleaning and everything, so we had takeaways a lot. Over the past year I've worked at getting back into cooking but he struggles to even make himself toast.
A typical episode involves a stressor like that, not eating during the day, and will then progress to him lying on the couch. I'll try to check in, try to find a solution to see what he wants to eat, or try to offer some help with deescalating like going for a walk. It will then inevitable drag out for 4-8 hours of me trying to touch base to help, but leaving when he gets angry. Eventually he'll want to talk, but he'll be so escalated by then that it goes through a massive, identical pattern of my help being "too little too late", me being useless, him hating being there, hating everything about our lives. Swearing at me, saying he wants to die and he's done, he's going to hang himself etc. then down into he'll take everyone out with him, kill me etc. etc. often a couple of holes punched into walls, or broken things, or he hits himself and pulls his hair out, spits etc. If I leave the room or house he'll send me dozens and dozens of messages saying the same thing. Then later we'll finally end up talking about something specific that's actually bothering him and I apologise for whatever it was and several hours later I finally go to bed and we try again the next day.
In a good spell these episodes might be 2-3 weeks apart, but more often than not they are at least once a week, and sometimes 2-4 times per week. It's exhausting for me because I will try to reach out to him all day once he's feeling that way, but he will often only engage when I'm about to go to bed. If I get into bed, he will text me relentlessly too. I turn my notifications off and he calls the phone and hangs up when I answer. I turn my phone on silent and he calls the landline which is in our bedroom. I unplug it and he will come and bang on the door or wake me up when I've just gotten to sleep.
He's says he's desperate because he's worried he going to kill himself, but he's just SO antagonistic and says horrible horrible things to me and blames me for everything when it happens so it's so hard to keep myself in the firing line to keep him safe. I am exhausted, and used to going to bed at 9:30pm. When this happens it feels like he's trying to keep me awake as torture. We'll talk until 3am sometimes and then I have to work the next day, luckily from home, but this can be a huge distraction when I am working from home too now that he is not working.
I'm at a loss as to what to do. I know the behaviour isn't healthy, but he has no close friends, and the only family member he is vaguely close to is his mom, who doesn't have long to live and lives in another city. I know he is hurting bad because of everything he's been through, but I just don't think I can handle this much longer. He's not medicated, and does not even want to consider going down that road. I often want to leave but I'm very, very worried he'll kill himself if I do.
I feel responsible for a lot of it because he'd had such a hard life and we were young when we met, I helped him with a lot of things. I helped him with work, with studying for a degree for a new career, with starting a business, coping with PTSD. I really have done too much and enabled him, so now we are stuck in this place where he's dependent on me, but I can't do 2 people's worth of life. Then he gets frustrated that there's not enough time to get anything done, that we're not getting anywhere, but it's because he's unable to use most of the hours of his days because of his illness, but still wants 2 people's worth of progress, but it's burning me out doing everything.
I have seen a psychologist myself to help me to help him, she has helped me with boundaries a bit, but I'm still living in a tinder box. All of the problems I bring to her are related to him and I wouldn't have any if I wasn't here. But I love him a lot and we've been together so long. How can you leave somebody who is suicidal and whose mom is about to die?
I'm so sorry this is long. I guess I just need some outside perspective on what is happening, and how I could deal given his lack of a support network. I don't want him to die, but I don't want to live like this forever either.
Thanks for any help you can give me :(
I have just joined as I'm feeling in a bit of a predicament and I really need some outside perspective on what's happening in my relationship. My partner has PTSD and anxiety from childhood trauma and abuse, retraumatised a few years ago from an incident related to an earlier one. In the past 2-3 years we have had these things happen (amongst other htings):
- He was bullied at his work leading to him injuring himself and having to have surgery.
- A massive roof leak that meant for 5 months we had 100-150L of water pouring into the house through ceilings in 5 rooms any time it rained, so we were up all night having to replace buckets/trays etc. - massive source of anxiety for both of us
- My mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer
- He was diagnosed with PTSD, but his therapist wasn't helpful
- He had an anxiety attack and put his fist through a wall breaking his thumb so more surgery
- His mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer
- My mom died
- He was bullied at work again and had to leave his job
I think there is more, but this is all of the stress and trauma we've been going through. We've been together 13 years. Over the past few years things have gotten much worse. I had finally convinced him to see a psychologist, but the two he has been to have not been very effective, one got too friendly, and both decided to space out sessions as he was 'doing ok' despite him still being suicidal and having episodes just as frequent. We're at the point where he struggles to take care of himself, from everything like feeding himself to doing things. He often spends all day on the couch if we don't eat the right thing at the right time. We've had some trouble as with his two injuries in the past while he had about 4 months each time that he couldn't use his other hand at all so had to do all the cooking and cleaning and everything, so we had takeaways a lot. Over the past year I've worked at getting back into cooking but he struggles to even make himself toast.
A typical episode involves a stressor like that, not eating during the day, and will then progress to him lying on the couch. I'll try to check in, try to find a solution to see what he wants to eat, or try to offer some help with deescalating like going for a walk. It will then inevitable drag out for 4-8 hours of me trying to touch base to help, but leaving when he gets angry. Eventually he'll want to talk, but he'll be so escalated by then that it goes through a massive, identical pattern of my help being "too little too late", me being useless, him hating being there, hating everything about our lives. Swearing at me, saying he wants to die and he's done, he's going to hang himself etc. then down into he'll take everyone out with him, kill me etc. etc. often a couple of holes punched into walls, or broken things, or he hits himself and pulls his hair out, spits etc. If I leave the room or house he'll send me dozens and dozens of messages saying the same thing. Then later we'll finally end up talking about something specific that's actually bothering him and I apologise for whatever it was and several hours later I finally go to bed and we try again the next day.
In a good spell these episodes might be 2-3 weeks apart, but more often than not they are at least once a week, and sometimes 2-4 times per week. It's exhausting for me because I will try to reach out to him all day once he's feeling that way, but he will often only engage when I'm about to go to bed. If I get into bed, he will text me relentlessly too. I turn my notifications off and he calls the phone and hangs up when I answer. I turn my phone on silent and he calls the landline which is in our bedroom. I unplug it and he will come and bang on the door or wake me up when I've just gotten to sleep.
He's says he's desperate because he's worried he going to kill himself, but he's just SO antagonistic and says horrible horrible things to me and blames me for everything when it happens so it's so hard to keep myself in the firing line to keep him safe. I am exhausted, and used to going to bed at 9:30pm. When this happens it feels like he's trying to keep me awake as torture. We'll talk until 3am sometimes and then I have to work the next day, luckily from home, but this can be a huge distraction when I am working from home too now that he is not working.
I'm at a loss as to what to do. I know the behaviour isn't healthy, but he has no close friends, and the only family member he is vaguely close to is his mom, who doesn't have long to live and lives in another city. I know he is hurting bad because of everything he's been through, but I just don't think I can handle this much longer. He's not medicated, and does not even want to consider going down that road. I often want to leave but I'm very, very worried he'll kill himself if I do.
I feel responsible for a lot of it because he'd had such a hard life and we were young when we met, I helped him with a lot of things. I helped him with work, with studying for a degree for a new career, with starting a business, coping with PTSD. I really have done too much and enabled him, so now we are stuck in this place where he's dependent on me, but I can't do 2 people's worth of life. Then he gets frustrated that there's not enough time to get anything done, that we're not getting anywhere, but it's because he's unable to use most of the hours of his days because of his illness, but still wants 2 people's worth of progress, but it's burning me out doing everything.
I have seen a psychologist myself to help me to help him, she has helped me with boundaries a bit, but I'm still living in a tinder box. All of the problems I bring to her are related to him and I wouldn't have any if I wasn't here. But I love him a lot and we've been together so long. How can you leave somebody who is suicidal and whose mom is about to die?
I'm so sorry this is long. I guess I just need some outside perspective on what is happening, and how I could deal given his lack of a support network. I don't want him to die, but I don't want to live like this forever either.
Thanks for any help you can give me :(