Hello Everyone my name is Dan. I am 29 years old and I live with my partner of 9 years who I strongly believe suffers with BPD. Today is a bad day I am a fat C U Next Tuesday, I am not allowed to stay in my own flat I went to town to cool off and I came back to a barricaded door and to top it off my partner threw all of her anti depressant medication over the floor. My question is this. How do you cope with someone who suffers on a bad day and not get angry and retain your own sanity?
Hi Daniel,
I’m afraid I can’t give much specific advice on caring for someone with serious MH issues. I do wonder what support you and your partner are getting? Has she got support from a doctor/psychiatrist/community mental health team?
I wonder if the charity MIND has any advice for carers of those with mental health problems perhaps?
Is it your partner’s flat too? This is very extreme, cannot continue like this.
I found a few links that might be useful:
Also, it does sound like your partner is at crisis point and needs to be assessed/re assessed asap. If she doesn’t already have a mental health team working with her , here are some tips on what to do in crisis situations:
Hello Dan. Welcome to the Forum.
I’m really sorry to hear about your situation. It does seem yesterday was a ‘bad day’.
You could ask your GP for support available for yourself as your partner’s carer. This may also help identify the local support options available for your partner and identify other people who could be involved and help you and your partner.
Other Forum members may have experience with mental health crises and be able to share their approaches for coping with bad days.
Hi Dan
Welcome to the Forum. What support does your partner get from mental health professionals? Has she actually been diagnosed with BPD?
Please try and get as much support for yourself as you can.
I do agree to leave the flat when she does ‘kick off’. No one deserves that kind of abuse and I imagine you, like me, are constantly trying to walk on eggshells as to not upset her.
I found my local Carers organisation very good and I do have a telepehone befriender who does understand and lets me ‘rant’. My husband is 80 and very very difficult.
I think you should set some very clear boundaries. The first one being that you have a legal right to be in the flat. You cannot be expected to leave YOUR flat as the result of her illness. To me, personally, that is a Bridge Too Far.
Are you sure that this is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with? It’s going to be incredibly tough.