Not a good day

Tonight is not great, I am drinking alone in the car to get away from him. It's one of those times again. Theo went for drinks he said he would be home at 5pm, it got to 6pm, I rang him then he said 8pm I said sure no worries at all, just let me know if you are held up then 8pm rolled by then 9pm. I rang him where are you? sorry Doug thought it was 9pm. Doug: sorry we are going to get a cab now. Me: you know I get worried and panic attacks if you don't let me know you're okay. If you are going to be later than promised, let me know so that I don't worry. You have DID you know I get worried about new potential walk ins. Reached home 10pm.
I got out of the house when he collapsed on the couch. I feel too hopeless to talk to him right now. I hate being a nag I hate feeling this way. I need out right now some space alone so that I don't yell. I have lowered my expectations so that he and others can be themselves freely around me and home is a safe space. I never thought I would have kids, but now I do, and I don't want to frighten them. They would step out to deescalate the situation because it's a trigger for them. Things will be better tomorrow but I need some breathing space right now to sort out my feelings before he talks to me.

Hey AmmeSO,

Please keep yourself safe.
Sending you some good thoughts.

Viola

My bf shouts alot, mostly I have no idea why.

I don't answer text or calls often, eventually I do. I've always been like that but No-one made that worse because she was not around for 20 years and kept forgetting the phone. She's better at it now.

I think from the DID side we don't see it as a big deal to go missing or be late but I can see how it is anxiety provoking for a SO.

I don't know the average or how many times your bf has gone missing but I've wandered off and forgot who I am only once, twice. And I turned up both times. It was before I had children. They made me have to focus on making myself ok and being safe so I did alot of therapy and self development classes.

Have you got children or are you worried about the child parts in him?

When I'm shouted at protector parts come out or Beth who just gets depressed if she can't see a resolve or feels the shouting is unfair. Child parts don't and usually whoever has said something taunting or been out of contact for hours or done something annoying, they disappear too. Which isn't really very helpful but it's what happens. I think Mandy accidentally ended up out front when somebody was arguing with the bf - they said to him "you're always kind to Mandy" and where he was annoyed he said "she's just a stupid child" Mandy then came forward, was really upset and held it against him for months. No-one got her to forgive him by saying things like "Mandy is good at... I dunno how she does that" and then when the bf agreed slowly Mandy started to talk to him again but repeatedly kept wanting reassurance that she's not stupid.

It's difficult but you do need to address relationship issues. Take the DID out of the equation and when you've calmed down talk on a calm level about being upset he stayed out later. Or you have to take on board yourself that he's unreliable and unpredictable, which is how I stayed with an ex for 8 years who is diagnosed NPD and drunk too much. I just took him out of equations when planning my days or evening - it's not ideal but I felt better in myself.

Much luck.

Hey Sarandipity and Viola,
Thanks for your replies, we are doing better now. It was Doug the protecter who was out drinking and missed the time coming home. He used to be really unreliable keeping promises but he is trying and he is stressed out ( Holidays is a trigger for us all) so I don't hold it against him anymore. The child in question was out of his child alters, TW Mi comes out if he hears us arguing because he was dragged out when the body was very young in the same situation so that the the narc father can use him as a shield.

Hi !

I can relate to this on both sides... We've been the ones disappearing, and one guy I almost dated was really good at disappearing too and had serious health problems. I know the frustration and anxiety of having someone you care about not answering at all, or be really late without a warning, and not knowing what happened to them...

On my side, I was able stop answering calls, messages etc. for few hours to few days when my anxiety was too bad, and the more the person seemed anxious on the other side, the less I was able to answer.
When I started to date my ex, it was my first serious relationship, a long-distance one, we could see each other only during holidays, so phone, messages and Skype were pretty important, specially because she was very anxious in her relationships.

So of course, it drove her crazy when I did that, which I totally understood, but I couldn't help myself.
Disappearing, trying to be forgotten, or to forget about other people, it's kind of reassuring when you grew up in an abusive environment, where one of the survival rules was : if no one notice you, you're safe.

But to her, it was a huge trigger for her anxiety, which made me even more avoidant because to us, having someone feeling strong negative emotions (like anxiety) because of us means this person could become aggressive or violent toward us.
So yeah, basically we were totally triggering each other anxiety because of our own anxiety...

After talking a lot about it, my ex and I ended up with a rule : if I wanted to turn off my phone and computer for few days, I had to sent her a message, and she will not argue about it.
We also talked a lot about what would be the best way to reinforced the rule without triggering me even more if I wasn't able to follow it. It took me some time to follow the rule, but as she knew how to handle things, she was more calm and really patient, which helped both of us.
I will always remember the relief I felt the first time I finally warned her, and she just answered back "okay, no prob, text me when you'll be ready". After that, she was always warned when we needed to be alone for a while, and slowly became the only person we would still talk to even in a "hiding phase".

Things needed to be told clearly, and needed to be calmly repeated a few times before we could be able to believe them and try.

We needed to make this about following a rule, something no one would argue on because we don't need anyone to told us when we're not following a rule, we already know we aren't. What we need is just a calm reminder of what we can expect if we follow it, because it's usually new to us and new things are scary. If we know almost for sure what we can expect, if the expected things happen when we find the courage to try, then it becomes way easier to try again and finally follow this new rule.

Also, rules don't make the situation be about feelings, and if you talked about it and the different situations that can happen enough, it can allow everyone to know what is happening and remain calm, which was really needed in this case, to stop triggering each other.


I hope you will find a way to handle the situation with your SO, it's not an easy one at all...

I have same kind of experience with phone than Dwelt, or had before. I've never been in a long term relationship, because my attachment issues are so big, that even second date starts to feel like "why are you clinging on me?". The problem was my mom, when she was drunk and decided to call, and I sometimes do not answer. Then she went in full panic and started calling again and again and getting more worried. I even explained it many times, that it doesn't make any difference if she calls once or hundred times, if the voices are off and I'm for example sleeping or just not looking at the phone. The only difference it made was get me anxious when there was dozens of calls and messages first asking why don't you answer and in the end threatening to call the police to check on me. I know a normal person would answer at that point, but with dissociation, then it's a source of anxiety and I just wanna get rid of the whole phone. And actually how I understand it now, we were entitled to be angry by her behavior, because it made things hard for us and she had no business ruining my ability to take care of things because of her issues.

I originally started needing breaks from the phone after there was too much problems of my parents coming thru it to me in phone calls etc. And I started taking breaks, and my mom got panicky about if something has happened to me, and she can not calm herself down by telling herself how she knows I do it sometimes. And then she calls ONCE, I see it. I may not call back if that's all, but if she has actually something to say, and it was not just how-are-you-doing call, then leave a message, one, and I CAN answer to it when I see it. But if there was a lot, I couldn't. In the end I was negatively so conditioned to all choices for sounds phone makes when it's ringing, having a pone was very hard at all. I did not carry it with me. I could not call official phone calls anymore either. It was couple of years after I got my mom to stop her behavior, that was able to start making official phone calls again. And it caused a lot of troubles when there was years when I was not able to do them, and couldn't take care of tings one phone call would've solved, but my mind dissociated away like they're not there, because I just could not.

I'm not trying to make this thread about me, I tell the story just to explain an example how our minds can work. I don't think you were calling him too much, I think your behavior and reactions were very normal, but still for me example too much. But that's why I can not be in relationships, because of things like this. If there's a part in the system who feels like I do, they can very well find normal behavior too demanding, and then avoid whole thing instead of being able to act reasonably and tell everything is fine, but I don't know when am I coming, don't be worried.That's what's so hard with things, that even normal can trigger us, if there's something negative linked to that thing before, and when we start to avoid, it gets harder and harder although we would be intelligently able to tell our behavior is of and worsening thing. But it can be info that's useless, because emotions or avoiding them are way stronger than acknowledging the problem. Or we can fully dissociate it and whole thing kind of is not there, even if we hear phone ringing, it still may feel like not there, or get us too angry and overwhelmed to answer.

I don't have lot of solutions, because my problems have been there because of problems of my parents', and getting mom understand she's doing harm has been what has helped me to stop the harassing and then I could recover again when she understands a boundary. But I don't think you have been unreasonable any way, so setting boundaries is not the answer in here. I can relate, but like I told my avoidant ways are stopping us from having relationships, and I haven't really had to change my ways for someone else.

From the point of view where I have dealt with someone else's emotional issues with things like this are with my mom. She actually panicked a lot about me and my dad (they're divorced now, but still in contact every day), and I live too far away for her to just come in here to check me, but sometimes she have left home and went to check if everything is fine with my dad, if he doesn't answer phone calls. She has not behaved harassing ways out of disrespect, but out of being too sick herself, but we've needed to cut our ties to her, we're not her caretakers, she needs to let us go. And we've set boundaries more and more, that we would not live in her problems anymore. For problems like hers the answer is not to push the anxiety to other people around, but seek professional help. Call to support line instead of starting to call endlessly. I understand she's sick, but I don't need to take care of her. Especially when I'm sick myself because of her, but this applies to healthy people as well. There are boundaries when you can support someone and your relationship can still remain normal, and then there's crossed boundaries, when the sick one need professional and people around need a break.

When you live close to someone with severe mental issues, you have to remember your own rights as well, and take care of you too. It's not always all about us sick ones, we need to be responsible too and not use disorder wrong way. There are things people need to respect in our condition, but they're not that different from how everyone is allowed to be respected. You're still allowed to have your own boundaries, and you don't have to live in his problems either, or you're gonna be too involved. Only demands they're allowed to have are their own boundaries and being respected, same goes with you, you have a right to tell where your boundaries are and how you need to be respected. When it does not happen, it's easier to deal with clear set rules, and try to do it without too much emotion involved. There's time to let out feelings too, but with solving problems that are very clear, it's more about negotiating the boundaries safe for all of you, and after that people just need to owe their $#%^, admit things they've done.

You are not his T or caretaker. Remember that. You have different role, you don't have to just understand everything and accept everything, because they have disorder. It's a rocky road to learn how to stay that way independent from them, same time when understanding things like triggers and avoiding them. DID makes relationship harder, and of course it depends a lot about parts and their ability to set goals together and co-operation etc. how much harder. Be sure you have support for yourself too, like other SOs who understand things from your point of view, or professional help.

This forum is mostly a support forum for people who have DID, but there's forum in this site for SOs of mentally ill people as well. I think this kind of posts fit better in there than in here. SOs are welcome in here to ask things about DID, like knowledge of it, but post that are about complaining how hard it is to be with someone with DID, is not best post in place where it's supposed to be our support. Not that I think you're wrong in that, but we're not Ts for SOs of DID people, what we can give is peer support, and that is from DID point of view. Ts can come in here too and ask help when they don't know something when they're dealing with DID patient and don't have experience of something that happens, personally I think it's brave and good idea to ask from people who have the disorder our point of view on what something is. But that needs to be done right way too, we can not do therapy for someone with DID thru forum or have any responsibility of that therapy, the T has to be the one with the basic knowledge, and then asking a question about something they don't find answer from the books is fine.

I guess you understand the point in who is whose peer. We do know relationships, as well as so many other things are harder for us and with us than for or with healthy people, and that's why we need places like this, for us to have support to continue still. If peer forum becomes a place where healthy people who have DID systems close to them talk about us, then it's not peer support for us anymore. You did not ruin this forum, one thread like this is fine, I wouldnt have answered if I'd think strictly about this, every now and then people ask advice what to do when they broke up with their DID partner etc and every now and then it's fine. We do not have to answer if we don't feel like it. Maybe it just is more peer support to you too to talk about those kind of problems with people who have same kind of problems, than with people who have same dx than your SO. We're not your peers.

Alcohol is a trigger to some of us, so we hope trigger warning for that in the future, especially when someone is drinking for their problems, because that's substance abuse even if it does not happen often and you're not an alcoholic. My both parents are. We do not communicate with people if we know they're not sober. We can't know who uses what and when and if they read our message when UI, but we do not answer as long as we know they will be under influence. And this was not a question to ask about your drinking, this was to inform it's something we do not want to hear about at all. We're not your caretakers or interested in being ones, it's the other way round, it's our boundary to avoid people who are drunk and to avoid talking about that issue. We've done enough that already for one lifetime. That's why trigger warnings.

Hi Dwelt,

Thanks, what you wrote was something that I have not considered before. It makes alot of sense, especially the part where our respective anxieties trigger each other's and about making rules/boundaries where feelings are taken out.

We have one general rule, to be considerate in our actions to each other and to treat each other's feelings as valid. We can make this rule less about feelings, making it more objective than subjective perhaps, I will discuss in depth with him if and when he prefer. When I am anxious about something, I tend to drag my feet on doing something, that could be what's happening.

Being with him, has it's own unique challenges. For instance in many cases, there needs to be alot of repetition and going back and forth. I have learned to treat everyone in his system as their own person, hence as everyone is an individual, they all take varying amount of time to get on board with something new. Someone who holds emotional trauma takes longer, someone who is out front regularly takes to it easier. Someone new, it is ground zero and starting back up. Slowly I am grasping and understanding this in the process.
Because of that, we have learned to start roll calls before discussing something. We thought it was an adequate way and communication is key. Even then, as I realise now, even when everyone in the system is in agreement, there can be buried anxieties and feelings that they are not aware of on a conscious level. So we got to keep that in view.
Every relationship is unique, but DID brings about even more unique challenges for both of us, but understanding his perspectives helps so much for me to be supportive.

Hi Floralie,

Thanks for pointing that out, I genuinely didn't realise drinking was a specific trigger. I'm sorry about triggering you, will make sure I am more cautious when I post and scan for triggers.

I will post in my own thread next time. Just want to say is, I am abit of everything to everyone in his system. A parental figure to his children( Mi and Roo). A sibling to his teen. A roommate to his protector/persecutor. I won't say therapist, but I have taken on some aspects of it at times, just as he has for me. Just not when it comes to did issues, it is triggering for the system, so he is not ready to talk to a therapist, nor post here nor be able to chat with me about my feelings or his feelings as much. He feels safer if any issues are talked through me posting on here. But yes on that particular occasion, no one else understood what I am going through, did is very 'niche' and I struggle with it by proxy, my family and friends support me but they don't understand inner workings but people in this community understand what I mean on a different level.

Again I apologise if I had triggered you in anyway.

Dwelt wrote:Hi !

I can relate to this on both sides... We've been the ones disappearing, and one guy I almost dated was really good at disappearing too and had serious health problems. I know the frustration and anxiety of having someone you care about not answering at all, or be really late without a warning, and not knowing what happened to them...

On my side, I was able stop answering calls, messages etc. for few hours to few days when my anxiety was too bad, and the more the person seemed anxious on the other side, the less I was able to answer.
When I started to date my ex, it was my first serious relationship, a long-distance one, we could see each other only during holidays, so phone, messages and Skype were pretty important, specially because she was very anxious in her relationships.

So of course, it drove her crazy when I did that, which I totally understood, but I couldn't help myself.
Disappearing, trying to be forgotten, or to forget about other people, it's kind of reassuring when you grew up in an abusive environment, where one of the survival rules was : if no one notice you, you're safe.

But to her, it was a huge trigger for her anxiety, which made me even more avoidant because to us, having someone feeling strong negative emotions (like anxiety) because of us means this person could become aggressive or violent toward us.
So yeah, basically we were totally triggering each other anxiety because of our own anxiety...

After talking a lot about it, my ex and I ended up with a rule : if I wanted to turn off my phone and computer for few days, I had to sent her a message, and she will not argue about it.
We also talked a lot about what would be the best way to reinforced the rule without triggering me even more if I wasn't able to follow it. It took me some time to follow the rule, but as she knew how to handle things, she was more calm and really patient, which helped both of us.
I will always remember the relief I felt the first time I finally warned her, and she just answered back "okay, no prob, text me when you'll be ready". After that, she was always warned when we needed to be alone for a while, and slowly became the only person we would still talk to even in a "hiding phase".

Things needed to be told clearly, and needed to be calmly repeated a few times before we could be able to believe them and try.

We needed to make this about following a rule, something no one would argue on because we don't need anyone to told us when we're not following a rule, we already know we aren't. What we need is just a calm reminder of what we can expect if we follow it, because it's usually new to us and new things are scary. If we know almost for sure what we can expect, if the expected things happen when we find the courage to try, then it becomes way easier to try again and finally follow this new rule.

Also, rules don't make the situation be about feelings, and if you talked about it and the different situations that can happen enough, it can allow everyone to know what is happening and remain calm, which was really needed in this case, to stop triggering each other.


I hope you will find a way to handle the situation with your SO, it's not an easy one at all...

"If no-one notices me I'm safe" is a mantra for me. Last night I shut myself in my room and after a few hours and some aknowledgement of why my feelings were how they were I felt better.

My first relationship was with a guy who was in and out of prison so that suited me, space. Occasionally if I disappeared and he wasn't in prison he'd look for me and I'd blank him if he saw me and he just took being blanked. I used to mostly turn up at his eventually when I was escaping my house.

My second relationship was with a narcissist. He was always cheating so never wanted to live with me and I didn't want him living with me. I thought I did but when he said one day he was moving in I threw him out of my house and didn't talk to him for two weeks so I don't think I really wanted him living with me. His cheating didn't bother me until other people found out (my family) which drew attention to me and I ended the relationship. He got a bit stalky but it didn't bother me and I got an injunction. Eight years I was with him. When he was being his nice mask I had him around me and when he started being mean I avoided him till I wanted him around again - and then he was nice because I'd avoided him so long. In between seeing him I just lived my life. When he told me he was diagnosed NPD I went onto narcissist abused forums but I didn't have the same reaction to being in a relationship with a narcissist as other people. Alot were upset about being stone walked by narcissists, that they pick up and drop people but to me it was "no attention so I'm safe" reaction. I used to try to tell the people on those forums just ignore the narcissist and live your life but they didn't seem to be able to disconnect how I could and at the time I didn't know I had DID so I thought something was wrong with the narcissist abuse victims that it bothered them rather than realising I was the odd one out. When he'd drop his mask and I'd send him out the door I used to think to myself I should stick a warning sign on his back with an apology note from me because basically when I sent him out the door he'd easily pick up a vulnerable woman to maintain his narcissistic supply. Then I found out he was dumping then and using me as an excuse saying "he loved me and couldn't get into a relationship" I was really angry about that and I told him he doesn't love anyone and don't use me as an excuse.

My third relationship was awful. Not going into detail but he did live with me for about 8 months. He was at work till late but it was still alot of pressure.

I think I wouldn't be able to be around my bf so much now if he didn't know about the DID. He knows and when I shut myself in my room he left me there and didn't bother me which was nice. He did ask if I was hurting myself, which I wasn't, but other than that he left me alone. I used to make him leave alot it's took three years to have him in the house when I'm wanting to shut myself away. Actually last night was the first time I didn't make him leave when I needed alone time. I can't imagine him being in the room when I'm feeling how I felt last night. I've nearly got over my divided life rule, I didn't mind him coming into my work when I forgot my phone when usually I'd feel invaded and pressurised. Which again comes down to "he's put attention on me at work now I'm not safe at work" I think that's why I used to hate anybody visiting me at work or even just coming to where I work for legitimate reasons and me knowing them - I even hated that. I hid behind the computer the other day when I guy came in that I'd dated. The other woman made jokes of stalking and it was raising my anxiety but then one said if he comes again I'm reporting him to security (she was joking as part of exaggerating stalker jokes) but I realised she would if I was actually being stalked and I felt safer. I'm getting better at my odd boundaries that aren't entirely usual because the negative feelings of why they were created are getting less I guess.