How do you manage moods?

I am new to this forum and was recently diagnosed with BPD. I've had symptoms since I was a teen, I was just never formally diagnosed.

I feel like my life has become unmanageable. I'm so tired of the constant ups and downs. I feel like I'm broken. I make decisions driven by my emotions that affect my entire family. I feel like I have destroyed all the good in my marriage. I was hiding marijuana use from my husband for the last 4 months and was using daily. I told him last night about everything. He handled it better than I thought but I know he is hurt which is understandable. I thought by telling him it would make me feel better but I just feel even lower now.

I feel like an awful wife and mother. I can't seem to get out of my head and have been experiencing random suicidal thoughts.

How do you control your moods? How does anyone learn to cope with this illness? I feel like I hate myself.

This sounds pessimistic, but i personally don't think there's any way to 'manage' borderline moods. there's really nothing (besides medication) that can control the way you feel, and even then all medication does is cover up the moods and dull them down.

what you CAN do is manage how you react to your mood changes. that is where you begin to help yourself.

i've been in therapy for 4 years and the biggest thing i've learned from it since i was diagnosed was how to view my extreme and intense emotions as something other than me.

you are borderline. the most key aspect to your disorder is your extreme emotions. this is part of your disorder. and yes, it does change how you feel and view things. you can't stop feeling what you feel. what you CAN do is rationalize these feelings, put them in perspective, and work on how you react to your mood.

this would be a great bonding opportunity for you and your husband, actually. sit down with him and tell him how you feel and tell him about what happened. tell him how you feel broken and low and how it feels so strongly like that. and write down what you're thinking ('im broken' 'im a horrible wife and mother') on one side of a piece of paper. then have him flip the paper over and rationalize what you're thinking. what's his view on this? how does he perceive this situation? have him write it down.
(this obviously might not work for you but i've found it works with my therapist and my friends) it might help you understand the side of the dilemma you aren't seeing.

please remember that your feeling is not the end of it. he took it well. you are thinking in black and white (another 'fun and cool' borderline symptom ) meaning you are taking this situation and applying it to your entire life. you are NOT a horrible wife and mother. you are NOT horrible and NOT broken. it'll be alright. things will get better even if it definitely doesn't feel like that right now.

Hello, AllorNothing.

Regarding your husband, if he isn't willing or able to understand your intense moods or the rapidity of changes that you struggle to manage, then that is another issue that he himself needs to address. If he can't empathize with your reasons for choosing pot over traditional meds or speak honestly with you about his concerns and why they are valid, maybe he has his own flaw that is harming your marriage. I don't know either of you so my opinion is meaningless but I offer it.

As for meds, I have had some success with med modulation. I take 1200mg of Trileptil (oxcarbazepine). I need a new evaluation since my last psych was a dinosaur but it helps.

Thank you for the replies.

He has offered his reasons for why he doesn't agree with it. I guess I feel worse for lying to him about it than I do for using it.

I really don't think he understands the rapid changes or intensity in moods however. He didn't even really know what anxiety was until he met me. It's difficult to explain to someone who is always so.... balanced. I've tried giving him information about it and we have done some couples counseling together, which he hated, but did because he wanted things to work out.

I like the idea of writing things down and comparing them. A lot of times if I am just open with him about my feelings he will either validate them or tell me that I'm overthinking it. The guilt and shame around this situation is just killing me though. I feel like he has put up with so much #######4 in the last year.

I am on a combination of meds right now including - adderall, buspirone, fetzima, and abilify. They help but it still just seems like the pendulum swings from one extreme to another all in the same day. Counseling seems to help but doesn't feel frequent or available enough.

Hi allornothing

I don't know how you can manage the moods but would like to advise you on communicating with your husband. I have two uBPD exs and as the "non" in the relationship was totally confused by their behaviour at times. When my exgf tried to talk to me her point got lost as I had no understanding of BPD and wasn't even aware of it at the time. I see now that as it was hard for her to put feelings into words then she would end up skipping around what she was trying to communicate and change the subject. It might be better if you wrote him a letter explaining it all. That way if emotions start to change you can come back to it. Once your happy ask him to read it and then try and answer any questions he has.

Get him to read up on BPD but warn him that a lot of places have ignorant and hurt people who will paint a picture of the pwBPD in their life that is negative and to remember that isn't you they are writing about.

As others have said therapy can help. There is a thought that BPD is caused by physical differences in the brain. This may make it sound a hopeless cause but therapies such as DBT do help some to manage their moods. This maybe down to the unused parts of the brain being trained to take over from the bits that aren't helping like with stroke victims who train a different part of their brain for speech.

My exgf would go through stages where she wouldn't believe a word I said. Feelings equall facts so if she felt I didn't love her then I didn't. Its hard for pwBPD to believe but us "nons" can put up with a lot and still love our SO. I got to the point of almost having a nervous breakdown before I left my ex because I truly did love her but could take no more.

Communication is key so to help you and your husband out let him know what you want of him when in a mood. My exgf wanted me to go away but if I did it was wrong as I had abandoned her. If she had said give me some space but stay close then I could have done that.

I have found DBT to be extremely helpful in managing my mood. I also had about a years worth of "Inner Life" therapy and also found it helpful.
I'm hesitant to tell you exactly what I'm doing in DBT that's helping me, because if the situation was reversed and I read "Oh well I like to count when I get angry".. I'd have stopped reading and then discounted the rest of the advice completely. DBT is all about helping you figure out the right tactics to shake up the way you think, and encourage your brain to be thinking creatively instead of using established pathways. As soon as I begin to feel that death spiral of negative emotion (for me usually anger or frustration) I begin counting. Since I am able to do something as simple as counting and also continue festering on a negative situation my counting has to elaborate enough to be fully distracting. I continue to distract myself until the emotion has gone down some. Once I'm able I try to hold the details of the negative situation in my mind at the same time as the positive thoughts like: "This will not break/kill me.", "I'm good/strong/smart enough to deal with this","I have no time but the present and the present moment is perfect, even if I don't like what's happening". Sometimes when attempting to reconcile a current situation with a positive thought- your mind will bring forth negative cognition that were installed in childhood or otherwise by the past. PwBPD often carry around damaged child selves around with them in life. Although rationally as adults many of us could never say something as terrible as "you're worthless" or "you're such a burden" to a child - If we were told this as children, we repeat it to ourselves over and over and over. This is where having a therapist or a trusted friend/partner may be helpful. I have found it helpful to be open about the situations that made me feel badly about myself, and get the perspective of a mentally healthy adult.

The best think I've learned is not to react. I mean - I still feel extreme moods, but the worst thing in my case was reacting to them and I've always felt so ashamed that others've witnessed it.
So now I'm just trying not to show my emotions on the outside (for example - when I'm angry I tend not to let my rage blow out, so everyone can see my tantrum).

When I feel very very low - I simply try not to leave my house. So I can react to my emotions alone. One of the best methods to deal with negative feelings (especially sadness and extreme misery) is to lay on the floor. I've been using it since one of the break ups, when I felt strong need to harm myself. Putting my back right on the floor and somehow feeling unity with it helped me a lot. I also keep telling myself that the feeling would fade soon, I just need to lay on this god-da***d floor until. (I don't know how to explain the position, but fetal one won't do; instead it's like "cross-position" with the back right on the ground.)

And of course communication - if I really feel I cannot control my mood and can do something wrong, I try to warn others that they shouldn't trigger me, should leave me alone, do not talk to me for a while, ect.