Partner with BPD

I have been with my partner for a long time. Been there when he was diagnosed with BPD

I am the last person he hasn't cut off but he has been having major issues recently

He hasn't seen anyone from CMHT for sometime and I really thought we'd made progress this week as he spoke to someone for the first time in nearly 2 years.

However he is extremely suicidal, self harming and as I type trashing our home. I am working from home and had to call in sick as I didn't want people to hear the noise. Our neighbours kids are out playing and he is screaming at them from the window. I've wrote to him, called doctors, everything to try and ensure he is safe and that he knows he is cared for and loved but he is angry and in pain. There is a lot of triggers at the moment. Noisy neighbours. Things not working as they should be in the home. Unable to sleep.

I know he is making plans for suicide and I've got a plan in place to help him if need be.

He has told me if I call 999 thats it between us.

I can handle the verbal abuse, the trashing of our home. But I can't let him go thru with it.

This sounds terrible, for you I mean. So sorry you're going through this.

My advice is call the police or the mental health crisis team. He won't thank you for it. But perhaps once his state of mind is better he will see that the only reason you did this was because you love and care about him.

You might also want to seek out some help and support for yourself too. This is a lot for anyone to deal with. You can't keep living like this.

If the police do get involved he will simply be seen by a mental health professional who can carry out a mental health assessment and decide if he perhaps needs to be treated in hospital. The crisis team would try and put a plan in place so that he gets the support he needs right now.

I know he says it's over if you do these things and I understand how that must feel but the alternative if you do nothing is so much worse.

This may sound a bit much but it may be an idea to remove any medication or other things he might use to harm himself in the heat of the moment. it won't stop someone who is determined to end their life but it may keep him safe in the short term.

I really hope things work out for you both

I wanted to just add you can call the non emergency number 101 to speak to the police as opposed to 999.

This actually happened to me a couple of years ago now - police were called for another unconnected issue but I was feeling very suicidal at the time. The officer that visited was really nice but he wanted to refer me to the mental health people for assessment. I got a phone call the next day from the duty social worker. No one carted me off to hospital or arrested me or anything horrible like that. They gave me the number of the crisis team who I have also seen before too. All they did was talk to me but they put a plan in place so I would be seen by the mental health service.

With BPD the suicidal thing happens from time to time. I have never been sectioned or arrested, it just got me to the top of the waiting lists so I was seen very quickly and referred for therapy. I have also had my share of police welfare checks. They came into the house, checked I wasn't about to top myself and left.

I am pretty sure you could phone the police in confidence - so a neighbour could have called them.

I was angry with the people that called them about the welfare checks but not for long because I knew they only did it because they cared about me. And actually nothing happened to me and I got the help I needed at the time so in the end it was the right thing to do.

I don't know if that helps at all......

Like the person above said, you shouldn’t be living like this. As someone with BPD, I have had unstable relationships and have been cruel and toxic to my partners in the past. But it is my responsibility to control my emotions and make an effort to be mindful of how I am treating them - my disorder does not excuse abuse, but it does explain why I have a hard time controlling my reactions, but I should control my reactions nonetheless because every human being deserves basic respect and kindness.

Not only have I been abusive, but I’ve had partners emotionally abuse me to extreme levels too. I was having breakdowns nearly every day because of the constant arguments that would result in them saying they were going to kill themselves, and I would have to do anything I could to try to stop them, because of how severe it was. I didn’t realize how wrong it was until my therapist told me it is not my job to save anyone. I am not qualified enough to deal with a suicidal person. You can’t help him, but you can contact someone who can, and I highly believe that contacting mental health professionals or a crisis hotline would be good, for you and for him. You shouldn’t have to deal with this because you don’t have the means to. Love is not enough to help someone, as much as we’d all like it to be. He is mentally ill and needs someone who specializes in mental illness to help him.

Lastly, and this will be hard to hear, him saying that if you would call 999 that he would end the relationship seems like a blessing in disguise. This relationship is abusive and is 100% traumatic. The suicide threats I had to deal with on the daily doesn’t even seem as traumatic as this. You probably love him a lot, and since you’ve been together so long I’m sure it’s hard to even imagine splitting, but I think it would be good for you... you don’t deserve to be in this pain. Cutting it off and focusing on yourself would be healing and healthy. You should always come first, but it seems like you are giving away a lot of yourself for this person, and thats one of the things on the unhealthy relationship checklist. You give away too much of yourself because you feel like you have to. I’m going to say to you what my therapist said to me that made me finally leave the abusive relationship I was in where I was constantly dealing with suicide threats: someone who emotionally abuses you doesn’t care about you.