Hormones/Bipolar/BPD?

What was the abuse in childhood?

I was married to a borderline personality syndrome person for several decades so I have an idea of what you are going through. I've read that borderline can also be caused by cold parenting as well as sexual abuse. I would read up on that as much as I could.

One thing I can say is, if you think it's rough now, wait until you have a child. Right now you can walk out the door, but where there is a child, you'll want to stay to help the child. Plus, the abuse to you from your wife will increase 10-fold because she knows she has you trapped. And she'll turn the child against you with candy, money (yours) and no rules: no bedtime, no get up time, no doing the homework, no going to school.

Plus, the longer you stay the longer you increase the chances of her getting pregnant because she can implore with something like, "I've always wanted a child." Or, she can just "forget" to take her birth control pills.

Also, she needs a child for long term companionship, for if you ever figure out what's going on, you might bail, but the child will always be there.

You're at a crossroads right now and can get out of this. You're already living at another house, and you're making all the money, and she's treating you like a dog. I think you're getting some clues here.

You think you're in a bind, but you can get out any time you want, you're financially and mentally able to do that, and you have no children. Lot of people would pay good money to be in your situation with a borderline. I wasn't able to do it. I had bipolar, difficult to keep a job, no finances to move out, a child.

I'm living through you. I'm hoping you'll leave that situation. You've got it figured out. Consider this a test. Not of her, but of you. Of how positive you can be that you can solve this problem.

You said in your first post, "suspect that my wife may be Borderline Personality Disorder or merely suffering from what I can only describe as sudden onset anxiety." And later you mentioned possibly bipolar, which is what I have.

1. Sudden Onset Anxiety mayo clinic says: “Panic disorder involves repeated episodes of sudden feelings of intense anxiety and fear or terror that reach a peak within minutes (panic attacks). You may have feelings of impending doom, shortness of breath, chest pain, or a rapid, fluttering or pounding heart (heart palpitations).”

2. Bipolar (mayo clinic): Bipolar disorder, formerly called manic depression, is a mental health condition that causes extreme mood swings that include emotional highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression).
Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors, such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating. As manic: • Abnormally upbeat, jumpy or wired; Increased activity, energy or agitation: Exaggerated sense of well-being and self-confidence (euphoria); Decreased need for sleep: Unusual talkativeness; Racing thoughts: Poor decision-making — for example, going on buying sprees, taking sexual risks or making foolish investments.

3. Borderline Personality Disorder (nih.gov):

People with borderline personality disorder may experience mood swings and display uncertainty about how they see themselves and their role in the world. As a result, their interests and values can change quickly.
People with borderline personality disorder also tend to view things in extremes, such as all good or all bad. Their opinions of other people can also change quickly. An individual who is seen as a friend one day may be considered an enemy or traitor the next. These shifting feelings can lead to intense and unstable relationships.

Other signs or symptoms may include: • Efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment, such as rapidly initiating intimate (physical or emotional) relationships or cutting off communication with someone in anticipation of being abandoned
• A pattern of intense and unstable relationships with family, friends, and loved ones, often swinging from extreme closeness and love (idealization) to extreme dislike or anger (devaluation); Distorted and unstable self-image or sense of self
• Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors, such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating: Intense and highly changeable moods, with each episode lasting from a few hours to a few days
• Chronic feelings of emptiness; Inappropriate, intense anger or problems controlling anger
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You said about your wife: “The problem is this type of behavior is not limited to me. She will overtly overlay anger on anyone where she will not receive an immediate consequence, e.g. someone at work. But she will distance herself from that person extensively. Two years ago she developed such angst with co-workers she began to telework, thus avoiding the office entirely. She has been estranged from her mother for five years. When she ends any "relationship" there is a complete severance of contact. I have several times intervened and convinced her sometimes the conflict with her friend/parent/coworker might simply be a miscommunication often this will work out--until she perceives some slight unintended or not. She can be extreme in her anger and can go from being an affectionate laughing wife.... to full-blown anger in one sentence.”

You mentioned she has fear of abandonment, which applies to Borderline. Which of those 3 do you think she is?

Tim Tam and theHTreurns
Thanks for your time in responding. First in response to Tim Tam posted " People with a borderline personality disorder also tend to view things in extremes, such as all good or all bad. Their opinions of other people can also change quickly. An individual who is seen as a friend one day may be considered an enemy or traitor the next. These shifting feelings can lead to intense and unstable relationships." I have read much on the subject and this does in an indeed too a great degree describe what occurs and then of course over a period of time with enough reassurances she does back around and is the most affectionate -- and by this I mean just a joy to be around too-- however this always seem to be transitory and can last for months until-- something triggers. She self medicates a lot (alcohol) and she does slip into and out of depression. This took me a while to recognize. Of course, she seeks out her longtime girlfriend who then fuels the fire, having no idea what is occurring and in truth has met me about 4 times over the last 10 years. I know it takes a professional to fully diagnose this but what I have to accept is if she is not "full-blown" or as I understand it "classic" BPD (there is no evidence of physical self-abuse or suicidal behavior as a rule. She did once put a gun to her head in one of the deep depression moments. The real truth for me is simply, despite my feeling for her with the current anger-fueled "I want a divorce" the best step is to say, ok, go for it. Perhaps that will give you happiness.

Post Edited (Juxone) : 5/4/2019 4:10:04 PM (GMT-6)

Like me, I think you are putting up with the problem of her to live with the joy of her. And, again like me, you are living with her problems because you don't want to live by yourself. Why are you living in a separate house from her?

Yeah, you're right. You said in your original post:

"She can be extreme in her anger and can go from being an affectionate laughing wife.... to full-blown anger in one sentence."

You then say in your most recent post:

"In the final analysis people with true BPD live with a hyperactive amygdala, or so I am told. This then seems to give false alarms of danger and false alarms of the seriousness of provocation...."

about the condition you mentioned, hyperactive amygdala, Inside the brain .com says:

"Now scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have discovered a neural explanation for why some individuals are indeed more anxiety-prone than others. Their findings, published in Neuron, reveal that chinks in our brain circuitry could be the answer, and may pave the way for more targeted treatment of chronic fear and anxiety disorders.
In the brain imaging study, the researchers discovered two distinct neural pathways that play a role in whether we develop and overcome fears. The first involves an overactive amygdala, which is home to the brain’s primal fight-or-flight reflex and plays a role in developing specific phobias."

So, my wife had borderline personality disorder, I do believe, but she didn't have the quick to anger. Now she had anger, pathological anger, but it would mostly be due to an event that threatened her. But I didn't know about the "hyperactive amygdala."

So that sounds like what it is. I think you're probably doing the right thing.

When did she develop this condition? Net talks of children who have it, and adults also.

Did she develop this as a child when the cold/abusive parenting was going on? When you first met her, was she already like this? You said her sister did not have this condition? Is she more sensitive than her sister?

azcentral.com says

Medicines:
Traditional treatment cures for anxiety disorders lean towards medications such as benzodiazepines, antidepressants, and beta-blockers. These medications work to sedate the amydala and limbic system by altering neurotransmitter levels in the brain, resulting in a calming, relaxing effect. And while these medications are effective in terms of relieving symptoms, the root of anxiety remains intact. As a result, these medications---benzodiazepines in particular---can become highly addictive, requiring higher and higher doses to treat the same symptoms.
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Psychotherapy: The amygdala plays a central role in maintaining feelings of anxiety. As such, treating the root of this condition requires the brain, and/or the amygdala, to be retrained in how it responds to perceived threats. Cognitive behavioral psychotherapy is a treatment approach that addresses the thought processes which trigger a person's emotional responses. Instead of perceiving a situation as threatening, individuals learn to use logical thinking processes to change how they perceive a situation. As long as what's perceived appears non-threatening, the amygdala has no reason to react.

You said in an earlier post: "Can a BPD go 6 or 9 months in what one might call 'normal' relationship mode?"

To me, a borderline does not have a real personality. They are either extremely angry or they are extremely nice. They have no middle where the personality used to be, which was taken away by trauma or cold parenting. Does your wife have a long-term regular personality? Does she enjoy doing things? Does she have hobbies, favorite movies? Friends?

When you say she's enjoyable to be around, is she bubbly? On the trip she was driving for hours, was she starting conversations? Was she observing things she was passing in the car and commenting about them. Does she have original ideas, like, next year I'd like to go to my favorite place on vacation?

They are also very quiet. They never say anything. You start all the conversations, and they reply with yes or no. Is your wife quiet? Do you think she may have both, the condition you mentioned about anger, and borderline?

Did you say she refuses therapy?

Dialeticial behaviour therapy and meds is rhe only answer for success...not read other posts. Ht. I am a success atory.

I don't think it's borderline. I don't think it's histrionics. I think it's amygdala hypothalamus.

As for borderline, in your description of her, "My wife can be a loving affection person. When my wife is happy, she is HAPPY. She has a cute, mischievous laugh and is a joy to be around. We both are aware of what she terms "shark week" every month, and I am careful not to trigger "events"..."

you never mention that she has two lives. My wife of several decades had been sexually abused, was a borderline, lived on opposite poles: was extremely nice, or extremely mean. There was nothing in the middle.

Because of the sexual abuse, she was sexually active outside the marriage, thus the two lives. She was both loving wife, and cheater to the extreme. The two worlds never met and she didn't conflict over it. Coming in from an affair, she was as calm as she could be, was never nervous about it, and that night would go to sleep before I did. And she was perfectly happy, for both sides of the divided personality were satisfied, her loving, long-term home-life was there, and her affairs were always in place.

Your wife doesn't seem to have any of that, so, therefore, she is not borderline, in my view of the moment. You also get along with her dad. You would probably not get along with her dad, or he feel comfortable around you, if he had abused her in that way.

You said the dad and her sister are alcoholics and she drinks excessively. I think she's an alcoholic, it runs in her family, and does not drink because she has an anger problem. You mention hormone therapy helps her. Wonder why with the anger ailment you said she has. Can you keep repeating hormone therapy?

You mentioned, "I suspected BPD, or perhaps she is just an adult from an abusive childhood." Do you think the latter is her condition?

Another condition you mentioned was talked about by psychcentral.com which said, "Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is characterized by a long-standing pattern of attention seeking behavior and extreme emotionality. Someone with histrionic personality disorder wants to be the center of attention in any group of people, and they feel uncomfortable when they are not. While often lively, interesting, and sometimes dramatic, they have difficulty when people aren’t focused exclusively on them. People with this disorder may be perceived as being shallow, and may engage in sexually seductive or provocative behavior to draw attention to themselves."

I don't think she' that.
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mindfuledaily.com said about the amygdala possibility:

"It’s important to note that a threat can be physical or emotional; a snub by a colleague can be felt as just as much of a threat as being cut off in traffic, as both are perceived as jeopardizing survival. The amygdala doesn’t forget, either; once snubbed by the colleague, for example, it partners with the hypothalamus to remember that person/situation and trigger a feeling of high alert if a similar situation arises.

"When the amygdala triggers the stress response, we feel anxious and uncomfortable. Logical, nuanced thought takes a back seat. Therein lies the problem with the amygdala; while it was very effective in getting us out of harm`s way when faced with a saber-toothed tiger or dinosaur in years gone by, its stress trigger and blockage of nuanced thinking can prevent us from navigating out of more nuanced “threats” in modern situations. Our reaction can instead escalate into social anxiety, fears and phobias that feel impossible to navigate.

"Fortunately, there are ways to calm your amygdala and “rewire” such responses through Energy Medicine. The next time you are triggered in a non-life threatening situation, take a pause; if possible, excuse yourself, get some privacy, and hold the front portion of your head and forehead with your hands; this will help to draw energy and blood flow away from the fight-or-flight mechanism and back into the forebrain where logic rules. Your nervous system will calm itself and new solutions/orientations to the stressor can be generated.

"Calming the amygdala and activating the more resourceful forebrain can be done via intention as well. Simply visualize sending calming energy to the part of your brain just above the roof of your mouth where the dual-amygdalae are located. As you calm these almond-sized nodes in your brain, send energizing intentions toward the front of your brain to stimulate blood flow there, heal past traumas and generate more resourceful solutions going forward.

In many ways, human biology is still trying to catch up with the societal and technological advances of the last century. “Evolving the amygdala” consciously is one way to contribute and take back control of your quality of life."

This Healingwell website offers resources for working on such mind control, which you'll see at the top of each forum page, and you might want to check that out.

Well i tried. You asked the question and i answered. I theze days can't tead a lot of posts due to vision issues.

U hope you get the answers toy seek....i see tt is giving you plenty of wisdom. Many healung thoughts. Ht

In looking through the search engine for the cause of amygdala hypothalamus, I came across a psychology today article which
referred to this condition as post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. I do believe that could be what it is.

I found the article very interesting. Here is the address:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-mindful-self-express/201809/how-ptsd-and-trauma-affect-your-brain-functioning

You can copy the above and put it on the address bar, and the article comes up on the screen.

Here is a summery of what the article says:

Research suggests that the brains of people with PTSD differ from brains of those without PTSD in two main ways:
• They are hyperactive to threat (amygdala).
• They have difficulty regulating or damping down anxiety and anger (medial PFC).
Effective treatments for PTSD seem to address these brain dysfunctions by either decreasing the reactivity of the amygdala or increasing the ability of the PFC to calm it down. Therapists who are trained to recognize and treat the signs of PTSD can be much more effective in reducing the considerable suffering associated with their trauma experience. Educating patients about their symptoms and the neurobiology of PTSD can be de-shaming and increase their self-compassion and sense of control.

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From reading the above "They have difficulty regulating or damping down anxiety and anger," I think they were fooled once by trusting humans as a child, and got slaughtered in the process, they are now quite understandably overly cautious of humans and vow never to let their guard down again when around people.