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Originally Posted by Open Eyes
I think Parva did nail some important things. It also sounds to me like this woman has a lot of confusion between what is love and what is abuse. Some abusers tell their victim the abuse "is" love. It also sounds from what you have shared is that this woman doesn't feel she deserves to be loved in a "healthy" way. She is mean to her husband because she is trying to show him how unworthy of love she is. Real "love" terrifies her and that is why she is being so mean. She is nice to her brother because he doesn't have the same kind of threat to her as her husband does.
It sounds like this woman has more than complex PTSD, could also have borderline personality disorder.
I am sorry for the husband, he must be at such a loss with this. Is the husband reaching out for help/therapy?
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Open Eyes, thank you. Your answer is what I was hoping for when asking so many questions. I was reading something else today where pd came up and I'm starting to wonder about this myself. I haven't studied pd yet.
The husband has a lot of support from his parents, who are trained for counseling other types of situations. He has worked for a children's shelter and also had training in CT but at a child's level, not an adult. This training took place shortly after they married. None of us realized that she had CT until a week ago. We did not realize what it all entailed at an adult level with no therapy as a child or adolescent as some children will receive in a shelter here or foster/adopt care. We just thought we were receiving her from an abusive home and was a little immature. We realized there would be some issues but had no idea the depth of her brokenness. She is very good at telling you what you want to hear.
The husband is not presently in therapy but the family are reading good CT books and asking for advice from those with experience. The goal at this stage is assisting her to the safe/stability phase and wait for her to ask for therapy and enter the 2nd phase of healing. We do have a physiologist who is just waiting for our call but not until she asks for help, no coaxing from anyone for her to get therapy. She knows she is receiving assistance for the first phase so everyone is more comfortable.
This morning she asked her husband his opinion. Would it be better if she left he and the baby and moved out alone? Her husband said no, the baby would miss her too much. I asked what she was wanting to do alone? He said, travel the world.
I asked to watch the baby today and she was alright with that. She wasn't feeling well. When her husband called and found out she wasn't feeling well, he said she was grumpy. He asked very kindly if he could bring her something to eat? She wanted fruit and to eat vegan. I cut up fresh watermelon, sent a pretty gift bag with 2 containers of cut up watermelon, lime, sweet peas, dates, almonds, raw honey and anis tea. I had also offered her some fish and quinoa for dinner this evening. She sent me voice message thanking me for the watermelon and peas and said she had to run an errand, didn't know what time she'd be back but the fish sure sounded good. She said she'd like to have some. So I expect to see her shortly.