Just to clarify, also, and to be fair, at these times when I'm triggered, I'm a Royal *****. A galloping, swearing, caustic nightmare to be around...post-trigger, of course. Prior to that, it depends, but I'm not an unreasonable person until all hell breaks loose. And at this point, that particular trigger has attained a dual significance, because it has been used so many times against me intentionally. Now it carries the memories and staggering weight of helplessness, abandonment, pain, shame, and grief of both an abused child AND an adult who has been stupid enough to try to love and trust the wrong people, ones who are low enough to exploit something that purely awful.

I just can't wrap my head around someone who is ordinarily kind and decent in nearly all things being so willing to make me feel that way. Except, of course, for his narcissistic inability to accept criticism, and to provoke me like that invites a whole barrage of it, and then neatly leaves him feeling vindicated for his misdeeds. He is prone to justifying his actions by my poor reactions to them, which is obviously backwards as can be, but a pretty classically narcissistic tendency.

That, of course, does not excuse it, and it's probably overtly abusive to do this to anyone, but I can't help but think that he just doesn't understand how awful it is because he has nothing to go on in terms of personal experience. He's never had anything life-alteringly bad happen to him. He grew up poor, but not in such a way that differed terribly from his peers, apart from having a disabled brother. He's never had to fear his parents, never had to physically fear much of anything or anyone. He's never been abandoned by anyone he needed, never been left on his own for any length of time, never been without somewhere to stay, never had to alter his actions or words because to not do so would result in serious harm, he's never been without any say in what happened to his own body, never felt like he wasn't in control of himself in any sense. In spite of having to struggle financially growing up, he had a pretty good life as a kid, close family, lots of support, and so on. Nothing really outstandingly bad that could be considered aberrant from a relatively normal childhood. So I do get that he doesn't have much to draw on in terms of sympathy, because he just doesn't "get it".

And the weird attitude towards mental illness is both a cultural shortcoming and a family habit. His father seems, at times, cold and condescending towards his mother, and he strives to be like his father in all things. He's otherwise a fine man, one whom I like very much and respect tremendously. But there's just something lacking in terms of compassion and respect towards women. His father has never shown me any disrespect personally, (we actually have a very pleasant, if superficial friendship), but I get the feeling that he is somewhat dismissive of his wife's struggles, and somehow has no desire to comfort her or help make her better. I don't think he really knows how to, honestly, because his own father died when he was just 13, and he had to become the man of the house. So you've got an emotional adolescent having raised another one, my partner, who is now saddled with the very same kind of problems that he saw his father wrestling with and eventually feeling contemptuous of, because he was poorly equipped to deal with them, and that didn't suit his touchy pride. And the mother has been swept aside to deal with her grief and depression alone, and the whole family acts as if she could control her sort of schizo-ish symptoms if she wanted to; they seem to think that she is choosing to behave strangely for attention. She's definitely difficult and not overly pleasant at times, but I'm not sure how anyone thinks that mental ILLNESS is supposed to manifest, exactly...last I checked, illness is not a term that denotes personal improvement. So, that's where he's coming from, and isnt very willing to understand any sort of different perspective. You'd think, at least, he'd try to prevent the sort of suffering he has seen caused by his father's neglect, but he seems more determined to be just like him than anything.

Any thoughts on how to convince him of the validity of my illness would be greatly appreciated, along with any thoughts on how to get him to see how important support and love are for someone like me...apparently having told him over and over and over is becoming quite counterproductive.