[TishaBuv]

As a child, I was happy and healthy, normal in development. I had an issue where I didn’t want to eat. I ate very little. It was enough that the doctor was not too concerned, and did not know a reason for my inability to eat much. I must have eaten small amounts of food, enough to sustain health.

My mother was upset and frustrated with me about my lack of eating. She would openly express her disgust to me. She would eventually scream at and berate me at the dinner table with the family, who watched in horror and did nothing to stop her. I would cry hysterically, run away to my room. It was traumatic. There were other incidents where she screamed at me like that for my bad behaviors, normal bad behaviors for a young child.

These were the memories I have of me being emotionally dysregulated.

This stopped before I was age ten.

From then, until I was age 35, the times where I cried hysterically (was emotionally dysregulated) were no more than a handful. It was a handful of fights with my mother. It was a good cry when I got dumped by a bf for a couple of hours. It was one time, right before my wedding, where my mother went off on me like a psycho for no good reason (it must have been that she had anxiety about the upcoming wedding and let it out on me). It wasn’t enough times that I would say I had an issue with emotional dysregulation. It was all reaction to a raging person emotionally attacking me, and that one time, a bf dumping me in an intentionally callous way.

I had no episodes at school, or with friends. I did not get brought to hysterical tears at all by anyone or anything else.

When I got married, after a few years of a very good relationship, a lot of struggle started with him. After childbirth, more struggle. It all had to do with emotional and physical intimacy.

I began to cry hysterically and have altercations with him, unable to work through our conflict, frustration, I am not heard and seen. He does not understand what I say I need from him. He says he will and then he won’t. He says he doesn’t know what I am talking about when he disappoints me. He frustrates me to hysterical crying.

I immediately reach out for professional help. I first went to my ob/gyn. It was shortly after giving birth. He prescribed an AD. When that wasn’t working, he prescribed some other meds. It wasn’t working. My situation escalated. I went to my mother’s with a gallon baggie of prescriptions he had prescribed and gave it to my mother. I went cold turkey off all the meds. They were supposed to be weaned off, not cold turkey. My doctor didn’t even return my call when i reached out for help. I felt abandoned by my husband and by my doctor (who were friends).

The story continues even more dysfunctionally from there for decades.

Over time, seeing several different doctors, I am eventually diagnosed with Emotional Dysregulation Disorder and other varying diagnoses from different doctors. Some doctors told me I have no diagnosis. I do not get support to leave my dysfunctional marriage.

Truly a diagnosis or just in a dysfunctional relationship?

I want to really, finally have correct professional opinions and understand what’s really going on. This has been a nightmare for me.

[Nammu]

Does the diagnosis really matter. Sounds as if you can use a good long program of DBT to help you with the emotional aspect. As you work on that, the other parts of your life will sort themselves out. DBT will give you the tools to deal with others.

[TishaBuv]

Originally Posted by Nammu

Does the diagnosis really matter. Sounds as if you can use a good long program of DBT to help you with the emotional aspect. As you work on that, the other parts of your life will sort themselves out. DBT will give you the tools to deal with others.

Thank you, Nammu, good advice. Yes, the diagnosis matters very much to me. DBT is good advice to Cope with Emotions. I suppose if I were better able to cope with those overwhelming emotions, there wouldn’t have even been any reaching out to therapists, so no diagnosis in question due to being able to handle the behavior by those few others who are the triggering people.

DBT is a good tool to stave off those overwhelming emotions. But I need to really understand what is going on below the surface with me and with them.

[TishaBuv]

This is from the DBT workbook in the list of unhealthy coping strategies - “ You avoid dealing with the causes of your problems, such as an abusive or dysfunctional relationship”

This has been so hard for me because the only, very few people who have ever, and chronically do trigger me to the emotional lability level are… intimate relationship with husband. Mother, the original button presser, rarely has brought me to tears and she is impossible on a daily basis. I cope with her very well. Then I had a couple incidents over the past few years that have resolved with others who acted horribly and I became very upset but over time have moved forward, me being the bigger person each incident.

Otherwise, I do not get triggered with overwhelming emotions with people in general and that is good.

[Have Hope]

Perhaps you’re simply being abused by your husband, you are very traumatized by the abuse, and you naturally become unraveled. It’s clear to me at this stage that he deliberately withholds from you and hurts you. It’s also clear that you are a victim of abuse in your marriage. You have no real history of emotional dysregulation outside of your marriage. And it all seems to stem from the abuse you are subjected to, having begun after marriage. You’ve taken on feeling partially responsible in your marriage for the dysfunction due to your breakdowns, when really you are being traumatized repeatedly and are simply reacting to the abuse.

[TishaBuv]

The reason I am so obsessed with trying to figure out how much is me/how much is them is because it is so complicated.
There is biological predisposition, childhood trauma. My mother was a good enough one, but she was over the top. It was abuse. It was only crying then from getting raged at, not the added anger that happened with husband. Also, my father died, which was trauma, and for some unknown reason I never cried.
Then there was a tween, teen, young adult life where the huge emotional dysregulation (crying, anger)never happened. While I was pretty immature and made some not so great choices, I don’t think I was much worse than anyone else.
Then there is the extremely covert abuse my h is doing which triggers me.
Then there is what I feel about myself that I would stay in any relationship that I even suspect is abusive. Yes, I guess I would choose to stay even though it hurt me. So, that’s more evidence of issues with me. Good grief.

[Have Hope]

Victims of abuse can suffer all sorts of mental health problems that arise as a result of the abuse. Victims can also react with "reactive abuse".

I wouldn't blame yourself for your husband's abuse of you or for the dysfunction in your relationship. The fault lies with him - he repeatedly doesn't give you what you ask for and want and pretends he doesn't get it, when he fully understands you and when you've explained it to him 1000 times in multiple languages. He understands you full well, but refuses to give you what you ask for.

It's deliberate neglect on his part. Trust me - it is deliberate and he knows he is hurting you but he doesn't care because he wants to have power over you. And you naturally unravel as a result.

You have described other instances of abuse, such as him not having your back and financial abuse.

People can only leave when they are ready to leave, however long that takes.

It took me two years to leave my abusive husband, really four years because I wanted to leave him within six months after we were married!

But you do come to a point where you have to ask yourself some critical questions:

• Why am I putting up with abuse?
• Why do I keep trying to fix something that cannot be fixed?
• Why do I keep trying to change behaviors in him that clearly are not changing?
• What am I getting out of this relationship that is life enhancing and positive for me?
• How much PROOF do I need that says this relationship is toxic?

A member on here helped me tremendously by telling me something she had heard from an author of a book on abuse - The Verbally Abusive Relationship.

She said to me "let the side of you that wants to save yourself win".

And even though I still carried some doubts within me because he planted those seeds of doubt, I went through with a separation and now a divorce because I decided that I needed to save myself. That I could not put up with it a second longer than I already had. And that I knew life could be so much better than what I was experiencing.

But like I said, you have to come to a point where you 1) cannot tolerate it any further and 2) are ready to end the relationship.

But once you know full well that you are being abused, it is a choice and you have to know that you are choosing to continue to endure it. And that's really, you hurting yourself. It's basically masochistic. You have to decide: I deserve better than this. Even if it means being alone. When you're alone, you're still choosing to not be abused any further.

[TishaBuv]

Thank you, HH. This is very kind of you to state it all so concisely for me. The bullet points you made are biggies I will reflect upon. I think you hit upon a truth here, too. There is also an element of masochism, which isn’t healthy either, mental illness in itself to just be masochistic.

[Have Hope]

Originally Posted by TishaBuv

Thank you, HH. This is very kind of you to state it all so concisely for me. The bullet points you made are biggies I will reflect upon. I think you hit upon a truth here, too. There is also an element of masochism, which isn’t healthy either, mental illness in itself to just be masochistic.

You're welcome! Yes, you have to know that you shouldn't be beating yourself up over any mental illness you may have. And it's not your fault you're being abused. You don't deserve it.