I am wondering how others deal with their loved ones if they are verbally abusive. My bf and I have been together about 5 years and I love him very much and usuallyI think he loves me too. We both have MI, he has paranoid sz and I have bipolar 1 and some personality issues too.
When he is stressed, he accuses me of doing things I"m not doing, thinking things I’m not thinking and sometimes he yells and calls me horrible things.
Some of this I know is his illness and I am matter of fact and shrug it off but sometimes when I am not doing well his rage toward me causes me to shut down or I fight with him even though I know it is futile and not his fault that he thinks I’m: cheating, spreading rumors about him, having bad thoughts about him etc. Sometimes though he is just plain mean, say I’m stupid, makes fun of how I talk, calls me a whore and mocks me.
He is also very smart and funny and supportive, my other bf’s got rid of me when I got to crazy in my own way. But he doesn’t judge me and doesn’t give up on me, so I don’t want to give up on him.
Any tips on how to deal with abusive speech? Lately I’ve been very
depressed and dissociated for awhile after he started going off on me. I am feeling a bit hopeless. Any
one else in a relationship where you both have a mental illness? I know his is much worse to deal with than mine. I would not wish sz on anyone, it is hell for him much of the time.
He’s on meds. A shot and a handful of pills. He’s definitely compliant. Fills his pillcase every week and goes to all of his appointments. He is much better than he once was as far a psychosis. Part of the problem is me. In the early time of our relationship, when I wan’t yet his girlfriend and he was back then clear that he didn’t want me to be his girlfriend, I didn’t tell him that I was sleeping with someone else at the same time.
I was manic and out of control, even so I should have told him the truth. I finally did and he was devastated. I have so much remorse over this. Lying to someone with sz??? I was a terrible person and can’t believe he still wants to be with me. That was about 4.5 years ago and it may be that he can never trust me again. I have been faithful in every way since then and been with him through all sorts of ups and downs for both of us. So his paranoia isn’t just his illness, it is our history. So I deserve some of what he dishes out. But he calls me a whore sometimes on a daily basis and wants me to report everything I do and say, every TV show I watch, every conversation I have. If I forget to tell hims something…like I talked to an old friend on the phone, he gets very angry and says why do I hide things from him? But I don’t think I should have to recount every exact detail of every moment of my day in order to be trustworthy. It’s exhausting and I am often on eggshells.
He is also very steadfast and loyal and tries to help me stay on track in life. I have a tendency to lose track of life and get suicidal and manic and all sorts of difficult stuff. He is very understanding about all of that.
Sorry rambling…but no one to talk to here. He asks me if I talk about him to my friends and I am not good at lying, so I just don’t talk about our issues with them, then I don’t have to deal with the repercussions of betraying him (in his mind). He likes total information awareness and control.
Work with that “psychiatrist” (or “p-doc”) to develop a medication formula that stabilizes their symptoms sufficiently so that they can tackle the psychotherapy that will disentangle their thinking.
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Get two or more of those “down,” and one can use the skills therefrom in this way to combat delusional thinking and emotional reactivity very quickly: 10 StEP – Pair A Docks: The 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing
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If you/she/he needs a professional intervention to get through treatment resistance, I would use those search tools in item 2 above. Look for clinics that include intervention and treatment resistance services.
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Look for mental illness clubhouses in your area (which can be hugely helpful… but may also pose risks). Dig through the many articles at Google to locate and investigate them.
God knows I’ve been abusive when I was psychotic, not in a relationship, but to people in general. I was lucky to get out of it as easily as I did. I’ve found good med’s that work for me, and now I keep a civil tongue in my head. Maybe your boyfriend can find med’s that will take away his abusiveness.
I hope so. He’s really a good guy, he can be very sweet and thoughtful too. I’ve been encouraging him to see his pdoc soon. He gets very discouraged though, he’s been on so many different meds and he is on so many now.
He doesn’t have much faith that new meds will help.
Sometimes I think I can’t take it anymore but I would miss him terribly and I am pretty sure he would get much sicker if I left him.
Maybe we just need a break, I definitely need to set firmer boundaries. I wish there was a cure for him.
I was never in relationship with someone who has schizophrenia or bipolar.
But, my ex boyfriend definitely has had a psychopathic tendencies at least, and I seriously don’t know what to tell you about improving and working on those kind of relationships.
The only way to make jealous and overcontroling people satisfied is to completely lose your ego and fall into complete obedience. Even then, you can expect to hear rambling every now and then because they simply need to feel dominant
In your case though, only a psychiatrist could tell how much of his behavior is his simptoms and how much of it is his personality or stuff he learned from his parents.
I wouldn’t give upon him either if he is willing to work on himself and together with you.But I guess you will know when the side effects of being in constant pressure will overgrow the benefits of being with someone who is “like you”.
my father is schizoaffective and my mom has major depression. They fight a lot and my dad often accuses her of cheating even with her own nephew. My dad is unmedicated and prefers it that way. He has gotten abusive in the past, he gets easily jealous of anyone showing my mom any kind of tenderness.
I think its important to note that not all people with schizophrenia have full elimination of paranoia and other symptoms even when being med compliant. Med compliance is definitely a serious problem, but it is not always true that a person who is symptomatic is not being compliant.
Thanks everyone for your replies. He is going to start seeing a therapist for the first time.
He was very apologetic today for his behavior and he talked some about the fears that drive him, demonic dark stuff that at least today he knows is not true.
This is such a horrible disease. I wish people with sz would get the respect they deserve for being brave enough to keep fighting for their lives. His family is very hard on him and sometimes they insinuate he just needs to get his s*** together. Not true.
I’m not going to leave him, I decided I just need to not let his paranoia rule my life. I know that I am faithful and good to him, so I’m going to do more of the things I used to do, like seeing friends or going for nature walks alone and he will have to figure out how to deal with that. I can’t let his delusions limit my life so severely. I used to have a more independent and lively spirit and I miss that.
If I don’t take care of myself and keep myself sanish I won’t be able to help him much anyway.