TWENTY SIXTEEN - PART SIXTEEN - LIVING WITH BPD PART THREE

LIVING WITH BPD PART THREE

  Hi Folks -  On the day                    
  I   moved out of 
  Middleburg, I   first 
  had to go to court.  I 
  had   made a case
  against my  
  estranged husband 
  for maintenance, and because of   the unexpected move to  Johannesburg,  I had had to bring the case forward so that I would not have to return to Middleburg at a later date. 

I would like to mention here that the magistrate in this case awarded me a paltry sum for the three boys but said as my daughter was a baby she did not need maintenance. He told me I could reapply to the court once she was three years old, (take note this was in the "apartheid" days). This was a suposedly educated man. How stupid can you be?

In the nine days since leaving the hospital, there had been no time for bonding with my baby and she had been taken care of by various neighbours as I struggled to cope with my situation. I didn't know the people who took care of her , much less about how they did it.

Then once in Johannesburg I had to earn a living and so had, through social welfare put her  into  foster care and only had her with me on week-ends. This situation only lasted a short while  and then I managed to get a flat, but again had to rely on the mercy of other people to take care of her, which carried its own set of problems. 

On the 8th January 1965, my estranged husband and his fourteen year old pregnant "fiance" committed suicide together.  Since being abandoned I had only received maintenance once and that had been in November 1964.

The years rolled on and life was certainly "no bed of roses."  When Ruth reached her teens she started showing signs of BPD, (I only see this now in hindsight) at the time  BPD was unheard of, or maybe it went by another name.

I would come home from work, tired and exhausted and she would be sleeping.  I would try to wake her so that she could help me prepare the evening meal and we could spend some time together, but it was impossible. Once the food was prepared she would eat and then go back to sleep.

 I do not recall how long          these episodes lasted, or          for how long they                    continued. I do know that        I was at my wits end and          didn't know how to handle      it.




She also went into dark moods,  and would clam up when I asked her what the problem was.  I begged and pleaded with her to talk to me telling her that I could not help her if I didn't know what the problem was, all to no avail. 

 Many other things happened over the years, but as she was no longer living with me I cannot go into detail as to what had actually  happened or what led up to it. 

I was very present though at the suicide attempt in the early 2000's and some other very harrowing happenings which I choose not to go into at this stage and which I feel will serve no purpose to this account, but would certainly think that it all had to do with BPD.

I am merely outlining the effects of BPD. One other thing which I do recall  though, was that when she was living in a semi-detached house in Brixton that she would withdraw from life for days at a time and she refused to have contact with anyone. She would put a notice on her front door with instructions that she was not available.


She was only diagnosed to be suffering from BPD in 1993, and fortunately there is treatment for this illness. It can be kept under control with certain medications, and certain lifestyle changes, but even then, at times it can still show its ugly head.


She is now under good psychiatric care  and as we were both living in different provinces I had only been involved on a few occasions when there was a crisis, but was never involved in her treatment,  and I was under the  false impression that all was well.


next post     3rd July