Hi Kindly, thank you for your kind words of solidarity. I have an experience to share that may be helpful to you in yours.
After this last bout of particularly bad spewing, I spoke to my IC about how to deal with it and she had some really wise words. H broke up with me. And when he did, he relinquished his membership to the 'club' of trusted advisors (family, friends', bosses etc) that are allowed to share their opinion of my personality or behaviour; past or present. It's so simple, but it really struck me. And let's just take this further: your boss fires you, but then continues to call and harass you about what an awful employee you were, how terribly you acted at work, what a worthless waste of time you were. I think we could be in agreement we would probably call the police, right? I mean, what gives that boss the right to do that?
And yet, the LBS is encouraged to listen carefully to the MLCer's words; validate, find truth in it and change as appropriate. Which combined with our hope for the M, may leave us vulnerable to not being strong enough to turn the tap off when it should be.
Another helpful tidbit that I learned in that session (and have heard repeatedly since in a short period of time, so the universe is really speaking here): mentally ill people need REALLY clear boundaries. IC helped me choreograph some boundaries surrounding the spewing which I (unsurprisingly) had an opportunity to execute the following day. And it worked. I was very focussed on the true definition of a boundary and was very careful to make sure that the boundary was MINE and not about controlling him. And although there have been moments since when I knew H wanted to spew at me, he seemed to hold it in. And I finally feel safe. Which allows me to be more compassionate, because I am no longer scared of him.
