mimicking accusations...

[wontletmesignin]

this is about my emotional abusive partner who suffers from ptsd.

he always spoke about how he was convinced he would be a fantastic actor. he would often (in his good moods), be practicing acting skills on me, and then wanting me to jump for joy, telling him how brilliant he was at it.
he told me how he would copy people's behaviors in order to fit into situations.

but the last few years of the relationship - he claimed i mimicked him.
i couldn't stand in any position without him stating that he stood like that, and i was mimicking him. i couldn't say a certain phrase like 'awesome' as he always said that, and so i must be mimicking.
he told me how his cousin used to mimic him all of the time, and his cousin would always deny it, he says.
i mentioned that there was a pattern emerging, of where he felt everybody copied him. that perhaps he should look at himself...
he wouldn't accept that - he was right. we were all copying him.

he claimed that it must be because people are in awe of how good he is. he must have a personality people really like, and so they feel the need to 'mimic' him and his behavior.

he did, however, at times, catch himself copying my stances, the way i spoke and certain words/phrases i used. only when i mentioned it, and it was undeniably true.
although, after he had copied that - when he repeated it a week later, it was then his own - i never, ever done that before. even though we had spoke about it in the past (i hope that makes sense)

so, i couldn't speak without being accused of copying his tone, words, phrases, remarks etc.
i couldn't stand without being accused of standing in 'his' position, stance, or posture etc.
i couldn't make a suggestion without him at some point being the one who suggested it.
i couldn't ask a question without him claiming that he was the first one to ask that question

even when i chose to ignore everything, sit with no body movement, not speak, nor suggest anything - he could still find a way to claim that i was mimicking his personality.

in arguements - he says that i mimic him as i have no personality of my own.

i would just like to hear other peoples views on this - what actually is the case with this, and how it may define somebodies personality

First of all I'm sorry that you've found yourself in this situation, it sounds like a horrible place to be

I would like to say that I don't have any firsthand experience of PTSD - maybe someone else will be along who's more knowledgeable about that. I would ask straight away though, what kind of treatment is he getting? By the sounds of it he's had a formal diagnosis, so presuably some form of treatment was put in place - is that still ongoing?

I'm trying to word this carefully, so I hope you won't be offended - maybe you need to try and separate the emotional abuse from the illness. I'm more than aware that it's often difficult to be in a close relationship with someone who's mentally ill and that it's no-one's 'fault' (I've been on both sides of that), but it can be difficult to tell sometimes what's caused by the illness and what's just a negative feature of their underlying personality. Obvously if you knew him before he developed PTSD and he was completely different then maybe that's irrelevant, but it's something to think about. The fact that we need to be understanding of our loved ones' mental illness doesn't mean it should be used to justify things that aren't justifiable, emotional abuse being one of them.

I'm not normally one to think people should be looking into leaving a relationship at the first sign of trouble, but I would be questioning what's in this one for you. You're not even minimising the fact that he's abusive in your own mind, and it really doesn't sound like you're happy. If you're staying out of guilt or a hope that he'll change then it's probably not worthwhile, unless you have a solid reason to believe that that might happen, like a change in treatment for example.

I know I've presumed a whole lot here and I'm sorry if this isn't what you want to hear - I know you were looking for advice about his symptoms and not your relationship, but it was the first thing that jumped out at me from your post.

By the way, I don't know how long you've been around, but this will get a much bigger response if you post it in Relationships - be aware though that if you post it there then almost all the advice you get will be to leave, so if that's not something you're prepared to consider then you'd probably be best off keeping it here.

PTSD is a label that's given out to anyone who's suffering mental anguish that can be attributed to something specific . But it sounds like he's always had these issues of wanting people to respect and 'copy' him but when they don't he accuses them of doing it, so the thought enters there mind in some vain hope that the then WILL start to copy him. this seems to be a sign of low self astern . thinking if someone copies him means he's doing something good . try genuinely finding things to praise him for ( but be careful to not sound patronising ) he needs an ego boost to get over what ever it was that caused the PTSD, so you get your normal loving DH back ( IMO ) hope that helps .