#borderline parent

[lady0mandy]

I'm so fucking frustrated

They've pushed me to my limits over and over again and the second I blow up I'm the crazy one and I'm the unstable one and they have to "walk on eggshells" around my when my mom is a borderline and narcissistic Jekyll and Hyde who raised me to fear her

I don't understand how she can't remember the things she's said to me. The way she screamed and yelled while I hid in the bathroom sobbing and the way she made me feel worthless and inadequate when she could have just sat down and had a civil conversation with me and used genuine parenting tactics to help me regulate my emotions.

The way she gave me a literal eating disorder for the way she handled meal times shouting at me and forcing me and getting in my face instead of helping me form a positive relationship with food so now I fear trying new foods and have such a limited palette and get genuine anxiety when I have to eat things I'm unfamiliar with and binge on safe foods

The way I poured my heart out to her at age 10 in the car telling her about how I was being bullied and harassed at school and instead of going to the school and helping she shouted "YOU KNOW WHAT, ARIANA IT'S NOT MY PROBLEM" and she can just forget that ever happened but 11 years later it's still engraved in my brain

The way she called me a slut and a bitch when I was 13 years old and threatened to hurt my 13 year old boyfriend just for kissing me.

I don't care what the circumstances are I would NEVER call my child that I would NEVER make her feel worthless and flawed and only deserving of conditional love.

The way she told me I had fat and needed to lose weight at 16 because she was 109lbs going into college and I tried to explain body types and bmi to her and she said "I don't believe you" and she told the guy who did my senior pictures to edit them to make me look skinnier.

The way she still sexualizes me based on the clothes I wear when they're barely revealing and I'm a grown woman.

The way she's blamed me for my mental and chronic illnesses and told me that the car accident was my fault and I did it for attention and I always have to play the victim and can't just "let" myself be happy.

She never taught me to regulate my negative emotions because she never knew how to do it herself and my kid brained soaked up all her bpd and npd traits and even after years of therapy I still haven't unlearned them all

My friends in highschool used to tell me she was abusive and I didn't believe them and it wasn't until I got a highly skilled therapist that I realized this wasnt mother daughter drama but mother daughter trauma.

And to this day she thinks she can speak to me with the most disrespectful tone and demand I cross my own boundaries and then when I match her tone I'm the bad guy and I'm the shitty unstable disrespectful and ungrateful daughter.

And I'm literally locked in my room right now because I can't be near her I can't see her because it makes me feel sick and burning mad because she will never understand and she will always be like this and I just want a mother who will speak to me with respect and help me through my problems but instead she makes them worse and then gives me money and acts like everything is fixed I DON'T WANT HER FUCKING MONEY I WANT HER RESPECT AND UNDERSTANDING

And she can go on and forget what she did this weekend but it's been 4 days and I'm still crying over it and I just wanted to die so bad on Sunday and I just can't take it anymore I can't fucking take it why the hell did she have me if she was just going to make me feel this way.

I'm 4 days away from moving across the state but I still feel so trapped physically and emotionally and financially and I hate this and I hate myself and I just feel like the 7 year old girl locked in the bathroom getting screamed at for something that could have been resolved with a calm voice, reasoning, and proper parenting

I wish I was never born I wish she didn't try for 5 years for me just to have me and make me feel this way I wish I didn't feel like I have 0 value but I do and I don't even have anyone to vent to so I'm taking it to goddamn tumblr when I haven't made an original post in years

[musingsfromaborderlinesdaughter]

On Going No Contact

I can only share how my choices affected me. I am an easily stressed, emotional woman who feels guilt easily, I beat myself up when I feel like I am failing others. My mother's constant neediness and mercurial personality changes and psychic attacks/manipulations kept me constantly on alert, like I was always on the edge of going into battle or having to defend myself.or my children from her. I initially hoped having a child would bring us closer, and it did. But getting pregnant with my second child threw her into an active Borderline & Bipolar phase of hate filled spews and catatonic depression. I chose to go no contact for the welfare of my children when they were 3 yrs & 1.5 yrs old. The emotional trauma I went through was very tough, and I'm sure it affected my kids. We re-initiated contact 7-8 years later, and that honeymoon phase lasted a few years until mom lost her shit again. It wasn't all smooth sailing during that time, I often had my kids ask 'why doesn't Grandma like me' as she loved to try to drive a wedge in between them. I finally broke off contact for the final time when my health was so far into the toilet from stress related illnesses that I had to break contact--it was going to be her life or mine I saved and I chose 'me' for the first time. I look back now and wonder how my life/health would be different if I had broken off with her before I had children (no doubt better without the yo-yo of guilt and anger from trying to have a relationship with her). On the other hand, my children got to know their grandmother. They learned to handle adversity, I got lots of practice using their interactions with her as teaching moments. She was kind to them sometimes, but for the most part their memories of her are clouded with how nasty she could be. There isn't a lot of 'grandmotherly love' memories for them, especially for my son who is the younger. So you see, going no contact is a very personal decision with lots of possible implications for you to consider. Above all, it is not easy. I was lucky in that my mom didn't pursue a legal channel to force her grandparent rights. Finally, I would not have managed what I've gone through without the help of my former psychotherapist (who acted as a stand in mom to me at times and guided me through tough topics while raising my children to adulthood).

[slippingintoinsanity]

Okay, so I can be here in my bed stressing and struggling to breathe because I’ve let anxiety flood my body - or - I can make a plan around this mess. I can’t sleep. I won’t be able to. He won’t let me. Even if he does I’m now aware he will be awake and that’s unsettling. So I need a plan.

I take a diazepam (well I’ve done that already), I wait for one hour. That will be 4am. Then I try to sleep again. I can go to him and spray lavender and put a meditation on for him. I can be proactive here. I can try.

I’m literally fucking dying here and I’m alone and I have to do this. I’m heartbroken for myself. I’d hate to know someone who as struggling like this. Nobody should go through this.

Cunts created all of thus. Selfish cunts. Mostly men. Actually, all men.

[emmybraun]

I had an anxiety attack today because of my mother. She's essentially a monster most of the time because of her borderline personality disorder... I've been at my Dad's the past two weeks watching his dogs while he was in Itay. Today was the second time she came over and wanted into the house that is no longer hers to steal the dogs. She was yelling at me and telling me that she'd call the cops on me and have me thrown out of school, etc. I was really tired and so all of this just broke me. I went about half an hour before my best friend got back to me, talked me down and convinced me to watch tv or something. I made lunch, ate and fell asleep watching Fresh Prince. I wake up and my Dad is home from his trip to Italy and he brought me a beautiful backpack and kept hugging me and thanking me for being here while he was gone. My life is a pretty emotional roller coaster.

[musingsfromaborderlinesdaughter]

Time to Get off My Ass and Make Some Changes

I've been struggling for almost 4 years now with depression and self pity. Oh sure, I had perfectly good reasons: - I discovered my mother is a Borderline. Which has turned my world upside down. My life history has literally been upturned with examination through these new circumstances.

- I spent much of that time transitioning into menopause. Always being hot and nauseated, worse with a 'flash.' I did not have extreme emotional highs and lows most often heard about: instead I experienced a near constant state of anxiety. Which only made my stomach more upset.  - Eating ice cream and other high convenience comfort foods has added 40 lbs. to my frame. I have spent my entire pre-perimenopausal life being very thin. These pounds make me look and feel like someone I don't know. - For 25 years I have been trying to eradicate having asthma, allergies, and GI problems. I have been put on so many food restrictions and specialty diets to deal with inflammation that I've had to relearn to cook each time. The rotation diet, the Yeast Free diet, the SCD Diet. I've done a stint eating vegetarian as well. The only thing that worked was the SCD Diet. Not to eradicate my medical problems, but to gain a little control over my life.

- My stomach disturbances finally sent me to the ER 2 summers ago, which started a whole round of tests.So now I know I am dealing with hiatel hernia, which causes acid reflux and likely is what started the asthma attacks 25 years ago (is that the most convoluted way to discover why I developed asthma? Something that has shamed me and plagued me for decades, and I literally was looking in the wrong spot).

- Also in 2010 I lost my very best friend. A lovely dog I rescued in 1994. We dragged him home with my children strapped into car seats. That dog and I both became ill at the same time with similar auto-immune issues. That pup stayed by my side while my marriage was in trouble. Through raising my children. He was my champion and companion. He often went to work with me and was by my side 24/7. I found the same type of treatment for his auto immune that had been done for me. We both thrived for several years. Then he developed a spleen tumor and our naturopathic vet and I developed a chemo-free plan to support his body for whatever was coming. The tumor disappeared over the following 6 months of treatment. Finally, old age (16) caught up with him and I had to say goodbye. Those last couple of years were bittersweet: he had 2 bouts of vestibular (the first robbed his hearing and threatened to take his legs. He regained his legs and some hearing). So I was very involved as his caregiver in those final years. Losing him was like ripping some part of myself off my own body. Maybe worse, as I loved him enough to give whatever it took to keep him with me and comfortable.  I was reeling from the death of my sweet pup during that fateful summer when everything I knew about my parents changed irrevocably. I had been the dutiful daughter, tirelessly championing for them. Everything I understood about my FOO changed. All the family history, the elaborate lies and cover ups, the slight of hand my parents used to shift blame onto the chosen scapegoat. All of it was a huge shock.  How could I have bought in to all the lies for so many years? Why didn't I question any of the stories, the reasons why things were the way they were?  Four years later and I am tired of crying. Tired of being sick. Again dieting, this time to lose the weight that is obviously adding to my GI woes. I need to just get off grains and leave them out of my life (eating wheat makes me miserable). Has my digestion always been compromised through some accident of DNA? Or is it a result of trying to please an impossible mother who alternates between being needy, ignoring and raging? Maybe some of both? Apparently it doesn't matter, because this is the lot I'm stuck with. Understanding the cause does nothing to nurture me at this point. And isn't GI at the core all about being nurtured? Something my mother failed at, dismally. She only nurtured me when it fed something in her to do so. After raising 2 children to adulthood AND caring for my pup through better and worse, I know I am a wonderful nurturer and champion. Its time I use all those skills on myself. 

[survivetheborderline-blog]

I may be the black sheep of the family, but some of the white sheep aren't as white as they appear.

[survivetheborderline-blog]

Update...

It's spring break and I finally have some time to sit down and tend to my dwindling tumblr blog. It really shouldn't be as difficult to maintain as I mentally believe it to be. 

I tend to dive into life when things are getting sticky. I prefer to remain focused on the important things and allow all the drama to slip on by. And when you have a family member with BPD, there is always some type of drama. It doesn't even matter that I haven't had contact for nearly a year and a half... the drama ( and its ability to suck people in) is constant.

I suppose I am aware enough now to know that my mother depends on her ability to suck me in. It allows her to feel power and control especially now that I have "abandoned" her. I have empathy for her in this sense. I understand that it is difficult for her but I don't understand why she choses to vilify me and hurt me to feel connected. If she wants to feel close, or to feel as if I am still part of her life, why doesn't she reach out with kindness and sorrow for the things she has done?

I'll never understand this about her, about BPD. There is no attempt to repair any damage, to take actions to change the broken parts of the relationship, or to acknowledge fault. Apologies are not sincere because either they are conditional or followed by the same behavior. I literally feel hopeless that anything can ever get better.

[musingsfromaborderlinesdaughter]

Spot the Cray Cray

Now that I have learned about Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder and have talked with many other Adult Children of these PD's, I can easily spot when someone I meet is "off." Don't ask me to armchair diagnose them, let's just say they are overly needy, 'bomb dropping' in conversations or showing some other symptom of disordered thinking. These people scare the hell out of me, always have. But now I understand WHY: my brain recognized a pattern to them that was unsafe for me to be around.

Years ago a dental hygienist my children saw had me all twisted up after a cleaning. She was bomb dropping information, little challenges that put me on the spot. I flipped out! I did not understand why I got so angry with this woman. My children told me I was over reacting. But in rolling the tapes back, she clearly was throwing down comments about my children and their teeth that were not normal things to say. Or flat out judgmental crappola. She'd say "I believe that  blah, blah, and Dr. agrees with me." Then when I asked the dentist, he didn't even know what she was talking about!  That was the first time I spotted crazy and knew what I was seeing.

So now I listen to my instincts. If someone strikes me as 'off,' I get what I need and then get clear of them.