My idea of normal and dissociation

[Breathing new air]

I have been thinking a lot about "normal". I did not know what that was. I remember going to homes of friends, she I got to. There was during a period where her focus was turned elsewhere and I was able to go somewhere because I always stayed in line. But anyway. I think about times when I went over to friends homes and saw them interacting with their parents. They were not confidants and parentified. In fact, we went up to there room and played then her mom would make us a snack. I thought that was the abnormal. I was raised as mom's go to. I knew everything that was happening in the home. I thought I was special and grown up because she did that. You had to be for someone to trust you like that. After all none of my friends had that privilege. I think of that stinking thinking now and cringe. I know I would not want that for any of my kids. I just did not know any better. Not to mention my mother was always telling me that this was normal or there was no such thing as a normal family. It was hard to except because I saw it in a few of the homes a went to. although I think mom made sure there was at least some messed up thinking in all of them before she would let me go over to their home. It kept me close to have things that way.

Anyway, another issue I was thinking about was dissociation. It is a hallmark for me and I recognize that I still do it. Half my childhood was gone for years. I have been in therapy and it has come back. But the weird part for me is that I thought that was normal. I thought it happened to everyone. Even being in health care and even mental health I never made that connection. I remember a normal question I would get for a long as I can  remember has been "where did you go". I always laughed it off. Called myself a space cadet, ect. But now I see it for what it is. I do it less than I did but it is scary. As I read books and information for children of BPD parents , I am seeing it is actually really common.  Does anyone else have this problem? I find that as I look back it happened so often that it is actually scary. The wholes in my memory I am sure have something to do with it. I find the more I deal with it and discover my past it happens less and less now but it still happens. I guess now I recognize it.  I am just wondering if it ever stops completely. I recognize that I did it so often that I thought it was normal. Crazy but true. I know that I have PTSD from all that happened to me. Although sometimes I am not sure I have the diagnosis from anyone. I have the Depression but I am not sure on that. I see many symptoms of it and I know when I have talked to my T, who is also a colleague, she states that it is obvious I have it.  It just is one of those things that I am finally acknowledging. Funny it actually feel freeing to admit it but it due bring up so many of those sad emotions. I know I fear the nightmares ever coming back that I used to have and the flashbacks of different things that happened. Anyone else feel this way? and does it stop?

[GeekyGirl]

Hi BNA,

There are just so many things that make sense when you learn about BPD and how having a relative with BPD has affected you. The more I learn about other families, the more I see that there's no one "normal." It's a relative term. In the healthier families I know, I've seen the the same things that you did in your friends' homes, and I was envious as a child of the kids with parents who let them express themselves. Heck, I'm still envious of them.

Dissociation is one way to deal with the pain we've suffered, and it's not uncommon for difficult memories to get swept under the rug for a while. I believe that memories come up when we're ready to deal with them. You're going through some tough stuff, so I'm glad to hear that you're working with a T and trying to work through these memories in a healthy way. PTSD is treatable.

Do you find certain times or certain conditions (places, sights, sounds) make you more likely to dissociate?

[Calsun]

Hi Breathing New Air,

I certainly related to your story.  I did feel like a confidante to my uBPD mother.  My uBPD mother would go around the house constantly sharing about how awful my father was and how terrible her life was. So inappropriate. She would say you don't know the half of what I've been through in my life, and then she would scream and cry like a baby. There was no room to feel anything in my home growing up because my mother's pain topped everyone else's.  Recently, I let myself get sucked into hearing my sister-in-law go on and on about my brother.  And I didn't know how to not participate in it because I grew up feeling as though it was my job to be a sounding board for my mother's complaints about my father. And I shared with her about our family and my growing up because I wanted someone to so validate and understand the story. And of course my sister-in-law wasn't even listening to me, really.  And just wanted information to build a case against my brother and my family, and pathologize the family.  Of course, when I shared with my sister-in-law about the abuse in my family, she used it against my brother, rather than responding to it sensitively and with understanding. Not different from how my mother responded to my pain when I was a child. Trying to forgive myself for getting fooled again, like I did so often when I shared things with my mother as a child that she used to humiliate me and abuse me.

I so relate to the dissociation.  I always felt like I wasn't really there.  And I felt like I was thought of as being spooky or creepy because I would dissociate.  I also felt as though I wasn't smart, although I clearly was an intelligent person.  But in the company of other people, especially threatening situations, I would dissociate and not concentrate on what was being said, so I might not get instructions well.  And it might appear to others that I wasn't terribly with it.

My uBPD would say about other mothers, you don't think they curse and scream, too.  And I started to believe that all mothers were like my mother.  That all women were like my mother because she would say to me:  you don't think a wife is going to beat the s@#t out of you, too.  Of course, I never got married. I was terrified of that. My BPD mother really believed that everyone was like her.  And deep down, I came to as well, which is one of the reasons why I dissociated.  It was because no matter the person or the situation, no matter how benign or pleasant the person, I thought that everyone was my mother in disguise. That's what she taught me. And because my mother could be very mild and pleasant in public, I thought that everyone was a crazy, abusive BPD in hiding. I thought that my mother was the expression of all humanity. So, it was unsafe to be present and alive in the world, in the company of other human beings, especially one on one.  In groups, there were witnesses.  My mother was not abusive in the presence of witnesses.  But one on one, I would really dissociate.  So, I dissociated the way I needed to growing up with my mother.  It wasn't safe to be in the world.

I am learning gradually that not everyone is like my mother or my sister-in-law.  That my mother thought everyone was like her and taught me that, but she was sick.  Not everyone in the world is a borderline personality.  My mother was not a normal frame of reference for life and for humanity. She was a cracked mirror.  She thought and taught me that everyone was really like her, abusive and angry and unstable. She normalized what was abnormal and very unstable. But she didn't know that she is BPD, so she thought everyone was like her, saw things as she did...  And not everyone is, thank God!   There are lots of stable and healthy and loving women in the world. I need not dissociate in order to be safe and that I can move toward healthy people and healthy relationships and stop feeling a need to be in relationship with unhealthy people and then dissociating as my defense. I am really getting that my mother was mentally ill, and that she is not a reflection thankfully of the condition of humanity.  The defense when necessary can be avoiding unhealthy people and situations, and doesn't have to be engagement and dissociating as was necessary when I was a child.  

Best,

Calsun