A little ray of sunshine

[Ziggiddy]

After months of confusion, utter confusion and being blown about by every new thing I have learned a little sprouting emerged from my brain last night and I found a space of peace.

Within the storm of emotions from discovering how so many of my primary r'ships and close friendships have been rooted deeply in re enacting a damaged bond between my disordered mother and myself I have in turns raged and feared and been utterly lost. The worst of all was the unpredictability of what was next. How would I feel tomorrow? And deeply deeply scared of this: never recovering my joy. Because dammit I'm a happy person. I'm a funny person. Was this awakening going to be at the cost of never feeling delirious joy again? What a cost.

To be deeply honest, I considered the benefits that would have accrued had i never found all this out. Or if I put aside what i had found out in order to go back to the old ways. I could go on enmeshed with Mum and still get the rewards of that - because there ARE rewards, you know. I could also be comfortable in the familiar the long long familiar.

I have  wonderful friends and a terrific support network but over an over I was experiencing their suggestions and ideas as directives and commands. Whilst grateful for the care and the heart they have shown me I was not aware that this was still my choice. People all seemed to be pointing me towards "Get better; heal; cut your old ties with your mum; limit your contact" etc. In particular I wanted to please one person so much that I was doing things that I didn't really want to do because I valued his support and attention.

Well last night I realised this was just trading one tyranny for another. And that is not a cure. It's not even a step forward - it's a step across. I thought ":)o I want to cut the apron strings?" and I understood warmly the answer was no. I just want to untie them.

Do I want to be suspicious and withdrawn from new friends because the old friendships were based on meeting needs that can't be met through friendship? The answer is no.

And I think, I really think these answers came from me. Me alone. I feel just a little more grown up than I did a day ago.

The next step is to stop asking myself "What would Putin do?" (heheh)

I would also really really like to thank you guys who are so active here, so imaginative, so open, so damned VALIDATING. All so careful of each other's feelings. All just itching to help. It's amazing. And I know I couldn't be going through this process without the incredibly kind thoughtful and willing support. What a contrast from the family I was used to.

I would love to know if any of you guys are experiencing growth or have found new ways of thinking that are improving your life - relationships, skills etc. Have you noticed actively awakening to voices in your head that aren't actually yours? have you had any joy in saying "Hey! That's not ME. That's not my voice. THAT'S JUST NOT TRUE!"

[Ihope2]

Thank you for sharing a bit of sunshine Ziggiddy!  These learnings are so hard-won, aren't they?  But they are victories to be savoured.

I can relate to your re-enacting a damaged bond with your mother.  I realised that I have done the same all my life.  Up to now, almost 45 years of age.

Growing up, there were very few "safe people" in my life, and I did not know how to distinguish safe from unsafe people, and with whom I could be "real".

I love my mother, but she has always run away from herself and her own fears and issues.  She has a "daddy complex" and up to the age of 70, she has repeated the same pattern endlessly, getting involved with emotionally abusive and overpowering men.  She is a co-dependent person, and also enmeshed her children into her emotional life, drawing her strength from us, whilst making haste and unwise decisions that greatly affected our development as people and our future.  I have been enmeshed with her for most of my life, until now.

I did not even realise how things were.  I absorbed all her projections on me, and I also gravitated to chaotic, emotionally unavailable men who projected onto me so that my whole existance should revolve around them and their needs.  It was never about me.

All of this is finally changing.  I am in transition now, in a week my divorce from my BPDh will be done.  I have very limited contact with my mother at this point.  She is avoiding me, she has always avoided me when the going got tough.  She cannot hold emotional depth and pain. She runs from it.  

I am through with people who are emotionally dishonest.  I am done with people who use me to get their needs met, without honouring the reciprocity principle of relationships.

I am finding my new direction towards an authentic, emotionally honest and joyful life and people who are in search of the same.

[Ziggiddy]

Ihope2 - wow. Reading that ... . so many echoes of my own experiences! Isn't it odd how the BPD seems to produce such similar effects in the relationships of so many people?

I did not know how to distinguish safe from unsafe people, and with whom I could be "real".

Same. Here! I used to, up till very recently just assume people were pretty much safe and similar to me. Blurred vision I guess. I would tell things, personal things to people quicker than is appropriate and be surprised when they turned out to be unreliable, or worse, use the information against me.

I used to call myself a good judge of character but I see now that was not true at all!

I love my mother, but she has always run away from herself and her own fears and issues.  She has a "daddy complex"  ... .

I did not even realise how things were.  I absorbed all her projections on me, and I also gravitated to chaotic, emotionally unavailable men who projected onto me so that my whole existance should revolve around them and their needs.  It was never about me.

All of this is finally changing.  I am in transition now, in a week my divorce from my BPDh will be done.  I have very limited contact with my mother at this point.  She is avoiding me, she has always avoided me when the going got tough.  She cannot hold emotional depth and pain. She runs from it. 

I am through with people who are emotionally dishonest.  I am done with people who use me to get their needs met, without honouring the reciprocity principle of relationships.

I am finding my new direction towards an authentic, emotionally honest and joyful life and people who are in search of the same.

that made my spine tingle. Exactly the same with me! Even to our ages and our mothers ages. And with me, not just emotionally unavailable men but women friends too. Seemed to gravitate towards the ones who were almost guaranteed to cause me pain and heartache. I have recently realised how I have been more comfortable in discomfort. My goal is to now be very cautious of those people that I develop a 'crush' on. Not in the romantic sense but in the sense that they provoke a desire to get to know them better quickly and spend a lot of time with them and assume we are going to be such terrific friends. i'm not sure why but I can't seem to fathom what the attraction is. it's not how it presents itself if you know what I mean!

Anyhow I am very very pleased for you to have created a foundation for a new and healthier future with better quality relationships. I have no doubt you will succeed as you have a better base to work from

Peace Z

[Ihope2]

Yes, Ziggiddy, our FOO dynamics seem to have been very similar, and have shaped us in similar ways.  I so get you on that "crush" thing.  I also have had this propensity to develop the most instantaneous crushes on people, or fascination with them at first contact, without giving myself time to really get to know them.  I think I have done a lot of projection onto people:  if they just slightly seem to fit the bill of someone I admire, I seem to get caught up in my own fantasy of what they are like as people, and I get carried away by my idealisation of them.  I notice that I have done that quite a lot in my life to date.

It was a combination of keeping myself very much to myself, not socialising a lot and not meeting many new people, but when I then did encounter someone who seemed interesting to me, I would go overboard with my idealisations of them. This was mainly with men on whom I developed romantic crushes, but also sometimes with women (not romantic feelings, as I know that I am heterosexual by nature).  I would almost want to overcompensate for my dearth of social interaction, and then go overboard in my idolising one person!

I think this was the immature side of me given to a lot of magical thinking and instantly wanting to bond with people because I felt so lonely.

I think I am learning a different, more mature way now.  Give it time, get to have a feel for a person, check them out.  Don't overshare with them.  Share a little bit, check them out, see if it safe to share, and then go on that... .

It's taken  a long time to make this realisation, and a lot of heartache!  :'(

[Ziggiddy]

  I also have had this propensity to develop the most instantaneous crushes on people, or fascination with them at first contact, without giving myself time to really get to know them.  I think I have done a lot of projection onto people:  if they just slightly seem to fit the bill of someone I admire, I seem to get caught up in my own fantasy of what they are like as people, and I get carried away by my idealisation of them.  I notice that I have done that quite a lot in my life to date.

when I then did encounter someone who seemed interesting to me, I would go overboard with my idealisations of them. This was mainly with men on whom I developed romantic crushes, but also sometimes with women (not romantic feelings, as I know that I am heterosexual by nature).  I would almost want to overcompensate for my dearth of social interaction, and then go overboard in my idolising one person!

I think this was the immature side of me given to a lot of magical thinking and instantly wanting to bond with people because I felt so lonely.

Hm this is actually quite fascinating to me. I am aware rationally that I am probably doing this but it just doesn't seem true to me emotionally! I can arrive at the conclusion logically but in my head it feels like it's ALL real.

It was actually a recent friendship that brought the BPD to my notice. I know it was all a bit like a whirlwind romance (without the romance - I am hetero) but it FELT like that. The woman was quite kittenish and often needed rescuing then I realised it was quite similar to some r/ships I had had with men before I got married.

Like you, I idealised people but I fully invested into my idealisations still today don't know if they were pure fantasy.

I often feel like people are all off having terribly lovely lives - drinking champagne and dancing and laughing while I am  ... . well, not!

I felt this way a LOT when I left home - a desperate yearning to get to where the'fun' was but not quite knowing exactly where that was.

My mother made it very very hard to leave home - didn't want me to 'abandon' her (I was heavily parentified) and worse, didn't want me to move in with my brother and triangulate in league against her.

I remember feeling such a combination of hope and guilt. Maybe my life will lead me to where all the wonderful people are and I'll join in the fairy tale where everyone else lives - but at the same time wondering always worrying about poor mum left behind.

I am slightly resentful still that we weren't encouraged to grow and praised for reaching maturity enough to forge our way in the world.

You also made an interesting point about being lonely. For years and years I pursued a career that kept me from making real r/ships due to having to move around and antisocial work hours. I didn't see at all that I was deeply lonely and desperate for friendship and love.

Wow. This has really made me think. I wonder just how far from  reality my self image is?

Thanks for making me think! I really really wish I could get to know myself better but it is taking SO LONG!

[Ihope2]

I can relate to the wanting and yearning to be "where all the fun is"!  I grew up a very shy, awkward teenage girl. I stayed in my room after school and never went out much. I did my homework for school and I had very solitary interests, like reading and sketching and listening to my music. I also lived in a fantasy world, where I would page through fashion magazines and be fascinated by clothes and stylish people.  We didn't have much money for extras and my mom and stepfather did not give us pocket money, so I made do with my few clothes and old clothes from my mother, and I would create a whole  range of "fashion outfits" in my room and pretend I was living a glamourous life.

When I was 16, we moved to a foreign country in South America, and it was an absolute culture shock to me.  I felt so intensely lonely and I felt very out of place at the international school I attended.  There I really felt that everybody else was having the most amazing life, and I was the little grey churchmouse.  I just felt so marginalised!  I would develop the most intense crushes on boys and be so envious of all the hip and happening "in crowd" teenagers!  Always waiting in the wings, I was, and looking on longingly to join in the fun... .

Thank you for jolting my memory and thought processes around this topic, too, Ziggiddy.  I think this type of self-reflection and delving into one's past in order to uncover the things that shaped us as young people, can be very freeing and very healing.

[Ziggiddy]

That's true, Ihope. I read an article somewhere recently that when you discover the BPD is present especially in a parent you go back through your entire wealth of experience and recast everything in the new light. This process is both enlightening and at times harrowing. It seems necessary though. I confess I shy away from doing it at times as I find comfort in old memories and I wonder if replacing them with more realistic perspectives might in some way detract from my self. My sense of self. i can't explain it properly.

There's a certain magic in the good memories and I find it inviting to get stuck there because if I keep thinking further - what happened next I will inevitably slam into something unpleasant.

Like with books I knew had a sad ending I would simply read up to the part where everything was good and then close the book before the sad part. I would have these great memories of going camping and swimming and hiking and hauling firewood and fishing and singing around the fire and just revel in the great feeling. I wouldn't look too closely at the fact that while we were sitting around the campfire Mum was cooking and complaining that no one helped her enough - we all went off and had fun swimming even though we knew she couldn't swim and just abandoned her to the cooking and 'cleaning' Or look at the fact that whilst hauling firewood Dad would be criticising our choice of wood "That won't burn hot enough. Those twigs are too small. That branch will stick out too far." I would ignore the constant biting interchanges between the two of them or worse, my mother's recounting of how perfect and wonderful her own camping childhood experiences were. How much more her family loved each other than ours did, how loyal they were in comparison - "WE':) never leave one out who couldn't swim. WE':) all go together and share everything"

Wow. It's occurring to me how detrimental that is to hear as a kid. How much better her family was than 'this' family is. I knew she hated the country in which we live and it was my fault we lived here (she was pregnant with me at the time of moving here) It's only occurring to me now how much I internalised this. Maybe how much this affects my feeling responsible for her.

Whoah! Always surprises to be found when I come to this website!

I feel for you with the fashion/clothing situation,  you know. I can imagine as a young girl it would have been a lovely escape from the upheaval of your life. Pretty dresses and fancy accessories - what a nice distraction.  You are so honest in your description. I also had incredible crushes on boys. Really intensely wrapped up in them too. Obsessive perhaps. I just had SO much love to give and no one to give it to. I felt like they were all way out of my league and wouldn't be interested in me in a million years.  Other girls dating and getting boyfriends was fascinating and yet a whole alien world. How did they do that? And in my fantastic vision the whole problem was that of 'getting' a guy. I couldn't fathom when girls had a boyfriend tht there could be any other problems after that. They had someone who liked them, was attracted to them. What more was there?

Spent so much time with my nose pressed up against the window wondering how one got into that world. This still bugs me today. Not sure why though!

[Ihope2]

Ah yes, that semblance of a lovely family activity, but the undercurrents of tension, anger, irritation, unhappiness and betrayal always there.

It was the same in my teenage years when we were growing up with our NPD stepfather in the mix.  We got to travel to some amazing places as a family, but there was always underlying drama, criticism and tension.  My memories of those times are mainly of me longing to be grown up and away from this awful family dynamic, living in my own place and having the freedom to live my life without feeling like I am constantly living under a cloud of unhappiness, tension and doom and gloom!

I do believe the "unspoken" and unresolved things come through very strongly in our FOO dynamics, so very well it probably may have been that your mother was subconsciously giving you the message that you were the reason she was "stuck" living in a place she did not want to be!

Wow, and all of this shapes us as children in unseen, often unspoken ways!