Excited at the prospect of a brighter future

[Depression = 72% of members]

Yesterday was a very difficult day for me, being fathers day and being a very long distance from my children as well as NC with my exBPDw.

My sister hasn't made things much easier at times being critical of my relationship with my mother and finally things came to a head last night. I think it was something I definitely needed because it allowed me to get out a lot of anger, frustration and things plaguing my mind.

My sister is angry because her relationship with our mother means constant communication every day, being critical of me if I only e-mail or call my mother once a week, projecting the blame on to me because our mother is depressed and so on. What my sister failed to realise until last night is that her view of growing up and mine are 2 entirely different scenarios. I have said on previous posts that I don't blame my mother for our upbringing because it was down to circumstance more than an individual, but it doesn't mean I don't still carry scars. I was forced into a caretaker role from a young age to look after my sister while my mother worked several jobs to pay the bills and put food on the table.

Although our mother was unavailable, emotionally and physically what my sister got was someone to take care of her and then to give me a break, my mother would take over. It meant my sister got constant care, love and support. I got to caretake and then moved aside and left to deal with things on my own. I don't hold any resentment towards anyone for this but I get frustrated that my sister can't grasp that we have 2 entirely different views on growing up and that's why me and my mother aren't that close but because there is no resentment, we do still have our own relationship.

My issue with my mother is that she interferes with my life because she feels guilty for her role and often to detrimental effect. She has sabotaged relationships in the past by telling girlfriends thatI don't like this or that when that isn't true at all. For example, she told one girlfriend that I didn't like to be hugged which then led her to back off and for me to wonder what was going on. My mother was going off her own experience of me as a child and bringing that into the present. She is often highly critical of things I did or said that really upset her, when I was 7 or 8 years old and still uses them against me now. My distancing from my mother was to set my own healthy boundaries and when she can't get it off her chest to me, she goes to those closest in my life. It caused no end of issues in my marriage because my exBPDw would use things my mother had told her against me and no amount of explaining the truth would work. It also played on her own issues and I was constantly stuck in the middle being battered and blamed by both of them for things I had never done. Add in to the mix that my exBPDw's mother has all the BPD traits and my T used to say I was stood in a position he didn't envy at all.

I think what actually got me through childhood without being a complete wreck and joining the rest of them was the relationship I had with my grandmother. She was my rock and the only person I could call a parent. We both leaned on each other for support and she was the most amazing, kind and generous woman anyone could wish to meet. I can definitely say, without a shadow of a doubt that my grandmother saved me in more ways than one.

So here I am now, always had great knowledge of my past, was always self aware of the things that occurred but it wasn't until I married a pwBPD that I finally got to see feelings and emotions my childhood brought me and start to address each one in turn. There are conversations to be had, closure to finally be got and core issues to be healed. The news I also got this morning, although I have a T in my exBPDw's country, I have also sought out help in my own country too. I have found someone who is a specialist in Aspergers and PD's and has a lot of background in treating people coming out of these relationship. He is going to help me work through what was truly my responsibility and what I'm still carrying that belong to my ex. Not to mention that this therapy is a complete overhaul from start to finish, psychodynamic psychotherapy, mindfullness cognative therapy, CBT, DBT and so forth. So now I've identified where my core wounds are, it's time to heal from the ground up and I'm really looking forward to the adventure.

[Murbay]

Yesterday was a very difficult day for me, being fathers day and being a very long distance from my children as well as NC with my exBPDw.

My sister hasn't made things much easier at times being critical of my relationship with my mother and finally things came to a head last night. I think it was something I definitely needed because it allowed me to get out a lot of anger, frustration and things plaguing my mind.

My sister is angry because her relationship with our mother means constant communication every day, being critical of me if I only e-mail or call my mother once a week, projecting the blame on to me because our mother is depressed and so on. What my sister failed to realise until last night is that her view of growing up and mine are 2 entirely different scenarios. I have said on previous posts that I don't blame my mother for our upbringing because it was down to circumstance more than an individual, but it doesn't mean I don't still carry scars. I was forced into a caretaker role from a young age to look after my sister while my mother worked several jobs to pay the bills and put food on the table.

Although our mother was unavailable, emotionally and physically what my sister got was someone to take care of her and then to give me a break, my mother would take over. It meant my sister got constant care, love and support. I got to caretake and then moved aside and left to deal with things on my own. I don't hold any resentment towards anyone for this but I get frustrated that my sister can't grasp that we have 2 entirely different views on growing up and that's why me and my mother aren't that close but because there is no resentment, we do still have our own relationship.

My issue with my mother is that she interferes with my life because she feels guilty for her role and often to detrimental effect. She has sabotaged relationships in the past by telling girlfriends thatI don't like this or that when that isn't true at all. For example, she told one girlfriend that I didn't like to be hugged which then led her to back off and for me to wonder what was going on. My mother was going off her own experience of me as a child and bringing that into the present. She is often highly critical of things I did or said that really upset her, when I was 7 or 8 years old and still uses them against me now. My distancing from my mother was to set my own healthy boundaries and when she can't get it off her chest to me, she goes to those closest in my life. It caused no end of issues in my marriage because my exBPDw would use things my mother had told her against me and no amount of explaining the truth would work. It also played on her own issues and I was constantly stuck in the middle being battered and blamed by both of them for things I had never done. Add in to the mix that my exBPDw's mother has all the BPD traits and my T used to say I was stood in a position he didn't envy at all.

I think what actually got me through childhood without being a complete wreck and joining the rest of them was the relationship I had with my grandmother. She was my rock and the only person I could call a parent. We both leaned on each other for support and she was the most amazing, kind and generous woman anyone could wish to meet. I can definitely say, without a shadow of a doubt that my grandmother saved me in more ways than one.

So here I am now, always had great knowledge of my past, was always self aware of the things that occurred but it wasn't until I married a pwBPD that I finally got to see feelings and emotions my childhood brought me and start to address each one in turn. There are conversations to be had, closure to finally be got and core issues to be healed. The news I also got this morning, although I have a T in my exBPDw's country, I have also sought out help in my own country too. I have found someone who is a specialist in Aspergers and PD's and has a lot of background in treating people coming out of these relationship. He is going to help me work through what was truly my responsibility and what I'm still carrying that belong to my ex. Not to mention that this therapy is a complete overhaul from start to finish, psychodynamic psychotherapy, mindfullness cognative therapy, CBT, DBT and so forth. So now I've identified where my core wounds are, it's time to heal from the ground up and I'm really looking forward to the adventure.

[Cumulus]

Murbay, way to go. Getting yourself into all that therapy sounds wonderful and you sound really excited about doing it.

One thing I had a hard time understanding was that your mother is often highly critical of things you said or did when you were 7 or 8 years old. I am a mother of young adults. I would never discuss or bring up things from their childhood that may have upset me at the time. They were children. They thought as a child thinks and acted as a child will act. I wouldn't presume for them to be responsible for their childhood behaviours as adults.

Now if they had a problem with something I did when they were 7 or 8 that would be different and worth discussing because it would have been something I did or failed to do as an adult for my child.

Anyway, that is my thought.  All the best, cumulus.

[Murbay]

Thank you for your response Cumulus 

My mother being critical, it's something I've known for a very long time, it does hurt when it happens they way it does but I have sat down with my mother and we have discussed it. It doesn't stop it happening but it happens less. From my T's perspective, my mother isn't a pwBPD but she does show certain traits and she does project. It is also that familiarity that has drawn me to pwBPD because those are the flags I initially miss.

As for why my mother does this. I grew up very different to many other children my age and was in therapy at 7. Diagnosis was that I was highly gifted but over the years it became evident it was Aspergers. I'm more on the mild side so have a lot more control over myself than some do but it is still evident, more so when I was young. The only TV I would watch was the news, I would read TV guides and memorise every blurb about ever show for that entire week. It's one thing the original therapist missed when he was told about this. His response was just to let me watch tv, but it wasn't that I was interested in, I didn't care for TV, just reading and memorising. I would teach myself foreign languages just because I felt like it, never interested in fiction, but could spend hours reading about the universe and just facts in general. I make a great addition to a quiz team 

The other side of this though, was that I was very quiet and withdrawn. When people would speak to me, I would either not answer or it would be simple one word answers. People often thought I was just being rude and my mother took on a lot of that guilt in trying to protect me. Something she still tries to do because she originally blamed herself for not being around for me as much. So when she does get critical like that, it isn't right and it isn't fair but it is also her projection of her own guilt and shame being directed back at me. And that's one of the traits my T picked up on.

Because I understand it, I can work around it and I do keep my boundaries in respect to my relationship with my mother but it doesn't mean it also doesn't hurt and she is fully aware of this. So what she now tends to do is bypass me and go directly to those I'm close to, which in turn can often create more harm than good and is frustrating. The boundaries I have in place with my mother aren't the same boundaries I have in place in a relationship and that's where I get thrown out of synch.

As I said in my original post, I don't blame my mother for anything when I was young that happened and certainly don't hold any resentment towards her. Circumstances happened outside of our control and they were what they were. It wasn't perfect but I learned different valuable lessons that I wouldn't had circumstances been different, so in that sense I value everything my childhood taught me and the paths it has taken me on. I can't heal my mother, only she can do that but she believes herself too old to change anything now. We have talked and I have forgiven her and also myself and asked her to remove the guilt because it isn't hers to carry. She can't do that so as sad as things are, I do have to keep those boundaries in place and I accepted the relationship I have with her a long time ago. I get frustrated when my sister gets annoyed because I'm not as close as she is, but then again that is not my issue to carry either. I know my mother wants a closer relationship with me but that cannot happen without change and I believe on my side, I have made those changes enough to meet her half way but like with my exBPDw, I can't change her so she can meet me half way.

Truthfully, all I want is for my mother to drop the guilt she carries about me because it isn't hers to carry, but I also accept that may never happen so I have asked her to respect my life and it's choices. Even if something seems obvious to her (she noticed my exBPDw was controlling and abusive from the start so tried to sabotage the relationship so I wouldn't get hurt). What she doesn't realise is that the things she said were the things used against me at every turn for the past 3 years, so it did more harm than good. I have to be allowed to make my own decisions and make my own mistakes so that I can learn from those experiences and become better in myself for the future.

[Cumulus]

Murbay, you are someone I would be honoured to know. What amazing perspective you have. Thank you for your response, it was enlightening to me.

[Murbay]

Hi cumulus and thank you very much for the compliment.

I have always been brought up to know that everybody is different in their own unique way. There are areas in my life that I find easier to do than others, such as accelerated learning, logical reasoning, and being able to see patterns in many things that some people can't. On the other end of the scale, many people can identify with emotions far easier than I can. When growing up and to many extents as an adult, social interaction is often quite difficult around strangers because I struggle with non-verbal queues and have difficulties reading between the lines. For me, I always try and seek out balance because I do identify with my strengths and weaknesses and that's where I sometimes get trapped. Because if I can't identify the logic, I then get trapped in my own head in a constant loop trying to figure out the illogical to the point where I will learn everything I possibly can about a subject or topic, even to the point of exhaustion.

My T didn't have much knowledge about Aspergers in the beginning so it's been a wonderful journey for both of us, trying to identify why I was drawn to my ex. There are the external factors, such as the fact I'm a rescuer and a fixer, which stem from the fact of fitting in the "lonely inner child" category but then other elements to do with who I am as a person on the inside. It was thought for a long time that people with Aspergers lack empathy but we don't and that's now been proven. What we tend to do is internalise empathy towards others more than express it. We are highly sensitive to the emotions of others and also from external factors but we carry that inwards instead of expressing it.

We express the logical or factual side which can often cause conflict with someone who is emotional because it's a non verbal miscommunication. Imagine for example, you have a couple and they wake up one morning to find your favourite pet passed away in the middle of the night. It's devastating for both of you, but one person breaks down and is upset, while the other person stands there and smiles. At first, it appears a cruel response to a traumatic event but it's not. All of that upset and hurt is being processed internally but the outward response is because of fond memories tied to that favourite pet. What can then happen is days later, when person A has worked through those emotions and reached the logical point where they remember the good times and can smile, person B now expresses those emotions outwards and is upset. It can be very confusing and frustrating on both sides.

Most people have the ability to process these 2 sides quite quickly but there is often a bias towards one side of the brain, left brain controls logic and reasoning, right brain controls the emotions. In terms of BPD, they can be almost opposites. For pwBPD, feelings are facts so they lead with the right brain and then apply the logic based on their feelings, which is why it can appear illogical at times especially if the feelings don't match the situation. Aspergers we lead on the logic through the left brain until we tend to reach a logical conclusion and then apply the emotions. My involvement with my exBPDw, part of the reason I stayed as long as I did was down to my own fears and a level of co-dependency but I also identified last year that something was very different. Because I have a different perspective of the world, have been misunderstood by many but also been given the chances and opportunities I have as well as being accepted by friends, family and strangers for who I am, I had more empathy and compassion towards my ex and accepted her for who she was. For me, it was never about trying to "fix" her because I understood I was coming in from completely the opposite end of the spectrum, but it was about trying to get us both into the middle and a place of understanding to make things work.

In that sense I do have a lot more tolerance for others because like many have accepted on here, most people are good people at their core and we all start out in this world with a clean slate. It's environmental and psychological factors who change who we are and who we become, sometimes within our control and sometimes outside it. It is one of the things that has been hardest for me to accept, pwBPD have something they never asked for, which is something I have in common.

It took me years of heartbreak and carry the guilt of others to do something about it. How I did that, was to say that I am self-aware, I know my own strengths and weaknesses but what if I could turn those weaknesses into strengths too? And therefore find balance within myself. The heartbreaking moment is the love that I still have for my exBPDw, I tolerated the abuse because I understood who she wants to be is not who she is and always held out hope that she wanted to work hard to become that person and that it would be a journey we did together.