BPDFamily.com

      Where do I start? What is it like to be raised in a PBD family? My late father had a severe case of BPD.  My mom and younger brother have it.  What happens to someone raised in a family like that?

     First of all, I didn’t believe it was possible for me to communicate with other people. When every conversation I had with my parents, simply didn’t make sense, I projected that view to the rest of the world.     When I looked outside and saw that it was raining, I’d say, “ It is raining, “ and my mother would say, “No it isn’t,” I found that very confusing. I would look outside again, and say out loud, “but water is falling from the sky. I can see the sidewalk and it is wet. It is raining.” My mother would say, “ So it is raining. So what? Who cares? Why are you making such a big deal about it?” She simply refused to have a conversation with me. I developed the belief that nobody makes sense when they talk.

    My dad was even worse, one time I said, “It’s raining,” while we were walking outside to our car. That was followed by a long, what should I call it, lecture, about how when he was in the Pacific islands during WWII it would rain so hard that the rain would knock down a soldier trying to walk with a full pack. The rain was so hard that the fighting came to a halt and the American and Japanese soldiers would put all their efforts into keeping dry and warm. That was rain, this is nothing. This is a little drizzle. How come you don’t know the difference between rain and a drizzle? Don’t they teach you anything in school or do you just not listen and refuse to learn? You’re almost 16 and about to get your driver’s license, how are you going to drive safely, when you don’t know when to pull over because it’s raining too hard and when it’s safe to drive? I don’t know if I going to let you get a driver’s license.” (My great uncle taught me how to drive and took me for the test.)

     What happens when someone speaks words that appear to make sense, for example, if I told a classmate in school, “I like McDonald’s hamburgers,” and he replied, “So do I?”  I decided that my classmate didn’t really mean what he said, because what he said makes sense, and, most important, if he meant it, then the two of us have connected,  but the child of BPD sufferers doesn’t believe it is possible to connect with other people. I, therefore, decided that he is only saying it because he believes that I liked McDonalds, and he is trying to be friendly with me, but, again, and here is the important point, I believed the words he spoke were not the truth. He only said them to make me fell better. I believed people never gave an honest opinion. This paragraph sounds crazy, but it does only because BPD is crazy.

     If I did my homework, it should have given me a feeling of satisfaction. But every time my father saw me doing it he would yell at me that all I wanted to do was, “sit on my dead ass and read books.”  (Yes, literally, that was what my father said to me many times.)  That made the experience of doing homework painful and stressful, so every time I sat down to do homework, I tensed up expecting to be yelled at.

    If I got good grades in school, my mom would say that I got them because the teacher liked me, not because I earned them. Both of the above examples gave me the attitude of why even try?

    In school I prejudged my teachers as being the same as my parents. Adults just refuse to communicate. I didn’t believe it was possible to have an effective conversation with my teachers, and when I did, I was so shocked, that I believed something went wrong because the conversation went right. It was a fluke. I got lucky. Yes, that is totally backwards, but that’s what happens to a child raised in a BPD household.

    Again, the BPD based perception of the world is all pervasive. It affected not just my relationship with my family, but the way I perceived the world and the way I perceived myself. Because of it I reached the incorrect conclusion that the problem was within me. I couldn’t communicate, not my family refuses to communicate. I carried this belief with me wherever I went. Just writing this post is therapeutic because I am connecting with you, my dear reader.

    To overcome the craziness of being raised in a BPD household, you have to let go. Let go of your parents if they are still alive. Let go of the memories of your parents if they have passed away. Let go of the negative introjects they gave you. Many people give the advice to live in the moment. What that means to a child of BPD parents is to just deal with the experience of the moment and dismiss the bad memories and negative introjects your mind attaches to it.

    I diagnosed my family as having BPD about three years ago when I was 63. Since then my dad passed away in January 2012, about a year and a half ago. I have so much anger towards him inside of me that I still yell at him. I haven’t let go yet.

    I don’t talk to my mom or younger brother because it would give me more pain. Why throw gasoline on the fire? Just let it burn out.

Welcome gloveman,

The contradictions growing up in a BPD household really is very confusing for a small child.  It has a huge bearing on adult relating. I was clueless how all that had impacted my own ability to relate, set limits and healthy boundaries with people. When you have a father who tells you cannot slam doors, yet he can hit my brother and I incessantly, it makes for one very confused child. I always thought to myself that dad was very different after 6pm – this is when he would drink and start a whole host of abuse on the whole family. I was often told I was failing school when I wasn’t – up until 2 years ago I still felt I had to prove myself even though I had done really well – I didn’t recognise my achievements and still waited for the kudos. It was scary and debilitating.

We learn not to trust ourselves, we learn to shut down emotionally to protect and we can develop some poor coping skills to survive. Yes you do have to let go – process it, put it in the past, recognise the damage and begin to heal.

We often carry around some childhood emotions in our adult bodies – we can no longer be emotionally abandoned or emotionally invalidated like when we were kids – we are adults with adult privileges and with strong boundaries we can protect ourselves.

Thank you, Gloveman.  I also felt as though I wasn't real and that I couldn't ever really connect with anyone.  I was told when others liked me that they only liked me because they didn't know me.  When I got all A's in school, I was told by my uBPD mother that I only did so because she pushed me to succeed.  I felt like a non-person. Message was constantly that I was what she forced me to do and that there was nothing really inside of me to be seen and mirrored. And I came to dissociate because my mother was so chaotic and violent, emotionally and physically, and so unloving, that I really felt as though if I didn't I would be annihilated. I was terrified to be in my own body in that home.  I still feel some of that fear.

So, it was difficult to believe that I could be safe and really connect with people in the world.  I thought anyone I was close to would find me out and abandon me and that I would eventually be killed off in some way.  I spent much of my childhood in silent terror of my mother's rage and feeling as though the only way to feel safe was to feel as though I wasn't really there, to dissociate.

And my mother made me feel as though I was the reason why she and I couldn't connect.  She would say, why don't you want to be close to me, communicating that the reason for the lack of closeness was me, rather than the fact that she was dangerous, unstable and incapable of intimacy and mature maternal love.

There has been a lot more clarity in me and a lot of growth.  And I am learning to form more secure attachments.  My attachments with my uBPD mother and enabling father were  insecure attachments.  Any relationship with a BPD is typically an insecure attachment which is havoc for the development of a child.

Once again, thanks for sharing your story!

Calsun

I absolutely understand where you're coming from and how your experiences lead to your trouble with trusting others' truths. Communications in my own family left me feeling like I was the who was crazy. It took a long time to learn to trust my own perceptions. And even though you may have spent the majority of your life unable to trust what others tell you, it is still possible to move forward and make a better life for yourself now. It is never too late to grasp that sense of peace that can come when you understand others without the cloudy filter of your upbringing. Best of luck to you.

Wow, well said.

I also have difficulties in communication because when I would begin to speak about something, I would invariably be cut off so I couldn't finish the thought, and would be questioned about the beginning of the story, even within the first sentence. For example, what I just wrote, my mother would tune out right after saying I have difficulties in communication. Then possibly questioned why is it her problem, a series of "similar but worse" stories about a retinue of people I don't know, then a dismissal in some form questioning me why am I bothering her? I am afraid to raise an issue because I have no idea where I will end up, conversationally, but it will become an affront, somehow. If I can't express my thought(s) in a 5, or luxurious 10, word sound bite, the effort is just not worth it.

Shockingly, for work, I oversee coordination of construction and development. I must communicate with engineers to excavators and pipe fitters. It requires knowing how to express the outcome in many conversational styles. How can one person drop me to a blathering idiot in every communication with her, yet I gain so much respect in my line of work? I once overheard mom say to someone on the phone, "yeah, it's a man's job... . I know, I know... . "  (huh?)

I don't know how to overcome our conditioning, Gloveman. I wonder how high we could fly if our wings weren't clipped? Let's not give up trying 

     Thanks for the great replies.

     I worked in a family owned business. My father projected his nasty and abusive behavior onto me and told everyone that I was difficult to work with. Our employes very quickly realized the opposite. It helped a great deal in overcoming my traumatic childhood.

     Yes, Clearmind, we shut down emotionally. I had a poker face. It showed no emotion. When I first went out selling, I had to force emotion on my face and in my voice while talking to a customer, because I couldn’t just let go and behave naturally. It made selling exhausting, but I was still good at it. Eventually, I realized that the customer was not my father and I let go. I became a really good salesman.

     To Calsun, I too didn’t believe things were real. I had to remain emotionally unattached to survive as a child. When I talked to a childhood friends and they would tell me how great their parents were, I would try to visualize what  great relationship with a parent was and fail to do it. One of the great concepts that helped me on the road to recovery was when I realized people do connect.

     I love the user name To A Lady. It is great. I still have a great deal of trouble trusting my own perceptions. When I play golf, if I read the green differently than the caddy, I used to listen to the caddies advice and miss the putt. The reality of missing the putt over and over again finally sank in and I now putt the ball the way I perceive I should.

     Asa, imagine suffering from that style of conversation at work. I gave up and started typing letters because that was the only way I could get my point across. Sometimes my dad even threw out the letter so he could claim he never received it, that was his way of cutting me off and changing to subject from the content of the letter to what was wrong with me in believing that I gave him a the letter in the first place.

     Yes to all of you, we can overcome; we can let go. It just takes time, effort and the understanding that we are okay; they are nuts.

This rings so true gloveman. Too bad we are so at the mercy of these wounded, narcissistic parents.  Your rain anecdotes would be hysterical except for the sad situation that we as children HAD to trust these wounded people -- had to since our physical survival was dependent on them -- but, alas, our psychological health had to be damaged to ensure that. 

Eric Berne wrote about three ego states of people, parent, adult and child.  He said that in the "child ego state" there exists something called the "pig parent".  That is when a person seems to be talking with a "parental tone" but it is really their "pig parent" from the narcissistic and primitive child ego state coming at one in attack or manipulation or whatever. But it is confusing and a child trust it is from the "parent ego state" that would be more nurturing and altruistic.

My dad was in WWII.  He wasn't borderline I don't think but narcissistic and alcoholic. His response to the rain would have been similar.  He was crazymaking by attacking with jealousy often.  If he had had the opportunities his children had had ... . he would spout.  So much resentment rather than support coming at us.

My dad was indifferent or hostile a lot of the time. Good will evaporated quickly from him.

My mother was the borderline and used "conditional" love for control. High verbal rewards for doing what she wanted, focusing on her needs or making her look good with others.  When I displeased her, often inadvertently, the "annihilating" (from writer Christine Lawson) anger that poured forth at me was paralyzing.  Like being tasered. 

I rationalized that she was so stressed out from my dad's drinking and if he stopped she would be normal and loving.  But late in life I finally recognized how disordered she was, and how much terror I lived under and all/or nothing, my way or the highway rules. I did take to the highway for a lonely decade.  My borderline parent who had exploited pity from me, exploited pity from others to damage my support from them adding to my heartbreak and confusion and horror.

Thanks for posting.

Best, Bethanny

Gloveman, I am so impressed that you can do so well at a sales job!  I'm pretty shy and I do not do well in customer service type jobs.  It's nice to see that it is possible to overcome some of the hurdles we're faced with.  I'm pretty new with this, so I'm taking things one step at a time.  My first project to get me to open up more is just to say hi to everyone I pass when I take a walk.  It's really nice to just see a stranger smile back at me.  Thanks for the reminder to just keep trying!

Gloveman, if I was there with you, I would invite you out for a coffee.  I think you deserve beautiful things in your life and I can't imagine the pain you went through with both your parents.

In my case my mother is BPD and my father was a great man.  Sometimes I think if the price of having an awesome father for 20 years was to endure the craziness of my BPD mother. 

I guess those are the kind of things that have no answer.

When I was a kid, I was always outspoken and sociable.  My dad loved that,  my mother was so paranoid that she used to think she was gonna be tracked down by her brothers (the ones that abused her as a kid) that she tried to isolate me and my brother many times.  Because of her stupid fears.  I remember i was always rebellious and my brother was more submissive.  I used to think she didn't love me for some reason (maybe something I did?)

So when my father wasn't home I feared she might wanna poison me.  When she served us soup (usually in an irritable mode)  I would ask my little brother to let me try his soup, because I wanted to make sure both his soup and mine tasted equal.  If they did, we were both safe. 

This is such a sad memory, I have never dared to talk to my brother about it.  He was too little, he might not even remember this.

My father told me once "if your mother ever leaves you alone, stranded on the street, seek for the help of a woman, another mother you might see walking by.  Tell her to call me at this number (a restaurant nearby his job he used to go to, where everybody knew his name... (hehe sorry I couldn't resist) and I will collect you wherever you might be"

That never happened because in reality my mother was over protective and paranoid of strangers.  But my father knew about her episodes and i guess he thought she was capable of abandoning me on the street if something or someone triggered her anger.

Back in the days there weren't any mobile phones and he worked an hour away from home.  I guess that telling me to seek for help if my mother behaved badly, gave him some peace of mind.

She is still alive and as time goes by I want her less and less in my life.  Sometimes i can't even stand her tone of voice anymore.

i don't like to be touched by her nor to have her near me.  Giving her a hug on her birthday is a huge sacrifice to me.

All your replies are great. As I wrote above, "Just writing this post is therapeutic because I am connecting with you, my dear reader." This so true.

     Being aware you have a problem is the first step in overcoming it.

     For children of BPD parents, just being able to communicate about it over the internet is an important second step.

     Before I diagnosed the problem with my family, I just thought they were crazy and why try to talk to them because crazy people respond with crazy replies.

     Once I diagnosed them, I understood their behaviors and was both better able to cope with their problem and, maybe, more important, how do I explain it, manipulate them. That is to say, their BPD behaviors and responses were predictable.

     The only problem was that I was 63 years old. I wish I could have found that understanding when I was a child.

     This post rambles and is too long, but "just writing this post is therapeutic."  

Your story is fascinating, gloveman. Forgive me but I did not see this in your account: Have you been involved in any relationships as an adult? Have you been married?

I had an alcoholic, undiagnosed BPD Mom, an alcoholic (probably bipolar type 2) Dad and am now estranged from an undiagnosed BPDh (my second marriage; first husband was casually diagnosed as "on the autistic spectrum". My Mom, Dad, and both husbands received these diagnoses secondhand from my therapists, since none of them ever sought treatment. And I have not escaped genetically unscathed: I was diagnosed as bipolar type 2/alcoholic in my 40s, after having been diagnosed as dysthymic with BPD traits in my 20s. At least my BPD traits have subsided!

Nice to make your acquaintance.

     I have been marries for 44 years to the right woman. Her continuous love and support has helped me cope and now heal.  We have three normal sons, two daughters-in-law and four granddaughters.

     I found a normal woman to marry. Her parent's gave her love and support. They also gave it to me, more than I received from my parents.

     What really gave was a continuous stream of stress was being in a family business and dealing with my father and bother's BPD while trying to earn a living. About 10 years ago my cousins and I bought out my brother. My father finally retired 100% in2007 at the age of 90. Yes, that is right, he hung around driving everyone crazy 'til he was 90.

      My brother and cousins all have type 2, adult onset diabetes.  Some ethnic groups abuse alcohol others sugar.

     Wow, I'm impressed and jealous. I wouldn't know how to find a healthy or normal partner. Your story is very inspirational for people who have grown up in families with undiagnosed PDs around them.

     All's well that ends well.

     BlondeMermaid it is 4:05am central time. I am up because I drank too much coffee and tea today. If we met for coffee I'd probably drink too much and stay up all night again.

    So which one of your problems are you working on?

    Notice how above I automatically replied with something negative? Pushed you away. Still got some BPD symptoms. Let's start over...

    I am sure if we met for coffee we would have a great time.

    So where is the nearest Starbucks?

   

   

Hey, you are having coffee with that mermaid and not with me?

I feel abandoned.

Gloveman, it is so remarkable that you found a normal wife! How is that possible  lol

I had a BPD brother, and my dad, I'm not sure if he was full-blown NPD, but he was something. Codependent mother. I'm learning that many people here have both parents who are BPD. I can't imagine what that must have been like to have your sense of self traumatized by two grown-ups, not just one. But you must have had something very special in you, and felt worthy enough to be attracted to and marry a woman who wasn't BPD.

I jumped out of the frying pan into the fire, and married N/BPDxh. Just learning now about the script I inherited, why I would recreate the same hate-filled adult life that I experienced in my childhood.

      I am not sure myself how I found her. I can only say that we both had problems and just sort of clung together.

     Neither one of us had any real mental disorder, just some hang ups. As my shrink told me many times, what I needed more than anything was someone who could give me good advice.

     I hope this makes sense.

     Sure I would have coffee with you too. Mermaid just offered first. Where is the nearest Starbucks?

     I have a friend, if we were children, I would call him my best friend, who, also, worked in a family business with BPD relatives. When we met for the first time we bonded instantly.

     It is 1:27 am CDT. Another sleepless night.     

     Another thought.

     It is difficult to realize that you are acting out a script. I was in and out of therapy forever before I learned about BPD and once I did all the pieces of the puzzle of my life fit together.

     The script I acted out was that everyone behaved like my BPD family. Because I worked in a family business with BPD relatives, I was constantly bombarded with their craziness. I like to use the analogy of wearing glasses with the wrong prescription. I would get so exhausted from wearing those glasses at work, that when I came home I wasn't able to really think things through.

     I was after many years and three sons that I was able to think things through and realized what I had was a good marriage, not a great one, a comfortable marriage, not a two becoming one marriage. 

     My parents were had a great marriage because they shared their BPD craziness. My wife's parents just had their own hangups. Nothing major.

     The script was shredded when I made the BPD diagnosis and confirmed it with my therapist.

     Like all my posts, this rambles, has gaps in its logic.and is probably too long.

     Just remember: We are okay; they are nuts.

Once I get on a roll I can’t stop.

   When I was a sophomore in high school, my parent’s took me to the Illinois Institute of Technology on the south side of Chicago for aptitude testing. Back then, circa 1960, they had a world famous program. The concept was that you were tested as a high school sophomore and then again as a college sophomore.

   The battery of tests concluded that I had the personality and the desire to be a doctor, and that I had the scientific ability to be one. For example, I tested four years ahead of myself in biology.

   So how did my parent’s react when they were told the results? On the way home from IIT, my dad turned the rear view mirror of our car so he was looking at me and gave me a lecture on how awful it was to be a doctor. How it was a terrible job.

   I was so traumatized by him driving on a highway while looking at me in the rear view mirror that I thought I was going to die in a car accident right then and there at the age of 14. I wasn’t until I was 28 that I overcame the car accident trauma and realized what had happened. My dad was so crazy that he couldn’t even wait to get home to start with the insane talk about medicine as a bad career choice.

   Sometimes, I don’t know how I survived.

This made me laugh out loud! And laughing out loud in a cubicle makes people wonder.

If only I had learned this when I was a kid!

Seriously, someone needs to make a bumper sticker that says this.  lol

Thanks gloveman. You made my day.

     It is a twist on the title of a popular self-help book: I'm OK, You're OK, by Thomas A Harris MD,

     Thanks for appreciating the humor and truth expressed by it.

The last two times I saw my father alive.

In November 2010 I went my granddaughter's first birthday party. My dad walked up to me. I extended my hand and said, "how are you dad?" He gripped my firmly for a 93 year old man, leaned in and said," You're fat.", then let go of my hand, turned and walked away. That was the last conversation I had with him.

In August 2011 my oldest son came in town with his wife and 2 daughters. We went to visit my dad in the nursing home he eventually passed away in. We met him and my mom in the reception area by the front entrance. He was in a wheelchair too feeble to walk. When I walked up to him and extended my hand, he looked at me then turned his head to the side and closed his eyes. He refused to even look at me.  He refused to look at me the entire time of our visit, right through going to the common room for ice cream and saying goodbye.  That was the last time I saw him alive.

Nasty and abusive to the bitter end.

When my son walked up to my dad he extended his hand and called out his name. And he remembered the names of his wife and daughters. This shows he still had his faculties about him.

No guilt. I feel no guilt. I was the victim.

     I have been reading a book, “ The Angry Heart: Overcoming Borderline and Addictive Disorders” by Joseph Santoro and Ronald Cohen. One of the things it does is review Erick Erickson’s stages of normal development of a child. I got so worked up I quit reading and started eating.

     My wife and I keep no candy, cookies, or cake in the house, so I ate Havarti cheese with caraway seeds. My favorite. I ate it on Carr’s water crackers. I wasn’t enough, so I got some margarine to spread on the crackers.

     My anger continued to boil up. How do you vent? How do you get through to parents who have BPD, especially when one of them has passed away and you refuse to talk to the other because you know it is futile?

     The anger continued to boil to the bursting point until I was almost started to walk around the house shouting out loud, shouting at parents who weren’t there. Then reason took over my thoughts and I said to myself, “This is more displaced anger. This is more useless yelling and screaming and raising your blood pressure (Yes I take medicine for high blood pressure.). I should vent in a useful and constructive manner, so here I am. I feel better already.

     My parents destroyed all my self-confidence with their crazy BPD behavior. I figure it took me until I was 36 to have the self-confidence that I should have had at 18. I was a mediocre student in high school and a lousy one in college, because of lack of self- confidence and an inability to do things on my own, a direct result of being raised by BPD parents and, importantly, working in a family business with my dad and brother.

     This website works. We have all had the same problems and can validate each other's experiences.

     I am calming down.

You've really helped me with your comments, so I'm glad you're using the website to vent.

I remember a night about a year ago when my anger at my narcissistic father finally came out as grief. With him, my usual pattern was to feel fear, or a combination of shock and numb. This time, I was finally able to sob. I remember thinking, "This is going to be a big, deep one." Instead, I sobbed for a bit, and then it kind of hiccuped, then sputtered out. And I remember thinking, "Really? That's it? Surely there's more."

I'm laughing now about it. I thought under my anger would be this massive cathartic deep cry and all I got was a bit of sobbing.  :)

I guess what I'm saying is that maybe the grief you feel now, after everything you've learned, is not as deep and dark as you fear. I'm sure the grief I felt as a kid was way too deep to feel. Not being loved properly by your parents is devastating. And then all those years stuffing those feelings, hiding, then letting them define how I felt about myself, letting them inflict pain over and over again on the same wounds, not knowing what any of it was, what it meant, or how to step away from it. Ugh.

But then somehow, through marriage to N/BPDx, finally getting the message delivered in a giant ball of crazy rage, I got it. Maybe understanding takes the grief down a notch?

I don't know that the anger ever goes away. I'm still angry. I did get to feel some of my little kid feelings, though. The yearning for a real dad, someone who would protect me. Yearning for a normal childhood with a normal sibling. A mother with a clue. Or at least a backbone. Makes me angry, and it makes me terribly, terribly sad that I lost so much.

I'm so angry that my own shot at motherhood involved me picking of the most mentally ill person I have ever met. That's saying a lot. And that I have to raise a child who has a father like that.  

It's also so incredibly sad. But I'm also feeling better at the same time. It's odd how it goes like that.

So many things you have written about hit home with me. I am in my 60's as well.  My mother is BP and our father was an abusive man who was afraid of her so he terrorized my brothers and myself.  Life in our home was something out of a bad movie. There were secrets, abuse and the constant feeling of walking on egg shells.  I don't trust myself either. If I write a check I look at it over and over to be sure it is correct. I EXPECT to mess up.  We were use to being shouted at and often the words were "Who do you think you are?"  When we left the house to go to school it was like going to another country. Things made sense at school.  I dreaded going home every day.  One of my brothers had BP.  My mother is now elderly and she continues her BP ways of being a waif and obsessing over dying.  Our father passed away a decade ago from Alzheimer's.  His last year was perhaps his happiest.  He lived in a nursing home and had forgotten my mother.  He fell in love with a pretty nurse every shift.  It is a shame that he had to lose his mind to find some sense of happiness.

     Nevermore, what a great name. It makes me think of the determination to prevent BPD  problems from affecting your life anymore, and it makes me thing of the poem by Edgar Allen Poe, "The Raven."

     It continually amazes me that complete strangers can write about their experiences on a website and find it helpful to each other.

     At the very bottom of your post it says, "I didn't break her and I can't fix her," that is so true. So many children struggle to say the just the right thing to their parents in the hope of getting their parents to change. When they fail, the children blame themselves for being unable to communicate effectively. That's one of the reasons they feel inadequate, incompetent, and just plain inferior. That's one of the things that give us all of our hangups. "If only I could make them understand", they think to themselves? "Why can't I get through to them?" Well, the reason is simple, "I didn't break her and, therefore, I can't fix her."

      What a perfectly precise and succinct statement. It says it all.

Reminds me of the three C's for those who are involved with or related to people with BPD:

I didn't cause it.

I can't control it.

I can't cure it.

It was not only self confidence that my parents destroyed but also self satisfaction. I touched on this in a previous post. See above  (for BPD family). Doing a good job is supposed to give you a feeling of satisfaction, but when you get criticized and ridiculed no matter what you do, then you even lose the ability to feel good about something you have accomplished.

    When I was 16 I bought myself a set of weights. I lifted them so regularly that I worked myself up to being able to lift 100 pounds over my head.

     When I told my dad the first thing he said was, "No you didn't." So I go the instruction book that  came with the set and showed him know the pieces added up to 100 pounds. Then he made the insane statement that 100 pounds of iron isn't the same as 100 pounds. Whatever the hell that meant. So I got our bathroom scale and my weights from the basement and weighed them. The scale read 100 pounds exactly. 

     Of course, he then claimed that bathroom scales are not accurate.

     BPS sufferers will say anything no matter how crazy or flat out wrong to prevent a real conversation from occurring, especially when the other person is their own child.

Thanks Gloveman.  The lack of validation can be maddening. I became a music teacher. My mother would make the comment (quite often), what would it take for you to be a real teacher?  A real teacher?  I have a brother who is an attorney. Wouldn't any mother be proud of that?  I attended his law school graduation with my mother. She criticized him for having his cap tilted back.  She mumbled under her breath about how long the graduation took and how bored she was.  It is never enough.

     Nevermore, as I posted on a thread started by someone else, the thing to remember is that it is always the disease that is talking not your parent. You can't win going up against a disease, so why try?

     

     

What a great thread! Thank you!  Thank you for making some sense of how I feel.  I too sometimes feel like my life is not real. I am use to my Mum saying that my thoughts and memories are not real and that I make everything up.  Even when I tell her something simple about going out with friends she gives me a 'really' or 'ummmm' like it didn't happen.  My sister does it to me too and sometimes I feel like I am loosing my mind.  Both my sister and Mum have BPD and I am currently estranged from them both until I figure out how to keep my boundaries to stop them hurting me. Lucky I have a great husband and friends who help me keep my perspective on life. 

I still live in fear of having BPD and no matter how much I try and rationalise I continually check all my behaviours.

Again, thank you for sharing your story.

Pam

     It is unreasonable to expect an acknowledgement of wrongdoing by BPD sufferers, that only happens in movies. Luke Skywalker was being beat up by the emperor and says to Darth Vader," Father I know there is still good left in you. Help me." So the good comes to the surface and Darth Vader picks up the emperor and throws him down the central atrium of the Death Star to his assumed death.

     In reality BPD people only apologize after therapy and/or medication. They can not do it on there own.

The vote to stay

      Back in March 1997 the executive committee of my family business (That’s just a dull, boring business like way of say the family members) took a vote on whether to stay and update the buildings we were in or buy some vacant land and build a modern, efficient new building. The vote was 4 to stay vs 2 to move. All six of us were members of the third generation. My dad, the sole surviving member of the second generation was in Florida for the winter.

      When he returned in April he reviewed the vote in an insane manner. I will make up names to protect anonymity. Here is how he described the vote. “Allan and Barry voted to move because they have a proud vision of the future for our business. Charlie voted to stay because all he knows are cost accounting numbers and they told him to stay. Dave, all he knows is cheap. He is so cheap. Ellen is just a dumb woman who was brainwashed by Charlie and Dave.”

   He repeated this at least three times a week until October when I couldn’t take it anymore and told him to “Shut the hit up because I can’t take it from you anymore. All you do is repeat the same hiting crazy story hiting over and hiting over again for six months. Shut hiting up about it already.” Or something like that.

   He replied that he had a right to express himself. I replied, “ You’ve already hiting expressed yourself three times a hiting week for six hiting months, give it the hit up already.” Or something like that. He replied that I was too sensitive.

   Two weeks later I moved my desk to the other side of the office. Our desks had been contiguous.

   Isn’t that how BPD parents make us crazy. If they don’t upset us with something they say the first time, they don’t give up until they do upset us, and they turn everything we say against us.

   And, of course, he never mentioned the fact that I voted to stay. He only talked about the other five voters. That’s the way he always was. He pretended that I didn’t exist. If there were three people in the room, he would talk to the third person and ignore me.

   30 years ago, my best friends daughter was traveling home via Greyhound bus from the boarding school for troubled children she was attending. She traveled with a large group of boys and girls from the school.

   There was a really bad snow storm and the bus driver decided not to drive straight through and instead stop for the night. Her parents weren’t home, so she called me for advice. The first thing she asked me was, “Is this going to be my fault?” I really loved my friend and his wife, but they were such lousy parents they made their daughter crazy. They  made her worry about being blamed for the weather.

   As I have posted before, it is important for all of us children of BPD parents to understand, “It’s not our fault”, and that “We are okay; they are nuts.”

   

To livednlearned,

   Several months ago you asked me a question, “How did I find a normal wife?”

   I have been struggling to answer that question ever since. Upon reviewing this thread, I can begin to give you an answer.

   First, make sure you are NOT following a script. Don’t pick someone with any major hangups.

   Second, i have been told many times to avoid strangers, third party recommendations are the best.

   Third, what is the other person’s background? Will an ex-con stay out of prison and not be violent. Will a substance abuser stay on the wagon?

   Fourth, what is important to you? My cousin married a real nice guy. Everyone liked him, but he couldn’t hold a job, so she divorced him.

   Fifth, My wife and I have our minor hangups, so we just put up with them. For example, my office is a constant mess. My wife likes to watch TV in bed. I hate doing that.

   People have been trying to figure out how to make a perfect match between two people forever. Eharmony and match.com try to computer algorithms.

   Most of the time , I think the first recommendation is the best. Make sure you aren’t following a script. My cousin married and divorced two women who had the opinion that they were right and that was it. They wouldn’t budge. After the second divorce he realized with therapy that he was following a script.

Gloveman: Don't know whether you are still here, but I just read your post. Am relatively new here and appreciate your comments.

For me, the portion above relates to a thought I expressed in another post: that if I let go of feeling/thinking about my family members, past, and nearly everything related to BPD, there will be little left of me. My personal identity, memories, inner climate, responses to life, etc. are intimately connected to multiple caregivers and loved ones with BPD/other mental illness... . it feels to me like this pervades every aspect of my life, inner and outer.

I want to try living in the present but often don't know how. But your words help a lot. Thank you.

     Baberuthless I am still here. I just overcommitted my time. Now that that the spring semester is over, I have greatly reduced my commitments and will spend much more time here.

     I agree with you. Part of me is, "My personal identity, memories, inner climate, responses to life, etc.", but  those parts are the ones that also contain pain, anger, regret, frustration and, worst of all, negative introjects. Abandon those parts and what is left is the true you, not, "there will be little left of me." The little left is the true you with negative stuff shedded.

     My parents made fun of and made derogatory remarks for everything I did. Nothing positive was ever said. Since I worked in a family business, that gave my father and brother a chance to do their BPD thing for my entire career of 44 years. It is only now that I am retired that I am unencumbered by them and having to earn a living that I can develop my true self.

     Don't take as long to get here as I did.