BPDFamily.com

Hey,

In a week, I'll be 26, and my life is a wreck.  I'd rather never speak to my mom again, but the guilt is destroying me.  Two years ago during a difficult time in my life, I attempted to confront her on a very uncharacteristic whim, and it backfired horribly.  I used to have some sense of myself that was separate from my mom, but I don't trust or love myself at all anymore.  I think I'm crazy, and I'm beginning to wonder if I have BPD now too.

  ashes to gold,

*welcome*  I'm very sorry you are in so much pain.  These relationships can really take a toll on us if we don't know how to protect ourselves.  I came to this site in a lot of pain myself.  I can tell you that it does get better.  We just have to be willing to do a little work.  Like you, I believe my mom has BPD.  It has been a huge revelation, and difficult to accept at times.  But it is not the end of the world.

Are you seeing a therapist, or do you have any type of support group?  There are a lot of people on here who will understand.  Has your mother been diagnosed?  I went through a period of no contact with my mom for several years, but we communicate now.  I didn't know she might have a mental illness then, I just know I needed some space from her.

How a Mother with Borderline Personality Disorder Affects Her Children (https://bpdfamily.com/tools/articles8.htm)

When a family member has BPD, the illness can negatively everyone in the family system, including children, siblings, and in-laws. Senior members on the [L5]  Coping and Healing from a BPD Parent, Sibling, or Inlaw (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?board=7.0) board are experienced with and can help you with setting boundaries, finding relief from FOG, encouraging self-care, improving your handling of relationships impacted by your BPD relative, and pursuing a path of recovery from traumatic experiences. The validation, information, and support will give you strength on your journey.

Phoenix.Rising

Hi ashes to gold,

I'm sorry that you are experiencing the pain you are. It's painful to have a mother who has the symptoms and characteristics of a person with BPD.  My mother is an uBPD.  One of the things that BP's do is to project parts of themselves onto their children.  It is very characteristic of someone with BPD to split, to project good things onto one child and bad onto the other.  That happened in my family.  And so the relationships among siblings is infected by the BPD mother.  

And it's hard to know where you begin and your mother stops.  BPD's like my mother are extreme narcissists.  When I was a child my mother would say that I was no longer a reflection of her, when she was angry with me.  She saw her children, their accomplishments, their behavior as reflections of herself.  And she was projecting all the time.  So, with that kind of parenting and that kind of mirroring, it is a struggle to develop a positive self-image and to really know who you are inside, to even feel like you are a person.  You are being projected onto and being taught that you are merely a reflection of this very ill and distorting person.

When I started to get help, my BPD mother would rage at me and call me a sicko and say that I really needed help because I was hateful of my own mother.  That's what they do.  Unable to get help herself, to recognize or acknowledge her extreme behavior and her severe emotional illness, she projected that onto me, and I took it in, questioned my perceptions, felt that I was in fact a hateful, sick person.  Not true.

Over time, with help I have come to understand that I am a good, loving, and lovable person.  I am an individual with special gifts and talents and have much to offer in the world.  I have a right to a full and happy life, with loving and healthy people who are close to me.  That has taken work, but I know that recovery from having been abused as a child by a BPD is possible.  One of the most liberating experiences is to finally know, to really know that what I was taught about myself by my mother was just so off and distorted because she was a borderline personality.  She was sick, she acted hatefully.  And she was unable to recognize that she had the problem that required help.  No matter how loud she screamed and raged, how violent her disposition became, no matter how cruelly she attacked me, the force of that violent personality could not change that reality.  It was merely testimony of it.

Best,

Calsun

Very good, Calsun!  |iiii

Hi Ashes to Gold,

Your post was so touching I really wanted to reach into the screen and give you a big hug  .  Sifting through the FOG can be next to impossible sometimes, but try if you can at all to maintain your grasp on reality.  Please take care of yourself.  If you need to go back to NC with BPDMom, do it for yourself.  The guilt can't hurt you (physically), but it sounds like BPDMom is pretty dangerous.

BPD is so rare, statistically speaking, you probably don't have it, but of course it's all of our worst fear having been raised by someone who does have it.  Do you have access to a therapist, councillor or psychologist at all?  Do you have any supportive family or friends? 

Wishing lots of positive thoughts and energy your way!