BPDFamily.com

I grew up with an uBPD mom, but I didn't realize that she wasn't "right" until my mid- to late- '20s.  My father traveled a lot when I was growing up and was gone half the time.  I have no siblings so when my mom experienced one of her rages, she would take it out on me.  I quickly learned that the best thing to do was stand there and take it.  If I tried to respond or fight back, it just made things worse.  Sometimes, I would stand there for 1 or 2 hours, waiting for her to finish her rampage, just listening to all of the things that I had allegedly done wrong.  As I'm sure many of you can relate, I was often blamed for things that I had nothing to do with and were completely out of my control.

Now, I've found that I don't know how to fight or defend myself.  I've been working on it in my personal relationships but it's impacting my work performance too.  If given time to think about it, I can put together a compelling and thoughtful argument, but I absolutely can't do it on the spot.  I literally become a deer in headlights - just like when I was a kid. 

Has anyone else experienced this?  Any tips on how to overcome it? 

You know, a few years ago when I went to a basic class to learn how to shoot a pistol I was very nervous because I'd had never so much as held one before. But the instructor put me at ease telling me that it is a*good* thing that I was coming to a class without any experience because I had no bad habits to unlearn. So start off thinking about arguing that way. So many people argue by getting nasty, name calling, and screaming their points at the other person because that is how they learned to argue growing up and it is a very hard thing to unlearn. So start from a place of appreciating that behavior like that doesn't ever need to be your style.

A good place to start us just learning how to make "I feel" statements. Instead of seizing up when an argument comes up, work on simply talking about what you are feeling about the argument. This is a good way for you to learn to talk at all in an argumentative situation. I think healing to the point of being able to effectively argue back is going to be a process and something you will need to take one step at a time.

Hi sad4mydad

I understand where you are coming from.

Something that is important to me personally is the idea of duty. I never had a problem standing up for someone else, but somehow I was not so good at doing that for myself. You might call it a protective streak. I had it in me to stand up, but why didn't I do this for myself? At some point I realized that I was protecting the person who was antagonizing me from myself. That somehow I had turned this ability to assert myself inward, and held myself back. I managed to find the drive to change my behavior by seeing this as a dereliction of my duty to myself. I had a job. To protect myself, and I was failing it. To not hurt someone else's feeling, to avoid conflict, these things were secondary to this sacred duty.

It was a step in the right direction.

Whatever you do, it's always a process, a trial and error, doing by learning. It took me a couple of years to really find my way.

Learning how to be assertive is the way to go on this one. Assertiveness isn't about "fighting" per se... it's more about standing up for yourself... kind of like the psychological equivalent of "self-defense"... you don't start the argument but you know how to deal with it if it does arise, that kind of thing basically.

There's a book called "When I Say No, I feel Guilty" by Manuel J. Smith. There's also courses on assertiveness training that you can do. A course is actually a good idea because you need to practice assertiveness techniques over and over again to get the hang of them and a course would provide you a "safe place" to do this and then you could try them out in your actual life i.e. in your relationships, at work.

There are threads here on DEARMAN-it's an assertiveness technique to get what you want or to say no to someone. There's a main thread on it in the workshop section and then there are threads where people give examples of how they're using it in their own lives.

Mine is a little unorthodox

When I was 16 my mother was raging at me about something I can't remember and I lost my temper for the first time ever. I was unloading the dishwasher and I threw a plastic cup in my mother's face which chipped one of her teeth. She has since made out that I'm some sort of criminal evil person and for a while I really believed it even though I'm not an angry or violent person, I've never hurt anyone before or since. When I went to college I told a therapist about it while in tears I had repressed the experience so much but he surprised me with his response. He said she'd been hitting me since the day I was born and I had reached breaking point so I had hit her back.

When I had done that I had considered running away from home but I managed to stay at home for another two years to finish my exams before promptly leaving home and healing from their abuse.

For me my fighting impulse came from the moment I picked up that cup to defend myself because often BPD children turn aggression towards themselves, I chose myself and my own life which in some ways is a miracle. I've never stopped defending myself from her verbally and physically from that day on because creating a good life for myself and the people I love is so much more important.

I learned how to constructively work through conflict through my career... .both in real scenarios and through leadership classes. My mother uses the silent treatment to punish and won't work through issues in healthy ways.

SET and DEARMAN (Communication tools (SET, PUVAS, DEARMAN) (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=69272.0)) are both good tools to use in just about any situation of conflict or disagreement. I use SET all the time--when dealing with my mother and in countless other situations. "When you do XXX, it makes me feel YYY," type statements work well too.

How do you feel about conflict in general? Does every disagreement mean that someone's right and someone's wrong, or is there usually room for negotiation?

That is a really interesting take on it!  I think it has a lot to do with personality. 

My brother sounds a lot like you - I  bore the brunt of my mom's BPD rage, but of course he was affected.  He is a very laid-back person who doesn't like to rock the boat.  I have a rather strong, demanding personality and I am quite sure that is why we clashed growing up (and still do).  My brother is forever branded "sweet" and I am "difficult."  He would do much the same that you would do and still does - takes it, because that's how he learned to survive.  My dad, too, actually.  He just takes it.  He just lets her get over it and then he moves on.  I argue and get into it with her (not so much anymore - I avoid like the plague, but in the past). 

Many, many thanks to all of you for your responses.  I definitely believe that there is room for negotiation in arguments and rarely see things in black & white. I already use a lot of statements such as "I feel this way" or "when you do x, i feel y" so it seems like I'm off to a good start.  And I think "assertiveness" is definitely more of what I'm looking for as opposed to fighting.  I just want to figure out how to stand up for myself and protect me.  I'm definitely going to look into DEARMAN. 

Truly - thanks to all of you!  I feel hopeful :)