BPDFamily.com

Thank you God for Ativan.  Right now, its keeping me calm enough to not fight with my uBPD mother and uNPD stepfather. 

I've been living in their home since September 3rd.  The positive about this is that it's been an opportunity to revisit the family dynamics of my childhood with an adult brain.  The negative is that it's reinforced how poorly they treat me.  And, as when I was a child, I feel a sense of helplessness because I'm currently not financially stable and I need to be here. 

Abusers love victims like me.  I am realizing this.  My parents know I'm at their mercy, so they have no impetus to treat me well.  I don't want to be a victim, so I do now what I couldn't do as a child.  I detach.  I disengage.  I stay out of the house as much as I can.  I have, definitively, stopped seeking their love or approval.  I know I will never get this.  I am learning how to live without it.  My T said to me a few weeks ago, "Why don't you just ignore your uNPD?"  She was right.  Then she told me to ignore them both.  "They're not parents," she said.  She's right.  They're teenagers, engaged in their own co-dependency and addiction issues.  They can't give me what they don't have.  The very best I can hope for is peace - and by that I mean less or no fighting matches.  I have finally realized that you can't argue with insanity and so much has changed since that realization.  And, for right now, when my uBPD mother is really baiting me, and perhaps I'm PMS-ing, popping a 5mg Ativan is keeping me calm.  So, thank God for that.

My healing has begun.  Hurrah for me.  I've needed this.

However, I would like to share a few things that have been upsetting me and perhaps you can give me advice or another way to frame these things.  Since I've been here, my parents have made me feel like an inconvenience and impediment.  It was like this when I was a child, too.  Everything is "our house" and "our rules."  It's almost humorous how little room they've made for me and how little joy they have for me, except it can't be funny because it's too hurtful.  They've sequestered me to one room that they didn't even fully clean out.  I have, literally, one shelf in the refrigerator.  If my half and half ends up on the top shelf in front of the skim milk, it's pushed to the back.  My big, fluffy orange cat, the love of my life, had to have a lion cut (almost all of his hair shaved off) because my mother, suddenly (we had a cat when I was a kid?) is "allergic."

Yesterday, I brought home a straw Cinnamon-scented broom.  This morning I got a note on the kitchen table from my uBPDm that it was ruining her "vanilla and lavendar" scent (what? I haven't smelled that once since I arrived?)

When my stepfather buys groceries, he doesn't buy them for me.  When he gets my mom Dunkin Donuts on the weekend, there's none for me.  If I put two pairs of shoes near the door, I'll end up finding them in my bedroom.  My stepfather has said, perhaps, three sentences to me since I moved in.  He talks to my mother, but he doesn't talk to me at all.  If I try to mention this to my mother, she immediately invalidates my experience, "He's old."  "It's not that bad - you're being dramatic." etc.

So, I have come to one strong conclusion: my parents don't want me around.  Since they behaved this way when I was a kid, they probably didn't want me around then, either.  They are two sick, dysfunctional people that take no joy in me.  And, I don't deserve that at all.  So, as soon as I can get some money I am boogeying - but when it's good for me and I know that I'll be OK.  Until then, it's nice and polite and don't let them know what I think. 

But, I'll remember all of this when they get to the point they can no longer care for themselves (my stepfather has already indicated he intends to shoot himself - one can only hope :-) ).  I will remember that I have never been a joy, but rather a burden.  I will move on and I will have a happy and fulfilling life and maybe every once and then I'll visit my mom in the nursing home I plan to stick her in.

What I really need help with is - how do you get past these messages from your parents?  Are "normal" parents like this?  If not, what are they like?  How long does healing from this take?  What else can I do to encourage that healing to happen quicker - is that even possible?

Thanks in advance.

Jmanvo,

Not sure that this will be lots of help, but here's an idea. When I find myself in those constant, day to day, seemingly never ending moments that pull me down into despair and beating myself up, I've found that having a healthy mantra to say is huge! Did I say huge? :) It's a life saver to me! So you'll have to be creative and think up one or maybe others will put in their suggestions too. How about when they do something like put your shoes in your room you mentally say something like, "If they only knew what a wonderful person walks in those shoes, they'd realize what they are missing!" Or when your mom doesn't validate what you share or who you are, perhaps say to yourself "They are missing a wonderful opportunity to share in the life of their wonderful daughter." You'll have to remember a couple of healthy, uplifting, and self-validating mantras, but if you keep saying them to yourself, I think they really will help. It will take time, and for me it was several months of doing this that helped me to both believe it and to see that it set up a mental boundary for me of healthiness, giving me the choice to think something better than what others wanted me to hear and believe.

Woolspinner

Hi jman.  I like Wools suggestion about repeating a mantra over and over.  It really does help.  I find saying it out loud also helps me because I 'hear' it three ways: in my mind, in my muscles as I form the words and in my auditory system (I think self-talk is very important and that we need to be careful with the words we use to talk with ourselves too... .but I digress!)

After reading your post, I thought about it for a bit in terms of how best to handle the way they are treating you like 'an inconvenience and impediment'.  Perhaps reframing the situation to one in which you are a house guest might work.  I am sure the way they are treating you hurts (the shoe thing really got me in my gut) because how can parents do that?  Well, they are not 'normal' parents so normal rules and expectations do not apply here.  So maybe, as you function around the house, to make it easier for you, act as if you are a guest in someones house where you would not leave your shoes by the door and you would have your cat trimmed and keep to one shelf in the fridge, etc.  It will suck, but reframing it into a scenario where their expectations/behaviors are less personal and focused on 'how can my own parents do this to me' will, I hope, make things hurt a bit less.

I dunno jman.  It is BPD/NPD is such a malignant combination but you have to do what you can to protect yourself, reframe things and be like rubber so things bounce off.

Someone on the leaving board here yesterday posted a youtube video by this life coach guy.  I have been watching and listening to him ever since and his stuff is excellent.  He talks about NPDs and BPDs and there is an excellent video on a lot of other stuff that is very relevant to those of us here on this site and this board in particular.  His youtube channel is called SPARTANLIFECOACH.  One video is called "why your family hates you"---> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAnJp0qujZs

Warning... .he swears *a lot*   :)

So see how the above reframe sounds to you.  We can hash out some different options too.   

Jman,


                   I understand how you feel about the shoe thing by the door. Whats the big deal for them to leave them there.  You are living there. Its a sign you are home that you belong.  Its sounds like your mother has a problem with everything having to be as it was before you came and Im sure she was like this before you got there. There are a lot similar things going on for me as well right now with my mom and sister. There is a huge kitchen here where I live and there no place for me to put any of my kitchen things, like dishes for instance. They didnt even prepare a space for me.

My sister was more interested in taking all the cupboard doors off of ever cupboard, painting everything white and then making her own dish arrangement from old china that belonged to my Aunt. Its beautiful,  but there's no place for my things anywhere!  I checked the cupboards below, no, she got her own arrangements of dish wares down there too. There is no place at all for me. I have a stack of boxes full of my own plates and things, and beautiful dishes as well that mean a lot to me just sitting one of tables in the corner.  Nothing was said to me about it for a couple of weeks, until finally I did.  My mother is like oh we are going to put up cupboards up over there for you later... bla bla bla.   They are taking their sweet time.  Some things I just dont get. They knew I was moving there.  I was told this would be my own kitchen, yet my sister just couldnt help her self and had to make a display out of it . Her need to do this far out rode any consideration for me. Its caused me to feel like my things must be shete.  Not good enough, my things can be cast aside and left in boxes.   Like my things are junk to them.  I know this isnt true but its just another part of how I was disregarded when I was little. It brings back hurtful triggers.

                    As an adult I think this was one of the most selfish disregarding and inconsiderate things my sister could have done.  Not thinking once of how this was going to effect me. Like I dont have feelings, only she does. She doesnt live here but she thinks she owns the place. I have only come to the conclusion that people like this dont think. They are only concerned with their own immediate needs.  and do things like this unthinking all the time and they dont give it a second thought.   I took it real personally at first and I still do but Ive gotten to the point where I have got to understand that this is not about me.    This is my new matra.  It's not about me. <geeeze it sure as hell isnt!   lol  but seriously,  what I mean is that this is about her and her problems, it is no reflection of me at all. Im a beautiful person and I have beautiful things more then worthly of that kicthen. My sister is so unaware of what she is doing unless its about her, and its seems your parents are the same way. Knowing it isnt about me has helped me to realized that its not worth taking so personally anymore. Because its not about me. Its about them and their issues, and their blindness.  I can see and Im glad of that. I know what consideration is and its just sad for them and their own fault that they dont.    

Thank you everyone for the great insight and advice!

Goingtostopthis, I had to laugh ruefully in sympathy with your story here. It made me remember something that happened to me when I graduated college (I had paid my own way through) and got a great job and apartment - my uBPDmom drove the 12 hours to come visit me and bring me a piano my great-aunt was giving me, and during the first day she was staying with me, she rearranged all my belongings in my kitchen cabinets and drawers while I was away at work. Like, totally rearranged them; and these were closed cabinets, so it wasn't like it was for show. She just thought that for some reason it made sense for her to arrange MY KITCHEN the way SHE wanted it. A kitchen that she wasn't even going to be in more than once a year, if that often.

**headdesk**

Fortunately, I had enough confidence in my outrage at that point to calmly begin putting things back the way I wanted them, tell her it was my kitchen, thank you very much, and asked her please to ask first if she had any more helpful favors she wanted to do for me. She was offended, but I was past caring.

I'm so sorry for your experience. Having your adulthood/personhood be invisible and disregarded is the pits.