BPDFamily.com

I have personally struggled with depression and anxiety throughout my life. I am now in my early twenties and have been in therapy for the past 3 years working toward a healthier life. At first, I worked primarily on good coping strategies and techniques to reduce symptoms. However, in the past few months, I have been working more intensely on the origin of my mental illness.

Through talking through the structure of my family and growing up, I have come to realize that my family is dysfunctional and that the dysfunction largely comes from my mother's behavior. As I have researched BPD, a lot of the symptoms seem to fit her behavior, just with a highly conservative and religious flavor. When my mom was unhappy, everyone was unhappy. I am the fourth born of six kids, and by the time I was born, my mother was already overwhelmed with life (my dad was present physically, but not emotionally in my childhood). As a result, most of the attention I received was when I was "misbehaving"(positive reinforcement was nonexistent). Most of my mother's punishments were cloaked with religious overtones. Anger was always considered sinful, and expressing boundaries or self-advocating was selfish (I was called selfish and unforgiving on a regular basis throughout childhood). My mother always had to have the last word, saying that, as a mother, it was her right.

I remember when I was about 6, my family was eating in a restaurant, I was acting out. My mother pulled me into the bathroom, sat me down, and said, "you have a choice: you can behave and your heart will be white, or you can misbehave, and your heart will be black." At 6, all this meant was heaven or eternal damnation. I still struggle to get out of this all-or-nothing mentality.

When I reflect on these experiences, it is easy to look at it and call it unhealthy and dysfunctional. However, in some ways, my childhood wasn't terrible--I was provided for and did hear that I was loved (just not enough to outweigh other things that I was called). When I think about all that my mother has done for me (of which she continually reminds me), I get confused. When she does things to express her love, it feels less like love, and more like gaining control. It doesn't feel good. This is a really hard thing to admit.

For the past two weeks, I have completely cut my mom out. I had a severe depressive episode, largely induced by the dynamics of our relationship. At this point, I need to focus on just staying safe and being healthy, and every time I interact with her, I get severely depressed. This is sort of a turning point for me. This is the first time that I have recognized exactly how dysfunctional things are, and that I no longer want to live in this pattern. I hope to be on speaking terms with my mom again, but this time with healthy boundaries and a strong sense of self. I don't want to get pulled into her world anymore.

I am scared to post this because I am worried that my experiences don't count or are not "bad" enough to qualify as abuse. However, I have experienced a lot of pain from this relationship, and I hope you can accept me into this "family" in a time when it feels like I have lost my own.

Hi thefourth! 

I see a lot of similarities in your story with my own. My mother wasn't extremely abusive either, mostly emotionally and verbally, and it wasn't until I reached my early 20s that she really started to rage at me. Before that she would rage at my stepfather. I can't speak for everyone here, but I think you're absolutely welcome in our family. Abuse, whether it's physical or mental, is still abuse and can have lasting effects.

I really feel like I understand what you mean though. I often feel guilty or ungrateful for being sad or upset about my childhood, because I never really went without. I never went hungry, I always had clothes on my back, a roof over my head, etc, but the lasting effects of being constantly criticized, ridiculed, invalidated, and screamed at have really took a toll on my mental well-being. I'm sure this is true for you as well.

I'm also on my second week of no contact with my mother. I started therapy last week after facing the painful reality of my mother's mental state and I plan on slowly trying to salvage the relationship with healthy boundaries, just like you described. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you're not alone and your experiences do qualify as abuse.

I hope you find some peace in the relationship with your mom! 

Hello, thefourth. You are definitely welcome and you are definitely not alone. I have a similar BPDm, but the hippie organic kind. It took awhile (30 years!) for me to admit to myself her behavior was abuse too because of constantly being called ungrateful, among other things. We had food to eat and a house and my mom was high-functioning. The fits she threw behind closed doors were all so crazy-making that I couldn't comfortably say I was abused. I now feel like this type of abuse is in some ways more insidious than physical abuse, because you don't have a cigarette burn scar to point at and say, "See?" It's all internal scarring, and it hurts just as much. But please don't lose hope, you are on your way to feeling much better. It will take awhile, a long time, but I can tell you it definitely gets better. I was in a very dark, dark depression for a long time, and though I'm still sad and angry, those feelings don't consume my life at all the way they used to. I'm still working on it. You seem very self-aware and I just want to say that you will notice things getting better soon, but it's a lifelong process. You are grieving; you are doing hard work! Keep your sense of humor at all costs.

I noticed this quote on the Internet the other day and I'm pretty cynical about sappy inspirational quotes but I like this one: "Everything will be all right in the end. If it's not all right, then it's not the end"

thefourth,


Many of us feel this way.  You are very welcome here.  I and totally NC with pretty much all of my family, save a few very loose interactions on Facebook with younger cousins who didn't understand what the "grown ups" were doing when I stopped contact at 19. 

The more I am on here, following my breakthrough crisis of finally admitting I was angry at my mom and dad (both diagnosed manic-depressed / bi-polar yay! ) for how they treated me, and working through that, I am learning that the instance of unequivocal abuse - beatings and such, were not really overall the most damaging.  The inconsistency, the easy anger and rage, and the covert sexual abuse (I cried when I read the hallmarks of that - I'd been big about saying, "at least I wasn't sexually abused" and then I read that well, shucks, they managed that too, without even touching me), and mostly neglect were a big part of what hurt me.

I often got in trouble at school from 1st grade - 6th, and was told a lot buy teachers I must be doing it for attention.  Mostly, it was for talking too much during lessons.  This was really confusing for a kid, because in my mind, if I was doing something bad, why would I want anyone to notice it?  But I think because at my house, I was to not be seen or heard until asked to do something, the stimuli of being with other people (I was an only child, in a state far from any family, and not allowed friends.  It was me, mom, and dad.  And my beloved cat who was the sanest of all of us.) just put me in hyper-active overload.  People!  To talk to! To acknowledge my existence!  To play with!  Then came the years where I was showing signs of abuse at home, but had been trained to lie about it so big bad CPS wouldn't take me away.

And, Dad, too, had a religious fervor, which I am sad to say, has me never wanting to talk to him, ever, since he kicked me out at 19, partly because i know based on one section of scripture he will determine himself blameless if he can just approach me and "ask forgiveness".  He'd repeat this section over and over a lot, to explain away fault for anything, because once he asks, in his mind he's scott free.  I don't want him to have that.  Petty of me, but he was particularly vile from age 14 on, and it's nothing like most people can imagine.  He was insidious, manipulative, controlling, and a sociopath I think killed my cat because he was getting remarried and my step mom refused animals in her house.  He told me the cat's death was my fault.  I believed him for years until I had to take another pet to be put down for a stroke, and realized, finally, his story was a lie. 

Anyway, I've never seen anyone on here judge a poster because their story wasn't "bad" enough.  And like I said, the quiet neglect was in many ways worse than being openly beaten and later begged for forgiveness.  The nelgelct told me I wasn't worth the time or effort to have a parent, and that hurts a child a lot more than anyone could realize.

I am sorry ou had to find this board, but it's good you are here.  It's a good place to find some validation of your experiences and to find tools for healing.

one more thing - it's okay to be NC (no contact).  If you had a boyfriend or girlfriend treat you even 1/10 of the way a pwBPD can do, no one would blink an eye when you say, "I need to stay way from and out of contact with that person - s/he is toxic and hurts me badly."  DNA does not make strong family relationships - how you are and were treated does.  If someone abuses you, you are not obligated to allow them to continue.