BPDFamily.com

Hello everyone! I've recently come to realize with the help of a talented therapist that my mother had BPD. So does my sister. And my father is a narcissist.

As you might assume, this has been a little overwhelming and heart breaking for me. At the same time, I feel liberated from their dark controlling world view in a way that brings me hope. But I could use support and guidance as I navigate my way to a healthier support group in my immediate community.

At the moment, I'm still struggling to even see the myriad of ways in which my mother's BPD affects the way she interacts with me.

Also, I don't know know how to express the reality of my family to friends. The fact that I am virtually without emotional support from my family is something that other people can't really understand and don't seem to quite believe. This is likely in part because I downplay my family's dysfunction out of self-defense, fear that people will reject me if they know how devoid of empathy my family is. However, the lack of acknowledgment from my friends regarding the emotional desert that is my family is not good for my sense of isolation.

So, here I am, internet, looking for help.

All the best,
ednastvmillay

Hi ednastvmillay,

Welcome to our online community

I can relate to feeling overwhelmed after coming to these realizations about your family. Do you still get help from that therapist?

Many of our members know what it's like to have BPD family-members and will be able to relate to you, I know I do! I think it's great that you've taken this step and hope that participating here will help break your sense of isolation. It can indeed be difficult discussing these matters with people who don't understand what it is like living in a dysfunctional family and/or who are unwilling to admit it.

You describe your family as an emotional dessert, could you tell us a bit more about the dysfunction in your family? What are the behaviors that you find most concerning or difficult to deal with?

Take care

The Board Parrot

Welcome ednastvmillay:   

I'm so sorry about your disordered family.  I think that most people who have a normal family, can't relate to what it is like to have a relative with BPD or NPD.  It has to be very tough for you to not have any emotional support from your family.  Do you have a good friend who can give some level of emotional support?


All of the communication skills and techniques offered on this website are helpful to use in everyday life with friends, co-workers and others.  Are you able to share some of your mom's behaviors that are the most bothersome?  If you can share more detail, we can suggest some specific lessons.  There are several links to the upper right of this post.  I'm sure you will find some helpful information there.

The links below will lead you to some of the common tools that most people find useful.  (Note: click on the green words.  Some of the articles have multiple pages)

BOUNDARIES (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=61684.0)

AVOID CIRCULAR ARGUMENTS  (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=118892.0;all)

VALIDATION - DON'T INVALIDATE (http://www.eqi.org/invalid.htm#Two out of three ain't bad)

VALIDATION (https://bpdfamily.com/content/communication-skills-validation)

This link to information on self-validation skills might be helpful to you:
https://www.nvpsychology.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Self-Validation-Skills-2013-Fruzzetti.pdf

Hello Parrot,

Thank you for your prompt welcome!

I am still working with my therapist. I see her once a week. She's been helping me to work through some of the dysfunctional beliefs I've inherited or learned from my family. For example, I fear being vulnerable because my NPD father berates me for any expression of sensitivity. And I've internalized some of my mother's intense fear of rejection. I'm coming to realize that I bounce back quite quickly from rejection.

My therapist and I are also working on my sense of freedom from having to act within the boundaries my mother tries to impose. My mom makes it seem like she'll just melt away and die if I don't put on the front she wants. She's so afraid of the family seeming abnormal to the outside world. But the irony is that she is much odder than I. But it's been so strange to realize how powerful the idea that she will almost literally die if I don't obey her or that she will sink into a deep depression if I don't contort my life to please her. But I'm watching her survive just fine while I assert my independence.

As for my family being an emotional desert, I cannot seek emotional support from my family. I can talk to them if I feel strong and approach with the attitude of reporting about my life, from a place of self-assurance that my choices are valid. But if I am sad, or unsure, they warp the situation, manipulate me, or just plain could care less. My father lashes out at me or relishes my weakness when I am vulnerable or if he hurts me. My mother has no sense that she has any control over her life, so her advice is ultimately very depressing. And she resents any healthy romantic relationships I develop and actively encourages me to pursue dysfunctional relationships, for a reason I cannot understand at all. Also, my mom has largely abandoned me. She hasn't visited me in about ten years, although I am expected to visit her. She virtually never initiates contact with me. She sometimes forgets my birthday. I think it's her fear of rejection that keeps her from making the effort to connect with even her own daughter. She is the hermit type. And my sister lashes out at me constantly. She sees the tiniest of disagreement, about something even so impersonal as whether it is too hot or too cold in a room, as a huge personal affront and will attack me. It's happened so many times, and the rollercoaster became so exhausting, that I have all but cut off contact with her. There's no point. And frankly, she doesn't care what's happening in my life anyway. I graduated from law school a few years ago, and she never once offered her support during that incredibly challenging time. Same deal after a very hard and disruptive breakup I went through a year ago.

And so I'm left feeling pretty much adrift from my family. I fully realized that my father has NPD about a year or two ago and went through a phase of grieving and intense anger and stopped looking to connect with him on any truly heartfelt level. Then I accepted that the rollercoaster I was on with my sister had no end in sight, and got off that ride. So, I had been holding on to my relationship with my mother, my last true connection.

But my therapist has guided me to see the ways in which my mother is emotionally neglectful, mean, controlling and imposes a worldview that is not serving me. So, I've started disconnecting from her, too. And I've noticed that I feel better. My perspective is more positive, mature, pragmatic. It's good.

But I feel like I have no real family. I've been going on a lot of dates since my breakup last year, and people always ask if I'm close to my family. And what can I say?

I'm rambling to an extent. But I'm struggling to figure out what to do with this family dynamic. Am I really that alone? Did any of them ever really love me?

I may sound melodramatic, but it's a serious question.

Thank you, Nibbler! Checking out your links.

What brought you and Parrot to this site?

It can be difficult to juxtapose the fear of rejection while trying to gain emotional independence.  How long have you struggled with being invalidated and feeling that you're told how you should feel?  Probably like forever,  yes?  It sounds like your dad certainly told you verbatim. 

I'm glad that you are seeking professional advice. No one should have to go this alone.

To answer your question to the others regarding our backgrounds, I'm  currently in NC (no contact) with my mother due to criminal accusations of elder abuse she made against me and her grandchildren. 

Hi Turkish.

You are so right. It's very challenging. I was raised not to bring private matters outside the home. That's also a product of my Upstate New York Yankee (i.e. American-English, not the baseball team) ethnic norms. So, it's hard for me to talk about my family problems with friends. Well, I can talk about them, but to seek actual support, to be that vulnerable, is very hard for me. The message I received growing up was self-reliance, especially emotional self-reliance, is essential. I mean, it was absolutely necessary that I remain emotionally self-reliant in my childhood home. There was no true empathy or understanding. That's a tough habit to loosen up.

The invalidation thing is something I am still learning to recognize. I've been told how to feel and who to love since a young age. My father even sent the message that I shouldn't need friends when I was a teenager, that socializing is a distraction. My mother tried to teach me that I shouldn't help people because I am too weak and must focus all my energies toward my own survival. That always confused me. Finally, I understand that's a stark reflection of her pathology.

At the same time, emotional independence is difficult for me in part because I tend to isolate, to an extent. I only let friends in so far. And then sometimes I rely too heavily on my partner for support. Then again, my ex boyfriend told me the latter and he was diagnosed with NPD. That painful relationship was what sent me on this journey of self-discovery and therapy.

I am so sorry about your mother. How are you coping with NC? Do you have a strong support system?

My support system are those who have known me for 30 years,  witnesses to "back then."

I've detached.  I detached long ago,  in a sense. 

You have something a bit different,  the guilt laid upon you by family,  which is very difficult.  You're not alone.  Take a look at this discussion:


Understanding The Narcissistic Family System  (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=108970.0)

You're welcome :)


The question of love is a diffiuct one when it comes to personality disorders. Perhaps it not that they do not love you, but because their unstable sense of self and distorted thinking and perception, they might find it very difficult to express any love they might feel in a loving manner. As a result their love might not feel very loving at all.


I have an (undiagnosed) BPD mother and an older BPD sister and also a brother with strong narcisstic traits. What specifically started my search for answers was an incident on Mother's Day six years ago. I experienced a double 'Witch' attack in which both my mother and sister started raging and spiralled out of control. After that incident I started looking for information and when I read an article about BPD everything fell into place. I finally had a name to describe what I had been through. It felt liberating like you describe but also very surreal to read an article by someone who I had never met, someone who had never met any of my family-members, yet who very accurately described things that could have been directly based on my own family and experiences. Reading the artcile was also very validating because it confirmed that there was indeed something very wrong with my fammily-members' behavior as I had always believed. It also helped to realize that I was not alone and other people have had these experiences too. Though it is sad of course that so many people, so many children have had to deal with this. It is what it is though, we cannot change our past what we can do is work on healing ourselves here in the present.