BPDFamily.com

Is it possible for BPD to go undiagnosed for someone's whole life? I am beginning to see that my mother has behaviours that in my family have always been "normal", but the more I step out of the family, the more I realize that they are not. Some examples are:
- When I or one of my siblings does something she doesn't agree with or that makes her feel rejected she will talk to the other siblings about it and make allies. Then she will use that as an argument to plead her case, in the sense of "you know I talked to your siblings and they all thing you should..."
- When I set a boundary with her, she will first say "okay you don't have to be mad/sad" and then try and smooth things over. If that doesn't work she'll get emotional, start crying, go into the victim role, for example saying she regrets the past, that she is sorry for the mistakes she's made. Or she'll go into a defensive mode and get angry. In this way my boundary is disrespected even more.
- If people do not do what she wants, or if they don't hold regular contact with her, or if they even break off contact, she'll ruminate and talk about it for years.
- She's extremely sensitive to rejection.
- Sometimes, maybe once a year, she'll have a complete anger outburst and start yelling and screaming about something. She'll usually regret it the next day but seldom actually apologize.
- She criticizes my dad constantly, and if one of us sets a boundary with him or says something about his behavior she'll take sides against him immediately, even when we ask her not to.
- Things very quickly become about her. If I am upset and need space, it's about her. If I or one of my siblings is struggling with something, it becomes about her. I am moving soon and my mom is worrying about EVERYthing, even when I ask her to please back off. And of course then she takes it really personally, becomes upset and go into the victim or perpetrator role.
- If I make a mistake she will shame me and laugh at me, saying something like "Oh you didn't know that? But everyone knows that"

I guess I am realizing that in healthy relationships these are not "normal" behaviours. It's not normal to shame and blame others. I see a lot of the Karpman drama triangle behaviours happening. It's difficult because all my life this has been my "normal". I feel like I don't really have anyone to share this with currently, my family all still find it acceptable behaviour and I think most people don't know much about personality disorders, they see the behaviour and my think "wtf" but don't care much more about it. There are some people who have broken off contact with my mom though, probably because they didn't want to deal with their boundaries not being respected.

Maybe it's not BPD but at the very least it seems like some form of dysfunctional personality traits? It's difficult and maybe not really fair to "diagnose" someone else, but her behavior has had such a huge effect on my life that giving words to it helps me gain some perspective and distance.

It is certainly possible for BPD to go undiagnosed. It’s fairly new amongst the mental health community. Most aren’t really familiar with it yet. It’s very frustrating to know this, but it is what it is right now. Something that is coming to the surface is realizations about trauma within the mental health community. An umbrella for what we discuss here.

It sounds like your mom suffers from trauma, and that she has passed it on to you. What are your thoughts on that?

That seems very possible, yes. I have been processing a lot of deep-rooted anxiety and grief the past year and it is very likely that it's trauma that has been passed on, probably from both my parents in fact.

I suppose that trauma is a trigger for personality disorder? Or for dysfunctional behavioral patterns at least? Interesting that this is such a new finding.

I can definitely relate to you when your mom says, "Your siblings think you should..." do this or that. Until recently, I thought I was alone in that isolating experience. I definitely thought my siblings wanted me to change somehow. The difficult thing was that some of it was based in truth, and my mom would go to them and stir up feelings and they would be vulnerable with her, and then she would come back to me and shame me and tell me that "everyone thinks this about you". This I'm now recognizing, is not normal behavior. It is manipulative, and serves our mother's purpose of keeping us attached to her, aligned with her, and not with our siblings more so.

Thank you for your vulnerability! You are not alone.