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I’m a 36 year old daughter of mom with uBPD, and a father who’s always been very enabling of her. I just got a text from my dad saying he wants to talk to me today, and what’s a good time to call. He never calls or texts just to chat or see how I’m doing; it’s always when he has an agenda.

My immediate reaction is feeling like I’ve been called into the principal’s office. Dread, anxiety, stress response activation, and resistance. I’m sure this comes from years of emotional manipulation and punishments that were always extreme.

Does anyone else have this same response to the “we need to talk” from parents? How do you temper your stress response and feel more in control again? I’m trying to remind myself that I am an adult in my adult body, and I can handle whatever it is that will come up. But it’s not helping as much as I’d like.

For me, I just realized that rationalizing the dynamics of my family, my deep relationship with them (the unconscious ones), understanding what is happening, their illness, the type of projections they put on me... It seems to help in giving strength to my "healthy adult".

The child I feel I am does not understand why my mother gets so mad, why she has those emotional outbursts... And because the child did not understand, and because I had never taken the time to explain to myself what was happening, I kept going back to this region of fear, guilt, confusion. The emotional trauma I had been through would get triggered, because I didn't understand what was happening.

Recently, I've really made a conscious effort to learn about BPD, to understand what happens, the source of the conflict between my mother and me... And I do feel more in control. I think that if she were to write me now, I'd still be triggered, but less... Because my adult brain gets it now, and knows it is not about me, and I did nothing wrong. Albeit I now know I cannot be in contact with her, for the sake of my family.

... I don't know if that makes sense, truth be told I am beat right now and need to go to sleep, but I really wanted to take a moment to answer your post.

 In the end : I think we are all here in search of an answer to the question you are asking.

Mindfulness, self-validation and self-compassion are also all great tools to deal with c-ptsd.

I really identify with this. In my case emotional manipulation and punishments came through my older BPD brother. Both my parents worked so we were latch key kids. He ruled the home and applied discipline in insane ways.

I did somatic experiencing therapy to try and help un-hijack my nervous system, and it has done a world of good. I'll probably continue to have tendencies to be wired for hyper vigilance, but when I feel scolded or "in trouble," even when receiving constructive criticism or something similar, my body is a lot less jacked up.

I went from a BPD sibling to a BPD marriage (since divorced). Then met and married a wonderful man who also has BPD in his family. His adult daughter has BPD and she texts incessantly. I would get texts from her that would in essence say she needed to talk to me about something.

Honestly, I couldn't handle having a texting relationship with her and had to become what my therapist referred to as digitally boring. I stopped responding immediately, and sometimes didn't respond at all. I am so repulsed by neediness to that extreme that it was hard for me to engage but I felt bad not responding at all so the compromise was emoji responses or something else non-committal. On my iphone I can leave canned responses to her text messages so began doing that and it seems to check the box of engagement without letting myself get hooked into something.

It's probably much harder to do with a parent. I don't have BPD parents but there is something dysfunctional in my family that I couldn't make right without really focusing on how my body was reacting to family dysfunction. When my dad got angry at me, even as a grown adult, it was like getting hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat. It would come out of nowhere and feel so out of proportion to what happened. I'm the least temperamental, least volatile, most accommodating, most tolerant and patient family member but I seem to be the one people liked to kick.

So I put all my efforts into feeling safe. If my family was going to be unsafe, and if they wouldn't or couldn't provide safety, it was up to me to make that happen. Safety first!

The somatic experiencing work must've helped because a few weeks ago I let down my guard and drank wine during dinner with my parents. Suddenly my dad had his metaphoric baseball bat out and I could feel the dread and panic rising. Out of nowhere, I felt this laugh come out of me. It was absurd what he thought I was guilty of doing.

I seemed to need a triple-pronged approach -- body-based healing, reading books (and learning here) and then lots of tiny little steps to practice new ways of being in relationship with disordered people.

How did you respond when your dad texted "we need to talk"? Do you respond immediately?
That's really sad he enables your mom instead of protecting you. My family is like that too. The most volatile person in our family seems to get protection   :(

Dad, the next time you "need to talk" to me, pick up the phone and call me.  You know when I work, right?  Don't do it during my work hours.

If I do not answer, it means I don't need to talk to you.

Dad, if we're being completly honest here, I think your text message is manipulating and cruel.  It hurts my body to receive these messages from you, as it triggers me to believe I've done something wrong.  I'm not saying this is your fault or anyone's fault, but if you want to understand me, how it feels for me to receive this text, I hope you'll take this the right way, the way I'm intending it, and to heart.

For now, because it doesn't feel safe to me to get these texts from you at this time in my life, I'm blocking your texts.  Thank you for understanding.

Too much?  Too little? :hug: just the right amount of self-love? :hug: zemara :hug:

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