BPDFamily.com

I thought this was an interesting finding:

However, the “narcissistic wounds” mental pain subtype, which measures the experience of rejection and loss in conjunction with a devaluation of the self, was the only subscale that was associated with BPD status and severity of BPD symptoms, independent of depression status or severity.

It confirms my suspicion that my mother’s BPD symptoms were caused by my grandmother, who was shall we say, “maternally challenged” and no doubt emotionally neglected her children. I can only assume that she in turn was emotionally neglected by her own mother, who was probably neglected by hers, and so on and so on.

https://bpded.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40479-016-0036-2

Lack of self worth (unlovability?) Is a core wound in pwBPD. How far back can we trace intergenerational trauma?

My mom's dad and family emigrated from Australia to Canada in the early 20th Century. My mom learned that his mother never liked her son and returned to Australia by herself. He was a child beater and molester (child-rapist, let's call it like it is). Though my mom's T thought he was BPD, that was likely the most benign of what he was. When he married in the 1930s, my mom's maternal grandfather refused to attend the wedding such was his visceral disdain for his SIL. I saw the wedding picture. My mom's father looked... off. Who knows how the maternal family was?

My brother from another mother's mom I thought was mostly great. Yet I witnessed as a teen her periodic one sided yelling and berating of his passive father. He was and is a decent guy, but very passive. Their daughter who was difficult and moody from birth turned out dBPD (and depression, anxiety), with a history of dysfunction, 2 failed marriages (with mutual abuse and cheating) and similar boyfriends. When we brought S13 to see them, she said, "I don't do babies," meaning that she didn't even want to hold him. She lost her father young due to alcoholism.

My BFAM once hinted that he thought his mom might be BPD. Even so, now past a few years, she was helpful to me more than my own mother to send me in my way into adulthood, but her daughter was a mess and the same daughter told me years ago that she begged her mom to send her to therapy but she wouldn't.

Though not my favorite person, I'll give my ex credit for realizing her trauma and working on herself vis-a-vis our kids.

To me, it is an endless circle, turning around with the rise and collapse of empires and societies.

The only reason we are able to be emotionally present to our children right now is that we are not in survival mode. We have a safe society holding us, that was built on the blood and sweat of ancestors who didn't have the luxury to be emotionally present to their children.

In my culture anyway, the fact that we were conquered, the fact that the way of the culture of the land is so close in our history... It is quite clear that most women here share the same overfunctionning tendancies. My grandmother had 11 children. Her husband was gone all of winter in the woods for work and only came back in the spring, when they'd work the land. They didn't have a lot of money, it was survival. My grandmother had to take care of the children, the animals, tend the fire, cook, clean, make the clothes...children were loved, but above all they were cheap labor. The oldest did not attend school, she had to raise her brothers and sisters. My mother was one of the youngest, there wasn't a lot of space left for love when she was born. It was competition for attention, and work, work, work. Because what they planted is what they ate. No culture, no food. Because a dead cow will hurt the survival of your family, you tend to that cow as a priority, it is how, in the end, you are tending to your children, ensuring they eat well. And maybe, just maybe, one of them will make it to school and becomes a lawyer or a doctor.

If you think about it, imagine a collapse of our society and being without food for three days : you will enter survival mode. Not sure how much time you will have to take care of your children emotional needs. You will want to put food in their mouth first.

Nature is brutal. It is easy to look at it from our standpoint and say : ha it's because they didn't love their children enough. But it is hard for us to imagine how it was for them to live in a world where it was survival of the fittest. We talk a lot about the communities, how they would be together and party on Friday nights, dreaming about how good it must have been. But it was hard, and cruel. There was communities : communities struggling for survival. Being closed to your neighbors family was the difference between life and death during hard winters.

I don't care much where BPD and NPD comes from anymore, I mostly care about how it affected me, and where it left me, and what I should do about it knowing how fragile the balance of our society is. I don't want to raise "weak" children either who are only turned inward. They should also worry about the good they put out in the world, not just how the world affects them and their emotional ego.

We are lucky that we live in a society that even allows healing to begin with... I don't think people in the sweat shops of developing countries are emotionally aware and healthy...

We are in a period of healing intergenerational trauma, with psychologists and experts... Only because our societies can afford it... Because our ancestors couldn't and spend their lives trying to survive.

It's human history to carry trauma and seek to heal it, to make it easier for the next generation. Until a generation wants to take it all for themselves because they are used to richness. Then there is a collapse, and it starts all over again.

The best thing I can do is look at myself and try to raise resilient, strong children that have the tools necessary to survive whatever struggles life will bring to them. Being emotionally present is important, but I don't blame my grandmother for not having been able to do it. Truth be told : in the conditions she was in, I'd not have done better than her. I also don't blame my mother anymore for what it's worth. She did try her best, and still does. It's just that I have to protect my children too, from the struggles of my generation (mental health crisis).

This is why BPD tends to be defined as behaviors outside of the norm for one's culture. It also tends to confuse immigrants. My ex came from Mexico when she was 11. "La Chancla" is a meme in that culture: a Madre throws her shoe at a misbehaving child, even upside the head. That's legal child abuse in most states. I've seen memes that poke fun at it  "beware of la chancla!"  (https://youtu.be/PSicdnahJ7o) And also the rare Latino who acknowledges that it isn't right. Yet that's how generations were raised as normal.

 lol Thanks for the laugh!


Very, very far back, apparently:  https://www.hfg.org/grant_summaries/determinants-of-infant-abuse-and-neglect-in-group-living-macaques/ (https://www.hfg.org/grant_summaries/determinants-of-infant-abuse-and-neglect-in-group-living-macaques/)

It takes so so much to break the chain of long term family dynamics. It's so worth it though, for ourselves, our children, our extended families.

Keep going, Couscous! (and everyone else)  |iiii

 :hug:
Wools

Thanks Wools!  :hug:

Thanks for the insightful cultural point.  Yikes.

Id like to add that, sadly, history is not always in the direction of progress and kindness.  Some politicians from a certain political background in the US want to bring Corporal Punishment (hitting) children back into schools.  Breaks my heart..
https://www..theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/31/us-corporal-punishment-missouri-highlights-practice