Invalidation of Reality

[Calsun]

There was no one in my family who clearly could mirror or validate the reality of my mother's BPD behavior and the damage that it caused.  My mother certainly could not remember doing anything abusive, and when I would try to get her to admit she had she would of course deny it and accuse me of being hateful and not appreciating anything that she ever did.  She would say:  I didn't do anything nice for you?  Or she would scream about it.  My father who enabled it would accuse me of being a flake.  My brother was the good child and so defended my mother.  My sister with all of her issues had been my one hope, but minimizes with statements like well, she's difficult.  When I tried to really get her to validate my reality, after really being serious about it, she responded with, wow you have a nice rug. Just too scary for her. Denial.

Perhaps, the most crazy-making part of having a uBPD mother was the denial built into the system and the lack of validation from anyone in my immediate or extended family.  Being alone with this and having been labeled as being hateful towards my mother whenever I tried to discuss this and get validation in my home, led me to feel like the bad person she said I was. And I struggle with holding onto my reality and the pain and loneliness of having my feelings and reality invalidated. 

Can anyone relate to the pain of being invalidated and how to stop wanting so much for validation from family incapable of giving it.

Calsun

[Up In the Air]

Wow. This speaks volumes to me. My husband, who's mother is BPD, would totally relate to you and I must say it's been so strange to watch their family interact. Until I came along, no one would really say or do anything against her. They just shuffled any feelings under the rug and let her dominate all.

I think there's something to the fear that the BP places on other people in her life that seems to consume them. It's so completely difficult to remove oneself from that position, find a steady ground, and truly come to terms with what is/has happened.

My husband's grandparents (maternal) are the only ones who have stood up for him and even then they were punished and since have backed down. They love him, they understand his need for NC, but they love their BPD daughter too. I said something about it in the one time therapy session with his mother and I thought she'd transform into the Hulk by the look on her face. It was kinda scary.

I think a lot of family members hear about it, will acknowledge it to some degree, but I think a lot of people find this kind of mental illness to be so frightening they'd rather deal with the monster than deal with the backlash of shining the light on the real issues. Causing fear seems to be key for the BP. It's as if they're saying, 'No, don't take my power away, don't shake my world apart, this place is working for me. This is all I know to do.'

My husband would love for his younger sister to validate him and for both his parents to own up to the real issue at hand. This is something he struggles with, but he's come to terms with it in the way that he feels waiting for them to acknowledge the abuse, hurt, pain, is waiting for a train that won't come. He's said he wants to move forward with his life, which is hard when ends feel loose. He focuses on the fact that he isn't crazy, that it did happen, that the lie they are living is the jail and that he's truly the one who is free. Freedom to feel what he wants, freedom to be acknowledged by the healthy people in his life and to trust his feelings, and the freedom to be away from the enabling, manipulation, and condemnation.

The truth is Calsun, you're in a position of power because you've taken the steps to restore your life and your health. This, in a way, threatens those that aren't ready to face it. It forces them to take a side, to commit to one or the other. You know what happened and only you have the power to move yourself through the healing to the other side and the character building that takes place in between, well that's a blessing in itself. Just take it one day at a time and surround yourself with people, even though it's terribly hard to trust, who will love and support you.

[Calsun]

Hi Up In The Air,

Thank you so much for such a beautiful response.  I had interaction with my mother and sister, yesterday, that was very painful and brought me back to the feelings of being a lonely and abandoned child in that environment.

When you wrote:  "My husband's grandparents (maternal) are the only ones who have stood up for him and even then they were punished and since have backed down."

That feeling of having conditional support against the monstrous BPD is very painful.  I had a counselor in college who I really loved and felt safe with, and she left suddenly, and it felt like the world came to an end. Coming from my abusive family of origin,  I never quite got over that disruption in the building of a trusting relationship at that integral and very young time in my life. And even though she had legitimate personal reasons for having to leave, I felt confirmation of what the uBPD mother had taught me, that it was only your family that would stick by you. Boy, that's a distorted message.

"My husband would love for his younger sister to validate him and for both his parents to own up to the real issue at hand. This is something he struggles with, but he's come to terms with it in the way that he feels waiting for them to acknowledge the abuse, hurt, pain, is waiting for a train that won't come."

That's the abandonment.  I always felt like Jack Lemmon at the end of the China Syndrome.  I might be dating myself with that movie reference, but I always felt like they were waiting to gun me down before they would let me get the message out and before I would be truly heard and understood. That the message was too threatening to the BPD and too threatening to those in the family in denial, that they would assassinate my character rather than allowing me to be heard. But it's true, sadly the train won't come, and there is help and love and support and understanding outside of the bounds of the family.  I'm coming to understand that even though my mother did a powerful job of creating a closed world in which I would come to distrust the motives of the people who loved me outside of the closed family system and the authenticity of their responses, I am coming to trust in that again and break out of the BPD's distorted sense of reality.

Thanks again for the wonderful encouragement!

Calsun

[rise_up]

Calsun,

I experienced a lot of emotion and connection as I read your words.

Yes- I can certainly relate to the agonizing pain of feeling invalidated and being perpetually angered and disappointed with a family that just can't give it. This gives birth to an unbearable loneliness.

You make a very important point:

Perhaps, the most crazy-making part of having a uBPD mother was the denial built into the system and the lack of validation from anyone in my immediate or extended family. 

It's a system and cycle of denial and fear... . it sometimes gets so complex that enablers get involved. Similarly, my dad enables my mother's swings (he is so even keeled, that he wouldn't know idealization/devaluing if it smacked him on the face). my brother was also my one hope. but now he worships my father, so he is similar. he is also the 'good child' and takes my mother's side because he falls victim to her guilt trips. my sister in law doesn't know any better and follows my brother.

You have a lot of courage, Calsun. I'd encourage you to take your power back and not fall into trying to defend yourself. It is so incredibly draining. it almost feels as if you're not dealing with one uBPD... . but an entire army. That's when the invalidation of your reality starts making you feel like you are the crazy one. They are so afraid to look. Up In the Air summarized it well: "don't take my power away... . this is all i know to do".

surround yourself with a support group or a support network. i found it absolutely crucial to prevent myself from being isolated and just listening to my mother and family gnaw on my sense of self.

[DreamFlyer99]

Oh Calsun, how I relate!

The way it worked with my uBPD mother (who seems to have had Narcissistic traits as well) was that she simply rewrote history to fit how it would make her look. She could NOT look like a Bad Mother, "so let's just take out the parts where I knew my husband was abusing my daughter, and didn't protect her.THERE! i'm the Good Mother who was married to the Bad Father" ... . and initial. stuff like that. That's what was going on with my older sister, I was the "good child" which merely meant I was staying under the radar, trying to just go on with my lonely little life, trying to make people laugh even for a minute so they weren't mad/crazy/drunk/whatever.

And they can do things that can be viewed as "normal" only on steroids, waaaayyy over the top of normal! But the people in the household are so used to the kettle of water they're sitting in that's slowly coming to a boil, they don't even notice! or they're trying to make excuses for why they're still in the dysfunctional situation.

These people can bend our minds. Granted, it's a disorder, a mental health issue. But we have to take responsibility for keeping our OWN mental health intact, and that's not always gonna meet with approval from the other kettle-sitters.

Fortunately for me, my sister had a lot figured out long before I did, I was still trying to make my mother happy with me when my sister had long been NC. Our brother took NC to a whole new level and with no forwarding address  left the family altogether back in '89.

I hear ya on this one, it's difficult. But your first priority is to get and keep yourself mentally healthy. I know for me, I only realized the truth about my mother (AND my husband) when I was in a place to deal with that truth.

[ScarletOlive]

Calsun,

This is such a tough thing to go through. I understand. As a kid, I would fingerspell into my palm "I will respect my own reality," because I could not handle the twisting of reality that she would tell me. It is so hard to know that the grass is green and yet hear constantly that it is blue. For a person with BPD, they often experience reality differently because of their idealization and devaluation. With intense feelings, they see for instance a normal tone as threatening. This distortion of facts is used to build up something or tear it down. It's also discussed here in the article on BPD BEHAVIORS:Dissociation and Dysphoria.

If you have a therapist, it might be very helpful to just be able to explain your reality and be heard. Because, your reality is true. Do you have good friends in your life who can validate your experiences perhaps? The other thing that might help is writing down your truth. If you feel doubtful another day, go back and read what you wrote. That can help you trust yourself.

I know it's tough that your siblings and parents aren't validating. It's difficult to let go of that strong hope that maybe they'll come round. Radical Acceptance is one of those things that takes a long time to reach. But you'll get there. Keep believing in your own truths, Calsun, because they are the truth.

[StarStruck]

Hi Calsun,

I know exactly what you've been going through, I was on my own with invalidation feelings that I experienced when I was a teen onwards, my brother just did not see it. The parts that were obvious he would put down to a personality clash between me and Mom.

As life has moved on and my relationship got more and more distant, I used excuses not to be around for family gatherings, started hating them. I was leading my own life, growing into me.

Anyway to cut a long story short, when I was around less and less, my brother started seeing her for what she was. Do get me wrong, a miricle didn't happen, it took years or gradual learning on his part. (he didn't get as raw deal as I did growing up, he was the youngest).

It made me so happy. I

'm just letting him grow into this and think for himself, it's tempting to get on the band wagon 'see I was right afterall' but that would be no good... . I have realised he had to find his own way.

Shame it didn't happen earlier, could have done with the support. Funny how things work because it was when, in my mind I gave up wanting invalidation from him that he saw it for himself. This process for him has been going on 5 years now. By that time I didn't need invalidation because through plenty of reading I was 100% of the reality.

Your relationship with your siblings will change for the better, even if you only feel like the truth seeker at the moment.

Terrible analogy - but if you take your eye of the dogs poop for a bit, it still doesn't go anywhere and sooner or later someone else will notice it.

[bethanny]

What really stymied me was that my mother after tasering me with so much shaming and rage would later on act like it never happened.  There was no mutual "processing" of the attack, not even the barest acknowledgement of the attack, except when the next one occurred. That would pick up as if there never had been an interruption. Black and white. And when you were condemned in  her black mood and mode you, well, Lawson in her book calls it "annihilating" anger poured out and that hits the nail on the head. 

I think healthy relationships are not all walking on egg shells sustained niceness which I think many of us think we have to sustain when that is so not true and will end up giving us trouble.  But there has to be accountability. If you flip out on someone you owe them an apology and an explanation.  Pretending it never happened and intimidating them to is so unhealthy and also with my mother it meant triggering the same vitriol if I ever brought up her brutal words and behavior to me.  Denial and RAGE or on the other hand sometimes hysteria and sobbing and taking to her bed. That was when I was older.  That also discouraged truth and exploration as well.

best, bethanny