Keeping a journal of actions and feelings

[Enoughforme]

Does anyone else keep a journal of words and actions of your BPD parent? Suddenly things get quiet for a day or week and the fog for me rolls in  that I  can not remember all the actions or hurtful words and actually start feeling sorry for my mother( She is mentally ill) that I get pulled in that it is my fault. That is when I re-read some of the passages and then remember wait a minute it is not me. I do feel guilty ( I am the poster who is legally evicting her parents out of the house)  She is 64 years old and my father is 67 -she spent all the 401K money and they do not have a lot but is that really my fault. I begged my Dad a few times not to sign the papers but we all do want she wants to avoid the upset woman who verbally and mentally abuses us if and when she does not get her way.

Personally for me I feel as if her BPD intensified after I had a child to the point of that I have lost all feelings for her except pity. Did this life event change any of your mothers- After having a child of your own or do you think it was age? Maybe I just see clearer now that I have a children of my own.

What are your thoughts ?

[zone out]

Hi Enoughforme

Interesting points ... .I too kept a record for a while on the calendar - variations of smiley and cross faces.  When I looked over the month it certainly made me realize why often I just don't know what way is up!  Her moods were all over place.

As regards having your own children, my mother was over the moon at being a granny and indeed she was a very good if somewhat indulgent granny to my children but I can remember racing off to casualty with her on several occasions with a very tiny baby in toe.  I think the 'normal' part of her was really excited but on another level she was jealous that my attention was well diverted away from her and I was not as available to her - this was a type of attention seeking.   Now my family are no longer children she no longer has children to distract her from 'some' of her woes and acts as if she has lost something - where has all the time gone etc.

She suffers from empty nest syndrome much more than me - I just want them to live their own lives.

Zone out

[Kwamina]

Hi Enoughforme,

While growing up I didn't keep a journal but after I moved out I started writing down all the things I experienced with my BPD mother. When you only go through things in your head it's almost like your own mind can fool you into thinking things aren't really that bad at all. But when I read back the things I've written down I always realize just how disturbed my mother really is.

[Calsun]

Hi Enoughforme,

It sounds like a really great idea, keeping a journal of the experiences.  I am finally assimilating after years of abuse, family denial, invalidation of reality, playing the scripted scapegoat role in the system, that my uBPD mother is deeply disturbed and mentally disorganized and that the family system that sought to close ranks around that reality is likewise. Given that reality was such a casualty of an Orwellian family system, it's great to commit it to written history and reinforce the reality of how extreme and dysregulated it really is, not just the BPD mother, but the whole family system, everyone, father and siblings, who covered it up and sought to destroy and discredit the witness who gave testimony to it.

Best,

Calsun

[tryinghard2012]

I keep an email folder of all of the crazy making and events, as well as a living document to track her episodes. It also comes in handy when she denies her past behaviour. No kids yet of our own but her other kids have children and while she over indulged them with gifts she could not afford she also split them black and white as young as toddlers.