Figurative Slap on Christmas Eve

[Is This Normal]

This story refers to finding out a friend is a pedophile.  I hope that is sufficient to protect the vulnerable.

Recently, I've been researching and reading up on Borderline Personality Disorder (I believe my mother has it). I've also been experiencing a flood of memories, including the following one which I had "forgotten," even though it happened just a few years ago. I now remember at the time telling myself that I needed to remember that this was why I limited contact with my mother. That even though I'd forgiven her for and processed events from my childhood, that she's still who she is and hasn't really changed. Nor has my FOO. As I look at it, I ask myself questions. Is it as crazy as I think it is? Am I overreacting? Was it just that the subject matter was really upsetting and not how my mother handled it? (pedophilia is not something that brings forth positive feelings in most). Or is it, as I thought at the time, evidence that my mother truly doesn't live in the same world I do and that I am right in thinking I need to protect myself from her, at least until I grow a thicker skin. This took place 3-4 years ago, on Christmas Eve:

My FOO and I - father, mother, older brother - were having dinner at a restaurant on Christmas Eve. My parents had driven up from their home to spend a few days with my brother and I. All well and good. Things are going pretty well, and I'm enjoying my meal and even their company. My mother turns to my brother and says, "C, did you tell your sister what happened to D?" D is a long-time friend of my brothers who he hadn't heard from in a while. My brother proceeds to tell me that he recently found out that D, someone that I also have known for many years and consider a friend, although not a close one, has been incarcerated for possession of child pornography. I am reeling and feel like I've been sucker-punched. It must show, because my mother, (looking happy, excited, delighted even?) says to my brother, "C, LOOK at her FACE!"

My brother apologizes for not telling me sooner. When I find my voice, I reassure him that it's ok, it's not an easy subject to bring up. I then express genuine concern for my brother's well-being in light of this very upsetting news. My brother says that yes, he's had a really hard time with it, and for a good two weeks after he first found out, was almost useless at work, because he couldn't stop thinking about it or concentrate. (for one thing, D used to work at my brother's workplace, so a lot of his memories of D are tied up with work). He goes on to share the reaction of the other friends who are part of that circle. All of them are understandably freaked out and at a loss as to what, if anything, to do.

Then, my mother starts in. She talks about how this is not the D that she knows. She references D splitting up with his last girlfriend who had teenage daughters. She is sure that D broke it off because of his "urges" and his desire to "protect" his girlfriend's daughters from them. This is sheer speculation, but she states it as if it's fact. For one thing, I'm not even sure who initiated the break-up. She then goes on to say that she really feels for D and wonders what will become of him. She babbles on for a while. I am feeling increasingly anxious and angry. I am stuck on the statement, "this is not the D I know." You don't know D, mom. You met him twice. He's C's friend, not yours. I'm also trying to process her outpouring of sympathy for D. In a way, I get it. He's sick, but he's still a human being. He's still D, though I wonder if we really know him at all. But he also did something really wrong, and innocent children were horribly and irretrievably violated so he could do what he did. I'm of course having all sorts of other thoughts. My head is spinning. We finish our meal and go back to my brother's place. I stay quite late, not sure why. On the drive home, I almost have an accident. I feel like I'm not entirely in my body, but I manage to make it home in one piece.

In a way it all feels really familiar. I think of that thing kids do with a ball, where they say, "Think fast!" and then throw the ball at your face. If you're fortunate, you get your hands up in time to shield it. I think this might be a metaphor for large parts of my childhood. No one actually hit me, but I had to field emotional and mental fast balls on a regular basis that I didn't have the skills for. When the incident was "over", I'd be overwhelmed and flooded with feelings that I had no idea how to process or even identify. And I'd be filled with self-condemnation because I "should" have known how to handle it. And my feelings never seemed to be the correct ones. The correct ones were the one's my mother was having. But they often didn't match, and I would try to pretend that I felt as she did all the while wondering what was wrong with me? Clearly something was very, very wrong, or I would see things the way she did.

I'm not a little girl anymore, but I still feel as if I am in relation to my FOO. It's not as bad as it was, but I've still got a ways to go. And I still question myself constantly. But if the above is more a sign of my own neurosis than issues possessed by my mother/FOO, then I need to be able to look at that and deal with it.

I hope that anyone who might be negatively affected by this post have stayed far away. Rightly or wrongly, I feel I've had more than my share of curveballs, and it would distress me greatly to think I had launched my own at any of you.

-ITN-

[Turkish]

ITN, I'm sorry you were ambushed like that on Christmas Eve. What a horrible attack, and of course it would trigger you. It was a double sucker-punch, and shame on your mom for doing that!

I think your reaction to the shocking news, and to her attack was normal. It's disappointing when what should be a nice holiday dinner is ruined by an emotionally immature person.

pwBPD have a distorted world-view. I think that they see people not as they are, but how they wish them to be. It explains why my mom always surrounded herself with unhealthy people and got taken advantage of again and again, and why my uBPDx is attracted to narcissists (false selves).

Speaking of which, it sounds very narcissistic of her to say what she did to feel better about herself. Can you see her as a sick, insecure old woman?

[Is This Normal]

Turkish,

You said:

Can you see her as a sick, insecure old woman?

I can and do. At least when I'm in my adult self and not regressed into my child self.

In my better moments, when I'm not feeling wounded, I feel a great deal of compassion for her and a terrible sadness. I don't know that she's ever been truly happy. I think that I, on the other hand, am getting there.

And that brings up what I can only describe as survivor's guilt. While I can see myself as the victim of a sick person, looking at it from a broader perspective, I see that my mother is a victim too. I am moving on from that role. She is not. She may never.

I have a really hard time with that. Am I allowed to be happier than my mother? Do I want to be? Or can I just be myself without comparing myself to her? That may be the crux of the issue right there.

-ITN-

[Turkish]

Turkish,

You said:

Can you see her as a sick, insecure old woman?

I can and do. At least when I'm in my adult self and not regressed into my child self.

In my better moments, when I'm not feeling wounded, I feel a great deal of compassion for her and a terrible sadness. I don't know that she's ever been truly happy. I think that I, on the other hand, am getting there.

And that brings up what I can only describe as survivor's guilt. While I can see myself as the victim of a sick person, looking at it from a broader perspective, I see that my mother is a victim too. I am moving on from that role. She is not. She may never.

I have a really hard time with that. Am I allowed to be happier than my mother? Do I want to be? Or can I just be myself without comparing myself to her? That may be the crux of the issue right there.

-ITN-

I think you've kind of nailed it there. She's your mother, sure, but it sounds like you are struggling to detach from her identity. This is the universal struggle we have here: to be ok with being our own selves (who we are), and to detach from our parents' projections.

Children are not responsible for their parents' feelings, and certainly not their self-worth, not to mention their identities.