Growing up, and into adulthood with a BPD mother.

[Depression = 72% of members]

I am a 49 year old woman who was raised by a single mother with BPD. My mother was diagnosed nearly 20 years ago and I slowly started to believe that we might actually have a semi-normal relationship. But over the past two years something started occurring that I do not understand or know how to deal with. Though my mother's violent, and extremely disproportionate emotional behavior seemed to have calmed, a new behavior has emerged. She began invalidating my childhood, my experiences with her, the abuse, mental, emotional and physical, and claiming that I made it all up or that I have exaggerated it. What I don't understand, is that I am never the one to bring it up, in fact I avoid conversation about it. But she opens old wounds over and over again and then invalidates my feelings when I express them. She seems to almost become pleased when she has finally pushed me to the point of being hurt and destroyed by her words. And then she cuts me out of her life telling me what a horrible person I am. I am strong, and I have over come so much, but this constant need to protect myself and my children has drained me. And cutting her out of my life only leads to more difficulty.

[kifferb]

I am a 49 year old woman who was raised by a single mother with BPD. My mother was diagnosed nearly 20 years ago and I slowly started to believe that we might actually have a semi-normal relationship. But over the past two years something started occurring that I do not understand or know how to deal with. Though my mother's violent, and extremely disproportionate emotional behavior seemed to have calmed, a new behavior has emerged. She began invalidating my childhood, my experiences with her, the abuse, mental, emotional and physical, and claiming that I made it all up or that I have exaggerated it. What I don't understand, is that I am never the one to bring it up, in fact I avoid conversation about it. But she opens old wounds over and over again and then invalidates my feelings when I express them. She seems to almost become pleased when she has finally pushed me to the point of being hurt and destroyed by her words. And then she cuts me out of her life telling me what a horrible person I am. I am strong, and I have over come so much, but this constant need to protect myself and my children has drained me. And cutting her out of my life only leads to more difficulty.

[Naughty Nibbler]

Welcome kifferb:

I'm so sorry about the situation with your mom.  People with BPD can stabilize for periods of time and then something sets them off.  Has anything changed in her life recently?  Perhaps some stressful situation?

I can see how disturbing it must be for you to have your mom invalidate your experiences of abuse.

Feelings Create Facts (emotional reasoning)
In general, emotionally healthy people base their feelings on facts. If your dad came home drunk every night (fact) you might feel worried or concerned (feeling). If your boss complimented you on a big project (fact) you would feel proud and happy (feeling).
People with borderline and narcissistic personality disorder, however, may do the opposite. When their feelings don't fit the facts, they may unconsciously revise the facts to fit their feelings. This may be one reason why their perception of events is so different from yours.

The articles at the links below could be helpful for you:

https://www.BPDcentral.com/blog/?Why-Do-Narcissists-and-Borderlines-Lie-So-Much-24

https://www.BPDcentral.com/help-for-families/familiar-fights/

When your mom brings up the subject of abuse and begins to invalidate you, you might want to set a boundary to terminate the conversation and avoid any effort to argue with her.  Make some plans in advance on how you might with a phone conversation or walk away from a conversation in person.  The following article could be helpful:

AVOIDING CIRCULAR ARGUMENTS:
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=118892.0;all

Check out the articles and let us know what you think.  Hopefully your will find something that is helpful for you.  You can't count on changing your mom's behavior, but you can help yourself by changing the way you interact and react to your mom's behavior.

[kifferb]

Naughty Nibbler,
Thank you for your response, and the articles. I have seen my mother revert to old behaviors before, this was something new. I have over the years developed ways of walking away from arguments with her and not letting them intensify. What has been interesting about this new behavior is that she will bring it up casually in conversation, as if we were talking about the weather, and when I either try to avoid the issue, or defend myself, she starts teasing me. She has never done this before. So when I walk away she then claims I was being over sensitive and she never raised her voice so I am just ridiculous. This is usually when I have to extract myself entirely. No communication or interaction at all for a while. She will often times e-mail me hinting that I should apologize.
So once again, thank you for the articles, and your words of advice, I really need this right now.
I don't know why I haven't sought help from online support groups before. I live in a very isolated area and the only two Al-Anon groups my mother attends. So thank you all for being here. It does help to talk to people who have actually dealt with this.

[Panda39]

Hi kifferb,

I want to join Naughty Nibbler and welcome you to the BPD Family  . 

What you describe your mom doing sounds like "Gaslighting" to me (I copied the information below from the Glossary - I hope it helps)... .

Gaslighting  The term derives from the 1938 stage play Gas Light (originally known as Angel Street in the United States), and the 1940 and 1944 film adaptions. The plot concerns a husband who attempts to drive his wife to insanity by manipulating small elements of their environment, and insisting that she is mistaken or misremembering when she points out these changes. The title stems from the husband's subtle dimming of the house's gas lights, which she accurately notices and which the husband insists she's imagining.

"Gaslighting" has been used colloquially, since at least the mid 1970s, to describe psychologically upsetting manipulations of the type depicted in the play and film: In her 1980 book The Best Kept Secret: Sexual Abuse of Children[1] Florence Rush summarizes George Cukor's 1944 film version of Gas Light, and writes, "even today the word [gaslight] is used to describe an attempt to destroy another's perception of reality."

Sometimes the term is used here to suggest a premeditated effort to make someone think they are crazy? And while it may appear that way to us, but people with BPD are generally impulsive - not so premeditated.

More often what is happening is that we are willingly buying another persons distorted view?  People distort their own view of reality all the time - it's a defense mechanism. 

We have to be careful not to buy it.

The real issue is Cognitive Distortions and Anxiety on the part of the pwBPD and our willingness to jettison our own perception and except theirs.

Here are the common Cognitive Distortions according to David Burns, MD:

1. All-or-nothing thinking (splitting) – Thinking of things in absolute terms, like "always", "every", "never", and "there is no alternative". Few aspects of human behavior are so absolute. (See false dilemma.) All-or-nothing-thinking can contribute to depression. (See depression).

2. Overgeneralization – Taking isolated cases and using them to make wide generalizations. (See hasty generalization.)

3. Mental filter – Focusing almost exclusively on certain, usually negative or upsetting, aspects of an event while ignoring other positive aspects. For example, focusing on a tiny imperfection in a piece of otherwise useful clothing. (See misleading vividness.)

4. Disqualifying the positive – Continually reemphasizing or "shooting down" positive experiences for arbitrary, ad hoc reasons. (See special pleading.)

5. Jumping to conclusions – Drawing conclusions (usually negative) from little (if any) evidence. Two specific subtypes are also identified:

         * Mind reading – Assuming special knowledge of the intentions or thoughts of others.

         * Fortune telling – Exaggerating how things will turn out before they happen. (See slippery slope.)

6. Magnification and minimization – Distorting aspects of a memory or situation through magnifying or minimizing them such that they no longer correspond to objective reality. This is common enough in the normal population to popularize idioms such as "make a mountain out of a molehill." In depressed clients, often the positive characteristics of other people are exaggerated and negative characteristics are understated. There is one subtype of magnification:

         * Catastrophizing – Focusing on the worst possible outcome, however unlikely, or thinking that a situation is unbearable or impossible when it is really just uncomfortable.

7. Emotional reasoning – Making decisions and arguments based on intuitions or personal feeling rather than an objective rationale and evidence. (See appeal to consequences.)

8. Should statements – Patterns of thought which imply the way things "should" or "ought to be" rather than the actual situation the patient is faced with, or having rigid rules which the patient believes will "always apply" no matter what the circumstances are. Albert Ellis termed this "Musturbation". (See wishful thinking.)

9. Labeling and mislabeling – Explaining behaviors or events, merely by naming them; related to overgeneralization. Rather than describing the specific behavior, a patient assigns a label to someone of him- or herself that implies absolute and unalterable terms. Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.

10. Personalization – Attribution of personal responsibility (or causal role) for events over which the patient has no control. This pattern is also applied to others in the attribution of blame.

I hope this helps.  Unfortunately we can only control our own actions, we cannot control the actions of someone else.  Your mom may continue this type of behavior because she has a mental illness (this is actually a fairly common behavior among pwBPD) the key is for you to remember and respect your experience... .your experience is your truth and it is valid and real.  Your mom is acting in a way that on some level is making her feel better... .she's using this behavior as a way to cope with her own anxiety and her own shame. 

Pay attention to when she tries to Gaslight, is there something going on that might be causing her anxiety in that moment?

SET might be a good tool to try when your mom engages in this type of behavior.

SET  is a communication tool.  Support, Empathy, and Truth (below are a couple of links to more information on SET)

https://bpdfamily.com/content/ending-conflict
https://bpdfamily.com/bpdresources/nk_a104.htm

I hope the information I've provided is helpful.

Take Care,
Panda39

[kifferb]

Panda39,
     Thank you for response, that was very interesting about the origins of "gas lighting". I read about gas lighting  a while back but did not know that was were the term came from. And thank you for all the information. When my mother was first diagnosed in 1997 I read what I could on BPD, but of course there wasn't much at the time. I really appreciate the current information. Some of this I am aware of as I have been in and out of therapy for years, but it is always good to go even deeper than I have and keep learning.
     What is settling into my understanding now is that just because my mother isn't raging, screaming, publically humiliating me, being physically abusive, doesn't mean her behavior isn't BPD. Everything you wrote in 1-10 is absolutely my mother. Her life is so extreme in some ways that her entire home, her clothing, everything is literally black and white. It reflects so perfectly her mind and how she views the world.
     I am feeling better each day now that I have set some boundaries and my communication with her for the moment is suspended. I always forget how peaceful I am when I am not dealing with deflecting her charges.
    I will keep on reading and thank you again! Information is power as they say.