The small things that hurt

[Depression = 72% of members]

Hi friends! Hope you are all doing well as COVID seems to be winding down a bit, at least in the US. My job has been a whirlwind the last few months, and thankfully it is finally slowing down a bit. I wanted to process through a couple issues and ask for some input.

1) Background: I have been NC with my uBPDm for over a year now, but it actually isn't voluntary no contact. I met up with her last June, and I was willing to reestablish some sort of contact. It was an ugly meeting, sadly. I was waiting for her to reach out to me afterwards, and she never did. Now my dad has cut me off completely too. My sister told me that I'm no longer a part of their lives/home/will, etc. So, I'm experiencing a forced NC, so to speak.
2) Dreams: I've been dreaming A LOT over the last yeat about my family, but the dreams have changed. They started out with my mom as an attacker. Then it moved to me being in a situation and my dad not standing up for me or fighting for me. Then in the dreams he did fight for me and choose me. Now they've morphed into me just being with my family. I know in the dream that there's something wrong and I should be on eggshells, but my mom is pleasant and we're a family again. Has anyone else experienced something like that?
3) For the most part, my parents (or loss of parents) don't interfere with my life anymore. However, I get hit so hard by small things randomly. I was at a friend's baby shower and I saw her mom smile and hand her gifts. I left the room and lost it, so sobbing uncontrollably at what I'll never have. Yesterday my coworkers mom sent her cupcakes for her birthday because my coworker has been down recently. I had another crying fit, as my birthday is next week and I know that my parents won't even acknowledge I exist. Sometimes I'll be working or doing something and a wave of intense loss/sadness rolls over me and I crumple under it. I often wake up from my newer good dreams crying because I realize that the dreams aren't real. Is this all normal? How long does it take for this to pass, if it is normal? And how am I grieving something so hard that is a relief in a way? There's so much about NC I am thankful for, and yet in some ways it is devastating. I would love to input!

[Choosinghope]

Hi friends! Hope you are all doing well as COVID seems to be winding down a bit, at least in the US. My job has been a whirlwind the last few months, and thankfully it is finally slowing down a bit. I wanted to process through a couple issues and ask for some input.

1) Background: I have been NC with my uBPDm for over a year now, but it actually isn't voluntary no contact. I met up with her last June, and I was willing to reestablish some sort of contact. It was an ugly meeting, sadly. I was waiting for her to reach out to me afterwards, and she never did. Now my dad has cut me off completely too. My sister told me that I'm no longer a part of their lives/home/will, etc. So, I'm experiencing a forced NC, so to speak.
2) Dreams: I've been dreaming A LOT over the last yeat about my family, but the dreams have changed. They started out with my mom as an attacker. Then it moved to me being in a situation and my dad not standing up for me or fighting for me. Then in the dreams he did fight for me and choose me. Now they've morphed into me just being with my family. I know in the dream that there's something wrong and I should be on eggshells, but my mom is pleasant and we're a family again. Has anyone else experienced something like that?
3) For the most part, my parents (or loss of parents) don't interfere with my life anymore. However, I get hit so hard by small things randomly. I was at a friend's baby shower and I saw her mom smile and hand her gifts. I left the room and lost it, so sobbing uncontrollably at what I'll never have. Yesterday my coworkers mom sent her cupcakes for her birthday because my coworker has been down recently. I had another crying fit, as my birthday is next week and I know that my parents won't even acknowledge I exist. Sometimes I'll be working or doing something and a wave of intense loss/sadness rolls over me and I crumple under it. I often wake up from my newer good dreams crying because I realize that the dreams aren't real. Is this all normal? How long does it take for this to pass, if it is normal? And how am I grieving something so hard that is a relief in a way? There's so much about NC I am thankful for, and yet in some ways it is devastating. I would love to input!

[KateD97]

First of all, I am so sorry for your acute pain and grief. The situation and experiences you describe do not seem l'small' or 'abnormal' at all.  I am also in what began as an involuntary 'NC' situation, initiated and sustained by my BPD sibling.   Several efforts to pull myself together, muster some manner of mature forgiveness and reach out to and reconcile have been viciously rejected , so I know what that feels like. Its awful. Holidays and birthdays have been especially painful points of contention and have become dreaded and conspicuous voids, as they carry the weight of long-established patterns and mechanisms for previously mutual caring and validation. Crying is a good and healthy thing especially if you can share this offloading of tension with someone you trust.  If you feel like you cannot turn off a violent jag, however, you can try a trick that a mindfulness coach taught me which is to wrap an ice cube in a towel and use it to cool your face and eyes (kind of like slapping yourself and yelling 'get a hold'! ).  Also please reach out to someone you trust and talk, letting whatever needs to come out come out and be acknowledged.  I am finding a great deal of solace and wisdom in the poetry of Padraig O'Tauma these days - particularly the poem/film that you can find on YouTube called "How to Be Alone," where he counsels - practice being alive (you're still here!) and remember to breathe...

[sklamath]

Hi, Choosinghope!

I suspect NC is always bittersweet, no matter if you were the one who chose it or not. The lack of drama is such a relief...and yet it’s hard not to grieve and desire parents who could love us as we need and want to be loved. I’m sorry.

I have resumed LC this past year with my uBPD mom after 2 years of NC (and with therapy through it all). But that first year of NC? So hard. I went for long walks by myself, I cried and talked to myself/imaginary mom while walking or driving alone. That has faded. My dreams are less consistent in trajectory, but sometimes I wake up devastated by something she said or did in the dream, or sometimes the dream was sweet.  I don’t tend to give too much credence to symbolism in my dreams, but I do think if there is subconscious, unresolved  “junk”, it tends to rattle around in there like an old-school screensaver.

Totally can relate to the random, intense feels. Baby showers are just the worst. I mean, so great, but also there’s just all this STUFF about a baby who is wanted and an extended family that really loves one another, a lack of barbed comments, and a grandma-to-be who isn’t at risk of throwing a tantrum or going silent and leaving the room. The normalness of it is all we ever wanted, right? The good news is we are not our BPD parent, so even if we have an emotional moment, we are not going to make it about us.

I tend to avoid particularly sentimental TV or films (I have had enough emotional manipulation in my life that I don’t care to experience it as entertainment), but other people’s sweet moments with family, an intimate moment in a podcast or even a line in a song can catch me completely off guard. If I’m alone, I don’t fight it—we are allowed to feel our feelings. A lot of us with BPD parents weren’t allowed to do that, so it’s particularly unsettling when we have those big feelings. If we’ve been an emotional caretaker for a BPD parent, we are all too good at being too emotionally present for others. We are used to carrying our BPD loved one’s feelings and compartmentalizing and ignoring our own...but now when we find ourselves feeling the big feelings in a more public setting, we are trying to do two “right things”—being socially appropriate AND feel our feelings—things that are completely in opposition to each other in the moment! That’s not just hard, it’s possibly expecting more of ourselves than is realistic. So from my vantage point, yes—it’s totally normal. Be gentle with yourself.

[zachira]

The no contact hurts deeply whether it is voluntary or not. Being cut off by your immediate family is just so painful. I know, as I have been rejected by most of my immediate family and extended family since birth, being one of the family scapegoats. I hope you have people around you, who will listen and support you. It took me a long time to find friends that really get what I am going through, and most people just don't get it. We are here to listen and support you anytime. I see you drop in from time to time.

[Notwendy]

I think the grief is common. It astounds me the power a pwBPD has to split a family. Although I am not NC with my mother, she did convince her extended family to not speak to me and my father to be angry at me.

I recall also crying over extended family not speaking to me. I wondered why grown adults would just believe her side of things and not even ask to hear mine. I also realized that any attempt to explain would just play into that as they would think I was horrible to say anything negative about my mother.

So, I just walked away from the extended family. Not my father, but he's now deceased. It still shocks me that family would discard their relationship. I had to recognize that it wasn't because of me, it has to be something about them.

I too struggled to understand why my father didn't stand up to my mother for me. I realized that he lived with my mother 24/7 and I didn't. I hope in time you can understand that this is more about the dynamics between your parents than it is about you.

[Methuen]

Hi CH

I was waiting for her to reach out to me afterwards, and she never did. Now my dad has cut me off completely too. My sister told me that I'm no longer a part of their lives/home/will, etc. So, I'm experiencing a forced NC, so to speak.

 
This is really tough.  I'm sorry that your dad has been sucked into this drama.  It makes me think the relationship between him and your mom isn't based on mutual equality...

It all makes me think of the teenage "mean girl" who uses her power over other girls to "isolate" and victimize a girl in the class whom she doesn't like, so that the girl is left alone and without friends.  Thus your mom's behavior is probably less about you, than it is about your mom having power.  It's probably not even personal, although it feels very personal.  Even if this mean girl scenario fits, it doesn't hurt any less, when it's your mother's disease doing the harm. I once had a T that had me work on separating my mother from her disease, and seeing them as two different entities. I did visualization around this.   If looking at it differently can nudge how you think about it, and therefore how it feels as a consequence, some of the power your mom feels from all this could be lost if it all didn't make you feel quite as bad.  Not sure if this analogy makes sense.  

However, I get hit so hard by small things randomly. I was at a friend's baby shower and I saw her mom smile and hand her gifts. I left the room and lost it, so sobbing uncontrollably at what I'll never have.

I get this.  I definitely grieved the loss of a relationship I recognized I would never enjoy the way my friends do with their mothers.  I think radical acceptance was a big help for me, because once I "just gave up and accepted the situation", and I stopped trying to change my mom, or JADE with her, or wish for something different, the intensity of my feeling of loss slowly started to diminish.  Naturally I'm disappointed I can't have the kind of close, respectful and honest relationship the way my friends have with their mom, but it just is what it is, and isn't going to change.  So I grieved the loss, moved into acceptance, and now it hurts less than it used to.  Our situations are different because I still have contact with my mom.  It's challenging in a different way because she is physically, emotionally and mentally very needy (she lives alone at 85), and while I support her, she still speaks and behaves in BPD ways. 

I'm wondering if your mom and sister would sense if you were not bothered by their isolating you from the rest of the family.  If they did, this would take away their power.  So for example, when your sister said  "...I'm no longer a part of their lives/home/will", can you recall how you responded or what you said?  I probably would have tried to negotiate, or plead, or say how unfair it is, which is the truth.  It's almost impossible to react to that without emotion.  But that gives them power.  I'm thinking that if you said something like "wow, that seems like a really mean and hurtful thing to say to a family member.  I don't deserve that, but if that's what you think you need to do, then go ahead and do it."  When we take the emotion out of our response to them, I think they lose their power.  I think BPD's feed off of negative emotion like a cancer.  Just my thoughts.

That's all that I've got right now.  I'm saddened that you are going through this CH, but hope that tomorrow will be a better day.