Question about recovering from childhood abuse

[Depression = 72% of members]

*gasp* such a serious topic line 

Hallo, i'm poppy, i'm usually on the detaching board, but I am really curious about this side of BPD family. I feel like I share some common issues with people here in the work I need to do on myself, and I'm curious to connect. So this is a trial run. Please be free with your reactions.

I didn't have an obvious BPD parent. I believe my paternal grandmother had borderline traits, and certainly something is wrong with my mother… I don't know what exactly, I always thought it was garden variety narcissism. That is to say - she had no idea how to be a parent, and did some pretty evil things, fortunately I had my father until my parents divorced.

I'd like to share my thoughts from today and see if they speak to anyone. I was feeling very low in terms of 'caretaking', let's say, my propensity to take things all on myself and not really accept the freedom of others to make their own decisions (and judge them for it). I have developed so many intellectual and emotional resources to deal with the world and with other people's problems, this is why, for example, in my last pwBPD relationship I was just doing the work for two and only slowly noticed how angry and desolate it was making me, that I most likely had no intrinsic value for the person I was with, I wasnt demanding my rights and being manipulated because I trusted too easily etc.

I was feeling pretty lonely about all this, as well as telling myself it wasn't my fault I saw the world like that up until now. In terms of the things listed in 'lessons', I can relate to a lot in terms of my mother: emotional incest, no boundaries, controlling behaviours, vengeance. It was my last pwBPD relationship that brought all this up and made me realized I was abused as a child.

I'm curious to participate in a community of childhood abuse survivors, maybe connected to BPD maybe not. I'm not dealing with the 'day to day' of having a BPD parent or sibling or child (but happy to discuss that too), more long term care work around a certain set of issues let's say for the 'collateral damage' of a dysfunctional, abusive parent. Am I in the right place? Overall I'd like to focus on myself and other survivor/thrivers here, rather than dealing with 'them'.

Thanks for reading

[poppy2]

*gasp* such a serious topic line 

Hallo, i'm poppy, i'm usually on the detaching board, but I am really curious about this side of BPD family. I feel like I share some common issues with people here in the work I need to do on myself, and I'm curious to connect. So this is a trial run. Please be free with your reactions.

I didn't have an obvious BPD parent. I believe my paternal grandmother had borderline traits, and certainly something is wrong with my mother… I don't know what exactly, I always thought it was garden variety narcissism. That is to say - she had no idea how to be a parent, and did some pretty evil things, fortunately I had my father until my parents divorced.

I'd like to share my thoughts from today and see if they speak to anyone. I was feeling very low in terms of 'caretaking', let's say, my propensity to take things all on myself and not really accept the freedom of others to make their own decisions (and judge them for it). I have developed so many intellectual and emotional resources to deal with the world and with other people's problems, this is why, for example, in my last pwBPD relationship I was just doing the work for two and only slowly noticed how angry and desolate it was making me, that I most likely had no intrinsic value for the person I was with, I wasnt demanding my rights and being manipulated because I trusted too easily etc.

I was feeling pretty lonely about all this, as well as telling myself it wasn't my fault I saw the world like that up until now. In terms of the things listed in 'lessons', I can relate to a lot in terms of my mother: emotional incest, no boundaries, controlling behaviours, vengeance. It was my last pwBPD relationship that brought all this up and made me realized I was abused as a child.

I'm curious to participate in a community of childhood abuse survivors, maybe connected to BPD maybe not. I'm not dealing with the 'day to day' of having a BPD parent or sibling or child (but happy to discuss that too), more long term care work around a certain set of issues let's say for the 'collateral damage' of a dysfunctional, abusive parent. Am I in the right place? Overall I'd like to focus on myself and other survivor/thrivers here, rather than dealing with 'them'.

Thanks for reading

[Methuen]

I'm not dealing with the 'day to day' of having a BPD parent or sibling or child (but happy to discuss that too), more long term care work around a certain set of issues let's say for the 'collateral damage' of a dysfunctional, abusive parent. Am I in the right place?

OMG yes you are in the right place.  This actually made me laugh.  Some of us are dealing with the day to day or having a BPD parent or sibling or child, but ALL of us are  dealing with the "collateral damage" you refer to.  This actually made me laugh.  Thank you for that.   Plenty of collateral damage to go around on this forum.  We are "wealthy" in collateral damage.

We're all a work in progress when it comes to healing.  Where would you like to start? 

[Woolspinner2000]

Welcome to our side of the Board, poppy2! 

You will feel right at home here. Yes, we work on our 'stuff,' and boy do we all have it. So glad that you came over here to join us.

I started my journey on PSI long ago because of having an uBPDm. Then as I healed, the dysfunctional aspects of my marriage became really apparent, and I learned why I married DH in the first place. It all looked familiar and was normal to me. I then went over to the conflicted and detaching boards. I visit all of the boards now when I can.

Have you looked at the Survival Guide we have or would you like the link?

Welcome!
Wools

[Notwendy]

Hi Poppy- our families of origin influence our choice of romantic partners. Abuse can come from different sources- one of them can be a BPD parent but there are others- substance abuse, and others that can create similar family behavioral patterns. If a child experiences abuse, that can feel "normal" in a sense and so they may not see the red flags in a potential partner. I think the good news of this is that when we look at the patterns we grew up with - not from the perspective of blame but to understand their influence- along with personal work, we can potentially change how we relate to others (for the better).

A while back, a domestic violence shelter was selling t shirts as a fundraiser that said "Love doesn't hurt". Personally, I have not experienced DV, or physical abuse as a child, but the idea that love doesn't hurt stood out to me, because growing up, I was expected to tolerate my BPD mother's behavior. Then people would say "but your mother loves you". But the love seems to be conditional on me being compliant with her and allowing her to be emotionally and verbally abusive. How was that supposed to be OK. It's not OK.

I hope that by examining your own background, you will arrive at a point where you know that it's not OK to be abusive and you don't have to tolerate it. I also hope that through understanding these patterns you will also be able to have some empathy for your parents who were also likely to have been abused themselves as children- because abuse can be intergenerational. This doesn't make it ok, it doesn't mean you tolerate it, but that you realize it isn't personal to you. You did nothing wrong. You don't deserve to be mistreated by anyone. If your parents were also abused as children, they didn't deserve it either.

Which gives you the choice to break the cycle, and that's a big step towards something better.

You are also not obligated to "fix" or rescue anyone. I think the best we can do is treat people kindly- but we can include ourselves in this. If a relationship is hurtful to you, you don't have to tolerate that.

[poppy2]

Hi all,

@Meuthen, I'm glad you found my post funny I would say that I'd actually dealt the collateral damage pretty well, and got myself to a good place... only then to sacrifice it to not one, but two pwBPD relationships, the second of which finally landed me here. Obviously, I hadn't done as much processing as I thought. More below on where I'd like to start

@Wools thanks for the welcome! I've had a look at the survival guide, maybe reading it more closely will help inspire a first post. I am sort of working through the past by examining my relationships, really... what they have shown me is that once love and abuse/control become mixed up, I just can't tell them apart anymore, and become sort of defenceless.

Two more thoughts - I think I am responsible for working to 'fix' everything, I know this rationally isn't the case but I still nevertheless developed the resources/abilities to 'fix' (I don't really like this word... I prefer over-taking responsibility) situations that harm me or that aren't solvable by me. That's a common caretaking behaviour and the book of that name was really helpful to explain that to me. (I know you mention this Notwendy, but since I found meaning in that behaviour for a long time, it will be hard to give it up).

Connected to this, is a feeling of betrayal, anger or wrongness if somebody else doesn't really care for me or shows they don't live by the same standards. It's funny, as these two behaviors are really like two sides of the same coin, and that's what I like about the caretaking concept.. it's sort of makes it possible to tease out the different effects of unhealthy thinking. Of course, it's normal to feel angry if somebody betrays you I mean, my projection is that they *should* care when in fact, they don't or can't. In that sense, on reflection of my relationships I would say that I also want a 'caretaker'. I would have rationalized this before as part of healthy intimacy and interdependency, and I think I am ready for that, but my choice of parters tells a different story.

I'm just sharing these observations as a way of introducing myself, I'm sure it's a really long process to grow past them emotionally and 'explaining' is the least step (I've read so many books now).

I inherited a lot of 'wrongness', 'guilt', or 'need to prove' from my emotionally absent mother. Fortunately, I had a good, stable father, but unfortunately he then became really sick and burnt out (im sure from having to deal with his demanding job and being a kind of sole parent).

@Notwendy
It sounds to me like you're very far down the journey of forgiveness? at least, that's the impression I have from your informed post. I can very well imagine how hard the mixed messages of love/abuse were and am basically in the same boat myself. However, I've never been able to forgive my mother, partly I think because I've never stopped resenting her. It's not her fault if she was abused as a child, but I also felt it was her fault for never facing up to this and doing something about it. I don't really trust her, to be frank, at all.

The reason I want to connect with/learn from others, though, is because in a way the past will always repeat until we finally accept it. That's hard work. My last relarionship and the honesty, courage, and commitment of the people of these boards makes me want to try though.