What to do with traumatic memories of a BPD parent?

[Depression = 72% of members]

Lately, as I've been sitting with the breakthrough realization that my mom has uBPD, some negative memories have been popping into my mind. I've also found myself searching for good ones from when I was a child, and I can't come up with any. The harder I try, the more they escape me. It's indescribably sad.

Here's an emotionally  traumatic memory that keeps coming up:

My birthday is New Year's Day. As with most years of my childhood, I wasn't allowed to make plans with friends, because "spending time with family is important" and as an only child with no extended relatives nearby, I spent New Year's Eve alone with my mom and dad. My mom was great about celebrating my birthday, but she often made some part of the celebration about her. I'm sure I had a birthday party that year, but don't remember it. That evening we all sat down to watch a movie so we could stay up for the Times Square ball drop. My mom insisted we watch Hotel Rwanda. I just had to Google what year this was released — I was 8 years old at the time, about to turn 9. I didn't want to watch the movie, and had some other one picked out (which I can't remember anymore). My parents had mentioned at some other point that it was going to be sad. I didn't fully know what the plot would be, but didn't want to watch a sad movie. My dad told my mom he thought I was too young to watch it, and that they should let me watch what I wanted on the eve of my birthday. She blew up at this. She screamed at him to leave the house. She threatened to call the police on him if he didn't leave. She followed him around physically as if she were going to push or hit him. I was silent, and I ran to my room where I watched the fight with the door ajar. He left. After he did, my mom yelled at me to come out of my room and watch the movie with her. I know I was crying at the time. She wouldn't let me stay in my room alone, and made me watch the movie. She probably threatened grounding me or something, I'm not sure what she did to get me to come out of the room, but I did. And then we watched the movie—which, if you're not familiar, is itself a tearjerker, and has graphic depictions of genocide, as well as some indications of sexual slavery. I felt terrified and sad watching it, felt bad for my dad, and wondered where he was. I still feel scared and sad when I think back on the memory, and then it makes me angry at my mom.

What should I do with a memory like this? Is it productive to let it fill me with anger for how my mom behaved? I've certainly raised it with her as a gripe in arguments we've had since then, but with what I've learned about BPD recently, I now know it's probably not productive to bring it up again. I just feel such a strong sense of injustice that was done to me and my dad that night. It's difficult to get over.

[FeelingStuck]

Lately, as I've been sitting with the breakthrough realization that my mom has uBPD, some negative memories have been popping into my mind. I've also found myself searching for good ones from when I was a child, and I can't come up with any. The harder I try, the more they escape me. It's indescribably sad.

Here's an emotionally  traumatic memory that keeps coming up:

My birthday is New Year's Day. As with most years of my childhood, I wasn't allowed to make plans with friends, because "spending time with family is important" and as an only child with no extended relatives nearby, I spent New Year's Eve alone with my mom and dad. My mom was great about celebrating my birthday, but she often made some part of the celebration about her. I'm sure I had a birthday party that year, but don't remember it. That evening we all sat down to watch a movie so we could stay up for the Times Square ball drop. My mom insisted we watch Hotel Rwanda. I just had to Google what year this was released — I was 8 years old at the time, about to turn 9. I didn't want to watch the movie, and had some other one picked out (which I can't remember anymore). My parents had mentioned at some other point that it was going to be sad. I didn't fully know what the plot would be, but didn't want to watch a sad movie. My dad told my mom he thought I was too young to watch it, and that they should let me watch what I wanted on the eve of my birthday. She blew up at this. She screamed at him to leave the house. She threatened to call the police on him if he didn't leave. She followed him around physically as if she were going to push or hit him. I was silent, and I ran to my room where I watched the fight with the door ajar. He left. After he did, my mom yelled at me to come out of my room and watch the movie with her. I know I was crying at the time. She wouldn't let me stay in my room alone, and made me watch the movie. She probably threatened grounding me or something, I'm not sure what she did to get me to come out of the room, but I did. And then we watched the movie—which, if you're not familiar, is itself a tearjerker, and has graphic depictions of genocide, as well as some indications of sexual slavery. I felt terrified and sad watching it, felt bad for my dad, and wondered where he was. I still feel scared and sad when I think back on the memory, and then it makes me angry at my mom.

What should I do with a memory like this? Is it productive to let it fill me with anger for how my mom behaved? I've certainly raised it with her as a gripe in arguments we've had since then, but with what I've learned about BPD recently, I now know it's probably not productive to bring it up again. I just feel such a strong sense of injustice that was done to me and my dad that night. It's difficult to get over.

[Riv3rW0lf]

Dealing with past, traumatizing memories is hard, we all get it here. I am sorry you are going through this. Be gentle with yourself.

I also just started therapy and have been processing my past for the last ... Three months at least. Anger, depression, distress... As hard as they are to feel, the only way to process is precisely to feel.

Be gentle with yourself. You don't have to discharge your anger on your mother to feel it, and it is ok to feel it. You have a right to be angry. You were a child. A true victim, in the real sens of the term.

Time is on your side. Allow your anger to be and validate it. Be your best friend.

One method that can help make your memories less triggering is to try to modify them by intervening in them. When you are within your memory, feeling all the distress you felt as a young child : imagine yourself, as an adult, or even someone else, intervening and helping you, doing what you would have needed someone to do but never had the chance to have.

As an exemple, once I connected to a memory in which my mother is pulling a tooth out of my mouth, that isn't ready to be pulled. I was confused, terrified, but mother didn't react well to fear and vulnerability. I literally imagined myself beating up my mother and screaming at her to get out of the house, and then I picked myself up and gently rocked myself. It helped.

be kind to yourself.

Hugs

[beatricex]

hi Feelingstuck,
I have a few of these memories myself.  I get it.

Not sure if you have worked with a CBT therapist, but that helped me a lot.  With each memory I had, we reframed the trauma so that my fear or anxiety about the event was replaced with a more positive thought, lessening my anxiety about it.

Example:  when I was a child, and while on a roadtrip, my mom got angry that me and my siblings were misbehaving in the car, and she actually pulled over, asked us to get out and "run behind the car," to burn off our excess energy, she said.  When we did this she left me and my siblings on the side of the road, we were literally in the middle of no where in Montana, all of us very young.  I was the oldest sibling and had to console my two crying younger sisters.  My younger brother seemed also in shock, although I don't remember him crying I can remember his dispair.  I have a memory of her car cresting a hill out of sight, and we all stopped running when we could no longer see her and the car, and we stopped to catch our breaths, and the little ones starting balling.  I thought "this is it, she finally did it, went crazy and left us on the side of the road, I don't think she's coming back."

I also had recurring nightmares for years (from my early 20's to mid 30's) that my parents were trying to kill me in my childhood house (usually we were in my bedroom) with a gun.  Hypnotherapy helped me with those nightmares, similar concept, you rephrame the traumatic event with your therapist. 

I totally understand what you're saying that being forced to watch a movie, after a fight with your parents and under duress on your birthday was really upsetting to you, and it seemed planned to be that way, and for control purposes.  That is not love.  It's disturbing, I agree.  We were also forced to watch a movie, similarly it had sexual violence, and I still get a bad feeling to this day about that memory.

I read something about neurons in the brain, and how to stop these bad memories or dreams from affecting us, requires disrupting the neural path.  I think that's why the CBT or hyponotherapy works.  But both did work for me, lessened my anxiety and in the case of my nightmares, they stopped altogether.  It was amazing, really.

 
b

[FeelingStuck]

Thank you @riv3rwolf and @beatricex for sharing your experience and advice with me!

Reading your memories of abuse, makes me so sad you had to go through those moments. It's really impressive that you've been able to get to the point of discussing them and not feeling as much fear from them anymore. It's great to hear that therapy, including CBT has helped you.

I'm going to start researching therapists in my area who are equipped to help with BPD and cPTSD. I will look for someone with experience in CBT and specifically DBT, which I've been interested in trying.

For me, starting therapy has been a mental hurdle for me to get over. I've had negative experiences in the past with it, not because the therapists were in any way unprofessional or unhelpful, but because when I was younger, my mom was the one who enlisted them and had control in the situation. To my mom, I was always the one with the problem: anger issues, depression issues, and I was the one who needed to be fixed. Yeah, I have those issues, but in large part due to the family dynamic I was raised in. My therapists saw right through these situations, though at the time they didn't use the term BPD. There were moments when my therapists would tell me that I had been subjected to abuse by my mom, and they would try to give me strategies on ways to respond to her, but my mom would pick up on that when it happened. If my mom didn't feel that the therapists were telling me things that she'd agree with, she'd say she thought they were ineffective, and she'd threaten to stop paying. This happened a few times and I was forced to switch therapists. I even saw a psychiatrist for a while who started me on medication for depression and ADHD, and when I started putting up boundaries at this person's suggestion, my mom wrote them a letter that she would no longer pay them for services. Perhaps this psychiatrist would have continued to see me and help me taper off the medication, but I was so ashamed of her behavior and felt I had done something wrong, that I never went to see them again, and had to go off the medication cold turkey which really messed with my brain for a few months. My mom always had gripes about the billing process with therapists, too, which imbued a sense of distrust in me over how some therapists charge their patients for out of network services, so I have this (probably irrational) fear that I'll be charged a lot of money unexpectedly and be unable to afford the services.

But I need to get over this and keep telling myself I'm in control now. I can find an in network therapist, and I have the money to pay them copays. My mom doesn't have to know that I'm seeing a therapist, let alone who the person is. I won't stop seeing them suddenly unless it's my decision, or they happen to move or retire or some other valid reason that will have nothing to do with my mom.

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi FeelingStuck, 

The other posters have shared some great thoughts with you, and their stories help us all to not feel so alone.

When I first started on my journey to heal from my childhood and having an uBPDm, I remember how unsettling and sometimes triggering the memories were. I couldn't stop them from coming. They came of their own accord. Having a T that understands trauma is helpful. My T worked with me in CBT, and it was a life changer for me.

Yes, being kind to yourself is especially important now. Your little one that was so sad and upset needs comfort, so hug her and tell her she doesn't have to watch the show and the two of you can go out and play or go to a secret hiding spot where you'll be safe. Hug your teddy bear too, and if you don't have one. I encourage you to go out and buy a soft stuffed animal to hold when you have these memories. It really does help.

 
Wools