BPDm died.

[Purplekarma]

After 56 years of mental abuse, being villified as her parent, never feeling loved, my mum died of aspirated pneumonia from a car accident we were in that my son was driving. She was 82.  The last few years were the hardest and at times I wished she were dead. I thought I would be free. How wrong was I! I had longed for her approval and loving words and in the last 7 days of her life, they never came. In fact, I would stay at the hospital and go home for a couple of hours sleep only to return and be abused and told to get out. The staff said this was due to low blood gas levels. I laid next to her the night she was dying and tried to help her pass to the other side. It was the 1st real physical contact that I'd had as when I used to try and hug her, she was like a stone statue.

Writing a eulogy was difficult but I was happy in the end and it was well received. I felt calm. In the following months the emotions I felt surprised me greatly. I was empty. There were no phone calls 10 times a day. There was no racing to the retirement home to sort out a problem. My life had been on hold while I constantly rescued her. I sought help from a T. She was the only one in the phone book that 'specialized' in BPD. She gave me some sheets from Marsha Linehan about not being judgemental etc. But that was the only thing she gave me. And after a year, I don't feel like I'm in a better space. I really wanted to understand, learn new skills and move on. Instead, I've seen everyone in my life, including my beloved children, differently. I look for BPD traits in everyone (including myself). If my children and I have a small disagreement, I drink and feel that I just don't want to be here. Now that BPDm is not here, my life motto of 'I don't want to be like her' suddenly makes me feel in some ways I am like her in some emotional responses... I probably chose my partner of 9years because he was emotionally unavailable. He was a rock when mum was alive but know I find his standard response of 'You have to learn to love yourself' quite irritating. I know he's right but I just don't know how to do it. I don't want to burden my children or friends with how I feel as they might see me as my mother and I'm sure they're over all the dramas. I have had no motivation for a year and not looked after my health. In some ways, I feel it's the child in me who craves attention. Sorry to be so bleak!

[GeekyGirl]

Hi purplekarma,

I'm sorry for your loss.   It sounds like you've been through quite a lot over the past year.

I've felt that inner child crying out for love and affection too--that's something that I think a lot of us have felt here. It's understandable that even towards the end of your mother's life that you still wanted her love and approval, even if she wasn't capable of giving it to you.

It can be very hard to work through the emotions that come with the kind of grief you're feeling. You mentioned that you had worked with a therapist that you didn't really connect with. Would you be open to working with another one? Sometimes it takes time to find the right person, and you may have to meet with several therapists, but it's worth the effort to find a therapist that you *click* with.

From what you said, there are a number of things going on that are concerning you, including issues with your partner, your health, and how you respond to disagreements with your children. How are you working on developing healthy ways to react to your concerns?

[justnothing]

I'm sorry for your loss Purplekarma.

I lost my own mother in what's getting close to a year ago and I can relate to not really being "free" afterwards. In a way it's kind of like the cage door is now open but you can't really leave because, as it turns out, some of the problems are within you.

Even though I had been in therapy for many years before my mother passed away, for some reason I also find myself exploring myself much, much more in depth now than ever before. I think it comes from being more emotionally available for it. I think that when you have a mother or any loved one who's that emotionally demanding and all encompassing, it takes away a lot of the time and energy you would otherwise have for self exploration (as well as most of the weekly hour with your therapist) and for that matter… may also sometimes serve as a kind of excuse to not do so…

It sounds like the idea of being  in any way like your mother is causing you a lot of stress these days… have you tried asking yourself why this idea stresses you out so much?

I find that it sometimes helps to imagine how I would feel in the worst case scenario… so try to imagine this:

Imagine you were Atreyu (you know, from the "Never Ending Story" and you find yourself faced with the Magic Mirror Gate, which can reveal to you in an instant all the most horrible, embarrassing truths of who and what you really are – and horror of horror! It tells you that you are EXACTLY like your mother! Or even worse than your mother! And it gets even worse – it tells you that you were just as bad towards your own kids as she was towards you!

What then? What would it mean to receive such a horrible and horrifying revelation?

One thing it would mean is that you would now truly have a chance to give to your children so many of the things that your mother never gave you… and also grow in the way that she never had a chance to grow… It would mean that you'd now have a million opportunities that your mother never had.

Granted, without even knowing you or your mother, I can pretty much assure you that you're in a much better place than she was just from the fact that you were able to be by her side in her final days whereas she wasn't able to be there for you even when she wasn't ill. But I have no way of knowing how much you do have in common with her… I think there are probably very, very few people out there who don't inherit anything from their parents.

If you ever found out for certain that you do have some unpleasant traits inherited from your mother, would it be at all possible to accept them without judgment? If no, why not? Would it be because that would make you too much like somebody who's caused you so much misery?

I get that the Marsha Linehan thing about not being judgmental may have been too much to swallow back when your mother was alive and making your life unbearable… but maybe now that she's no longer in a position to hurt you, you can try learning to accept her in retrospect… not for her sake but for your own. It might help both with the sense of closure and with your own growth. She may not have been able to give you the sense of acceptance you needed when she was alive, but learning to accept her and the parts of you that remind you of her might help you give it to yourself.

(And accepting whatever you are will enable you to become what you want).

[DreamGirl]

((Purplekarma))

I, too, am sorry about your loss. My father passed away last year and it's been a hard road. I've also found with those who have also lost their parent(s), it seems that when you struggled in your relationship while they were alive, it makes their passing so much more difficult to be at peace with.

Grief is such a difficult process as it is.

I remember at one point my Life Coach suggested that it seemed like I was almost choking on it (my grief). Everytime I spoke about any aspect of my father it caused me to physically "choke" up - because that's where the feeling was... .  in the pit of my throat where my anger, hurt, tears, (you name it) lie.  

I had to learn to let go... .  mentally and physically really. I had to cry and purge all those emotions.

I'm still letting go... .  and it's just really hard to do.

I often like to think in those moments that I'm "like him"... .  I remember it's OK that I'm "like him" because I've learned to react different. i.e. I have a pretty decent anger reflex - but I also have the skill set to know when to take time outs, to walk away, to choose my words, and those kinds of things. I'm a version of me that includes the good and the bad of him - that looks the way I want it to look and where I get to be who I want to be.

I think you have it in you too. You get to be the architect in this.

You do sound like you could maybe use some form of help in your self-care?

When I was in the same place as you (no motivation, drinking for solace, not paying attention to my health), I took the advice of members here who told me to make an appointment with my primary doctor. I got a physical, got a meds evaluation, and talked about my nutrition (I had gained a lot of weight from the chocolate/wine diet).

It helped. It felt good to honor myself in those moments.

It was a good first step.

Is that an option for you?

~DreamGirl  

[BiancaRose]

Oh, wow. Sounds like a really tough, scary thing to have to go through. I sometimes worry about what it's going to be like when my mom passes, whether I'll get stuck writing the eulogy (probably, since I'm a writer . . . even though she and I have about the worst relationship imaginable!) and what it will be like to know the affirmation and acceptance I've always wanted is forever beyond reach. So I can imagine that this must be very rough.

I think it's part of having a BPD parent that you always look for ways to not be like that person, which usually ends in seeing some commonalities. I try to remind myself that it's our choices that makes us who we are, and as long as I make different choices than she made, I'm sticking with who I want to be. It's pretty much inevitable that we're going to have SOME traits in common with our borderlines, in the same way that a broken clock is right twice a day. But if you were truly following in her footsteps, you wouldn't be here and you wouldn't be trying to get well. So right away, you know you're making different choices.

One thing I've found helpful is to write down small things that I feel good about at the end of the day. It really helps a lot. Maybe if you wrote down instances where you felt good about your actions or felt that you didn't react like BPDm, you might gain clarity on how much you're really like her, where you need to work on strengthening or educating yourself, and what you can be proud of.

 BiancaRose