Attachment and Intimacy

[Calsun]

As I come to understand the ways in which my uBPD mother influenced me and the overall dynamics of the disease.  I've come to see just how impossible it was to bond with my mother in any safe, intimate, stable, loving way.  Of course, she would blame me for not wanting to be close to her. 

But she also tried to destroy or devalue anyone and anything to whom I became attached, whether it was a girl I really liked or a woman who I loved in my adulthood or activities which I was passionate about or deep heartfelt pursuits.  My mother even destroyed favorite toys in my youth around which I found particular joy and some escape from her craziness. As a small child, playing chess with my brother, she ripped up the board and threw the pieces because we were not doing what we were supposed to be doing at the time (I'm not sure what that was).  It made me terrified of attaching to anyone, building strong connection, to even feel safe attaching and committing to myself and being in my own body.  I think physical illness in my adult life has been in part a consequence of that experience of chronic stress and not feeling safe in my own body.

It was this terrible message to me of I'm going to hate and reject you, hit you and tell you that you are unlovable, but you are not supposed to leave me for anyone or anything else. You are supposed to stay bonded to my abusiveness and insanity, forever, and there is no escape from it in attachment to anyone or anything that is not me. She would even ask me who I loved more, her or my father. 

It made it hard as an adult to really build something in my life that didn't feel like it would be wantonly destroyed.  It certainly made it painfully difficult to feel safe building intimate connection with others, and I became self-sabotaging of that.

I'm becoming more aware of the dynamics of having a uBPD mother, and the work I'm doing in coming to greater awareness has really helped me.  Just thought I would post about this and see if anyone has had similar experiences or can relate to it.

Best,

Calsun

[CBoo]

 

I relate to this absolutely.  The story with my dad is very similar.  Thank you for sharing this.  Do you find the posts here helpful?

[Calsun]

Thanks, CBoo.  I do find it very helpful and some of the books, as well.  It helps to finally get that there was a whole dynamic to how my mother behaved and how I was treated. Her behavior toward me, abusive, devaluing and hostile, was not about me. It was a highly distorted fun house mirroring of who I am.  It wasn't just that she was abusive or rageful, it was  her terror of abandonment, the constant emotional abandonment and threats of abandonment from both my mother and father, the splitting, projecting onto one child good qualities and onto the other bad qualities, the black and white thinking,  her inability to accurately remember what she said due probably to cognitive impairment, the invalidation of reality, the extreme level of emotional dysregulation.  It's very comforting to know that it is a whole dynamic of an illness that a lot of other people have experienced, as well. People who grow up with pretty reasonable parents can't understand or fathom that a mother is capable of those kind of behaviors. That others can validate that this level of dysregulation goes on and is ironically normal for people suffering with borderline personality disorder makes me feel so much less alone with an experience that others in my family are incapable of fully validating and that others who haven't lived with a BPD can't fathom.  It gives such a disordered childhood experience ironically some sense of order.

Calsun

[Sitara]

You are not alone Cal.  Growing up my mom would make fun of my body and tell people my deepest, darkest secrets in an attempt to embarrass me, then belittle me because I was blushing (because it wasn't important enough embarrassed about).  As I got older and let her know things like that weren't acceptable, she would cry, "Either you accept all of me, or none of me!"

I also struggle with feeling safe in relationships.  I spent my share of time in abusive relationships.  Somehow I lucked out and found an incredibly tolerable man who accepts I will not always be as openly loving as he might always want.  He knows I'm working to get past my blocks and that's good enough for him.  It's taken me years to accept that he's not going to hurt me.  It's not easy trusting someone with your love.

[Calsun]

Hi Sitara,

Thanks for your share.  I've come to see that as I move towards greater happiness in my life, I feel the conditioned response from my childhood of terror.  Being happy, individuating, doing the things that I loved, forming meaningful attachments with healthy people, they were all punished with abandonment and abuse as a child. They were all threatening to the uBPD mother. Those were all ways I moved away from my mother and her misery, and those were punished severely.  So, I really feel the fear of death and annihilation whenever I feel most alive, filled with passion and joy.  My mother hated light and joy, freedom and feeling good about yourself.  So, those feelings bring up terror and fear of getting killed or being annihilated.

I'm coming to see how dangerous and destructive my uBPD's spirit really was, a very dark and sinister spirit.  People who didn't grow up with a sadistic BPD can't understand that terror.  I always judged myself by the standards of people who grew up with some normalcy, felt as though there was something wrong with my insides, something wrong with my character. I can have more understanding, acceptance and compassion for myself, now, not self-pity. There was nothing wrong with my character, I was responding to what was severe BPD behavior in my home, which was sadistic and pathological behavior.  And an abandoning system built on denying and minimizing it.  And blaming and trying to marginalize and annihilate the reality of the one who was trying to expose it and get help.

Calsun

[GeekyGirl]

Oh Calsun, your mother did some very cruel things.   My mother had a destructive side too, and it was only after I learned about BPD that I truly recognized it for what it is. It does make it tougher to get attached to others and I know that can lead to self-destructive behavior.

Here's the silver lining, though: you do see things more clearly now. You've become a healthier person for it. You're tackling your health issues head-on and you're working through the pain of the abuse you suffered from as a child.

When do you feel free to experience joy and happiness? I feel most free when I'm on vacation (i.e. not under the stress of work and running a household) and or playing with my DS--his unbridled joy and childish silliness allow me to really let go and experience childhood again in a different way. Who do you feel safe with, so you can truly be yourself without the fear or being judged?

[Sitara]

What allowed me to open up most after learning about BPD was realizing the "reality" I'd been conditioned to believe was not actually reality.  In regards to relationships, I'd been conditioned to believe that no one will really love me and everything that ever went wrong was my fault.  Even when I'd try to talk to my mom about issues with my friends, I wasn't being sympathetic enough to what my friends were going through, or they didn't want to hang out with me because I must have done something wrong.  I had a major "AHA!" moment after learning about this and realizing what I thought was reality wasn't actually true.  I decided that I'm going to have to re-learn how to have relationships and I can't apply the "skills" I learned with my mom to other people.  It's been amazing! It's a little scary opening myself up but it's also been incredibly freeing at the same time.  In just the past month I've gotten back in contact with and made more attempts at forming friendships that I've done in the last year.  I just have to remind myself that when they say they're just too busy to get together this weekend, they actually mean they're just busy.  It's not because they don't like me anymore. 

It's not easy to open yourself while trying to stop the natural response of bracing yourself for rejection.  But just keep on trying!

[Calsun]

Thanks, Sitara.  I have so many epiphanies of late, as well.  The sense of reality woven by the BPD mother was just so off.  When I was a teenager, my mother would say people only liked me because they didn't know me, that if they really knew me the way she did, they wouldn't like me.  Just totally off and BPD crazy.  But the thing is, I took that in and based a lot of my life on that and other BPD distorted thinking about myself.  I became afraid that people would stop appreciating me or caring about me once they got to know me better.  A sure way of being terrified of intimacy, start opening up and revealing more of who you are, and you will be abandoned and rejected.  But that fear really did shape how I related to other people.  I became much more cautious and to myself.

Thanks for reminding me of how distorted the original BPD messages were and how important it is to reach out to connect with healthy people.  And yes, being busy from a healthy person means they're busy, not that they're not interested in getting together. 

Thanks again,

Calsun

[ScarletOlive]

Hi Calsun,

I'm very sorry your mother drove so much fear into your heart at such a young age. Children are supposed to be raised with love and nurturance, not fear and violence. As children, safe attachments are our first experiences of trust. If we find an unstable environment, then it makes trust very difficult.

Have you done anything to break down the script delivered to you by your mother? Like, have you thought of ways to reach out and trust in friendships in your adult life?

Keep posting. You have a real way with words. And realizations are so important in the healing process, because each lightbulb moment gives us a chance to overcome our past.  Sending you lots of caring and support.

[bethanny]

Calsun, I so relate to this.  The toxic and smothering symbiotic orbit my uBPD mother insisted on with me.  Whenever I had issues with friends her advice was DUMP THEM never conflict resolution.  So much shame and secrecy and codependency within the family.  Her good will to me was measured by just how accessible and focused I was on her.  The more I reached out for joy and friendship to others and the outside world the cooler and more withholding she would become.  There was always a big crisis with my alcoholic father which would mandate my dropping any ongoing social life I was cultivating and racing back to my parents' home to lend support and more focus against the endless misery there.  To try to pump lightness into their strained and fight-ridden relationship. I never had a sensibility of hope in having my own adult life and family and security.  To my mother that was the highest treason. 

There was always the double bind issued, too, from her.  Be a big success in life to make me proud BUT never leave my side and never take a risk or rock any boats or do anything she had not given permission for.  DOUBLE-BINDING.

Thanks for sharing.

best, bethanny

ps in my first post about coming back I wrote a short essay on unrecovered borderline parent fwiw!

[justnothing]

To Calsun, in a way I must say "thank you" for having made this post because this had been on my mind tonight and right now, after reading it, I'm feeling so much better than I did a few minutes ago.

I can relate so much to the part about everything you get attached to getting devaluated. To this day I still have the message in my head that getting attached to others is somehow "not OK" and often when other people smile at me and seem to like me… I get this weird feeling like I'm "doing something wrong". (And, well, actually, for some reason almost any time I do anything I feel like I'm doing something wrong… Granted, I don't understand how that happened because I don't remember her being that abusive, I just know that the message is there somehow and she was the only one who could have put it there). Somehow everything I ever got attached to always got the prefix of "that damn –"… like "that damn boy", "that damn girl", "that damn cat", "those damn cartoons", etc'. As an adult I finally decided to buy myself a couple of hamsters and even they became "those damn hamsters" . So yeah…

There was always the double bind issued, too, from her.  Be a big success in life to make me proud BUT never leave my side and never take a risk or rock any boats or do anything she had not given permission for.  :)OUBLE-BINDING.

All I can say to this is – exactly.