Second memorial

[Depression = 72% of members]

I'm sorry but I didn't think I was ever going to come back here. I thought the grief thing was behind me and I'd be fine. In the past several months I'd been fine and then the second half of March came along. For me there's more than one memorial date for my mother and so I went to visit her grave on Monday and I'll be doing it again next Wednesday. I was sure everything was behind me and I'd be fine but, evidently, I'm cracking up, not sleeping properly and making messes of things lately instead of thinking clearly. I'm sorry about that.

[justnothing]

I'm sorry but I didn't think I was ever going to come back here. I thought the grief thing was behind me and I'd be fine. In the past several months I'd been fine and then the second half of March came along. For me there's more than one memorial date for my mother and so I went to visit her grave on Monday and I'll be doing it again next Wednesday. I was sure everything was behind me and I'd be fine but, evidently, I'm cracking up, not sleeping properly and making messes of things lately instead of thinking clearly. I'm sorry about that.

[livednlearned]

Hi justnothing,

I'm sorry for your loss   Grieving around an anniversary is so hard, and you have more than one memorial date. Anniversary grief can bring up feelings we might not experience during other parts of the year. I think anniversaries of sad events affect us even when we might forget the dates, and the emotional memories can sometimes last much longer than what the calendar says.

We're here for you if you need somewhere to share what's going on. When you say cracked up and making messes of things, it makes me wonder if you are trying to do too much right now? I know when I am feeling emotional, and don't want to be (or don't think I should), I might try unsuccessfully to pretend that everything is normal. What helps is to slow things down so I can take it in, and let myself feel ok, even if it's just to allow myself permission to grieve.

I read a book by Harriet Lerner -- she wrote Dance of Anger, but I think this was from another of her books -- about how sometimes grief anniversaries can affect entire families. The whole family might begin to tense around an anniversary, and people might not be aware that family dynamics are happening because there is unexpressed grief.

I hope that makes sense.

Anyway, just wanted to say hi and let you know others understand. The anniversary of my cousin is always painful, and I feel some shame because I couldn't be as supportive of her as I wanted to while she was alive. She was sick for such a long time. So around the anniversary of her death, I experience the feelings I had while she was alive, as well of the grief of her not being her. It's like the lifetime of all my emotions for her happen in a short period of time. 

[justnothing]

Thank you livednlearned, I appreciate that.

You're sure right about trying to pretend everything's normal when you feel you "have to". This past month I had a new list of responsibilities dropped on to my lap rather unexpectedly and I've been trying my best not to mess it up. I don't think I can afford to step away from them all together… but now that you mention it, I think I'll try to step away from them at least to some extent, at least for the coming week.

I imagine grief probably does have a great effect on family dynamics… but I kind of live alone and my only contact with my family is long distance… but I reckon it's probably just as well that we don't get to grieve together. Tbh it wouldn't quite work anyway because for the most part they didn't have much contact with her in the past ~30 years.

I know what you mean about the shame about not being able to be with her as much as you wanted to… I sure felt that a lot with my mother after the first year. Everything somehow seems not only so much clearer – but also so much easier in hindsight. Like "oh why couldn't I have "just" spent more time with her" when at the time "just" spending more time with her would have been about as easy as filing down a piece of granite with your teeth.

I especially liked what you wrote here:

It's like the lifetime of all my emotions for her happen in a short period of time. 

That's exactly how it is… thank you… I actually thought I was just being weird.

[livednlearned]

It's hard when there are responsibilities happening when what you really need is to take care of yourself and process the grief, and all the other feelings that come up. I'm glad you're going to try and step away as much as possible. Sometimes just giving ourselves permission to step away can relieve stress. And when stress is relieved, it gets easier to handle the responsibility, if that makes sense. 

Living alone can be another kind of challenge during grieving anniversaries because without other people to connect with and share, it can feel hard to know what's "normal" or "ok." I'm glad you came here to share what you're going through. I can see how feeling grief, plus feeling like something is weird about how you're experiencing that grief, would make everything feel even harder. And on top of it, you have new responsibilities to deal with. That's a lot!

My family lives a long way away, and they don't tend to share what's going on with me, so I've had to work through things on my own a lot. One of my cousins got married and no one told me. And then he and his wife had a baby, and I didn't even know until someone sent me pictures of the baby (who has the same name as my brother). I thought they were sending me pictures of my brother from when he was a baby, and I thought, Why are they sending me his baby pictures? And then I realized that the baby was my cousin's firstborn, and no one had said anything. 

And when there are funerals or someone is ill in my family, things get so dramatic and complicated. I don't have the kind of family where tragedy brings people closer. It tends to set off fireworks because people don't know how to express grief in healthy ways. We tend to hold everything in as a family but it just comes shooting out in ways that creates more hurt.

So I tend to be on my own when there are anniversaries around grief, or even when good things happen, like babies being born. It makes it hard to process the straightforward feelings because there's all this other stuff going on. I have people in my life that I can share my feelings with. One of them is grieving her mom's death, and she ended up joining a grief support group. She felt like she should "get over it" because her mom passed a year ago after being ill for a long time. I guess she kept crying at times without knowing what was happening, and realized small things like seeing her mom's favorite flower would trigger memories and she would get flooded with grief. I think she felt the grief support was really helpful, she found it through a church, even though she isn't a member at that church. Just learning how everyone else was dealing with grief made her realize it expresses in so many ways, and it's all very normal. 

[justnothing]

I'm sorry to hear about your family being like that. I have a little nephew whom I'm probably never going to meet and I wouldn't be surprised if he never even hears about me… so I think I know what that's like.  When it comes to certain families it seems that distance is probably better than "closeness", in a way.

I'm glad to hear your friend was able to get some support for the grief process. I think when people try to artificially "get over it" rather than dealing with it, that ironically tends to prolong it even more.

It's hard when there are responsibilities happening when what you really need is to take care of yourself and process the grief, and all the other feelings that come up. I'm glad you're going to try and step away as much as possible. Sometimes just giving ourselves permission to step away can relieve stress. And when stress is relieved, it gets easier to handle the responsibility, if that makes sense. 

Yes, that does make perfect sense… unfortunately, as I found out last night, I'm apparently not going to be able to step away from things even a little bit after all. A couple of the people whom I thought were going to help ease the pressure have actually been piling more on. One of them has been my trusted friend and confident and a source of a lot of support… up until about a month ago… but as soon as there's been a change in my position it seems that I can't do anything right in her eyes anymore… and that's frankly been causing the whole thing to be about 10 times more stressful than it would have been had I just chosen to do it alone.

Um… I feel really strange asking this here… recently I've been accused of being an enabler… specifically when it comes to handling other people with BPD… I suspect that might be true but I'm not always sure when I'm doing it and when I'm not. There are a few dozen people with BPD whom I sometimes have to make decisions about, shall we say… and I'm a bit conflicted about which approach to take. Having been raised by one, I'm more prone to enabling and possibly tend to get overly anxious about people getting upset, triggered, offended, etc'… on the other hand, I know that if I just let things slide too much that chaos might eventually break out… and, on top of that, pressure is being put on me to start "educating" them about their behaviors… when that's frankly not what I signed up for and I also don't really think I have a right to either…  but when I say no I'm accused of enabling… Some people seem to think I've been doing a perfectly fine job so far but those I work with directly disagree… and ugh… I don't know what to think. My therapist seems to think I've been doing a good job and tells me that I need to be more firm and less apologetic about the decisions I make but it's not easy when I get piles of criticism thrown at me from the same people who are supposed to be helping me out. Anyway, I guess what I'm asking is how can I even tell when I'm doing things right? And how can I deal with disagreements like this without pushing the other people away? And does anybody happen to know where I might be able to go for this kind of advice?

[livednlearned]

That's hard that someone you trust is actually piling on more responsibilities -- I would find that difficult too. Does this person know that you are struggling with grief right now?

Um… I feel really strange asking this here… recently I've been accused of being an enabler… specifically when it comes to handling other people with BPD… I suspect that might be true but I'm not always sure when I'm doing it and when I'm not. There are a few dozen people with BPD whom I sometimes have to make decisions about, shall we say… and I'm a bit conflicted about which approach to take. Having been raised by one, I'm more prone to enabling and possibly tend to get overly anxious about people getting upset, triggered, offended, etc'… on the other hand, I know that if I just let things slide too much that chaos might eventually break out… and, on top of that, pressure is being put on me to start "educating" them about their behaviors… when that's frankly not what I signed up for and I also don't really think I have a right to either…  but when I say no I'm accused of enabling… Some people seem to think I've been doing a perfectly fine job so far but those I work with directly disagree… and ugh… I don't know what to think. My therapist seems to think I've been doing a good job and tells me that I need to be more firm and less apologetic about the decisions I make but it's not easy when I get piles of criticism thrown at me from the same people who are supposed to be helping me out. Anyway, I guess what I'm asking is how can I even tell when I'm doing things right? And how can I deal with disagreements like this without pushing the other people away? And does anybody happen to know where I might be able to go for this kind of advice?

This doesn't seem strange to me at all, justnothing. There are so many resources here to help us work through these exact kinds of questions, and all the people here, our peers, who are working through the same kinds of things, many of us struggle with these issues. I'm glad you asked  

Your question makes me think of a link I saw here that has been helpful to me, about the difference between "support" and "enabling" : https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=95263.0

Do you feel that you are enabling? Telling the difference between enabling and supporting is hard! Sometimes just knowing the difference can help, because support is good -- it feels good giving, and it feels good receiving. Enabling usually drains me and makes me feel upset with someone when they don't respond the way I expected them to, and I don't think it makes the other person feel good.

And the criticism thing -- oof, that's really hard. One of the tools here that really helped me, not just with criticism, but with all kinds of negative interactions, is mindfulness or what some call "wise mind." Especially when someone is triggered, which triggers us, it's so helpful to practice this. I use it no matter who I am interacting with, even AT&T customer service  

Here's a link with lots of good comments from other people here: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=64749.0

And how can I deal with disagreements like this without pushing the other people away?

Sometimes putting up a boundary or protecting ourselves will upset people, especially when we're introducing a boundary for the first time. I remember when I learned to stop circular arguments with my ex husband, I would say "stop" or "no" and hold up my hand, and he would actually stop. But then the next day he might give me the silent treatment sometimes lasting for days. I had to learn that "stop" and "no" were safe and strong ways to protect myself, to take care of myself, and that his reaction was on him.

Learning how to set boundaries is really hard, but it's healthy. Even when people around us get triggered or don't like the boundaries.

[P.F.Change]

Hi, justnothing! I'm glad you decided to post. 

It can be really hard to figure out what is "normal" or "right" when we have a childhood affected by BPD. I know at times I felt like all my peers just somehow knew what to do in certain situations or when to think something was weird, while I felt kind of lost. You ask what's the best place to go for advice on that stuff, and I'd say probably your therapist. Someone who knows about healthy boundaries and also knows you pretty well.

I thought about those same two workshops that livednlearned shared with you--they are good. I also thought about this one: Dealing with Enmeshment and Codependence It has some good graphics and really spells out some things about enabling behaviors and allowing everyone to maintain his own identity. I found it really helpful, so maybe it would be helpful for you, too. Learning healthy boundaries is really important.

Some people are just critical. It's possible that when someone criticizes you it has more to do with them than you--just a thought. How do you normally express your feelings when others criticize you?

Wishing you peace,

PF

[justnothing]

Thank you both for your replies and also for the links, they all look quite useful and in several different ways for that matter…

I ended up talking to her about it and I think we understand each other better now . I think I need to work more on expressing what I'm thinking/feeling and when I'm having problems etc'… repressing and hiding and even sugar coating just come more naturally for me…

Yesterday and today I also started working on a kind of compromise with them that I'm hoping will get everybody's needs met (of course, now the next question is whether or not I'm biting off more than I can chew or if I'll even have time to chew it… ).