Could your BPD/NPD Mom cook?

[Depression = 72% of members]

Question to everyone

Could your BPD/NPD mom cook at all? or did she find it difficult? if so how did she find it difficult?

I am just thinking of the women on my  Moms side of the family who really struggled in this area, particularly my Grandmother and Great Grandmother. I was wondering if it is a common experience amongst women with BPD/NPD ? If not I am starting to think my NPD /BPD Grandmother  has Aspergers syndrome as this is in the family too and it would explain a few things.  Any thoughts welcome.         

[lucylou]

Question to everyone

Could your BPD/NPD mom cook at all? or did she find it difficult? if so how did she find it difficult?

I am just thinking of the women on my  Moms side of the family who really struggled in this area, particularly my Grandmother and Great Grandmother. I was wondering if it is a common experience amongst women with BPD/NPD ? If not I am starting to think my NPD /BPD Grandmother  has Aspergers syndrome as this is in the family too and it would explain a few things.  Any thoughts welcome.         

[Sunfl0wer]

My uBPD mom could cook a few things I loved.  Mostly though she did cook fine, but it just was not great even though she thought it was.  Sometimes it was terrible but she wouldn't know.  She was very controlling about her cooking.  Would not let others help.  She had to do it all.  Did not like to eat others food as it was not good enough.

Interestingly, my uBPD/NPDexbf is a phenomenal cook.  He too though is controlling and will not let anyone in the kitchen area when he is in there.  He also has a hard time liking other peoples cooking unless it is insanely good.

Now there are people who can use a kitchen, share, maneuver around others in the kitchen like a well designed dance, sharing the small space seamlessly. 

NEITHER of the two above could share kitchen space and do that "dance."

[lucylou]

Hi Sunflower, Thanks for your response. Its very interesting the similarities between your Ex and Mom with regard to  "control" and not sharing space/accepting help . Also the dislike of other peoples cooking I can definitely relate to that part as when I have cooked for both my Mom and Grandmom they usually find something to pick fault with. My uBPD/NPD Mom was not too bad at cooking  her food was edible and she did have some idea how to present it thanks to my Father teaching her when they first got married. My Grandmother on the other hand really could not be more different and my Mom told me many stories about the food she used to serve up and how she would go hungry because it was so bad. My Grandmother used to store food for 20 Years and still use it just to give you an idea of what it was like . One time I found insects in the food she was using and she got mad at me for throwing it out.I find these things baffling and I wonder if she has some other disorder going on besides BPD/NPD. I hope by hearing your stories it might give some answers so I can move forward         

[Sunfl0wer]

My Grandmother used to store food for 20 Years and still use it just to give you an idea of what it was like . One time I found insects in the food she was using and she got mad at me for throwing it out.I find these things baffling and I wonder if she has some other disorder going on besides BPD/NPD. I hope by hearing your stories it might give some answers so I can move forward 

Lol Lucylou! 

When you asked this question, I did originally think immediately to all the gross stories that I have of my mom's food habits!  I intentionally left these out as I did not think anyone would relate to being served rotten food that had been for too many years in the freezer.  My mom was a child of the depression and I believe that these "grandma" food habits of hers have more to due with the trauma that generation suffered over having food shortages vs BPD.  Maybe there is correlation tho, idk.

She hoarded food.  She stockpiled for sales.  Shopped like there was an army to feed even though it was the two of us.  She ate rotten slimy ham, sour milk, and the meat in the freezer often would turn color.  She thought that the expiration date on the milk was better proof of the freshness than the curdles floating on top.  LOL!  I could go on and on.

(She also ate good stuff too... .the yucky stuff was not every meal... .but I admit I went hungry from refusal to eat often)

It really wasn't funny growing up.  It was traumatic for me.

I understood her issue though as growing up she told stories the depression, of food coupons for rationing bread and milk etc.  It wasn't like today's food stamps but everyone had to get rations as there wasn't enough.  Kids got to eat first, so adults wouldn't eat more than the kids could have their ration to grow.  Nothing was wasted.

Maybe your grandma was from this generation, or grew up with her own mother from that generation of worrying about food, and not wasting a thing?

[Sunfl0wer]

 

[Ziggiddy]

You know this question made me laugh lucylou! Because food was such a huge issue in our house.

Oddly enough, cooking was the one thing my mother did regularly as work in the house. Most of my childhood memories of her are of her back and the bow of an apron!

Also rather oddly right up till i moved out of home at 18 I thought my mum was an excellent cook. Then i started working in restaurants. And eating meals at other people's houses. And then realised how bad her cooking often was.

Maybe not that she was incompetent but rather that she was so experimental. Plus she has a hoarding problem so often uses out of code products in her cooking (especially for her kids who 'are too picky about having fresh food'

I have t laugh at this: she still has spices from before we left our hometown when i was 15. We had them for at least 5 years before then. So I put those spices at around oo ... .39 years old. And they weren't fresh then! I live in fear she will feed me something from her cupboard. Some of her foods go back to the years before it was law to put an expiration date on products!

[Ziggiddy]

oh my. Still thinking:

one year my mum came to visit me and I had a bag of mouldy breadcrumbs and yellowed cabbage leaves that I was throwing into my compost bin. Well my mum saw them and just went ballistic about the abominable waste and how I didn't value food and would one day starve because I threw perfectly good food away. Well she chased me to the compost and retrieved the bag before I could dump the contents. Man I was FURIOUS! Couldn't even throw MY rubbish out in MY house. Not even throwing it out - recycling it! Well Mum takes the bag and without even checking the contents, placed it in the back of her car. And then promptly forgot all about it! I decided not to tell her about the mould.

[JRT]

The way that mine watched the Cooking Channel you would think that she was a chef. She was marginal at best. I was the one that did the cooking.

[Turkish]

My mom could cook some things very well. Some of her ethnic dishes i miss. Being the latchkey kid of a single mother who worked nights, it was often a ghoulasch though.

When she adopted me out of foster care at 2.4, all I ate were hot dogs (I almost choked to death on one once, she said later, but luckily she was a nurse).

She grew up in a lower class family, being born after the Great Depression. Her dad was most like BPD/NPD/ASPD a child abuser and a child rapist (my mom and her older sister, poor mom  :'(

So my mom's views on food were interesting. She used to sit me in my chair in front of the tv at 3 and 4 in front of a large plate of spaghetti. I refused to eat it. I often would fall asleep watching Carson and I would face plant into the pile of food. My mom would clean me up and send me to bed. I kind of remember that, and my mom still thinks it's funny. It kind of is, but I wouldn't do that to my kids. D2 ate her broccoli tonight, but hardly touched her chicken. She asked for a banana, so I relented and she ate it as I read to the kids at bed time.

I don't know why she told me this time and time again later, but she said she took me into the bathroom at a pizza place when I was 3 and spanked my bare bottom because I refused to eat pizza.

Mom broke me of not having a cosmopolitan palette (she later told me she regretted because I ate everything). As she was about to lose her home in the suburbs and move us to the 25 acres to begin our Way Back Adventure from 1983 to 1883, she became friends with some questionable people. They decided to have us kids dumpster dive for produce, so for a few months, we did do that in the back of one of the local grocery stores. By then, it was about survival. I was 10 and 11.

[polly87]

My mother did not take enough time to cook - only 15 minutes on most days. She slammed some readymade tomato sauce on half-baked vegetables, added some pasta and that was it on most days. She did not put love into her cooking and I always noticed this. I hated every dish she made. She refused to cook anything that had potatoes, butter, full-fat cheese, or properly cooked vegetables in it. I was not allowed to cook myself though.

I am making up for it now by making elaborate dishes with potatoes and/or a load of cheese a couple of times a week 

[Ziggiddy]

Polly your point about the vegetables reminded me how my mum overcooked vegetables to death every time. Except potatoes. They were really good.

But I didn't much like vegies till I left home and began working in a vegetarian restaurant then I realised how lovely they can be.

Also we only got fruit she liked - and never fresh, always the bruised second grade stuff.

It's no coincidence that I have over 12 fruit trees of my own now!

Odd how we rebel!

[Woolspinner2000]

Thought I'd pop in and offer my thoughts on this topic. I remember my uBPDm being a good cook overall, but then there are these particular memories my siblings and I have that we still laugh about today, or groan at the thought of ever having to eat certain things again. Now that I think about it, often the regular everyday food was not fancy, sometimes overcooked, and those were the days before microwaves. Since I grew up on a farm, we had what we could grow on the farm and didn't buy much from the store.

I do very well remember that my uBPDm would invite people over to eat, and then she'd make these super elaborate meals, sometimes ethnic. They were very good, but I now realize they were as dramatic as she was, and she definitely wanted to impress. She also made wedding cakes, had tea parties for her friends at our home (I remember the dishes she used for the parties but don't remember anything to do with the parties/get togethers-those are gone from my memory. I don't remember the wedding cakes either, just that I heard she made them).

She was a hoarder as well, freezers full of food, pantry shelves full of home canned goods.

Wools

[Turkish]

She was a hoarder as well, freezers full of food, pantry shelves full of home canned goods

Same with my mom, Wools. There were only two of us, but the full sized freezer was packed. She used to can, but those things would stay on the shelf so long, it was hard to tell what they were after a while. When we moved to the mountains, she took a cue from The Mormons, and bought used dishwashers in which she said you could bury in the ground to store food for The Apocalypse. Nothing ever came of that, and the dishwashers sat open, collecting flora and fauna, moldering on the hill...

My T said that hoarding denotes "fear of loss." It might be an interesting issue to discuss in its own thread. I think a lot of us here have hoarder parents.

[Ziggiddy]

I think you're right about the hoarding being a common theme Turkish. i was thinking about posting about it so will do that. I heard a different story about what hoarding is from. interesting.

[funfunctional]

Lucylu,

She can only cook BLTs... .BPDs  only cook BLTs.   I guess I am trying to be funny here.   

That is interesting because my BPD MIL does NOT cook.   My husband always said they went out to eat and his mom never cooked.

Wonder what other people think.

Interesting   

[Turkish]

When I first met me Ex, and she was scouting me for husband material, she said, "I hope you cook, because I don't." After we had our first child, she did make an effort. Her mom is a great cook, and caters out of her home for a living. My Ex always resented her mom for never leaving her cheating and abusive father, so it was really her reaction to not wanting to take on her mother's role in a relationship, since she saw her mom as the abused servant.

[Sunfl0wer]

You know what, I have mentioned it before, my ex wanting to play mind games about food in the fridge.  After thinking about this a bit I have some thoughts that I'm not sure how to put into words, so hopefully someone will relate and help me out a bit.

So my exuBPDbf cooking was a lot like his way of making love.  There was always a hidden push/pull to it.

For example:

If his D was white (always), and I was black (fluctuated).  Then the dinner he prepared was her favorite meal, revolved around her schedule.

If it was just he and I and he was giving me the silent treatment and angry then he often "forgot" to cook, or ate before he came home.

If he had a rage and felt guilty, I got a special meal which was a secret apology between us.  Meaning, I knew he was reaching out, trying to be attentive, caring and loving.

I mentioned the sex earlier, because similar patterns played out in the bedroom.  It was always a game of him not wanting to act like he wanted me more than I wanted him.  Him not taking initiative and wanting to be spoiled passively.  Then me pointing it out, him feeling guilty and then trying to make up for it and being assertive again.

Now that I think of it... .  Everything went in these guilt - pamper - punish cycles!  It could be food, sex, or even picking movies, games or trips to go on.

Oh well, I guess there's nothing really new about all that... .I'm just stating the obvious.  Sometimes I forget.  *sigh*

[Harri]

   My mother was a very good cook, except with veggies.  She would overcook them and serve them plain... .ugh.  To this day I can't stand the smell of cooked cabbage or beets.  Everything else though was quite good, when she did cook. 

As young kids cooking was generally not an issue but as we got older she would go on strike saying we needed to learn how to appreciate her and all she did for us. 

When I went away to school, she got in the habit of cooking pasta with a red sauce every night.  *Every night*  My brother and father were quite happy with this but I wanted a bit of variety so i would cook different stuff.  It did not go over too well but as long as I was doing the cooking she could deal with things.  After I started working, if I had a late session I would come home and she would say (all proud) that she had cooked for me and it was on the counter.  I would look and see an unopened can of tuna or one time, and this one is one of my favorite memories... .I saw one hard boiled egg in a bowl.  Still in the shell.  That was my dinner.   

another thing that would make me laugh in bafflement/shock was when she would cook meat.  Sometimes she would smell it to check it and then she would call me over to smell it too.  I never really knew what the hell I was supposed to be smelling but figured if you had to check stuff that much it should be thrown out and I would tell her that.  The next thing I knew she would call that dinner was ready and I would see that she had cooked the suspect meat... .for me, my brother and father.  for herself, she would say she was not hungry and later I would find her eating a salad.    

[Sunfl0wer]

I would look and see an unopened can of tuna or one time, and this one is one of my favorite memories... .I saw one hard boiled egg in a bowl.  Still in the shell.  That was my dinner.   

Sorry Harri, This makes me sad. :'(

[Harri]

Awww, SunflOwer, no tears though i do appreciate the sentiment!  I remember being frustrated at the time, but I laugh at that memory and a lot of similar ones now.  It was just so typical.  Again though, I feel very fortunate when i read of other people stories here. 

[Ziggiddy]

That was interesting sunflower:

If he had a rage and felt guilty, I got a special meal which was a secret apology between us.

I really thought about this and realised my DH is similar - except he never rages. Only once in 17 years. But mealtimes were a constant issue. He is PA and I know he used to resent his mum calling him in to eat when he was busy playing/riding his mototcycle etc. He never eats dinner with us. And he never ever says thank you for his meal. This was an issue for 15 years - especially ironic since I am a chef and we met at a place where I cooked and he ate. And he used to thank me then ?

Anyway reading these things makes me realise how food/mealtimes can serve as a punishment which I never reflected on before. My mum used to cook stuff I was allergic to, sometimes so sick I couldn't manage to go to school - hives, upset stomach etc but she insisted no one in the family had allergies but her. I was allergic to coriander (cilantro) but we had curries at least 3 times per week. Because she liked them. When I'd say I couldn't eat them she'd tell me to out tomato sauce on them.

Harri I also think the can of tuna and boiled egg were horrible. Mostly because they were saying you were less important - especially feeding your family the questionable meat.

When I was pregnant my mum would make food from out of code ingredients. It was the first time I stood up to it.

Funfunctional - BLT's. That was funny!

[happykiwi]

Wow this question nearly blew me off the chair with memories that piled in.

My BPD Mum could cook.  But she b___ed and b___ed about putting food on the table for us all so much that I must have made an unconscious decision to not learn to cook.  And i didn't.  It wasn't till I was 30 and in love with my BF (now husband) that I wanted to cook for him.  So he taught me how to cook a roast chicken.  And I have gone on to be a great cook and I love cooking and love when my husband and kids beam up from their plates saying how yummy my food is.

My BPD Mum would cook food on the same days.  Monday was always roast chicken. Tuesday was rissoles.  Saturday was spagetti with sauce and Sunday was corn fritters with canned spagetti.  I knew what was for dinner by what day it was .  Yet she would have a dinner party (or soiree as she called them) and she would pull out all the stops for these people.  Fancy food, expensive food, food that smelt amazing yet my brother and I never got a taste.  We weren't even allowed to try an appetiser or fancy cheese or even the peanuts in the bowls. 

The other thing about food with BPD Mum was she would bake biscuits (cookies) for us and then get really mad if they were eaten because she would have to cook some more.

[enlighten me]

Both my exs think they are great cooks but they are not. My ex wifes baking is an in joke with her family. Her mum makes excusses for her not to bake for her.

My exgf thinks she could hold her own on master chef. She is average at best. She rarely let me cook so some of the meals I did werent great due to lack of practice and getting the timing right. I would normally have one thing that wasnt done to her liking.That said I did quite a few decent meals that her kids stuffed which really upset her. Especially as her son is a really bad eater. He eats anything but can take over an hour to do it. The fact that he finished some of my meals in minutes really annoyed her.

The only thing I was allowed to cook on a regular basis was pancakes. Which was also the only thing my exgf complimented me on.