Personality Addictions

[Butterflygirl]

The following is just my opinion . . .

I have been in twelve step programs for 33 years as of last week. So I can honestly say I am in recovery. Once I got past my various addictions, I started working on my shortcomings. This makes me  feel good about myself.

On this board I always seem to be the victim, and since I believe we all play some part in our current circumstances, I have been trying to look at my role in my current relationship with my BPD son.

I have come to understand a lot about myself from this introspective, but most of all I learned that somewhere along the line, I became angry at my son. Because I was angry I started being mean to my son. This became a habit and at some point I got addicted to being mean to him and started looking for others to be mean to. Of course I had a list of rationalizations. It was my alcoholic father's fault. It was my codependent mothers fault. It was my horrible childhood. It was the bullies back in school . . . on and on.

Well maybe be one or all of these circumstances got the ball rolling, but somewhere a long the way this became my personality. Not only that, I had a revelation last week, that I liked being mean. I liked the power. I liked watching people react. It was exhilarating, and since we can only feel one emotion at a time it displaced my depression.

So this is my confession which precedes change. My goal is to be a nice person to everyone even my Borderline son.

Pray for me. Experiences taking hold and becoming part of our cellular structure, due to the repetition compulsion, can really take hold of our lives and change us

Butterflygirl.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[mimi99]

Hi Butterflygirl. Congratulations on your 33rd recovery anniversary. Quite an accomplishment!  I am also in a 12-step recovery program (10 years) and trying to do some work on myself. It has been very helpful when struggling with the events of the past few months.

I love that you are holding yourself accountable for being nicer by telling on yourself here. Like you, I have realized that my anger at my daughter has colored my interactions with her, certainly not in a positive way. It is insidious, how the negative behaviors sneak in slowly and after many years of dealing with a borderline I find myself reacting completely differently than I know I should. Sometimes I think I act too much like my d24. That is very discouraging to notice about myself. I have turned into a complainer, especially at work. I have recently made a commitment to keep my mouth shut when feeling negative, and pray each morning for the control to not complain. It is a struggle, but it will get easier I guess.

Thanks for this reminder of the importance of looking at my part in things. I have learned here that I have been very invalidating to my daughter for years, but justified it by saying that her thinking was twisted and needed correction. You know how well that works!  I'll keep praying for the willingness to change and be more positive, and will keep you in those prayers as well.