While my mom does not have BPD, she does have cPTSD, and my sisters and I grew up religiously conservative and homeschooled.
I can share some of my experiences, and also some of what I've seen my H's kids experience (their mom has many traits of BPD), so you have some examples to reflect on as you untangle your past.
My older sister is currently not in contact with my parents. Both my younger sister and I agree that she seemed to be hit the hardest by conflict with my parents; conflict that continued into adulthood. My parents were and are not able to empathize with her very well. She moved out right when she turned 18. She and her H have chosen not to have children, and take the time to give themselves experiences and adventures as adults that they were not given or could not do as kids. Her H is the oldest child and grew up taking care of his mom, so both of them, in their own ways, experienced not having "typical" childhoods of adults focusing on the kids; instead, they both strongly experienced either adults focusing on adult emotions (my mom), or adults needing help from children (my BIL's mom).
The driving limitations you shared sound "generally normal" -- that is, within the wide range of normal parenting behavior, which can range from the permissive side ("Here are the keys, see you whenever") through the authoritarian side, which sounds like your mom's position. It doesn't sound pathological but that doesn't mean that in other areas in life everything was fine. And, it can be common in disordered families for "generally normal" parenting to not be experienced that way, to not feel that way, due to the overarching dynamic in the family. So it makes sense to me that you'd be questioning the driving rules, or feeling a certain way about them as you reflect back, even though at face value the rules are fairly normal... because of the bigger context of your family life.
To find another angle on it -- the kids' mom (uBPD) has sometimes given them advice that is good advice. But it takes me a minute to be able to treat it as such, because it's not being given in a vacuum. It takes a lot to be able to say: "Just because BPD was involved, doesn't mean that every word coming out of her mouth is unhealthy. And -- just because she gave good advice once, doesn't mean that everything else going on was somehow OK". It's definitely a balance.
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These experiences did stand out to me as emotionally controlling:
My mother convinced me that I didn't need/want to go to college, that I wouldn't like it and it would be "too much" for me, and I didn't need a college degree anyway, and also that the high school college-prep route would be too hard (because I didn't like math and science) so she pressured me - in a very convincing way that made it seem like MY choice - to choose the easier high school curriculum and not go to college.
I remember having to practically peel my mom off me in the driveway before a road trip, from her "are you SURE you don't need me to come with you?" when I was driving 3 hours away and I was 24!!
I have seen that dynamic in play with my H's kids. I heard their mom use the nearly the same verbiage when trying to convince H's oldest, at age ~9, not to go on a trip with us: "Oh, of course it's fine to go... but are you
sure you want to?" She had plausible deniability -- "I never said you couldn't go, I never said you had to stay with me" -- but in disordered and dysfunctional families, it's "emotionally clear" what the message is -- Mom doesn't want you to go, Mom doesn't want you to do that. But it's framed as "I always give you a choice, I always ask you what you want" when really it's undermining the child's confidence in choicemaking.
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Not being allowed to go to youth group does strike me as beyond normal range parenting (again, I grew up in a church with a youth group, so I understand the dynamic a bit)... because it's the youth group at the church
your parents chose to attend. That does land as micromanage-y, or wanting to control the other relationships you have outside of family. I wonder if your mom may have felt threatened about you developing good relationships with the youth group leaders? Or even just friendships with peers, as those would take focus and energy away from your mom.
My H's oldest is now 19, and (fortunately) works full time out of the house, which is a relief. She has no friends here in town, which is not an exaggeration, so when she got this job, I felt grateful that she would be creating new relationships, even "just" through work. It does sound like she is fitting in there, and people like her. But she spends much of her off time taking care of her younger half brother at Mom's house. We hear about her doing many, many "parenting" type things for him. So her mom's overwhelming emotional needs have meant that (a) she did not have energy/bandwidth to develop & maintain normal peer relationships, and (b) instead of Mom being a parent at Mom's house, Mom tends to abdicate that and parentify SD19.
Anyway... I guess the way it ties in is that in BPD-influenced family systems, the kids, often the parentified kids, generally don't get to have or develop normal-range relationships with peers or other adults.
Were you the "golden child", or do you think you had a different role in the family?
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Really glad you're here sorting that out. I occasionally have to do that, too, in my therapy sessions -- reflect back on things I remember from a religious homeschooled background, and think through: that feels super normal, but was it? And if not, how much of that was from my mom's overwhelming emotions, how much was from the religious stuff, and how much was notable but still normal range?