Hi oddish
Well thanks for introducing yourself to us
Depression and anxiety aren't easy things to deal with. Unfortunately many of our members have struggled with these things.
You have cut off contact with your parents, how long have you been NC (no contact) with them?
When you're raised by a BPD parent, this can really affect you. Many children of BPD parents on this board have found themselves struggling with BPD-like traits in their adult lives. Often these are indeed learned or copied behaviors from their BPD parents. Fortunately these behaviors can also be unlearned or at least better managed through hard work. You say that you wonder if you have BPD tendencies. Are there perhaps specific traits you see in yourself that you are particularly worried about?
Congrats on your upcoming baby! I think it is very positive that you are trying to break the cycle of conflict and dysfunction so you can be the best mother you can be
Welcome to bpdfamily
The Board Parrot
First I want to address the BPD traits I find in myself that I would like to fix:
1) I am extremely sensitive to slights from others. Things that other people would brush off really affect me and my perception of other people. When I feel like someone treated me poorly I can spend the entire day going over the conversation in my head and feeling bad about it. I am also very reactive, it is hard for me not to react when someone treats me poorly. My husband is the same way so we don't really have a social circle. I don't mind the social isolation, but I don't want to teach my kid to be the same way.
2) I am also extremely sensitive to criticism. My husband says whenever he wants to teach me how to do something better or to explain that I did something wrong I get upset and so he has to find the right words to tell me these things. He is right, I feel shame and humiliation when someone criticizes even when they are right. Normally I am very good at realizing it is irrational and I do learn better ways to do things, but I still feel bad about the process. I want to be able to welcome criticism when it is made in a positive way.
3) I am prone to feeling guilty and ashamed. I don't have a strong sense of self so I tend to give too much credit to what others think of me. This makes me very vulnerable and stops me from doing things that I like to do just because I want to avoid being the center of attention. I have been working on this and going NC helped me to build a stronger sense of self by letting me have my own identity independent of my parents expectations of me. I still have ways to go.
Now about my history with my parents... .My contact with them has been an on-and-off situation for the past 5 years.
The first thing I need to explain for things to make sense is that I left my country of origin out of necessity because of communism. Even when my relationship with my parents was already bad by then, when I left the country it took a turn for the worse. My mother has never forgiven me for leaving, she once even told me I had betrayed them by not staying. This is one of the most difficult areas when it comes to our relationship, they have never allowed me to be independent: I was never taught how to drive, they always made me feel bad about whatever job I had so I would quit, etc.
The first time I took a break from the relationship was when my grandfather passed away. I was very close to my grandparents but I was living in a different country and it was impossible for me to go to his funeral. My mother was very unkind to me when I told her I wouldn't go. She told me that something really bad would happen to my grandmother because of the heartbreak of me not being present and it would be on me. That was the first time I took a break: I couldn't cope with the pain and I knew that if I was in contact with her she would depend on me for emotional support and I just knew I wouldn't be able to handle it.
That first break was about 6 months long. Then I gave the relationship a second chance. But things just kept taking turns for the worse. I was just in a constant state of dread and guilt for simply living my life. So whenever it became overwhelming I would take a long break from the relationship only to come back later hoping maybe they changed, or I would be able to cope better, but neither of those things ever happened so it became a pattern of cutting contact and going back.
The last time I took a break I was planning on being NC for good. I had been completely NC for 2 years when I got pregnant. As soon as I knew I was pregnant I started to think about them: whether or not they have a right to know about their grandchild, and whether or not my baby deserves to have grandparents. I kept thinking about how much I love my grandma and how good she has always been to me even when she was a bad mother to my mom, how the fact that my mom is bad to me doesn't mean she will be to my children, and how I would hate to steal that opportunity away from my child. But because I didn't want them to guilt trip me during my pregnancy I didn't tell them until last week (I am 8 months pregnant now). I broke 2 years of no-contact to tell them about my baby last week.
