Trying to escape the abuse

[AMR1234]

Hello,
My dad's BPD has been progressively worsening with time. Now that I am a grown, independent adult, it has been easier for me to set boundaries with him, however my tolerance for my dad has diminished significantly. It has gotten to the point where I can't interact with him in the slightest without feeling overwhelmed with anxiety and anger.

I am a therapist who has had formal training in personality disorders and I have read numerous books/articles in my spare time to help me. I have also been attending therapy on a regular basis, which is helpful. Sometimes I focus so much on intellectualizing the situation that I forget to let myself feel. I hope that this group can serve as a healthy space for me to feel supported.

What I need the most help with right now is how to cope with my dad's retaliation against the firm boundaries I have set. Given his most recent psychological abuse, I do not feel comfortable interacting with him at all. As a result of my distancing, he has tried contacting me numerous times to verbally attack me, he has made public posts about me on social media and he has engaged in numerous conversations about me with others behind my back. I recently had to block his email address and it broke my heart.

What do you do when you can't control how someone with BPD retaliates, but you can't allow it to continue at the same time?

Looking forward to connecting with you.

[dillpickle]

Hi AMR1234.  I recently joined this group too, and have had other posters share some very helpful advice about dealing with my own parent with BPD. I hope you also find this group to be safe and supportive.

With regard to your question, I try to remind myself about why I set those boundaries in the first place. While I love my mother, every interaction with her makes me feel anxious, stressed, upset, and angry. I don't enjoy feeling this way at all, but what happens is, that I end up taking it out on the people I love, who truly care about me. My friends and family deserve better than that, I deserve better than that, and so do you!

While I cannot control the way my mother retaliates, I know that I need to protect myself from her. I believe you need to protect yourself too. Love your dad from a distance, show him care when you are able to, but know that whenever he retaliates, it isn't really about you. I am so sorry to hear about what he has been doing, and that it hurts so much.  I'm not sure if this is helpful, but you're not alone.

[Kwamina]

Hi AMR1234

I would like to join dillpickle in welcoming you to our online community

Sometimes I focus so much on intellectualizing the situation that I forget to let myself feel.

This could be a coping mechanism you developed to help you deal with all of this. Do you perhaps feel that intellectualizing was also something you did growing up with your dad to help you cope with his difficult behavior?

I am very sorry your dad is subjecting you to verbal and psychological abuse. That is very unpleasant indeed.

What do you do when you can't control how someone with BPD retaliates, but you can't allow it to continue at the same time?

With boundaries I think it is important to keep reminding ourselves that boundaries are about us and what we do, they are about our own behavior and not that of the other person. Here are some excerpts from our workshop about boundaries that might be helpful to you:

Remember, our values and the boundaries of those values aren't about someone else. They are about how we choose to live our lives.
 
I have an eye analogy.  Eyelids play an important role in protecting our vision, right?  In this case, vision is the value.  To have good vision, dirt and dust are seen as harmful to the eye - thus we need a boundary to keep our eyes safe. Eyelids block the dirt and push the dust out - this is our boundary defense in action.
 
Eyelids don't try to control or punish or change the dirt, they just protect the "vision", consistently, day in, day out - often in subtle ways, sometimes in very visible ways - 400 million times in a lifetime.
... .
Relating our boundary defenses back to the value is very important.  If we don't do this, we run the risk of loosing sight of our objective - and we may make matters worse. To be constructive, we need to have realistic values and we need to understand what our responsibilities are if we want to truly live them. Talk is cheap.
 
There are 3 parts, the values we have, the boundaries of those values, and the actions we take when the boundaries are threatened.
... .
From the example above you can see that a value has many boundaries.  There are also many ways to defend your boundary.  :)efenses can be as simple as communicating and educating the other person.  It can be a comprehensive as leaving a relationship.
 
In all of these cases I am "not" telling the other person how to behave, what to do or not do or in any way trying to dictate to them how to live their life.  I am telling them how "I" behave, how "I" live.  I am clearly controlling that which I can -- myself.

You can find the workshop here: Boundaries - examples