Hello Everyone

[StandUp8]

Hello.
I have stared at this blank post form for a good ten minutes now not knowing where to start. I want to gush. I'll start with this ... .I am a 40 year old daughter of a mother who is severely bipolar. It actually stems back through 4 generations of my family. I recently had a bad stint of depression, which is rare for me, and saw a therapist for 2 visits. I talked about my past and my mother and she gave me some information on BPD and upon reading it was dumbfounded. It was like it was written specifically about her. I'm still in shock. All of my most important life events that she ruined purposely telling people things i told her in confidence... like she hated me and wanted to ruin my life. And I would let her back in. And anytime things in my life are going well she swoops in and takes over and pulls me down and i let her ... why?

Okay ... that's enough for now. I'm beyond happy to have found this place and wealth of knowledge. Thank you.

[Turkish]

Hi StandUp8,

Not to overrule your mother's therapists, but BPD can me misdiagnosed as bipolar.  They can even be co-morbid. 

What kinds of things does your mother observe that results in she swooping in to ruin things? It sounds like she's not a safe person to share with,  which is sad.  You are in a safe community here to share and get support. 



Turkish

[StandUp8]

Good Morning Turkish,

My mother actually doesn't go to therapists. She only sees a psychiatrist for her meds every six months and tells her what she wants to hear so that they won't mess with her combination of drugs and she can continue to self medicate with alcohol and stay out of the hospital. I recently turned forty and my mother has been hospitalized 4 or 5 times in my lifetime the first time being when i was 4 and my brother was 8 months old. During that time she fled my father and us and would be gone for approximately two years (depending on who is telling the story) but I wouldn't know about that until I was 20 years old myself. And I have no memory of it. My mom and dad divorced when i was 5ish and she came back and took up with a man she met at a bar while she was still married that convinced her to fight for my brother and I. Of course back then the mother always got custody and so ... .she did. My grandparents had been helping raise us to this point while my father worked. She moved us away. My dads parents were so distraught, my grandmother especially, that they took a promotion and opportunity to relocate to Saudi Arabia for five years and then Singapore for another three. I can't even make this stuff up. I never made these connections until recently. Nobody talked about it. My dad never said a bad thing about my mother and it took my mother getting drunk one night and telling my husband something about her leaving us and being in California when I was little for me to question my father about it and it told me. UGH. I'm sorry I'm going on. Nobody understands. She has spent her life pushing me down and discrediting me to everyone and so everyone thinks that I exaggerate and am a liar. It's like she's set up the pieces to her game so that it all falls into place the way she wants. Just like today ... .anytime we are together just us everything is fine and for the most part we get along okay but as soon as someone else comes into the picture ... for example my step sister ... she has to start a fight with me. I expect it. I wait for it even. I have actually gotten where i try at all costs to overlook it and avoid it. I am about to leave to go to my step sisters house  and was supposed to drive my mother but now my step dad has had to come home from his job and drive her the six hours because she created an argument completely out of her head after I dodged three earlier in the day yesterday. She wants to belittle me in front of everyone. It's a game to her. It's like it gives my stepsister and her something to bond about. This is not okay.