Dread, anxiety, stress response activation, and resistance. I’m sure this comes from years of emotional manipulation and punishments that were always extreme.
I really identify with this. In my case emotional manipulation and punishments came through my older BPD brother. Both my parents worked so we were latch key kids. He ruled the home and applied discipline in insane ways.
I did somatic experiencing therapy to try and help un-hijack my nervous system, and it has done a world of good. I'll probably continue to have tendencies to be wired for hyper vigilance, but when I feel scolded or "in trouble," even when receiving constructive criticism or something similar, my body is a lot less jacked up.
I went from a BPD sibling to a BPD marriage (since divorced). Then met and married a wonderful man who also has BPD in his family. His adult daughter has BPD and she texts incessantly. I would get texts from her that would in essence say she needed to talk to me about something.
Honestly, I couldn't handle having a texting relationship with her and had to become what my therapist referred to as digitally boring. I stopped responding immediately, and sometimes didn't respond at all. I am so repulsed by neediness to that extreme that it was hard for me to engage but I felt bad not responding at all so the compromise was emoji responses or something else non-committal. On my iphone I can leave canned responses to her text messages so began doing that and it seems to check the box of engagement without letting myself get hooked into something.
It's probably much harder to do with a parent. I don't have BPD parents but there is something dysfunctional in my family that I couldn't make right without really focusing on how my body was reacting to family dysfunction. When my dad got angry at me, even as a grown adult, it was like getting hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat. It would come out of nowhere and feel so out of proportion to what happened. I'm the least temperamental, least volatile, most accommodating, most tolerant and patient family member but I seem to be the one people liked to kick.
So I put all my efforts into feeling safe. If my family was going to be unsafe, and if they wouldn't or couldn't provide safety, it was up to me to make that happen. Safety first!
The somatic experiencing work must've helped because a few weeks ago I let down my guard and drank wine during dinner with my parents. Suddenly my dad had his metaphoric baseball bat out and I could feel the dread and panic rising. Out of nowhere, I felt this laugh come out of me. It was absurd what he thought I was guilty of doing.
I seemed to need a triple-pronged approach -- body-based healing, reading books (and learning here) and then lots of tiny little steps to practice new ways of being in relationship with disordered people.
How did you respond when your dad texted "we need to talk"? Do you respond immediately?
That's really sad he enables your mom instead of protecting you. My family is like that too. The most volatile person in our family seems to get protection
