Hi Apric0t,
One of the things we do in life is learn to control emotions -- regulating emotions, learning to regulate them, is part of growing up and becoming an adult. Your mother is and was an adult when you were 7. What she had were tantrums, blaming you when her behaviors were far more out of control than what anyone would expect from a child. She was in the wrong, even if you were, if that makes sense.
If you were having a tantrum, or acting out, it was her job to help you learn to regulate your emotions. Calling you names or raging at you would not help you learn to regulate yourself, and in fact probably made you feel shame or guilt without understanding she put those feelings there. You never got to learn the healthier lesson, which was how to see the perspective of your behaviors in terms of what was best for you and others.
We understand toddlers will have tantrums but it's generally expected that adults will learn to not have them.
Nothing you did as a child warrants the kind of response your mom gave.
Having BPD makes it challenging (especially without therapy) to accept that a good child can have bad behavior. Your mom would interpret bad behavior = bad child. Whereas most of us go through a developmental stage where learn to understand that good people sometimes do bad (or naughty, in the case of kids) things.
And vice versa, even bad people can sometimes do good things.
It sounds like your mom experiences splitting, which is very confusing -- not just to kids but adults too.
When she is in paranoid, hurting, raging demon mode, she quite literally cannot maintain a consistent image of you. If she gets triggered (which is something she is accountable for, not you), she cannot hold you in her mind as one person. You become the "bad" daughter and the "good" daughter is out of sight, out of mind.
It sounds like you are able to see her as a good mom who does bad things -- and that you have been raised to believe that black/white thinking is kinda normal (e.g. either she is wrong, or you are wrong).
Both can be true. She may be acting badly, and you, feeling provoked, act in ways you later regret and aren't proud of.
But in the end, she is the parent. She was the adult. For her to ever see what you see, she would have to choose therapy and treatment, and that isn't easy for someone with a PD.
As a result of this resistance to treatment, many of us here simply try to prevent ways of making things worse, like using techniques HappyChappy mentions, such as JADE.
It's not normal to scream at a 7 year old every night. I'm so sorry you grew up that way. Fortunately, you're someone who reaches out to learn and understand and heal. It is remarkable how much we can heal ourselves and our childhoods by willing it to happen.
