What is with food and kitchens in children of uBPDm?

[Bsane]

It has been interesting to me to read of people mentioning food and kitchens. I have always been afraid of kitchens and never learned to cook. I cook great food for myself and have slowly been cooking for others. When I was staying with my uBPDm I started cooking for her and she always appreciated it. I thought maybe I was scared of burning pots or not cleaning the kitchen to her standards. I got in the habit of eating over the sink! So, I was surprised to learn that many people have issues too. I am terrified of washing dishes. But anything that can be done with a machine -vacuuming,dishwasher, washing machine- I am happy to do. I thought maybe I was just lazy but now I realize I just never thought I did a good enough job. Seems many of you are just learning to cook at last. I thought I was alone as it seemed such a strange thing to be afriad of kitchens and often rented a place that didn't have one.

[AppleChippy]

You know, the more I read about BPD mothers the more I'm starting to wonder about my own.  Hmmm.  This is very similar to what we go through with my mother.

[Bsane]

What experiences have you had. I just figured out my mother might have it in the last week or so by researching online after something that was so un-normal.  Even then it took my friends telling me that as I realize I have no way to tell what 'normal ' is.

[LOAnnie]

My mother is BPD/NPD, and when my little Sister and I were growing up, mom didn't want us in the kitchen with her.  She said she didn't have the time or the patience to teach us how to cook anything and besides, we "made her nervous."  Noise made mom nervous, and mess made her very, very upset and agitated, even the normal mess of preparing a meal.

Mom's agitation, irritability and angst over preparing our meals is what we went through every day of my life, when I was growing up in her house.  Everything about it was a big production, plus we had to praise her cooking and at least act like we loved it, or else there was hell to pay.  But God forbid, if friends or relatives were actually coming over for dinner then we're talking the Academy Awards show level of preparation and angst and stress over every detail days ahead of time.  I dreaded any kind of event mom wanted to have, the insane stress over preparing for it drained all the joy out of it for me.  It was nerve-wracking.

So like many here I grew into adulthood feeling completely ill at ease in a kitchen and didn't know how to make much more than toast and instant coffee.  Only here in late middle age am I discovering that I not only enjoy cooking, I have a flair for modifying recipes or creating new ones.

And I discovered that its actually fun to have friends over and cook dinner for them (!) and sometimes they even ask to take home leftovers(!)  And so what if the damned kitchen gets messy?  I can clean it up afterward, Lord knows I know how to do that, and it doesn't have to be done perfectly either. 

So, I hope you can discover that cooking and baking and making meals (yes, entire meals with salads and soups and main dishes and side dishes and desserts) is actually fun, and it makes people happy.  And it makes me happy to give joy to my friends that way.  I have a get-together at my place once a month now, and my friends and I play music and sing and eat, and its a blast.  I hope you can find some joy in the kitchen too.

-LOAnnie

[AppleChippy]

Well, with respect to kitchens and food, my mother is very strange.  She loves buying kitchen gadgets and small appliances, but she doesn't cook at all.  She loves plates, serving dishes, utensils, if it's lovely and for the kitchen she wants it but she NEVER uses them. 

She gets all waify about cooking.  Seems like she feels she doesn't deserve to take care of herself or something, who knows really.  She'll make a bowl of cold cereal, toast with butter and cinnamon sugar and maybe will microwave something frozen.

She'd been eating the dinners I made for the family for a long time but then started seeing some kind of new age quack who put her on this weird diet - no tomatoes, no gluten, no green peppers, no diary.  Basically I use one of those in every meal.  She stopped eating dinner with us but continued eating crappy fast food and starbucks frappuccinos.  But she couldn't CHEAT when I cooked, somehow what I made was worse for her (here's some sarcasm) since it was made from minimally processed, often organic foods and cooked fresh at home!  Oh and if I modify a recipe because I don't have everything it calls for, better watch out!

Now cleaning the kitchen and dishes is where she jumps the shark.  First of all she has to take care of the dishes because I don't clean them well enough.  She LOVES having a dishwasher, wouldn't live without one because she can't stand to clean dishes by hand.  But she cleans EVERY SINGLE ITEM she puts in there BEFORE she puts it in.  Mind you I picked out this dishwasher for us because the avocado green, 30-year-old dishwasher that came with our house did not in fact clean dishes.  I picked out a very good dishwasher that requires very little pre-cleaning and even on "pot scrubber" setting gets off almost anything but the most baked on grease off.

Then she won't put any soap in the prewash tray and overfills the main wash tray.  Then she hand dries the dishes after the cycle is run and puts them away because she can't stand spots.  We have had major fights about the spots!

The amount of water wasted by her is criminal.  I often will sneak-clean loads of dishes, by loading it up as fast as I can while she's upstairs or something and set it to go.  Heaven forbid if a pan has a spot of dried on food on it afterward.  Because re-cleaning anything that might need it afterward is far too simple and time effective.  And OMG the GERMS that live on dried food left over after a wash through a dishwasher with sani-rinse!  It's a wonder we're still alive OMG the horror!

I could go on and on about the stupid dishes.  But let's just leave it there.  We need family therapy just over the f-ing dishes.

[AppleChippy]

oh... .and in the meantime her bedroom looks like it's on its way to an episode of hoarders.  I'm totally baffled by her obsessive cleaning in one room and the opposite of that in another.  But like I said I don't think she has a PD... .yet!  I'm really starting to wonder.

[Bsane]

Haha, my mom buys so many dishes there is no room for them. Many are locked away and you can only look through the glass at them. With 2 big cupboards besides those and a few other shelves, there are only maybe 2 shelves I can use. I tend to stick to the plastic mugs if anyone comes over. I remember one friend filled a glass with ice and some soda. The glass broke. She said any normal person would know you couldn't just fill a glass with ice and it was his fault it broke!

  I know her mom was a good cook and enjoyed having people over before she got depressed and stopped doing that. Growing up I can not remember a single time my mom cooked a whole dinner. We had 3 things we ate. Tuna casserole, melted cheese sandwich and something else. I became a vegetarian at age 11 because I found a way out of eating lamb chops. I don't have kids but I remember thinking one reason I never wanted to have kids was because of mealtimes. Even now I don't enjoy socializing with food so much.  I have a small appetite and am a slow eater.I try to meet people at a time when food is optional. Like 3 pm. To me commercial kitchens are a form of hell on earth and it amazes me that someone would want to work in them. Hot oil, hot surfaces etc. After a knife attack 1 1/2 years ago the whole idea of sharp knives (which I wasn't too happy about before) really puts me off as well.

[sollycat]

The kitchen/food topic was really interesting to me when I first joined this community a month ago. Mealtimes were fraught with fear for us. The stress when everything didn't go just perfect was not worth the effort (I would have been happy with a melted cheese sandwich if it prevented the chaos of a full meal).

Mom was a terrible cook - no spices or herbs in the house ever, vegetables boiled to the point they were almost a puree, meat overcooked (unless my Dad grilled it), rice that was overcooked and mealy. Everything was bland and tasteless, but we were required to have perfect table manners and thank her for slaving over the stove to prepare our meal.

She never taught me to cook, I was so embarrassed when I went to college and literally didn't know how to cook myself pasta. My college roommates taught me Cooking 101. I've self-taught myself how to cook now with cookbooks and the Food Network. I have found that I really love to cook, improvise recipes, make up new ones, and prepare healthy meals for my family with fresh, organic ingredients. We hit the local farmer's markets every weekend, it's a family outing that we really love. We already have our 2yo DD in the kitchen helping us cook (stirring the sauce, adding in the spices/herbs, buttering the bread, ripping the lettuce, etc.). My daughter will know that preparing healthy food is part of being a family, and a source of joy.

To this day (well, I'm no contact now, but as recently as last month when we visited), I cannot prepare food in my mother's kitchen. I started to fix some pasta for my DD when we were there the last time and mother "took over" as soon as she saw me get a pot out of her cabinet. It would just be easier for her to do it, she has an electric stove while I have a gas stove at home, so she didn't want to have to "explain" to me how her stove worked  . I also wasn't allowed to clean up afterwards, same reasons as most of you listed here. I never did it right, good enough, etc.

When mother used to come to our house (she hasn't been invited for over 6 months now), she literally cannot just SIT and RELAX and enjoy her granddaughter. She always has to be moving, working, DOING DOING DOING. We used to literally let the laundry pile up and have a full sink full of dishes before my mother arrived so that she would have something to DO while she was at our house. And God Forbid her visit involved a meal of any kind, she couldn't even let me cook in my own house.

Ugh, I'm feeling so annoyed just writing all of this down... .

[Bsane]

Yes, my mother 'lives' in the kitchen when she visits my sisters house. She says it is to help but she can't bear anything in the sink.  She is always on the go and even if she relaxs she has to be reading something. If there is a trash can where you can see what is inside she empties it as soon as there is one piece of paper in it. Glad you are teaching your daughter to love food and how to cook, sollycat.

[sollycat]

Bsane, my mother is the same way with trash cans. My 2 brothers and their SO's came into town this past C'mas and the whole family was cooped up at mother's house. It was a terrible week for many reasons. But our mother is also "always on the go" and one day during that week, she came tearing through the kitchen with the bathroom waste basket in her hands. She was very obviously ticked off (body language, facial expression, the stomping angry walk through the kitchen). I asked her what was wrong (ugh, why did I do that so much?) and she went off on a tirade about how nobody seems to notice when the trash needs to go out except for her, and people just leave their crap lying all over her house, and and and. I pointed out, "Mom, that trash can in your hand isn't even half full, it doesn't need to go out right now.". BIG mistake!

I got a continuing tirade about how I can choose to live in squalor if I want, but I was NOT brought up that way. We're in HER house, and need to respect HER rules and HER order. I was then told how I don't appreciate everything she does for us, how she wishes she could just get a little help around here (even though we continuously OFFER to help and she refuses that help outright).

That week, she also was vacuuming incessantly. She would come into the living room, snap at my dad to pick up all of my DD's toys because she "had to vacuum". Can't you do it later? NOO, the floor is a MESS and she needs to vacuum right now? What is WRONG with you people? Can't you see the invisible dirt piling up all around you?

[temp101]

I think I had an unusual experience compared to others. My uBPDh mom was actually a good cook. Simple, homey recipes. She canned veggies, etc., herself. People wanted to eat at our house.

The process of learning to cook was both pleasant and unpleasant for me. She really wanted me to do well. So she pushed me. I remember burning myself trying to learn to make pies, getting ice cream all over the ceiling trying to make milkshakes, etc., etc.

The one safe place for me was the kitchen. Mom didn't get mad in our teeny, tiny kitchen.

At meals, she really did want the 1950s perfection. I learned how to hold my utensils properly, how to pass food, etc.

One negative experience wasn't on her; sometimes we had oatmeal for breakfast, navy bean soup for dinner many days in a row. This was when we should have been on welfare. Other than that, healthy, well-balanced meals.

The only red flag thing I remember is when she sent me to a woman's house to cook for her and her sister using my new kid's cookbook. Um, why? I was very shy and too timid to start on my own, and the woman ended up yelling at me. Mom wasn't there?  ? Still don't know why she did that.

[LOAnnie]

You are describing my BPD/NPD mom; she was and is very obsessive-compulsive about cleanliness and neatness to the point of making her family miserable.  Don't you understand that waste baskets are "full" and need emptying if they have one discarded tissue in them, you silly?    It wasn't fun, it was stressful and anxiety-inducing to  grow up in a house that had to look like nobody lived there, and it made both my Sister and me go through a horrible slob stage when we first had our own places: we each deliberately lived in mess out of sheer rebellion.   

Get this: on Christmas day when we'd open our packages, mom couldn't just sit there and relax and enjoy it, she would make us unwrap by taking turns, and she would be bagging the discarded wrapping paper, and collecting the ribbons and bows to use again.  God forbid that discarded wrapping paper should be touching the floor for more than two seconds.  Sheesh.

RE cooking, she was and is a good cook, but the joy of mealtimes was leached away by the stress and when I was little, mealtimes were a battleground. (being forced to swallow foods that I didn't like, that had weird textures or unfamiliar flavors that made me gag; food torture. We've covered that in another thread.)

Either extreme end of the spectrum (hyper-clean or super-filth) is abnormal and unpleasant, but of the two at least you don't get life-threatening diseases from living in an operating-room sterile home.  Just stomach ulcers. 

-LOAnnie

Bsane, my mother is the same way with trash cans. My 2 brothers and their SO's came into town this past C'mas and the whole family was cooped up at mother's house. It was a terrible week for many reasons. But our mother is also "always on the go" and one day during that week, she came tearing through the kitchen with the bathroom waste basket in her hands. She was very obviously ticked off (body language, facial expression, the stomping angry walk through the kitchen). I asked her what was wrong (ugh, why did I do that so much?) and she went off on a tirade about how nobody seems to notice when the trash needs to go out except for her, and people just leave their crap lying all over her house, and and and. I pointed out, "Mom, that trash can in your hand isn't even half full, it doesn't need to go out right now.". BIG mistake!

I got a continuing tirade about how I can choose to live in squalor if I want, but I was NOT brought up that way. We're in HER house, and need to respect HER rules and HER order. I was then told how I don't appreciate everything she does for us, how she wishes she could just get a little help around here (even though we continuously OFFER to help and she refuses that help outright).

That week, she also was vacuuming incessantly. She would come into the living room, snap at my dad to pick up all of my DD's toys because she "had to vacuum". Can't you do it later? NOO, the floor is a MESS and she needs to vacuum right now? What is WRONG with you people? Can't you see the invisible dirt piling up all around you?

[sollycat]

Get this: on Christmas day when we'd open our packages, mom couldn't just sit there and relax and enjoy it, she would make us unwrap by taking turns, and she would be bagging the discarded wrapping paper, and collecting the ribbons and bows to use again.  God forbid that discarded wrapping paper should be touching the floor for more than two seconds.  Sheesh.

Me too! Taking turns, so she could bask in the praise and glory of giving us the perfect gift (we had to pretend to like it, even if we didn't). Wrapping paper had to go immediately into the trash bag sitting in the middle of the room. s/Bows and tissue paper had to go into the box sitting in the middle of the room so she could reuse it. And it had to be done immediately after opening each present, before we even OPENED the box after it was unwrapped. Immediately after all the presents were opened, all the new gifts had to go upstairs to our rooms and be put away. We couldn't just leave them out to enjoy them or play with them. I remember often times, I would literally forget about a new toy I had received b/c it was stored away in the closet so soon after opening it, that I would forget it was even in there.

I, too, went into a rebellion stage after I finally escaped to college. Did you ever see that movie, Sleeping with the Enemy? Julia Roberts had run away from her crazy husband and went into hiding in another town? In one scene, she was at her new house, and was lining up all the soup cans in her cabinet, turning each one so the labels faced forward, moving the cans a fraction of an inch to ensure they lined up properly, also lining up the stripes in her kitchen towels so they were perfectly aligned. This was forced upon her when she lived with her husband. She finally snapped-to and realized what she was doing, and she purposefully messed up the cans, re-arranged the towels so they were messy, etc. I remember having that "aha moment" in college one day, shortly into my freshman year. I was making my bed with hospital corners, and tucking everything in nice and neat like I was required to do at home. And then I woke up and said FORGET THIS! I messed up my bed, untucked my sheets, and refused to make my bed the rest of college. To this day, I don't make the bed unless I'm putting on clean sheets. The rest of the week, the bed goes unmade. I'm such a REBEL!

Oh, but when my mother used to visit, I would scurry to make my bed before she arrived. God forbid she see me living in squalor first-hand.

[JustBeingHuman]

My mother is an amazing cook.  Pretty much everyone she's ever made dinner for says so.  She used to say it's what she does to destress, but now she claims that we "force" her to make elaborate meals, after she has decided to make elaborate meals to "destress."

I?  Am not an amazing cook.  I can make maybe six different dishes, and I can follow written directions really well because of six years of chemistry, but I have not had the courage to experiment on my own with cooking, because of my mother's controlling nature with regard to food.

Basically, we have a Plan every week; she makes a big meal on Saturday and Sunday, my dad and I make a less-elaborate meal on Monday or Friday, and then we have leftovers for the rest of the week.  She takes a tiny lunch to work and usually doesn't eat it, and she makes elaborate weird breakfasts for herself out of non-breakfasty things like lunch meat.  And god help anyone who eats "her" food.

The problem is, "her" food or food that she's planning to use is TOTALLY IncONSISTENT.  Often she won't bother to write down which meals we're having when, so I might take a chance and eat leftovers from the week before only to find that we were supposed to be having them another night for dinner.  She buys breakfast pastries and insists that they're for dessert only, then buys a dessert and demands to know why, wastefully, I haven't been eating it for breakfast.

And if she's home, it gets even better -- even if I'm obligated to have a 10 pm dinner for some reason, I may only eat from 7 to 8 am and 11:30 to 12:30, and the fact that I am eating automatically means I won't wash my dishes and she has to berate me about it, because I never wash the dishes.  (I wash all my own dishes, plus the dishes for the whole family after dinner; I don't mind it at all, and it's actually kind of relaxing, because I know I can't screw it up.  But according to her I Don't Wash Dishes.  Whatever you say, mom!)

In theory, I'm allowed to cook for myself and eat what I like when she's not around, but in practice our kitchen is a minefield.  It's all about control and unpredictably changing the rules with her.  I've just started buying my own snacks so that nobody can object if I eat them whenever I need to.

[Backtome09]

Hahahaha. Here is the kitchen again.

I mentioned my uBPD xbf was a mess in the kitchen. He didn't know how to cook but sat there starting fights while I was cooking and things got out of hand. He was a neat freak in the kitchen (cleaing up every little spill when I cooked) but when I came home the place was a disaster if he was left alone for a few days. He "sulked" and "tisked" at everything I did. I think he got this from his Mother. He later threatened me & himself with kitchen knives several times. I have kitchen issues to say the least.  

The Mother issues? Could go on & on about the food, the OCD in the kitchen, the either tasteless food, or great grandiose gourmet stuff... .add in dish issues (you have no idea how big an issue this has become!) and collections, and round it all up with a few eating disorders. It is awesome. I'm the only one in the foo that's not morbidly obese---mind you not morbidly obese anymore. Self loathing and food. What a weird combination.

[David_In_BPD]

My mother doesn't allow anyone into her kitchen even when she's ill. Now that she recently had hip surgery and is doing rehab at her home, she constantly balks at anyone of us who tread into her domain. She doesn't even want the CNAs in there. But eventually she gives in and allows it because she might starve otherwise. After anyone makes a meal for her, she'll insist to be wheeled (in her wheelchair) into the kitchen to make sure it is clean and in pefect condition. If anything is out of place or not to her liking, she'll raise holy hell.

[anker]

Any issue that needed "discussion" (read:my mother harassing and ranting at me) was brought up at the kitchen table. My mom saying "come in the kitchen I need to talk to you"... .damn even writing that freaks me out some.

I've never had a table in my kitchen. At all. Never will.

[Alastor]

Naturally BPDmom put me in a catch-22 situation. She would rant that she wasn't my 'cook' or my 'waitress', but then rant at me any time I used the kitchen (to feed myself) or complain that she didn't like my cooking.

Not cooking for me was regular punishment when I was very little. Realizing I was too young for her to kick me out, she would tell me that she was going to ignore me until I was old enough to live on my own. That meant she would cook something for herself and leave me to peanut butter sandwiches on my own. When I discovered how to cook, she would further try to block my access to dinner by saying I couldn't use the kitchen because I made it too dirty. Normally this kind of treatment only lasted a few days at the most.

She would do the thing where she yells at me for not cleaning up the kitchen / pots - while the food was still hot on my plate and I was in the middle of eating ?

Later in life, I specifically asked her not to load up on certain kinds of junk food - donuts, ice cream etc. Lo and behold the fridge was full of it. So with a lot of willpower I managed to not eat it, at which point I was yelled at for being ungrateful and wasting food.

She also loves to tell me and everyone else how 'expensive' I was as a kid because of how much food I ate. You know, like comparing how expensive that big car was because of how much gas it used... .like I'm some possession. Ooh, imagine how selfish a growing teenage boy is for ... .eating too much food.

I love cooking now, and I've turned into a good cook. She prefers very traditional type food - meat and potatoes - while I've developed a taste for more exotic food, which she hates. In fact, now there isn't anything on my menu or in my fridge that mother regularly made (and my diet is a tad bit healthier as well I might add). She is a good cook, but I love having my own kitchen and the freedom to make what I choose.

[sollycat]

anker, we too had the "kitchen talks" since she rarely left that room b/c it's the biggest in the house and she can stay busy in there all day long. We had my parents over a few years ago for a Saturday afternoon and dinner. She complained the whole drive home with my Dad that I hadn't set the table properly, how dare I use paper towels as napkins, and plastic plates as dinner. (We had burgers and dogs outside on a nice summer day, was she expecting linen napkins and porcelain plates?).

We don't do the formal dinner in our house. We'll sit down as a family at the table, but it's a lot more lax than it was growing up. We'll teach our child a modicum of table manners one day, but at 2yo, she has plenty of time before that becomes a worry.

[sondown]

My experienes as a child in the kitchen are as follows-

my Mom worked in a factory and came home drunk in the middle of the night most nights. (and woke us up of course)  More than once she came home to find a dish that had not been cleaned or not to her satisfaction so she would wake all the kids up ranging from 9 to 13 and screaming at them would break every glass dish, drinking glass and plate in the house in the middle of the kitchen floor and told us to clean it up as she went to bed.  Mind you, we were in our bare feet trying to clean huge piles of shards of glass up with no shoes on and terrified that we were going to die at her hand any time.  I can't sleep at night to this day because I am afraid someone will wake me up screaming and yelling and . . .  well you get the picture

[JustBeingHuman]

Later in life, I specifically asked her not to load up on certain kinds of junk food - donuts, ice cream etc. Lo and behold the fridge was full of it. So with a lot of willpower I managed to not eat it, at which point I was yelled at for being ungrateful and wasting food.

Mine used to do this too!  I don't have any problem resisting it because I feel very sick if I overindulge in junk food, so I think my dad's convinced her to stop, but now she gets me healthy "treats" I didn't ask for at Whole Foods and then complains about how expensive they were and how much trouble it is to go there for me.  (One of my causes that she pays lip service to is the environment.  I don't think much of Whole Foods, but apparently it's my fault that she chooses to shop there.)

[skittles12]

my mother would never teach me how to wash clothes or iron or anything... because she didn't want me to 'tear' anything up. i had to pretty much teach myself how and now when i wash something i still do it wrong according to her.

[LOAnnie]

The behaviors you describe are types of emotional abuse:

Extreme Inconsistency

The foundations of learning are laid in the first interactions between child and caretaker. Through consistent interactions, the child and parent shape each other and the child learns that his or her actions have consistent consequences - this is the foundation for learning. The child also learn to trust that his or her needs will be met from others. When the caretaker is inconsistent in his or her response to the child, the child cannot learn what is expected from the start, and all areas of learning can be effected throughout the child's lifespan.

Ignoring

Ignoring a child deprives the child of all the essential stimulation and interaction necessary for emotional, intellectual and social development.

Inappropriate Control

Inappropriate control takes three forms - lack of control, over control, and inconsistent control. Lack of control puts children at risk for danger or harm to themselves and robs children of the knowledge handed down through human history. Over control robs children of opportunities for self-assertion and self-development by preventing them from exploring the world around them. Inconsistent control can cause anxiety and confusion in children and can lead to a variety of problematic behaviors as well as impair intellectual development.

If the BPD parent refuses to clearly state rules so that they are clearly understood by all family members, then the BPD parent has all the power and control to say which behaviors are OK and which aren't, and the power to change their mind back and forth.  Its type of mind-game or gaslighting to keep the other family members off-balance and powerless, never knowing if they're breaking a "rule" or not.

Its like living in a dictatorship, or in a dysfunctional mini religious cult where there is no constitution and no bill of rights and no laws, only what the Supreme Leader says is "law."

-LOAnnie

My mother is an amazing cook.  Pretty much everyone she's ever made dinner for says so.  She used to say it's what she does to destress, but now she claims that we "force" her to make elaborate meals, after she has decided to make elaborate meals to "destress."

I?  Am not an amazing cook.  I can make maybe six different dishes, and I can follow written directions really well because of six years of chemistry, but I have not had the courage to experiment on my own with cooking, because of my mother's controlling nature with regard to food.

Basically, we have a Plan every week; she makes a big meal on Saturday and Sunday, my dad and I make a less-elaborate meal on Monday or Friday, and then we have leftovers for the rest of the week.  She takes a tiny lunch to work and usually doesn't eat it, and she makes elaborate weird breakfasts for herself out of non-breakfasty things like lunch meat.  And god help anyone who eats "her" food.

The problem is, "her" food or food that she's planning to use is TOTALLY IncONSISTENT.  Often she won't bother to write down which meals we're having when, so I might take a chance and eat leftovers from the week before only to find that we were supposed to be having them another night for dinner.  She buys breakfast pastries and insists that they're for dessert only, then buys a dessert and demands to know why, wastefully, I haven't been eating it for breakfast.

And if she's home, it gets even better -- even if I'm obligated to have a 10 pm dinner for some reason, I may only eat from 7 to 8 am and 11:30 to 12:30, and the fact that I am eating automatically means I won't wash my dishes and she has to berate me about it, because I never wash the dishes.  (I wash all my own dishes, plus the dishes for the whole family after dinner; I don't mind it at all, and it's actually kind of relaxing, because I know I can't screw it up.  But according to her I Don't Wash Dishes.  Whatever you say, mom!)

In theory, I'm allowed to cook for myself and eat what I like when she's not around, but in practice our kitchen is a minefield.  It's all about control and unpredictably changing the rules with her.  I've just started buying my own snacks so that nobody can object if I eat them whenever I need to.

[Alastor]

JBH: we can't win I wish BPDmom would take the other extreme of health food, but nope. Actually she cleans the fridge all the time and throws out stuff - like if milk was open for more than 2-3 days, it gets tossed. However, one time I visited and didn't touch the junk food... .I came back to visit like 4 months later and it was STILL in the fridge, like donuts etc, all rotten and mouldy. She said 'oops, I guess that all got wasted. Shows how often I eat junk food when YOU'RE not around.' ? Sounds weird, but we just can't make this stuff up!

skittles: yup, same here. My mom would complain all the time about all the laundry a teenage boy made. However, she wouldn't let me near the washing machine. She was certain I would somehow cause it to explode and spray water all over the house. Yet she would dig into my school bag to pull out stuff I didn't even want washed, like washing stuff until it fell apart... .then complain about all the laundry ? She never let anyone use the dishwasher either, same (il)logic.

LOAnnie: we joke around on here, but you are dead on with the emotional abuse thing. Keeps it all in perspective. Bottom line was that I felt scared to do anything and got $&it on at random.

[Lemlover]

Reading about the kitchen and food brings back so many memories--most not good, unfortunately.

Some of my earliest memories are of being under kitchen table while she hurled dishes at wall or at my father.  Later, in adolescence (when dad gone) she would hurl them at me, once she broke the microwave because I ducked and blamed me for breaking microwave, because I moved  . She would also cook amazing meals for her friends, and not let us eat or give us only the mistakes (burned parts, or over and undercooked experiments, etc.).  It drove my gpa crazy.

Sondown-EXACT same thing happened to us.  Mom worked late at night, I don't remember if she was drunk or not, but would get us up by our hair and make us clean the messes from her fits of rage in our bare feet.

Sollycat, Now, I do the same thing if mom makes announcement she is coming over(it is rare, like an eclipse), I let her clean house. I truly think she enjoys it.

[organicallygrown]

We never had food in our house, and I don't know why. And to this day, if you go to my parents home, they barely have any food. It's always been odd and there is a joke they are aliens, hahaha. But if the holidays come, etc. it is so lavish and food piled everywhere and weeks ahead preparation and the whole big thing. My mom is an excellent cook but won't share her recipes. She refuses. It's very odd.

[Bsane]

It's been interesting to read of everyones experiences. I really feel for those of you who had such a hard time. To this day, I rarely eat real meals and just kind of snack unless I am having a meal with others. Even then I would rather go to a restraunt or a picknic so the whole clean up wasn't an issue. My mom and step dad used to leave us alone when I was about 14 , my sister 11 and my brother 8. Often for up to 3 days. Then we would cook a bit and buy what we wanted with the money they left. It wasn't so bad when she was with him because things were a bit more normal. When she bought and remodelled her house which I was living in for awhile it actually looked emptier than a house getting ready for a realtors showing. I'm glad to not be there now.

[2010]

Inconsistent control can cause anxiety and confusion in children and can lead to a variety of problematic behaviors as well as impair intellectual development.

If the BPD parent refuses to clearly state rules so that they are clearly understood by all family members, then the BPD parent has all the power and control to say which behaviors are OK and which aren't, and the power to change their mind back and forth.  Its type of mind-game or gaslighting to keep the other family members off-balance and powerless, never knowing if they're breaking a "rule" or not.

Its like living in a dictatorship, or in a dysfunctional mini religious cult where there is no constitution and no bill of rights and no laws, only what the Supreme Leader says is "law."

Oh my word, LOAnnie. You just gave me the words to describe my Dialectical Behavioral Therapist- *and* my marriage partner *and* my FOO. I think I've just had a lightbulb moment  to tie them all together.  Everything was a constantly moving goalpost! How could I possibly win when they kept changing the rules?

I have to be careful to accept my gut feelings in the future and not overlook or rename it.  It's abuse.

So much of this stuff is down deep- that it's like, Eureka! It's amazing how similar our stories are. When I first got married, I used to tremble at the kitchen sink. I'd become overwhelmed if I had to do the dishes- my H couldn't understand it. Eventually I trained myself to enjoy doing the dishes- but in hindsight, I know that my anxiety was due to the fact that I was forced to do the dishes after every meal- and every meal was a bombfest- with a BPDm and an NPDf going at each other (and me) while I had my back turned to the sink. I'm really beginning to remember this stuff. Wow!  

[LOAnnie]

Wow, you are dealing with a toxic trifecta of dysfunction, certainly.  Holy cow!  I'm glad my post helped you, gave you a light bulb moment.  

Yes, a very effective strategy to maintain control and power over others is to keep them off-balance, confused, and unsure of what the rules are.   Uncanny how Cluster B pd individuals seem to have a real talent for discovering and using these classic manipulations and strategies, huh?

Example: at a place I worked we had a certifiably insane boss who gave mixed messages and bizarre, obscure instructions so that nobody could ever do anything "right."  I suggested to my friend & co-worker that she take her secretary with her to the next meeting to take notes so that what the boss wanted was clearly defined and delineated.  When the meeting notes were printed up and distributed to my co-worker and our boss, the boss became quite angry and screamed that she never said such things, the notes were wrong, etc.!  Needless to say, both my co-worker and I eventually found a way to get out of that department.  And that insane boss eventually got fired, thank God, but it took years.

Its great that we can all help each other by sharing our own experiences and thoughts here.

-LOAnnie

[Bsane]

There definitely seems to ba a common thread of secretiveness while striving to get as much info out of everyone else. Verbal (and physical . tho not in my case) abuse, manipulation and denial of what happened. I think it is hard because often these people either act out when no one is around or have intimidated their enablers, so they really do rewrite the truth, then act like the event never happened.

sundown, that is awful. I am sorry to hear that. Especially that you have trouble sleeping. I know what thats like and its awful. Our last argument she woke me up screaming about something I had done which wasnt even an issue. Hope you are able to get some restful sleep in the future. Good thoughts from me.