What is with food and kitchens in children of uBPDm?

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

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.

[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.

[Nutts45]

 ? Food... depends if it is a BPD trigger or if it is related to the BPD     (I didn't have the energy to go into it but have had my share)

New meaning to food fight.

[justjen]

Wow, I had no idea others had food issues too!  Someone at the end said something about just snacking and not sitting down for a full meal... .and wow, that's how I am!  I never thought about it being connected to meal time trauma.  We have a kitchen table, but I use it to sew at, or s6 builds Legos there.  We NEVER eat at it.  We always ate at the table growing up, and it gave la diabla a chance to lord over us and force us to eat something disgusting she cooked (she is and was a TERRIBLE cook... .like, a starving person would have a hard time choking down that crap... .my dad took over cooking when I was 13 about the same time I became a vegetarian so I'd never have to eat another pork chop again and chew until my jaw felt like it would fall off).  She used to yell at me because we don't make our kids sit at the table.  We eat on the floor in the living room, usually with the tv on.  :)h likes it.  I like it.  The kids are mortally scarred... .what's the big deal?  Her and my enmeshed dad both get all up in arms though when they occasionally eat over here because the only thing we offer them to eat on is the coffee table.  Oh well.

And gosh, any cleaning just makes me  :'(    sick to my stomach.  I do it because I love my dh and my kids and I want them to have a clean home, but it's hard.  I don't dust though, la diabla made us dust her stupid knick-knacks every Saturday and I hated it.  I don't mind vacuuming.  :)oing dishes I usually put off until we have no more clean dishes though.  And cleaning the bathroom... .using cleaners makes me want to scrub my skin off.  She was the cleaning nazi on the weekends and would scream at us all morning on Saturdays for it.  And she's even screamed at me in my own house-in front of my kids-for the cleanliness of my house.  My house isn't a pig stye... .it looks like a house with 3 small kids and a busy mommy who does her best.  It's not like there is poop on the floor, or cracked eggs, or bugs.  She actually screamed at me 24 hours after I gave birth to d3 because my house was destroyed and she was embarrassed and ashamed.

[Bsane]

Jenjen we are so alike. I was the one who never eats real meals or uses a table. Additionally I became a vegetarian about the same age as you specifically so I wouldn't have to eat pork chops.

When I went to Morocco when I was 16 I was like WOW, people here sit on the floor and eat off of coffee tables, I love this! It was a freedom I had never had.Just jen, I've only been on this board for 2 weeks and before that I had never heard of BPD. So many of my mannerisms that I and my friends thought were odd seem quite 'normal' here. I'm learning how to set boundries and I'm sure if you only met you parents in a neutral place that would take a lot of stress off you.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I really had to laugh about the pork chops. My dad used to insist we drink 4 cups of milk which I hate. I remember swallowing pieces of pork chops down with milk and feeling ill. As soon as I learned there was a word that would get me out of eating it I was so happy when I was told to eat it that I could say "I can't, I'm a vegetarian!" Smart thinking on our part  

[justjen]

That's too funny about the pork chops.  Yeah... .I'm all done seeing my parents.  There's no working it out with la diabla.  If endad ever pulls his head out of her butt we'll see about reconciling there... .but I doubt it.  Yay.  It all makes me   

[Bsane]

My endad (they are divorced but close) recently sent me an email that he is on vacation from relating to me until at least june 1 and then only if Ive been to a psychiatrist. I need one! But he is just doing it to protect my mother from me asking him what he said to her that got her upset enough to be so mean to begin with and kick my out after getting me to come home to help her with health issues.  ( I think it was that I said I would be willing to go to therapy with my mother to try to find a way to communicate more effectively.) Not a peep about it from either my sis or bro though its been 10 weeks. Not even a hows Rwanda . They are all deluded. And before I thought it was just me. My life is normal w/o them in it but it is still hard. Someone wrote its hard to get over the death of the idea of a nurturing parent and I think that is so true.

[Bsane]

btw justjen what are the abreviations at the bottom of your posts? I think it is something to do with your brother? I'm no contact with my brother at the moment because there is no point. ?

[justjen]

Narcissistic Personality Disorder/Antisocial Personality Disorder.  Dh has been researching the way my brother acts and before we knew about NPD/APD was thinking that my brother is a sociopath.  He often talks about how much better the world would be if he was in charge and killed everyone off.  He hates Christians (uh, that would be me), breeders (also me), little kids (um, yep I have 3 of those), other races, anyone who thinks he should work for a living-he's perfectly contented to sponge off my parents, and anyone who has a different opinion than him.  I have to do more reading on NPD/APD but the little I read seemed to fit him.  Oh, and he completely agrees with my parents and thinks that I have the mental defect.  His words pretty much exactly.

I forgot to add that my parents both always wanted to have control over how many dishes dh and I have.  They kept giving us dishes and giving us dishes because we didn't have enough coffee cups, or we didn't have enough bowls... .in THEIR opinion.  We had enough in OUR opinion... .you know, the people who actually live in the house and use the dishes and wash them?  We ended up throwing out one entire set a few years ago that they gave us.  I think I purposefully broke a few of the dishes first.  Then we threw out some more stragglers here and there.  We have less than half the dishes that they thought we needed... .well, actually, they tried to give us more but we refused.  Which caused a lovely stink.  Fun stuff.  I want to go through my whole house right now and clear out everything they ever gave us that we didn't want.  Which is a lot of stuff because they tried to maintain control by giving.  Blah.  They make me sick... .and it really feels good to know that it's OK for me to feel that way.  And it's nice (although horribly sad) to know that others have the same issues.

[Bsane]

   Gosh Jen how awful to have a brother like that and scary. I looked up NPD and that definitely describes my brother. I just thought he took after my dad who has it due to being bi-polar. It makes sanse because some of the things he says made  none. I remember one time he was sorting things when he was visiting mothers house and I was living there. He looked up as his stuff was all over the living room floor and said, you're just jelouse because you can't do this . I didn't say anything but was like What the heck?

  Thinking others are jelouse of you is a sign. I was always amazed by his behaviour. Also he does (really bad) solo experimental theater performances that he thinks are great that few people come to. Some of his insensitivity and sense of entitlement has been mind boggling . He's also been banned from all my friends' places because of things he has said.  My mother feeds into that. She loved her dad but not her mom and definitely gets along better with men. being the youngest my brother always got a lot and got away with a lot.

  But your brother sounds scary and I am sorry that on top of your mom you have to deal with that. Sounds like you found a good husband who is supportive and I am happy for that.

[GoldenLover]

Growing up I had issues with the kitchen too.

uBPDm had to have everything a specific way in the kitchen.  If I did dishes, she berated me.  If I didn't do dishes, she hit_ed to my dad that I never helped.  So I just ignored him and refused to help with dishes. 

And when it came to meals... .my mom LOVED impressing people with her cooking skills and would go all out if people were coming over for dinner.  My friends would tell me that my mom was such an awesome cook and that I was lucky!  However... .most nights she "forgot" to cook or she was too drunk to cook dinner.  My sisters and I would go to bed hungry.  My dad would yell at me because I didn't cook.  I refused to cook dinner on those nights because if I even tried to cook something my mom would just BLOW UP at me and take over and then burn it or something and blame it on me.  So it took me a LONG time to feel comfortable with cooking (and even now I still have issues with it at times) 

And as far as snacks... .we did have food but if I ate something... .my mom would tell me I owed her or that I had to pay her back for stuff I ate.  When I started working, I had to pay rent to live there and give her money for food or I couldn't eat.  I started buying snacks and stashing them in my room only for her to find them and hit_ about me not sharing with everyone else... .WTH... .it was HER who told me I couldn't eat food in the house unless I paid for it! So there was always drama surrounding food or cooking or dishes.

[Bsane]

Food... .cooking... .dishes... .

No wonder I have had issues with this all my life. I remember thinking when I was a kid if I could just swallow a pill and not have to eat I would be happier. I have somehow also lost the ability to feel hungry. I can only remember a few times in my life when I was hungry even if I didn't eat all day . I used to be jelous of people when they would wait for their food and get excited becuase they were hungry. Even when working as a diving instructor and exercising all day I wouldn't feel hungry. I always thought that was strange. I'm not anorexic or anything but maybe now I realize it was because of the stress associated with food. There was always food around. I could get what I wanted. Interesting so many have so similiar experiences here.

[Tivo8MyNeighbors]

Just thought you guys might find the humor in this letter, which has by now been widely circulated on the Web, in which a woman dictates precise instructions (BPD style) to her family members how Thanksgiving will go down at her house. 

www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com/2009/11/26/awkward-family-story-the-thanksgiving-letter/comment-page-14/

My husband and I always giggle about "regulation-size casserole dishes" and "serving spoons"   Hope this brightens your day.

Tivo

[Greeneyed Girl]

Hi All,

Well, Mother of course does not cook now.  She is too "disabled".  But I still, still get PTSD when she goes into the kitchen at all.  Why? When I was growing up, Mother was a good cook but she hated every moment of cooking and constantly let me and Dadster know it.  Dadster used to say, "The kitchen demon is on her again!" when she was cooking as she would bang pots and pans, curse, scream, stomp-oh, how she would stomp!- slam cabinets and both scream that no one would help her and attack when anyone (Dadster or I) tried.  Of course she held herself together before relatives and other company, but as she prepared big meals for any and every company that came her way hell was sure to happen in the preparation process.  She had her own system for cleaning the kitchen, though I was usually expected to do it.  If I did not follow her system- and even when I did as, sloppy as I can be, I can clean a kitchen better than Mother- there was again hell to pay.

To this day each time she wanders into the kitchen- on her way to the bathroom or get a bag of chips (about the most she will do for herself) she will find a crumb here, a smudge there, something amiss or, worse yet, meander over to the washer where something is always amiss in her eyes.  She inevitably begins a tirade after crying, "Oh, ohh! Oh, Jesus! Oh, Mama!"

I shake, go numb, have a suddenly pounding heart and the urge to run like hell everytime I hear her feet, the rolling of the walker ( believe me, she doesn't need the walker) on the kitchen floor. I am sorry for everyone who endured kitchen chaos.  I think it is yet another trait of B.P.D and abuse.

[joiesophie]

Hi all,

When I first posted on the board, some moons ago, I thought I was the only one with foo food issues!

I do the 'don't eat' eating disorder. It's lots better now, but it's really hard to explain to the uninitiated.  You all know the drill - why would you want to eat when it reminds you of everything that is scary. 

I went to a cooking lesson that someone from church did - and I happened to say that my father (uBPD - didn't tell 'em that) didn't like the smell of anything, so my mother didn't cook.  Now, how did I know that they'd figure it out?  Someone asked - didn't your father realize that you couldn't eat if you didn't cook?   AAARRRGGHH!

Then I wound up with the pity vote from one person 'letting' me grease the pan... .

I'm eating a wee bit better now that I'm No Contact... .

js   

[sollycat]

Greeneyedgirl, we had this too... .

She had her own system for cleaning the kitchen, though I was usually expected to do it.

We were expected to help, but *had* to follow the system. Dirty dishes on the LEFT (always), clean ones on the RIGHT. But you had to scrub the right side of the counter first, before you started the dishes so that the clean dishes didn't get laid onto a dirty counter (as if ANY of her countertops were dirty, she washed them several times/day).

One C'mas, I started to hand-wash a few of the larger items that were already done being used (the things that wouldn't fit into the dishwasher). I started to wash one of them while she was still working in the kitchen (trying to be helpful, get things out of the way early, etc.) and she FLIPPED her lid (duh, of course, I was not following the beloved system).

She went off about how the counter was still dirty, I was in the way (I really wasn't, her kitchen is huge and she didn't need the sink at all at the time). I calmly explained that I would hand-wash the big dish and not even put it down on the counter, I could just dry it immediately and put it away. Nope, she wasn't going to have it. How could she possibly observe and critique my cleaning if she was busy doing something else?

I don't know, I just got fed up, threw the pot into the sink making a big loud bang, walked out of the room, and refused to help clean anything up that night. In fact, I tried to make things as dirty as possible, spilling gravy on purpose  . That was the immature, emotionally charged me. I'm a different person now, thankfully 

[LOAnnie]

Yes: my BPD/NPD mom also had and has a rigidity about her thinking.  There was only one way to do anything: the right way, which was her way.  Variations or creative alternative solutions were not permitted.  Its a kind of super-control-freakism, this squelching of alternative thoughts, and I think that somehow its based in fear.  Probably fear of losing control.

In organizations its important to have the big-picture guys (or gals) in leadership positions, the ones who are able to think abstractly and visualize long-term goals.  Its also important to have in the organization those who think in terms of detail, who can think of practical ways of achieving the long-term goals by achieving shorter-term goals. 

But my BPD/NPD mom was/is apparently only able to think in terms of excruciating, microscopic detail, losing the big picture,  that:

A. the goal is getting the kitchen cleaned up, and B. consistently treating her children like retarded servants creates long-term psychological damage. The only thing she could focus on was (for example) that that dish wasn't in the right place in the dishwasher (in her opinion) and getting upset about it and turning and attacking us about it and making us feel like we were bad, was an OK way to deal with it.

Its.  A.  Dish.   ... .And it will get clean whether its in this row or that row.

Its like, my BPD/NPD mom had no capability of prioritizing things in terms of importance, either.  Everything that was not done perfectly or the way she wanted was equally bad and equally upsetting to her.  Me accidentally spilling some Koolaid was just as horrible and would upset mom and get me punished just as much as me being deliberately mean to my little Sister.   

My mom was just not temperamentally, emotionally, intellectually or philosophically suited to be a mother, is what it boils down to.  The BPD/NPD was just the cherry on top.

-LOAnnie

[HeartAndSoul]

my mother thinks I cant cook. Infront of every guy she tells them I hope they like Chef Boyardee. Woman is clueless. Keep it that way. Her kitchen anyone gets in it shes in it. Right behind you. My brother cooks but she still shadows him. She has big issues with even a plate in the sink. For years if she knew a dish was in the sink she would get up and clean it. She would yell at me. I learned to tell her its her OCD trip and I wanted to eat first then I would clean the pot. I still tell her your trip no one asked you to wash it. Its your choice so deal with it cause Im not listening. Yeah Easter she cooked today no one asked her too so she could bash all day. I told her to keep her food not worth it I went to Panda Express. She hates me. Thats fine. Tomorrow she will be making me leftovers. Isnt it joyous dealing with this crap. Funny thing one last thing cant have a pot or a fork in sink but heaven forbid she even knows how to turn the vacuum cleaner on she doesnt. Dust dont think she knows what it is. LOLOLOLO I just asked her if she is waiting for Cinderella to clean. I told her I fired her thats me. I love to clean but Im moving and she can live in her own filth Ill be sure to leave a whole sink full that should send her for a loop. 

[HeartAndSoul]

Oh wait I forgot the topper. About 7 months ago she started to monitor the size of the trash that went into the kitchen trash. Depending on the size she would tell you to take it out to the trash and she didnt want it in the kitchen trash. To that I said then I suggest you put your shoes on and take it out yourself. Earplugs are wonderful things. She has since gone to the other extreme and lets the kitchen trash over flow. Now she asks me to pull the trash from the trash because its too fool. No way. I told her dont give me the crap you cant pull it arthritis crap I saw her do it. Man she pulls out everything she can. I am just learning to call her on her own crap. Depends on if I want to hear her spew for the next hour or not.

[HeartAndSoul]

I forgot the biggest rule of all in the kitchen. No one can eat after 9:30. I used to get home after that. Then there is the ice cube issue. Thats a big one. It makes to much noise and disturbs her while she watches TV. My answer. Lifes a hit_. Her answer Im mentally ill because I like ice in my soda and I do it to torment her. I think we all deserve medals.

[sollycat]

The trash thing is big with my mother too. Her area just went to "co-mingled recycling", meaning that you can put EVERYTHING into ONE BIN (paper, cardboard, glass, alumninum, plastic, etc.). So easy, right? NOO! She was absolutely IRATE that her county did this (the area I live in has been doing this for a while and it's fantastic).

This co-mingled was going to mess up her ENTIRE system, and now she'd have to do things totally different, and get different bins, and she couldn't afford it, blah blah blah.

I explained to her calmly that a) the recycle bins are FREE from the county, b) it's actually CHEAPER now b/c you don't have to purchase those blue recycle bags for your bins, c) it's SO much easier b/c you don't have to have several different bins in different areas of your house.

Nope, she wouldn't hear any of the positives. She is still irate that she now has one bin and everything goes into the same one.

[Penguinectomy]

Reading this thread has felt really strange, and unpleasantly familiar.  I have huge issues around the kitchen - it's the one area of my house that I really have always struggled with and felt uncomfortable in - and I rarely set foot in the kitchen when I was a kid, but it wasn't really because of my mother.  She struggled in the kitchen too, and it was always a mess, but not an emotionally-charged mess. She'd get uncomfortable with me doing dishes, but not because I did them "wrong," - me doing dishes made her feel like she wasn't doing her job properly.  (And yeah, I did grow up not knowing how to do anything.  Thank goodness for Flylady, or I'd still not know how to do anything.)   Cooking did have an emotional charge, but that was because of how picky, critical, belittling and abusive my father could be about it.  Everything had to be just so, but he couldn't be bothered to tell you specifics.  It was either a noncommittal grunt (which meant it was ok), or a tirade (if it wasn't ok).  And "ok" had more to do with his mood than anything else.  I still don't like cooking for other people, even though my mother was the one who bore the brunt of his criticism around food.  (With me, he used the "you're a selfish pig and eat too much"/"here, honey, have some more to eat - it's your favorite" double bind.  No wonder I'm 100 pounds overweight and get angry every time I think of being thinner - being thin was a symbol of winning his approval, and it's like staying fat allows me to rebel on some level.  He's been dead for 12 years - am I ever going to get free?)

[Bsane]

Reading the comments about the trash had me cracking up.    I mean, it's sad for us and them but seeing so many people with the same experiences and seeing them written here when I'm far away from the mother... .it is pretty funny. I am glad that I am not the only one who is scared of kitchens. There really wasn't anything bad about mealtimes or food that I can put my finger on but obviously most people here share similiar feelings even if we all got there in different ways. It feels nice to meet kindred spirits because I don't think I have ever met someone who is afraid of the kitchen in my life. I guess some of my fears came from that there were things you could break. Not that I was clumsy I've hardly broken anything in my life, but just this feeling that I wasn't to be trusted. I only at 46 used a dishwasher. I was like wow! This is easy, you just put the soap in the little container, push the buttons... .wow, they come out clean! I know that sounds naive  I was led to believe it was something I wasn't capable of!

Thanks everyone for reading this thread and to those of you whp have shared your experiences. Together we will help eachother to be stronger! x  Yeah!   

[anker]

This thread makes me feel very supported. Thanks

Kitchenphobia! Coming soon to a theater near you!

[HeartAndSoul]

bonding together over like crazy antics of the BP's in our lives as a whole when you read some experiences one cannot help but laugh and understand why we cant tell anybody else, cause we then become the crazy ones. Oh I love reading some of these. There are days when she is raging and I just want away now. She lives with me I cant just split because I tried that Charlie Manson took the place of Doris Day. My pet nicknames for her.  Just know whenever the mother or whomever starts to send you over that edge you can always find humorl, comfort, and more than anything validation and reassurance that we are not crazy. Its helped me so much I would be lost without kindred spirits living in the BP zone. Like I always said I wanted to win the lottery nice I hit the Mega Jackpot Super Lotta of disorders. My mother is 5 rolled in one. When momma manson shows up thats my exit cell phone off destination none of her business. and dont forget to leave a dish or two lying around so she can stew until I get back. Childish yes, guilty yes feels good to give her some hell back priceless. Just once in a while Im human and I know its wrong but there are times... .

[Lemlover]

After reading all posts and reflecting--dBPDh has kitchen/food issues also.  He wouldn't "allow" me to use the dishwasher in our home when we were first married.  That lasted all of five minutes  . His brother (whom I suspect is also BPD and aspd still doesn't allow my SIL to use dishwasher after 10 years of marriage). 

Thanks for the enlightening post.

[fleurhart]

Hey everyone,

I haven't been here for a while, but thought I'd just pop in on this one.

I'll tell you something horrible my uBPDmother did to her step kids. (They are about 20 years younger than me). She used to have 2 kinds of ice cream. One expensive, one budget. She would bring them both out after dinner, and the stepkids would have the budget, the rest of us the expensive stuff. This was after I had left home, had my own babies, and was just staying for a few days. I am sorry that I didn't say or do anything about it. Not on the same level as being violent, but just a way of sending a message about who was important in the house. The step kids would've been young teenagers, old enough to like nice ice cream.

My mum has been scarey and mean to me in my life, but she was so much worse to her stepkids.

On the cooking thing, mum wouldn't teach us to cook, but expected us to cook anyway. Then be really mean about the disgusting food we cooked. Sometimes I get a bit sad and resentful thinking about all this, but mostly I am over it, I love to cook, and I have learned how on my own.

Some of the things in this discussion about yelling about cleanliness remind me of my dad, not my mum. Something to ponder, as Saturday mornings were always a yell-fest about cleaning at our place.

[Bsane]

Mother always told me never to mention her to my stepdad or stepsisters and I never did. Later I thought "hey , I can do what I want" and I talked to them a bit. A few weeks ago after mothers latest round of Illogical anger and my departure I asked my stepsister what she remembered. She mentioned that she always felt like the mistreated cinderella. Her and her sister were forbidden to speak Swedish despite not knowing much English. I realize now mother was so insecure that she trully believed that they were talking about her. To this day if I speak Swedish she goes into a fit, avoids me, tries to get me to hang up the phone etc even if I am just talking to a friend. She speaks Swedish so she can understand what I am talking about and it has nothing to do with her.

I am so ashamed at her actions and my stepsister recently said she felt so sorry for us to have to be taken aside in a room and yelled at for a long time when we had no idea what we had done. The more I read posts the meaner I am coming to realize mother really is. It has taken me some reality checks from outside friends for me to actually realize that its not my fault and she is nutso.

As a kid when others would doodle I would write the word sorry over and over again. I never knew what I was sorry for but just that somehow I'd done something wrong in the kitchen, in my behaviour etc. Even when I moved away at 15 she used to call and yell at me long distance on the phone.

All this yelling, it's really sad. When I think of how many wonderful experiences could have been had but which were miserable. I am just trying to not follow her example and I still get scared in kitchens that I won't be clean enough, thorough enough etc. It's one reason I think I lived in Thailand so long, having a gas cooker outside and eating in restraunts. Interestingly here in Rwanda I spent the night at a friends house the other day and we were talking about how great it was just to have a gas cooker. I don't know why seeing a stove makes me anxious but it still does.

[Bsane]

I still marvel that there are people who enjoy working in a commercial kitchen. Was just talking about it the other day. Here in Rwanda I have been cooking a bit more. Maybe it is also because we have a house keeper so I don't have to feel I messed up the kitchen but know it will look great soon if I missed something!

[LOAnnie]

Children have no choice but to accept that how they are treated by their parents is "normal",  and its "OK" for parents to do that.  When I was very little I thought that all mommys were nice to their children in public, but screamed at their children and slapped them around and hit them with belts at home.  That was my "normal."   So children develop coping mechanisms to survive the stress and anxiety and outright fear of living with a parent they can't trust to be in a good mood most of the time, a parent who gets angry for little or no reason and lets their anger escalate into emotional and physical abuse.

Kids use various coping mechanisms to deal with this.  They may shut off their memories of their scary, traumatic abusive environment, or they'll retain the memories but shut off their emotions, or they'll do both to help them survive.    Some develop multiple or alternate identities to escape the stress and trauma, and some go the Stockholm Syndrome route: they bond strongly with/identify with their abusive parent in order to (hopefully) reduce the intensity and frequency of the abuse.   Some kids develop self-soothing behaviors that are somewhat self-harmful or socially inappropriate, some kids seem to just vanish into the woodwork, trying to become invisible to avoid abuse, other kids become bullies and act out their rage and pain on others.  Some kids discover that if they become the "parent", there is some semblance or illusion of control that they can maintain for brief periods.

Bottom line is, its all bad; the child's normal emotional development gets derailed from having to endure abnormal, abusive parenting.  Kids should not have to develop coping mechanisms to deal with emotional, physical or sexual abuse from mentally ill parents in the first place.

There, that's my vent for the evening.

-LOAnnie

Mother always told me never to mention her to my stepdad or stepsisters and I never did. Later I thought "hey , I can do what I want" and I talked to them a bit. A few weeks ago after mothers latest round of Illogical anger and my departure I asked my stepsister what she remembered. She mentioned that she always felt like the mistreated cinderella. Her and her sister were forbidden to speak Swedish despite not knowing much English. I realize now mother was so insecure that she trully believed that they were talking about her. To this day if I speak Swedish she goes into a fit, avoids me, tries to get me to hang up the phone etc even if I am just talking to a friend. She speaks Swedish so she can understand what I am talking about and it has nothing to do with her.

I am so ashamed at her actions and my stepsister recently said she felt so sorry for us to have to be taken aside in a room and yelled at for a long time when we had no idea what we had done. The more I read posts the meaner I am coming to realize mother really is. It has taken me some reality checks from outside friends for me to actually realize that its not my fault and she is nutso.

As a kid when others would doodle I would write the word sorry over and over again. I never knew what I was sorry for but just that somehow I'd done something wrong in the kitchen, in my behaviour etc. Even when I moved away at 15 she used to call and yell at me long distance on the phone.

All this yelling, it's really sad. When I think of how many wonderful experiences could have been had but which were miserable. I am just trying to not follow her example and I still get scared in kitchens that I won't be clean enough, thorough enough etc. It's one reason I think I lived in Thailand so long, having a gas cooker outside and eating in restraunts. Interestingly here in Rwanda I spent the night at a friends house the other day and we were talking about how great it was just to have a gas cooker. I don't know why seeing a stove makes me anxious but it still does.

[methinkso]

I am chuckling over this thread. Days ago I was thinking about sil. She insisted that her children rinse out their empty soda cans before putting them in the container that later goes to the recycling bin for the curb pickup.

Actually for years I have laughed about this. She seems to think a roach blocks away can hone in on her house having an unrinsed soda can inside.  I'm sure they can find a lot of sh__ before they reach her home that will distract them

I consider myself a very good housekeeper, but I see this as nothing but another form of control. NOTHING can be in sil's home without her permission (gifts, purchases by family members, etc).

I think the 'hostess' with her thanksgiving demands for her guest orders of  'food by specific requests' must have a very lazy day. She thinks it, they painstakingly cook and deliver. It used to drive me nuts to try to trasnsport many dishes to mother's ten miles away on Thanksgiving. It would have been easier to pack for a camping trip.

[Bsane]

The soda thing is funny. Mother is exactly the same! And also about what is in her house. Even more irritating is that even if it is stuff she wants, if I dusted or moved anything she would ALWAYS rearrange it even if I had put it back in exactly the same position it was in before!

[joiesophie]

Bsane,

Omg! Dusting? That's a whole different thread    Kitchenophobia, and clean the house a phobia! 

gives me shivers just to think about it! 

js

[sarah1234]

sometimes I read these threads and really start to wonder about my dad! I dont think he is BPD (well if he is, he is now cured as the past 8 years of him living with another woman other than my mum I have had limited but nice contact with him so have no idea if he is still the same way, as he seems to be totally different to the father I grew up with!). I think he was simply a control freak, but I understand how a lot of you feel. He has been an alcoholic for 30 years.

I had CBT when I was 19 and part of it was dealing with my food phobia. I could eat myself, but I couldn't bear anyone else to eat in the same room as me, whatosever. Mainly cos of the noise they make. I also am just only learning to cook.

I wasn't allowed in the kitchen at all either, whatsoever. We were not allowed to touch anything in the kitchen in case we made a mess. Our house was a sh** pit, cos my mum never did any cleaning! I remember him catching me making a sandwich once and he went mental. I was so scared of him coming home and catching me.

We had to sit in a certain way at the dinner table, with our sleeves pulled up and cutlery pointing downwards to prevent drips. He had a dirty old cloth next to him which he would wipe across your face if you made any mess.

We also had to finish the entire plate, and yep, he would make you sit there for as long as that took.

My mum was a terrible cook and her food was so bad, I remember chewing on one bit of tough meat for so long I was sick. After that I stopped eating meat altogether!

He also got my mum to buy him steak and other expensive things, and my sister and I grew up on the most bland frozen food diet imaginable because he would say anything else cost too much. I had never had a any foreign or much fresh food until I left home, and my sister had never eaten pizza. She also can't cook much. I never got bought any fruit apart from apples, and find it hard to eat fruit now cos I find it weird.

He would comment throughout the entire dinner about how you were eating, or cutting food.

I started binge eating during the day so that I wouldn't be able to eat my dinner so I wouldn't have to sit next to him. This is where I got my phobia from, I would totally freak out if someone was eating anywhere near me until I got some therapy for it. I used to get really angry and got scared I would hurt my mum if I carried on that way!

Dont even get me started about his control freak-ness about doors being closed in winter, or wearing shoes in the house

[organicallygrown]

Tivo8, that letter link you gave was hiliarous. OMG, the '... .now that your married you need to contribute at an adult level... .' that is spooky because I have heard those words echo from my mother. WOW.

I also am going to think more on this because I never put my own food issues together but reading all of yours... .I can see a common thread. I can't stand to hear people eat and in school, I couldn't eat in the cafeteria because I couldn't handle knowing we all had full stomachs together in our next class. Isn't that just bizarre?

My mom when we were little made us eat canned wax beans and what my sister and I called 'Monkey muffins' because they tasted like what a monkey cage would smell like. I can't reason to this day why a mother would make children eat those things when there was a full range of choices out there. But she insisted we eat them all the time. I'm not sure if anyone has had canned wax beans, but they taste just like that... .a bean that has been waxed and sitting in a can for like 15 years. That and washed down by a 'monkey muffin' with who knows what inside of it. Looking back at it now, I can't imagine why she would make us eat it. It wasn't like broccoli or salad or something moms want their kids to eat. Have you ever heard of someone dying because they didn't eat wax beans or some odd foul homeade muffin? Just bizarre to think about. I'm a mom and I wouldn't force feed them odd foods over and over again and insist they eat it.

Just an odd thing that this post reminded me about. huh.