Mother with BPD

[FunnyGirl1]

Hello!

All my life I thought my mother was just another angry Russian woman, but in 2003 it became clear that my mom was suffering from some sort of mental disorder.

My mom had always been a very angry person, she would have irrational outbursts, she was unable to control her temper, she was very rude to me in front of others and even more verbally abuse behind closed doors. However my mother had/has a sweet loving side to her that's vulnerable and needing to nurture as well as a desperate need to be nurtured. So as much as she hurt me with her venomous insults, she'd have days where she was soothing and warm.

In 2003 my sister got married and moved out of our home leaving my father, my mother, and me in the house. That same year, my mom lost her job, and our basement flooded in a freak storm that left us having to undergo an expensive renovation. Not long after those three successive events my mother had her first panic attack.

I'd never seen anything like that and thought for sure she was having a heart attack. Desperate to find help I called 911 against her adamant pleas. I know now that she thought they'd take her away to a psychiatric hospital and locked her in a padded cell.

Fast forward a few years and my mother has been through tons of different therapies. We've seen her talk to several psychiatrists, ingest tons of powerful drugs, watched her hallucinate on an overdose of barbiturates administered to her by a health care professional, the list goes on and on.

After living with her disease all my life, I finally sought my own counselling in the winter of last year. The counsellor told me that unfortunately my mother is never going to be capable of being the mom that I need her to be. She still loves me of course, but her illness prevents her from being the supportive, loving being that I need her to be at all times.

The counsellor also told me in that session that I needed to move out of my parents home. The constant round and round conflict that was always all my fault was completely tiresome and I really had no sense of who I was as a human being because I sacrificed my entire life to take care of my mother.

I should also mention that I work in advertising which is one of the most stressful careers I could have chosen. However, I'm good at it, and for the most part I love the challenge. But sometimes I think I should abandon having unnecessary stress in my life for fear that I will turn out like my mother.

I have since moved out on my own, which has presented it's own set of new challenges. I have anxiety about being by myself, I'm not used to being alone yet. But I hope I'll get there. My relationship with my mom is still the same round and round conflict of everything's my fault and I'm a terrible person. But Thank God i don't have to go through that every minute of the day anymore.

As I mentioned before my biggest fear is that I will turn out like my mother. Any sort of stress or anxiety that I feel immediately freaks me out because I take it as an early warning sign of uh oh, it's only a matter of time before I lose my mind. With so much of the worlds population facing mental illness it's hard to remain positive that the disease "isn't going to get you too".

I am really excited to have a community to share my story with, I feel as though I've been fighting this battle alone for a very long time. I hope that some of you write to me if you have a similar story and I'd love to write to all of you as well.

Cheers

[doubleAries]

Hi, and 

Yes, your story sounds very familiar! Welcome, and we are happy to have others to share our stories with!

We also have lots of really great resources here on bpdfamily.com's--videos, articles, workshops, chat groups--to help you learn more about what it is you grew up with and continue to cope with in your mother, as well as how that has effected you and your own coping skills. This article, for example, pretty helpful How a Mother with Borderline Personality Disorder Affects Her Children and I found this book (this article summarizes it) one of the most helpful informative tools I have ever come across BPD BEHAVIORS: Waif, Hermit, Queen, and Witch

It's excellent to hear you are in therapy. I'm sure you already know how helpful it is. And you are definitely not alone in worrying about becoming like mom! I have spent my entire life living with that worry. So much so that I have probably become "the anti-mom"

So how often do you communicate with your mom?

doubleAries

[FunnyGirl1]

Thank You for the information, I've read that article about how a mother's BPD affects their children and I definitely identify with everything that children that were shamed feel as adults.

I communicate with my mom differently each week.

If I'm feeling very stressed out during the week, I try to limit our conversations to 1 or 2 calls per week. If I'm in a better mood I'll talk to her 3 to 4 times a week. She wants me to call her every day but I don't do that.

Recently, we started a pattern of talking once a week, I saw her last weekend and we had a big blow out at a family event that got a little ugly.

She'd been hurling insults at me all day and I'd been ignoring them. She finally said one thing that triggered my vulnerability and when I told her it hurt my feelings she spun it around on me. I didn't talk to her until today and it didn't go well.

[doubleAries]

Yep, it just goes round and round and round, doesn't it? And it's ALWAYS your fault!

When a family member has BPD, the illness can negatively everyone in the family system, including children, siblings, and in-laws. Senior members on the [L5]  Coping and Healing from a BPD Parent, Sibling, or Inlaw board are experienced with and can help you with setting boundaries, finding relief from FOG, encouraging self-care, improving your handling of relationships impacted by your BPD relative, and pursuing a path of recovery from traumatic experiences. The validation, information, and support will give you strength on your journey.

You can read others posts on the above link, and post your own threads (look for the little blue tab at the top on the right that says "start new topic"

See you there soon!

doubleAries

[Kwamina]

Hi FunnyGirl1  

The counsellor also told me in that session that I needed to move out of my parents home. The constant round and round conflict that was always all my fault was completely tiresome and I really had no sense of who I was as a human being because I sacrificed my entire life to take care of my mother.

I know what ya mean here, the constant negativity completely draines you. I have an uBPD mother and while I lived with her I never got to live my own life, everything was about her. Looking back this is something I really regret, all that energy wasted on her while I could have used it productively. It still amazes me how much I've been able to accomplish in spite of my mother's constant negativity, I basically was going on auto-pilot for a very long time. I'm happy for ya that you've moved out now. I understand the new stresses you're talking about, but I think anything is better than still living in the same house as your BPD mother.

As I mentioned before my biggest fear is that I will turn out like my mother. Any sort of stress or anxiety that I feel immediately freaks me out because I take it as an early warning sign of uh oh, it's only a matter of time before I lose my mind. With so much of the worlds population facing mental illness it's hard to remain positive that the disease "isn't going to get you too".

The fear of becoming just like our BPD parent is actually pretty common among people who’ve gone through the things you’ve experienced. I had and to a degree still have this fear too. As a child I got severely depressed as a result of my mother’s mean behavior. She was very manipulative and controlling. I felt like I was losing my mind, but as I got older I realized that my mother was the crazy one. I had gotten so used to a lot of things that many of her strange behaviors did not even shock me anymore. The big difference between you and your mother is that you’re actually worried about losing your mind. If your mother is anything like mine, she’ll probably say and really believe that there’s nothing wrong with her and that people who say otherwise are in fact crazy themselves. In my mother’s mind she is normal and all people who behave differently than her are the crazy ones.

Well take care and good thing you found this website!