Adult daughter of BPD mother and NPD father

[Our abuse recovery guide]

I'm 37. Thanks to a therapist, I learned two years ago that my mother has BPD & NPD and my father has NPD. This explained the strange trajectories of my troubled life and that of my sister.

I was the "good child" of our BPD mother, while my younger sister was the rebel, always being attacked and vilified by our mother. Our mother was severely abused as a child by a sociopathic father--this fact was the central fact of our family, something we were reminded of in one way or another almost daily throughout our childhoods. My father was the "huntsman" to our mother's "hermit," a pillar of our community and a man widely viewed as a saint. My sister and I know better. He consistently failed to protect us from our mother, lacks empathy, and couldn't mirror another person if you handed him a compact.

Both our parents worshiped reason over emotion and being well-rounded & "useful" over doing what you're good at or love. We were taught that fun activities can't be jobs. The family god was Mr. Spock.

I never got into trouble as a kid and almost never went against my parents' wishes but struggled with volcanic anxiety and a hyper startle response (? secondary to PTSD? hard to say, but this startle response has normalized in the last 10-15 years), for which my saintly father treated me with beta blockers beginning at the age of 14. Went to a prestigious university, succeeded in doing what seemed "logical" while completely ignoring my own passionate interests, and wound up in a prestigious but miserable career that almost killed me. It could not have been more poorly suited to my personality, and anyone who knew me even a little could have seen that. Eventually left that career, climbed down the social-class ladder several rungs, and began a new one of my own choosing. As for my sister, she was forcibly sent to an "emotional growth" boarding school and later completed college, and has been a "starving artist" ever since. She finally has landed a good job with benefits and is continuing to pursue the arts, despite being afflicted with hypochondria and anxiety problems into which she has pretty good insight. 

I was diagnosed with a serious medical disorder several years ago, and my parents refuse to engage with this fact. They believe I somehow did it to myself (I didn't, though my mother probably worsened it with a fad supplement she dosed me with for years as a child), or that it doesn't exist. Asking my father to please provide blood samples for my physician's genetic research led to months of procrastination followed by complaints that this request was a "pain in the ass."

Our parents have no idea how to emotionally validate anyone, so my sister and I did the best we could--we joke that we raised each other--and continue as adults to try to learn to recognize and respect our own emotions. Yet I find it difficult to thaw from decades of numbness and automatic self-denial. I'm in a happy marriage now and feel pretty safe experiencing the emotions I'll need to feel to overcome the past, but the numbness is so pervasive that I seldom feel much other than relief at having left the hideous career. Every so often, an intense anguish breaks through. I sense that it's always back there, and actually would like it to break through more so I can move through it and out the other side, but I seem not to have ready access to it.

In contact with both parents, who have little idea of what happened to me and apparently not much curiosity about why I left my prestigious career. I've learned to expect no emotional satisfaction from them and have techniques for coping with our brief interactions--it's pretty easy to handle them both and get along with them externally if you know what to do and how to hide yourself. (It gets exhausting and I avoid doing it for long periods.) My philosophy is that they were both damaged and did their best and that I can feel some compassion for them, though part of me hates them as well. I don't particularly love them and didn't even as a child, which i honestly acknowledged to myself very young.

My goals now are to overcome shame, low self-esteem, and confusion about what I feel, and to trust and follow my own inner cues. I particularly need to overcome the conviction that what I sense to be true, how I feel about things, couldn't possibly be legitimate. I know intellectually they *are* legitimate, but this knowledge is sort of iced down and hard to access, too. I don't carry that knowledge in my gut, not yet.

[liveoak]

I'm 37. Thanks to a therapist, I learned two years ago that my mother has BPD & NPD and my father has NPD. This explained the strange trajectories of my troubled life and that of my sister.

I was the "good child" of our BPD mother, while my younger sister was the rebel, always being attacked and vilified by our mother. Our mother was severely abused as a child by a sociopathic father--this fact was the central fact of our family, something we were reminded of in one way or another almost daily throughout our childhoods. My father was the "huntsman" to our mother's "hermit," a pillar of our community and a man widely viewed as a saint. My sister and I know better. He consistently failed to protect us from our mother, lacks empathy, and couldn't mirror another person if you handed him a compact.

Both our parents worshiped reason over emotion and being well-rounded & "useful" over doing what you're good at or love. We were taught that fun activities can't be jobs. The family god was Mr. Spock.

I never got into trouble as a kid and almost never went against my parents' wishes but struggled with volcanic anxiety and a hyper startle response (? secondary to PTSD? hard to say, but this startle response has normalized in the last 10-15 years), for which my saintly father treated me with beta blockers beginning at the age of 14. Went to a prestigious university, succeeded in doing what seemed "logical" while completely ignoring my own passionate interests, and wound up in a prestigious but miserable career that almost killed me. It could not have been more poorly suited to my personality, and anyone who knew me even a little could have seen that. Eventually left that career, climbed down the social-class ladder several rungs, and began a new one of my own choosing. As for my sister, she was forcibly sent to an "emotional growth" boarding school and later completed college, and has been a "starving artist" ever since. She finally has landed a good job with benefits and is continuing to pursue the arts, despite being afflicted with hypochondria and anxiety problems into which she has pretty good insight. 

I was diagnosed with a serious medical disorder several years ago, and my parents refuse to engage with this fact. They believe I somehow did it to myself (I didn't, though my mother probably worsened it with a fad supplement she dosed me with for years as a child), or that it doesn't exist. Asking my father to please provide blood samples for my physician's genetic research led to months of procrastination followed by complaints that this request was a "pain in the ass."

Our parents have no idea how to emotionally validate anyone, so my sister and I did the best we could--we joke that we raised each other--and continue as adults to try to learn to recognize and respect our own emotions. Yet I find it difficult to thaw from decades of numbness and automatic self-denial. I'm in a happy marriage now and feel pretty safe experiencing the emotions I'll need to feel to overcome the past, but the numbness is so pervasive that I seldom feel much other than relief at having left the hideous career. Every so often, an intense anguish breaks through. I sense that it's always back there, and actually would like it to break through more so I can move through it and out the other side, but I seem not to have ready access to it.

In contact with both parents, who have little idea of what happened to me and apparently not much curiosity about why I left my prestigious career. I've learned to expect no emotional satisfaction from them and have techniques for coping with our brief interactions--it's pretty easy to handle them both and get along with them externally if you know what to do and how to hide yourself. (It gets exhausting and I avoid doing it for long periods.) My philosophy is that they were both damaged and did their best and that I can feel some compassion for them, though part of me hates them as well. I don't particularly love them and didn't even as a child, which i honestly acknowledged to myself very young.

My goals now are to overcome shame, low self-esteem, and confusion about what I feel, and to trust and follow my own inner cues. I particularly need to overcome the conviction that what I sense to be true, how I feel about things, couldn't possibly be legitimate. I know intellectually they *are* legitimate, but this knowledge is sort of iced down and hard to access, too. I don't carry that knowledge in my gut, not yet.

[Cordelia]

 

It seems like you've done huge amount of work on yourself throughout your life!  You not only overcame the assaults on your personality inherent to growing up in a dysfunctional family enough to build a successful career for yourself, you also came to the realization that it wasn't working for you, and changed course to one that works better for you!  This is no small feat.  You also seem to have a very clear intellectual understanding of your trajectory throughout life so far. 

I can see how you might still be facing challenges with knowing what you feel and having the confidence to act on it.  I've found in my own case that intellectualizing my issues with family and myself can often be a barrier and distraction to actually FEELING the impact of those experiences on me.  Sometimes my feelings lead me in a totally different direction than my intellect would have.  Since making space for emotions doesn't come naturally, maybe try different techniques to give yourself the space to feel what you're feeling.  I've found mindfulness meditation really helpful, since it doesn't push me to THINK about my problems, but rather roots me in my immediate experience, which gives me access to what I'm feeling, both physically and emotionally.  Exercise can do the same thing - get me out of my mind and into my body and heart. 

It's great that you're here!  Others here have been through similar things and really do understand... .   Looking forward to seeing you on the boards!

[Claire]

I was the "good child" of our BPD mother, while my younger sister was the rebel, always being attacked and vilified by our mother. ... . My father was the "huntsman" to our mother's "hermit," a pillar of our community and a man widely viewed as a saint. My sister and I know better. He consistently failed to protect us from our mother, lacks empathy, and couldn't mirror another person if you handed him a compact.

Both our parents worshiped reason over emotion and being well-rounded & "useful" over doing what you're good at or love. We were taught that fun activities can't be jobs. The family god was Mr. Spock.

I never got into trouble as a kid and almost never went against my parents' wishes but struggled with volcanic anxiety and a hyper startle response ... . Went to a prestigious university, succeeded in doing what seemed "logical" while completely ignoring my own passionate interests, and wound up in a prestigious but miserable career that almost killed me. It could not have been more poorly suited to my personality, and anyone who knew me even a little could have seen that. ... .

Our parents have no idea how to emotionally validate anyone, so my sister and I did the best we could--we joke that we raised each other--and continue as adults to try to learn to recognize and respect our own emotions. Yet I find it difficult to thaw from decades of numbness and automatic self-denial. I'm in a happy marriage now and feel pretty safe experiencing the emotions I'll need to feel to overcome the past, but the numbness is so pervasive that I seldom feel much other than relief at having left the hideous career. Every so often, an intense anguish breaks through. I sense that it's always back there, and actually would like it to break through more so I can move through it and out the other side, but I seem not to have ready access to it.

In contact with both parents, who have little idea of what happened to me and apparently not much curiosity about why I left my prestigious career. I've learned to expect no emotional satisfaction from them and have techniques for coping with our brief interactions--it's pretty easy to handle them both and get along with them externally if you know what to do and how to hide yourself. (It gets exhausting and I avoid doing it for long periods.) My philosophy is that they were both damaged and did their best and that I can feel some compassion for them, though part of me hates them as well. I don't particularly love them and didn't even as a child, which i honestly acknowledged to myself very young.

My goals now are to overcome shame, low self-esteem, and confusion about what I feel, and to trust and follow my own inner cues. I particularly need to overcome the conviction that what I sense to be true, how I feel about things, couldn't possibly be legitimate. I know intellectually they *are* legitimate, but this knowledge is sort of iced down and hard to access, too. I don't carry that knowledge in my gut, not yet.

liveoak!

It's great to have you. I was reading your post, and nearly all of it could have been something I wrote myself. Eerily similar. Everything I left in the quote above is absolutely true of me, including leaving a career about 4 years ago, though I've stayed in the same area in a different role, and now I'm working back up to that role as I grow and heal.  I also would say your goals are similar to my own at this point in my life. The "confusion about what I feel" is a big one for me. I was a sophomore in college before I realized that my favorite color was NOT purple like I had thought it was all my life. Liking purple was just part of my "role" growing up... .

Anyway, to echo Cordelia, it sounds like you have a good understanding of your situation and have already done a lot of work. Welcome, again, and I look forward to more discussions with you in the future. 

[liveoak]

Thank you, Cordelia and Claire. It's so good to know I'm not alone, and the advice about mindfulness meditation is great. I will try it. Virtual hugs to you both.