Autobiography of a 66 year old child of BPD parents.

[Depression = 72% of members]

What a great thread! Thank you!  Thank you for making some sense of how I feel.  I too sometimes feel like my life is not real. I am use to my Mum saying that my thoughts and memories are not real and that I make everything up.  Even when I tell her something simple about going out with friends she gives me a 'really' or 'ummmm' like it didn't happen.  My sister does it to me too and sometimes I feel like I am loosing my mind.  Both my sister and Mum have BPD and I am currently estranged from them both until I figure out how to keep my boundaries to stop them hurting me. Lucky I have a great husband and friends who help me keep my perspective on life. 

I still live in fear of having BPD and no matter how much I try and rationalise I continually check all my behaviours.

Again, thank you for sharing your story.

Pam

[Pam64]

What a great thread! Thank you!  Thank you for making some sense of how I feel.  I too sometimes feel like my life is not real. I am use to my Mum saying that my thoughts and memories are not real and that I make everything up.  Even when I tell her something simple about going out with friends she gives me a 'really' or 'ummmm' like it didn't happen.  My sister does it to me too and sometimes I feel like I am loosing my mind.  Both my sister and Mum have BPD and I am currently estranged from them both until I figure out how to keep my boundaries to stop them hurting me. Lucky I have a great husband and friends who help me keep my perspective on life. 

I still live in fear of having BPD and no matter how much I try and rationalise I continually check all my behaviours.

Again, thank you for sharing your story.

Pam

[gloveman]

     It is unreasonable to expect an acknowledgement of wrongdoing by BPD sufferers, that only happens in movies. Luke Skywalker was being beat up by the emperor and says to Darth Vader," Father I know there is still good left in you. Help me." So the good comes to the surface and Darth Vader picks up the emperor and throws him down the central atrium of the Death Star to his assumed death.

     In reality BPD people only apologize after therapy and/or medication. They can not do it on there own.

[gloveman]

The vote to stay

      Back in March 1997 the executive committee of my family business (That’s just a dull, boring business like way of say the family members) took a vote on whether to stay and update the buildings we were in or buy some vacant land and build a modern, efficient new building. The vote was 4 to stay vs 2 to move. All six of us were members of the third generation. My dad, the sole surviving member of the second generation was in Florida for the winter.

      When he returned in April he reviewed the vote in an insane manner. I will make up names to protect anonymity. Here is how he described the vote. “Allan and Barry voted to move because they have a proud vision of the future for our business. Charlie voted to stay because all he knows are cost accounting numbers and they told him to stay. Dave, all he knows is cheap. He is so cheap. Ellen is just a dumb woman who was brainwashed by Charlie and Dave.”

   He repeated this at least three times a week until October when I couldn’t take it anymore and told him to “Shut the hit up because I can’t take it from you anymore. All you do is repeat the same hiting crazy story hiting over and hiting over again for six months. Shut hiting up about it already.” Or something like that.

   He replied that he had a right to express himself. I replied, “ You’ve already hiting expressed yourself three times a hiting week for six hiting months, give it the hit up already.” Or something like that. He replied that I was too sensitive.

   Two weeks later I moved my desk to the other side of the office. Our desks had been contiguous.

   Isn’t that how BPD parents make us crazy. If they don’t upset us with something they say the first time, they don’t give up until they do upset us, and they turn everything we say against us.

   And, of course, he never mentioned the fact that I voted to stay. He only talked about the other five voters. That’s the way he always was. He pretended that I didn’t exist. If there were three people in the room, he would talk to the third person and ignore me.

   30 years ago, my best friends daughter was traveling home via Greyhound bus from the boarding school for troubled children she was attending. She traveled with a large group of boys and girls from the school.

   There was a really bad snow storm and the bus driver decided not to drive straight through and instead stop for the night. Her parents weren’t home, so she called me for advice. The first thing she asked me was, “Is this going to be my fault?” I really loved my friend and his wife, but they were such lousy parents they made their daughter crazy. They  made her worry about being blamed for the weather.

   As I have posted before, it is important for all of us children of BPD parents to understand, “It’s not our fault”, and that “We are okay; they are nuts.”

   

[gloveman]

To livednlearned,

   Several months ago you asked me a question, “How did I find a normal wife?”

   I have been struggling to answer that question ever since. Upon reviewing this thread, I can begin to give you an answer.

   First, make sure you are NOT following a script. Don’t pick someone with any major hangups.

   Second, i have been told many times to avoid strangers, third party recommendations are the best.

   Third, what is the other person’s background? Will an ex-con stay out of prison and not be violent. Will a substance abuser stay on the wagon?

   Fourth, what is important to you? My cousin married a real nice guy. Everyone liked him, but he couldn’t hold a job, so she divorced him.

   Fifth, My wife and I have our minor hangups, so we just put up with them. For example, my office is a constant mess. My wife likes to watch TV in bed. I hate doing that.

   People have been trying to figure out how to make a perfect match between two people forever. Eharmony and match.com try to computer algorithms.

   Most of the time , I think the first recommendation is the best. Make sure you aren’t following a script. My cousin married and divorced two women who had the opinion that they were right and that was it. They wouldn’t budge. After the second divorce he realized with therapy that he was following a script.

[BabeRuthless]

To overcome the craziness of being raised in a BPD household, you have to let go. Let go of your parents if they are still alive. Let go of the memories of your parents if they have passed away. Let go of the negative introjects they gave you. Many people give the advice to live in the moment. What that means to a child of BPD parents is to just deal with the experience of the moment and dismiss the bad memories and negative introjects your mind attaches to it.

Gloveman: Don't know whether you are still here, but I just read your post. Am relatively new here and appreciate your comments.

For me, the portion above relates to a thought I expressed in another post: that if I let go of feeling/thinking about my family members, past, and nearly everything related to BPD, there will be little left of me. My personal identity, memories, inner climate, responses to life, etc. are intimately connected to multiple caregivers and loved ones with BPD/other mental illness... . it feels to me like this pervades every aspect of my life, inner and outer.

I want to try living in the present but often don't know how. But your words help a lot. Thank you.

[gloveman]

     Baberuthless I am still here. I just overcommitted my time. Now that that the spring semester is over, I have greatly reduced my commitments and will spend much more time here.

     I agree with you. Part of me is, "My personal identity, memories, inner climate, responses to life, etc.", but  those parts are the ones that also contain pain, anger, regret, frustration and, worst of all, negative introjects. Abandon those parts and what is left is the true you, not, "there will be little left of me." The little left is the true you with negative stuff shedded.

     My parents made fun of and made derogatory remarks for everything I did. Nothing positive was ever said. Since I worked in a family business, that gave my father and brother a chance to do their BPD thing for my entire career of 44 years. It is only now that I am retired that I am unencumbered by them and having to earn a living that I can develop my true self.

     Don't take as long to get here as I did.