Writing Through the Lessons from My Mother

[Our abuse recovery guide]

One of the things that has been most difficult for me is that my mother does not validate my "truths".  Often, due to societal myths (I'm referring to discussions in Surviving a Borderline Parent), people I have turned to for advice also do not validate my "truths".  Due to this, I often feel guilty and incorrect when I want to share my experiences.  I feel strongly that I need to spend some time professing and just "moping" about what I've had to overcome.  So, here goes.  My mother has said the following to me over the years- sometimes verbatim and sometimes implicitly:

1- If your brother had died with your father, I would have killed you and myself.

2- Crying is just a manipulation (she only thought this when I cried about some hurt she had caused me.  crying about hurts from others was fine).

3- You are hostile when you are angry. (again, only when I was angry because of something she had done.  she was often incredibly angry and her anger level was disproportionate to the situation).

4- Other people (not me) are out to get you. 

5- When you are out of my sight I am petrified about what might happen to you.  I will be in a panic if you come home a few minutes late or don't keep me posted about how you are.

6- When you grow up, I am petrified that you will leave me when you marry into a new family.  Now that you are grown up and married, I am on the lookout for any small slight that I can use as evidence for being abandoned. 

7- Our family is different from others.  You have to do more than other children.

8- I can never get enough appreciation for the gifts I give you.  There will be times when I will yell at you later about a gift I gave you that you didn't appreciate enough.

9- Be careful, your joy/successes and the joy/successes of those you care about may (will probably) threaten how I feel about myself.

10- I need your successes in order to feel good about my own life.

11- You kids kept me from working.  You didn't like it when I had my own life.

12- When your dad was alive, he kept me from working even though I wanted to.

13- I didn't like being a mother until you started to smile at me.

14- I ask people to help me and I do what they say.  When it doesn't work out, I often "break up" with the person who helped me.  At a minimum, I talk about them behind their back and berate them.

15- I ask people to help me and I expect them to invest a lot of emotional energy and time in my problems.  If they don't (and if YOU don't), I will blow up at you for not caring enough about me.  You have to maintain this level of investment in me always. 

16- I am going to undermine most significant relationships you have, even (especially?) when they are healthy.  I'm to be  your #1.

17- You had better not be the center of attention.  I will humiliate you in the moment or be angry with you later.

18- You think you are so damn smart.

19- I don't care that I'm not a soothing presence to you.

20- Your husband and your brother's wife are always outside our inner circle and how close we are.

21- We are such a close, tight family.

22- You and your brother don't tell me enough about your lives- you are trying to protect me too much.  You think I can't handle stuff.

23- You have always been so much more open about your life than your brother.

24- I don't like it that your brother is getting close to his wife's family.  I'm going to move near him and get in the middle. 

25- I was kidding when I said I was going to move near your brother to get in the middle of his relationship with his in-laws.

Phew- that feels pretty good to say it "out loud".  Sad though- looking back at all I've had to figure out.  As I said in earlier posts, my dad died when I was 9 and I had a brother, but he was only 4.  My mom isolated us from our extended family (they never did enough for her/us, she said) and she didn't really have any friends or like us to do too much with other families/friends.  No one really got to see what it was like.  So, it was hard to get any outside perspective on what was going on.  I assumed everyone did things the way we did.  And if they didn't, it was because we were unusual because my dad died. 

[KateJuly2013]

One of the things that has been most difficult for me is that my mother does not validate my "truths".  Often, due to societal myths (I'm referring to discussions in Surviving a Borderline Parent), people I have turned to for advice also do not validate my "truths".  Due to this, I often feel guilty and incorrect when I want to share my experiences.  I feel strongly that I need to spend some time professing and just "moping" about what I've had to overcome.  So, here goes.  My mother has said the following to me over the years- sometimes verbatim and sometimes implicitly:

1- If your brother had died with your father, I would have killed you and myself.

2- Crying is just a manipulation (she only thought this when I cried about some hurt she had caused me.  crying about hurts from others was fine).

3- You are hostile when you are angry. (again, only when I was angry because of something she had done.  she was often incredibly angry and her anger level was disproportionate to the situation).

4- Other people (not me) are out to get you. 

5- When you are out of my sight I am petrified about what might happen to you.  I will be in a panic if you come home a few minutes late or don't keep me posted about how you are.

6- When you grow up, I am petrified that you will leave me when you marry into a new family.  Now that you are grown up and married, I am on the lookout for any small slight that I can use as evidence for being abandoned. 

7- Our family is different from others.  You have to do more than other children.

8- I can never get enough appreciation for the gifts I give you.  There will be times when I will yell at you later about a gift I gave you that you didn't appreciate enough.

9- Be careful, your joy/successes and the joy/successes of those you care about may (will probably) threaten how I feel about myself.

10- I need your successes in order to feel good about my own life.

11- You kids kept me from working.  You didn't like it when I had my own life.

12- When your dad was alive, he kept me from working even though I wanted to.

13- I didn't like being a mother until you started to smile at me.

14- I ask people to help me and I do what they say.  When it doesn't work out, I often "break up" with the person who helped me.  At a minimum, I talk about them behind their back and berate them.

15- I ask people to help me and I expect them to invest a lot of emotional energy and time in my problems.  If they don't (and if YOU don't), I will blow up at you for not caring enough about me.  You have to maintain this level of investment in me always. 

16- I am going to undermine most significant relationships you have, even (especially?) when they are healthy.  I'm to be  your #1.

17- You had better not be the center of attention.  I will humiliate you in the moment or be angry with you later.

18- You think you are so damn smart.

19- I don't care that I'm not a soothing presence to you.

20- Your husband and your brother's wife are always outside our inner circle and how close we are.

21- We are such a close, tight family.

22- You and your brother don't tell me enough about your lives- you are trying to protect me too much.  You think I can't handle stuff.

23- You have always been so much more open about your life than your brother.

24- I don't like it that your brother is getting close to his wife's family.  I'm going to move near him and get in the middle. 

25- I was kidding when I said I was going to move near your brother to get in the middle of his relationship with his in-laws.

Phew- that feels pretty good to say it "out loud".  Sad though- looking back at all I've had to figure out.  As I said in earlier posts, my dad died when I was 9 and I had a brother, but he was only 4.  My mom isolated us from our extended family (they never did enough for her/us, she said) and she didn't really have any friends or like us to do too much with other families/friends.  No one really got to see what it was like.  So, it was hard to get any outside perspective on what was going on.  I assumed everyone did things the way we did.  And if they didn't, it was because we were unusual because my dad died. 

[DreamFlyer99]

Yup yup and yup! I've seen on this site more than once, the pwBPD's feelings equal their truth, their reality. That's why their picture of reality can be soo wildly different than ours! My uBPD/NPD mother had her own fabricated "reality" that made her look like she was the perfect mother and everything was someone else's fault (our father's, ours... . "I" was responsible for her needing dentures in her forties because it was a hot summer when she was pregnant with me so she chewed ice. Yet it was "my" fault. In utero. )

Also, i'm kinda sorry you have such a good memory I have a lot of big blank spots in my childhood that have served me well. (not really.)

I especially appreciate all the opposing statements your mother told you. That's enough to make you doubt your own sanity! I know it did me.

I too assumed my household was "normal." After all, it was normal for me! It wasn't until high school when I went to a friend's house now and then that I realized "look! my friend and her mom are just chatting like friends while they get dinner ready together! wow, people DO that?"

Welcome to this side of the street! Haha! At least we have a good library on our side that helps us deal with the other side.

i'm such a fan of writing as therapy, what a telling list you have here... .

dreamflyer99

[KateJuly2013]

Thank you DreamFlyer99.  I so appreciate you sharing your experiences with thinking it was normal and your observation of the conflicting stories.  Writing it down (probably especially in list form- I love lists!) really made it concrete for me.  I'm trying to see the humor in it.  The list does seem to get it "out" and feel less confusing, so I am glad I did it.

Again, thanks for sharing your experiences here and on other posts.  It is very helpful.  Have a great day!

[Bella Storm]

Wow KateJuly2013,

I'm sorry to hear your dad passed away when you were 9. It sounds like your mom kept you isolated from other family that might have provided some windows of normalcy.

I really appreciate you sharing your list. So much of it rang true to me. The more I understand this disorder the more I just want to weep and weep. But then I feel like if I let it all out that I will never stop. (sounds weird to me, but is how I feel)

I like to remind myself that perception is reality (how we perceive things in our environment and what happens to us is our reality). Reality is in a constant state of flux with my uBPD mom, because the reality shifts with how she is feeling. It makes growing up so confusing, yet I totally believed that this is how a family looked like. I had no idea that other families had calm relationships, or a mom who loved her kids regardless of their behavior. (My mother-in-law was an angel- she loved and accepted everyone the way that they were. It was radically different than my experience of growing up).

I also relate to DreamFlyer99 in having times of my life that are blocked from my memory. There are two consecutive years of elementary school that are a total blank with no memories at all and then different patches of time that are similarly blank. In a way, I think it is a defense mechanism to protect me from whatever trauma I experienced- but it is disturbing at times too.

Thank you so much to you and DreamFlyer99 for sharing your experiences.

Hugs.

~Bella

[DreamFlyer99]

Glad to share, Bella--if it helped me to read the stories of others who lived through equally weird childhoods they thought were normal, well, let me add mine to the pile!

Kate--do keep that sense of humor! It is essential for sanity in these situations! Oh boy... .  

[KateJuly2013]

Thank you Bella and DreamFlyer99.  It too has helped me reading others' experiences.  While I don't wish all this on anyone, it is wonderful to know I am not alone.  It means a lot to me that this sounds familiar to you both.  It helps me trust myself about my experiences too.  I keep reading my list over and I've actually started to find it kinda funny.  When I see it like this- written down and organized- they seem farther away, clearer, and doggone it, just so ridiculous!  Of course, it didn't feel that way then and I certainly understand your experience of wanting to weep and weep!  For awhile there I was describing it as just aching for things to be different. 

DreamFlyer99- what a trouble-maker you were that hot summer when your mom chewed ice!        Just think if it had been cold?  I wonder what you would have caused then?    Perhaps she would have refused to go out and ... . ?

Again, thank you both for sharing your experiences and validating mine.   

[DreamFlyer99]

Yep, that's me, so powerful even unborn! I know, I wonder what would have been my fault if it had been cold... . ahah! she would have comfort eaten and it would be my fault she gained weight. hahahahahaaa!

What a blessing it is to hear the stories of other people with crazy-making mothers, seriously. Only we can laugh with each other at all the "what the--?" moments.

"aching for things to be different"... . oh that's perfect. even as I read those words I felt "the ache" in my chest. There have been so many times I have sighed over/cried over the fact that my mother wasn't the mother I wanted/needed, and then even my mother in law didn't like me (and i'm pretty easy to get along with, even tho I was the unborn rabble-rouser) But I wonder if she didn't have some of the same BPD traits I see in my husband, it's just that they show enough differently in each person that I couldn't see it when she was alive.

It was also my fault that my mother "didn't have a relationship with (her) grandchildren." Of course it had NOTHing to do with the fact that she was weird as hell to them and even wrote my youngest daughter a letter at her 16th bd telling her "not to listen to the lies" certain people told about her, then named my sister and 2 people that had been dead for some time. My daughter had gotten a necklace from her for her bd and then came to me saying "um, grandma wrote me this strange letter... . " The 2 dead people hadn't said anything audible in years, and my sister, being much more sane than our mother, talked to my daughter about stuff that mattered to my daughter, not smack talk about her grandma! So bizarre, our stories.

We could write a book.