Only child of BPD/NPD dad

[repressd]

Having a BPD/NPD dad means that he doesn't see me or my mother as separate people from him. He has mellowed in his old age, but for the duration of my life that I lived with him, he criticized everything about me. I couldn't even sit still in a chair without him nitpicking my posture, the look on my face, the way I was breathing.

I was never allowed to show any kind of emotion or express myself in any way, because it made him uncomcortable. If I ever got hurt he would get nearly hysterical, but wouldn't even ask me how I felt. It was always about him. He was always somehow victimized by everything I did or that happened to me.

When I was little, if I ever cried, he'd laugh derisively, shove me in front of a mirror, and say "Look how ridiculous you look!"

My mother has never stood up for me, has always taken his side in everything, and is pretty emotionally unavailable. He is abusive to her too, so I guess it's Stockholm Syndrome.

When I was 14, my family moved from the town my parents had lived in for 20 years to a new city where they didn't know anyone. My parents had a hard time making friends. My dad, with nothing else to do, became obsessed with what I was going to do for college.

As soon as I registered for high school, he started bugging me to "talk to him" about college. But "talking to him about college" meant having him tell me the very limited options (schools and disciplines) that he was willing to pay for for me. Anything I was interested in was pooh-poohed, ridiculed, and demeaned. He got home from work at the same time I got home from school so I could never get away from him. He lectured, harangued, and raged at me about this stuff constantly throughout high school.

So I was never very excited about college, because frankly, he ruined it for me. He treated me like I was a fully formed adult who should be completely worldly, self-possessed, and have my whole life figured out--and that I should understand that the life he was plotting out for me was the only thing that I should do.

He has this weird belief that "people don't get to do what they want for a living" and gets either hysterically exasperated or furious over any mention of doing work that you like.

He's always been obsessed with forcing me to "overcome" any dislikes or disinclinations I've had towards things (like math or accounting), even if he personally doesn't give a rip about whatever the thing is. All of my life has been a struggle with him trying to make me go against all my natural inclinations, because they're always "wrong." My likes and interests always got brushed off.

When I was 17, my parents took me to see a counselor, but that ended quickly when she sided with me, not them. "She said that we need to let you make your own mistakes! How ridiculous is that!" They still talk about what an idiot they thought she was. They've always tried to get between me and any ally I've ever had that might take me away from them, such as always telling me my friends don't really like me.

When I look back on my teenage years, all I remember is frustration and exhaustion. If I ever expressed a thought or opinion that my dad found unacceptable, I would get grilled for hours: "Who did you get this idea from?" He literally could not comprehend that I had thoughts or feelings of my own.

So now I'm 35, single, have a nothing job that I hate, still live in the same town as my parents (a town I've hated since I moved here), and see them every week because if I don't they have nervous breakdowns.

I am both sad and angry that I didn't get away from them for college when I had the chance, but I was so messed up, it wasn't until I finally graduated from the local college (at age 30) that I realized I could have made my way much earlier in life and gotten away from them.

I'm also sad and angry when I hear my friends talk about how supportive their parents have always been, because I've never had that.  

I find it very hard to have compassion or empathy for either of them, as they still constantly bring up various ways I've victimized them throughout my life, and they are all things that they have no RIGHT to be upset about because they are all situations where they actually treated ME cruelly, but of course they don't remember it that way. I am very angry at both of them but can never express it to them because the BPD will get in the way.

They lost a lot in the economic downturn and I can't help but feel that it's what they deserve for being such horrible abusive parents, who wouldn't lift a finger to help someone on fire if they had a bucket of water in their hands.

Sorry that was so long, but I'm going crazy over here.

[DreamFlyer99]

Repressd--oh boy do I feel ya!

My mother was undiagnosed NPD BPD, and I knew by the time I was 17 that I was supposed to be myself, "her way."

It's an entirely crazymaking situation, for sure. I too have been a 'late bloomer' since I married somebody with some of the BPD traits and continued my "trying to keep the peace" ways, which absolutely and totally do NOT keep the peace!

i'm familiar with the feeling of not being able to do anything right, and just when i'd think i'd finally figured out how to do something that would make her happy she'd change the rules! You have found a place of kinship for sure, there are many many similar stories to yours here at bpdfamily. I know it helped me a LOT to find that I was not alone in my feelings. In fact, I've been in therapy for 12 years now and I feel like I'm finally good with who I am.

I've had to learn too that beating myself up for things I didn't do "back then" because I didn't have that knowledge yet is pointless. All I can do is move forward, learn how to take care of myself in the here and now, strengthen my boundaries, and grow into the best me I can be.

If you are here and you're looking to make changes you will be on the road to making some peace with the past that you can't change, and moving into being the  best YOU. And that's a really good thing!

I hope you get even half as much as i've gotten out of my time here--there's so much great information and so many members who know exactly what you're talking about.

this is the first book I read on the subject: Stop Walking on Eggshells

and she's written a newer one that I've started, and it seems to be set up in a pretty organized way: Essential Family Guide

Have you read any books on the subject yet? What have you read on bpdfamily here? This is a good little video that will probably ring true: Video-What is Borderline Personality Disorder?

i'm looking forward to hearing more about you! and by the way, you are still plenty young and have lots of time to have a very fulfilling life. It took me a while to silence the voices of my parents in my head, but it can happen.