Sometimes I feel my life is a lie.

[Our abuse recovery guide]

My mother is BPD. I have struggled with it my entire life. But now the constant lies, denial, deceit and transformation of the truth, seemingly the hallmarks of BPD, have worn me down. About two weeks ago, my mother and I had an argument. Earlier that day, she had come home and immediately got after me because I had failed to cook dinner, however the only reason I didn't cook dinner is that two hours earlier she had told me that she would handle it. She then yelled at me because I asked if she had turned in a form that my college needed for my financial aid, a form she had needed to turn in since February. I mentally refused to take it anymore. So I stood up for myself and tried to make her answer for the unfair actions she had taken that day. But she refused to acknowledge that anything she said was out of line, defending her intentions and, most frustratingly, changing the story whenever it gave her the advantage. When I finally brought up the form she had needed to complete for nearly six months, she told me to go away, probably because it was the one piece of the story she couldn't change. I didn't relent, and told her that she was only telling me to leave because she knew I was right. She then lost it, and told me to get out of the house.

The constant shifting of truth makes me feel insane. It makes me feel like I am the problem, and that I have no ability to judge a situation, because she always makes my judgments feel ridiculous. Is my life a lie, or is it her?

[curtainsforspain]

My mother is BPD. I have struggled with it my entire life. But now the constant lies, denial, deceit and transformation of the truth, seemingly the hallmarks of BPD, have worn me down. About two weeks ago, my mother and I had an argument. Earlier that day, she had come home and immediately got after me because I had failed to cook dinner, however the only reason I didn't cook dinner is that two hours earlier she had told me that she would handle it. She then yelled at me because I asked if she had turned in a form that my college needed for my financial aid, a form she had needed to turn in since February. I mentally refused to take it anymore. So I stood up for myself and tried to make her answer for the unfair actions she had taken that day. But she refused to acknowledge that anything she said was out of line, defending her intentions and, most frustratingly, changing the story whenever it gave her the advantage. When I finally brought up the form she had needed to complete for nearly six months, she told me to go away, probably because it was the one piece of the story she couldn't change. I didn't relent, and told her that she was only telling me to leave because she knew I was right. She then lost it, and told me to get out of the house.

The constant shifting of truth makes me feel insane. It makes me feel like I am the problem, and that I have no ability to judge a situation, because she always makes my judgments feel ridiculous. Is my life a lie, or is it her?

[Up In the Air]

Hi curtainsforspain,

Your life is not a lie. I really identify with the up and down inside-out feeling that comes with being manipulated. My uBPD MIL did that to me for soo long and it was nightmarish. It really makes you question what is real, who is sane. It's a mind spin. It's like being trapped in her FOG (fear, obligation, guilt) and you can't grapple your way out of it. I feel for you! 

What helped me initially was seeing a therapist. She helped me to see that my MIL was in survivor mode... . that's the only mode they seem to be in, really. If there is one thing my MIL refuses to do, it's to REFUSE to accept responsibility for her actions -physical, verbal, emotional. The hurt, the pain, whatever she's done, she believes she's had to right to do or she doesn't 'see' it that way. There's no remorse.

I discovered for myself that if I threatened her survival (told the truth), she would attack... . circle arguments, FOG, etc and I wound up feeling like she cut my heart out and put it in the blender. It's hard not to be baited into an argument and it feels wrong to go along with whatever story she's spinning in her mind and unraveling around you. I would suggest reading Emotional Blackmail by Susan Forward. It's not specifically about people with PDs or BPD, but it gave me GREAT tools when it came to communication and short non-aggressive phrases that I could completely disarm my MIL and end the beginning of an argument.

So no, you're not going crazy, you're not living a lie, you're instead coping with a mother who is hurting and desperately needs to feel in control. My best suggestion here is to seek out a therapist if you have not, particularly one who specializes in personality disorders (I made the mistake of first seeing a counselor who didn't have experience with PDs and actually told me it was all my fault... . not cool, so make sure you find one who knows what they're talking about).

[Calsun]

Hi curtainsforpain,

You are not living a lie.  My mother is uBPD, and part of what goes with that is distortion of reality and an inability for them to see the consequences of their behavior.  My mother to this day will say:  :)idn't I ever do anything good for you?  Of course, she did, and she tried.  But what she can never acknowledge is the abusiveness.  Buying a child an ice cream cone, cooking and cleaning, does not entitle you to curse at, scream at, beat and humiliate, and terrorize your child.

I appreciate what Up in the Air had to say about the BPD being always in survival mode.  Whatever horrible traumas my mother must have experienced in her childhood, every comment to her said a certain way could be felt as an attack that required a rage to protect herself.  And no doubt her rages were her attempt on some level to protect her from some feeling that she was being annihilated.  After all, if you had a problem with some aspect of her behavior, she read that as you're not loving her and your rejection of her personhood.  

Of course, she did that to me.  I really felt the annihilating rage that Christine Lawson describes the "witch"  BPD having in her book, Understanding the Borderline Mother.  That kind of Medea quality was something that my mother must have experienced in her own childhood.  Hard to assimilate that Mom has and had that killer energy. There's a real cognitive dissonance for me that I'm still trying to resolve:  Mothers love their children, mom knows best, no one loves you as much as your mother, but the BPD in my mother wanted to kill me, wanted to destroy me. But it must have felt on some level in her internal world for her like kill or be killed.  Yes, not living but surviving, not enjoying life but muddling through by the skin of one's teeth. Kill or be killed, even with her own children. That was the spirit of the uBPD that I experienced as a child.  

Thanks to you both,

Calsun

[curtainsforspain]

It's sort of funny, in a very morbid way, how everyone of us seems to be feeling the same things from our BPD mothers. I guess that my first step really needs to be seeing a very experienced PD therapist. Thank you both very much for your support and understanding. It is very uplifting to receive support when I'm used to facing her alone.

[supergirl2]

I soo identify with what everyone here has written. My mother doesn't respond by screaming or anything loud, but the argument and lecture followed by the passive aggressive and targeted coded remarks and sulking is more than enough. It really does make you feel like someone has cut your heart out, as "up in the air" said. It cuts into your soul very deeply, especially when you don't understand that the reaction has nothing to do with you as an individual. Word for word, I've written "inside out and upside down" in my personal journal to describe how this type of manipulation makes me feel. I think there is a lot of healing in knowing that what you feel around someone manipulating you in this way is a direct and justified reaction to the crazy, and that it's not you. BPD and NPD people blame everyone else, and it's natural in the beginning to take what you're being told seriously, to look at the situation from the other's perspective in addition to your own because that's what healthy people do, to feel that it's something wrong with you because you're being told it is, and especially easy to feel that way when you're in a crazy situation. We easily see fault in ourselves, often before seeing fault in someone else. You're not crazy and you're not living a lie. Hang onto your authentic self and trust your feelings and judgement.

[gloveman]

     I to can identify with your problems.

    First, my late father was always nasty and abusive, said things that were obviously wrong and said insane things.

    Second you can't reason with someone with BPD. If you lose it and yell at them, they just feel rejected and decide that you are a no good child.

    If you somehow prove to one of them that he or she is wrong, he or she will always find a way to dismiss your facts or the entire subject.

    Third, and this is the one that took me the longest to realize, maybe until I was in my fifties, you simply can't win.

    Last but not least, once you get into a college do not make the mistake I did. The staff of colleges are not like your mom, they want to help you work through honest problems whether they are personal ones or with a class.