Am I on the right track?

[Depression = 72% of members]

This is my first post here. I know that only a therapist can make a diagnosis, however, I would very much appreciate any direction that can be offered as to whether or not I'm on the right track with what I believe may be wrong with my mother, as well as reassurance that her behavior is not right. Some of it I suspect may have  been abusive, but I have no other standard to compare it to. I am unsure whether she has narcissistic personality disorder or borderline personality disorder, or many traits of both. I have had trouble distinguishing between the two because they seem similar in many of the behaviors.

I will try to be as brief as possible. Know that there are a multitude of examples beyond what I write here. My postings will be somewhat vague as I am afraid she may read this.

* My mother's marriage has always been fraught with fighting. She says it was because my father was mean and unattached emotionally. This may have been true in their early years.

* She projected her anxieties onto me throughout my childhood and taught me to be afraid of the world. As a child, I was always told about anything that could hurt me even though it was highly unlikely. Stories about children getting their hair stuck to the drain at the bottom of the pool and drowning, germs, etc. When I wanted to play sports, I was told about how a child died playing a perfectly safe sport. I was made to feel like anyone could break into the house and murder us if the doors were not kept locked in the daytime from within a safe community. As I approached teen years, she told me a story about how a teen girl's legs had to be amputated to get her out of a car driven by a boy she was dating. Etc.

* As a child, I was made responsible for her emotions. She would become angry with my father and sulk around the house for days, giving everyone the silent treatment, and making vague remarks about how no one loved her and no one cared about her. I never knew if it was me that had done something wrong, I always worried it was, and I tried to make her feel better. She also used me as a therapist to my father, telling me how he had been bad or done wrong, and making/letting me talk to him as though I was his therapist. The first time that happened I was around 11.

* She pegged me as the golden child(but simultaneously the scapegoat) and my sister was the bad child. When I entered my teen years and my sister left home, I was then treated as the bad child.

* As I entered my teen years, she began to be what I view as sexually inappropriate in front of me, particularly considering my sexual orientation which she is not aware of but should be strongly suspicious. I don't fit the stereotype, I'm extremely feminine and you would never guess by looking at me, but I have never had a boyfriend and rarely expressed interest. (I consider myself predominantly gay with a "side" of straight. I'm female). She never did this before, but around the age of 13-14, she began to change clothes in front of me. She would also walk in on me when I was in the shower because she said she needed to use the bathroom, brush her teeth etc. despite having more than one bathroom in the house. When I objected, she responded with anger. She would not allow me to lock the door when I took a shower, so she could come and go as she pleased. I had no privacy. On more than one occasion as I matured, she made inappropriate and rude remarks about the physical-sexual development of my body, directly to me as well as to/in front of my father and sister. The being undressed in front of me became more and more common and now she goes naked around the house more often than clothed. She disregarded polite or angry requests by me for her to wear clothes. She sits on the couches like this, knowingly bends over in front of me and my dad completely naked, and does not care that it bothers everyone else. It is disgusting. She is also around 200 lbs. I still have concerns that this may be and may have been sexually abusive because the boundary is neglected.

* When I became "the bad child" as I entered my teen years, despite my behavior not changing from prior, I was always in trouble for something. Most often it was about school work or household chores despite my best efforts. I was made to do many chores too young. At 9/10 I was vacuuming the 5 bedroom house, doing my own laundry, emptying the dishwasher, cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen, sweeping the floors, taking out the trash cans, and pulling weeds in the yard. I remember always feeling dread when I would hear the garage door as she got home from work each day because I would get yelled at for forgetting one of numerous chores. What I had done was never paid attention to, but what I had forgotten or not done right in either parent's opinion was focused on. I was told I was loved, bought gifts etc. but treated like I wasn't liked.

* At 15 I was grounded for 3 months while made to sleep on a mattress on the floor of the hallway. I had my contacts taken away and had to wear glasses, was not allowed to wear makeup, watch tv, listen to the radio, see friends, or use the computer. This was during the entire summer. My life essentially stopped. At the same time my mother took part in parading my other sister to beauty pageants, buying her fancy dresses, makeup, getting her interview lessons, etc. The following summer she became angry with me for reasons I still don't know, and grounded me all summer again. This time I got to sleep in a bed. I could not go anywhere, see anyone, or have anyone over. I don't remember that summer.

* Particularly in my teen years, she began to do things that constantly caused chaos and upset in the house. She would do things like taking many of the items out of the cabinets to "organize", and after doing so, would lecture and yell etc about how messy the house was (when it looked clean before she pulled everything out). She rarely YELLED yelled, but her anger didn't need to be loud to be sharp like a dagger. Her lectures would turn into how no one loves her and no one cares about her. Anything anyone does is seen as a personal offense against her.

* Being around her is like being on eggshells. You don't know what's going to set her off but you know it will be something. And it's guaranteed the root of it will be that she believes it's a reflection that no one loves her or cares about her, and how she's just the poor hurt victim.

* She ruins everything. Tangible objects (by neglect, just not caring to keep them nice) and ruins emotional environments. There could be peace and happiness, and instead she ruins it over anything she can grasp to say that no one cares about her. If there's nothing in the day that she can use that day, she'll be mad and hurt over something that happened in her marriage 20 years ago or which she perceives is personally against her. She constantly disrupts what could be calm and content. She's almost always in a fight mode.

* She's emotionally vampiric. The only way she seems to know how to bond with me or talk to me is to discuss topics which are painful to me or awful topics in general. Her marital problems, how much she hates my dad, horrific 3rd world country problems, etc. She tries to talk to me about things like friends I no longer have because they were mean, basically just hard times for me.

* She knows no boundaries. Visually, auditory, verbally, or emotionally. She has told me all the details about her childhood abuse over and over since I was very young, around 9. She has told me about her past boyfriends, her marriage difficulties, and even a sexual detail about my father. I never wanted to know any of this.

* She neglects personal care and acts helpless in every way. She is very intelligent, but isn't responsible enough to know where her keys are and keep track of them, to bathe more than every 4 days, to wear clothing, to look where she's walking so she doesn't fall, to do things in a way so that it goes smoothly. When things are difficult for her, she then points out how hard it is for her, like she's the only person in the world who ever has any kind of difficulty in anything. If a car turns in front of her, she complains "of course!" and goes on for another 5 minutes about it, like a victim, as though she is the only person in the world to ever have another car in the way. She is an expert at viewing herself as a martyr with the world against her. JUST her.

* I have told her she has no boundaries before I knew anything about this, and she laughed.

* She is irresponsible, and childlike in how she holds herself physically/the positions she sits in, as well as emotionally. Often I feel like I'm dealing with a 12-16 year old rather than an adult. She looks like an adult but doesn't act like one.

* She seems to resent me for existing while mixing that in with telling me she loves me. It's like I never know if I'm going to get the mother who likes me, or the one who resents me and who I'm inconveniencing. Most often it's the latter.

* I can become very angry with her over justified reasons, and she'll act like nothing ever happened. She's really good at this.

* Anything and everything that is wrong in her life is because of everyone else, never because of her actions or responsibility. EVER. EVER. She blames everything on my dad and always has.

* If you try to get her to take responsibility for her actions and it's impossible for her to blame it on someone else or some extraneous circumstance, she becomes very angry with you. If you try to get her to be responsible in daily living habits, she does the same.

* She will zing you later for the above.

* She will lecture me about anything she believes I've done wrong, or is wrong with me, for up to an hour or more. She does so in a way that tears you down as a person. It's hard to describe but extremely powerful, cruel, and manipulative. Overboard to the max.

* She doesn't see things from anyone's perspective but her own. And conversation is constantly about how she FEELS, her emotional baggage, etc.

* She has made comments about how she "owns" me because she and my dad have paid money while raising me, and said that it's sarcasm.

* She has told me that if I were to die, she would jump off a bridge. She tells me how when things hurt me, they hurt HER.

* Personally, I don't think she sees or understands the appropriate boundary that should be there between mother and daughter.

* Her concerns lay in her "living on" through grandchildren and her children after she dies someday. She's quite concerned with this.

* She cannot handle stress, even the smallest amount. Things that most people float through are like great canyon's to her and you hear all about how difficult it is, OR her other response is to go into victim mode and blame it on being because my dad isn't supportive enough/helping her enough etc.

* My dad consequently has no backbone. He knows her behavior isn't right but doesn't seem to realize just how wrong it is. He's just kind of there, trying to dodge the bullets, even if that means letting one of his kids take the bullet. He's quiet, is not a big talker at all, and lets her fill the air. I've only seen him truly stand up to her once or twice, both times it was a time when it was him who was receiving her fire.

* She takes anything and constantly tells me horrifying stories or goes over unpleasant topics. You know the line in As Good As It Gets where the woman is talking to Melvin and he says "I want to tell you something." and she responds "I'm so afraid you're about to say something awful." That? That's how I feel all the time.

* She is so upsetting to be around. Emotionally she makes me feel inside out, sad, and exhausted. There is just no calm, even though she's a master at acting calm by doing nothing all day. It's like, my day can be happy and calm, and then she gets home... what happens is she starts laying into me about having a cup on the counter or some other small things, wants to lecture me for an hour, then lays into my dad, and back and forth. It's just exhausting and so upsetting. She ruins the peace.

* She has no respect for anyone else. For your boundaries. Yourself. What you want. What makes you uncomfortable. She flat out does not care, at all.

* She obsessively reads about personality disorders, and has many of the people around her labeled with one.

* She had a shopping addiction, which turned into a moderate hoarding problem, which has now turned into an email/ipad addiction (7-8 hours a day).

* She has no close friends aside from one coworker who I think sticks around because my mom basically functions as her unofficial therapist.

* Often times the things she says are coded in a way to point out a past hurt (her childhood abuse, marital issues, problems with my sister etc). It's done in a way where a normal comment to an outsider sounds normal, and to someone close to her has a completely different meaning. It's done to bait me so she can have someone to talk to about it or feel bad for her.

* For a long time she inappropriately used me as her emotional leaning post. She unloaded on me, used me, and used me some more. When I began to refuse, telling her that I'm her daughter not a therapist, she would response by telling me "but you tell me about your problems." When I no longer allowed her to do this, I was met with resentment.

* Sometimes she will cry over problems between her and my sister or her marital issues with my dad and I end up sitting there holding her and trying to make her feel better. It seems wrong but I do it because I have a heart. It leaves me feeling very upset though, just bothered.

* She has been infiltrating me with telling me about her marital problems since I was around 9 years old, to get me on her team. She has gone so far in recent years as to tell me that my dad doesn't care about me. I know he does.

* She always makes it out like my dad is this horrible person who has ruined her life and the family. I don't think that's the case. She's always causing the upset, not him. But my dad seems naive to it. My mom talks like my sister and her don't get along because of some injustice of the universe that my sister has my dad on a pedestal and poor mom got the bad rap when she's been the angel who has "fought for us" against my dad... .she's the martyr. She always says he was so bad, but I look back and I can't think of that many things he did that were bad. Nothing compared to what she's done.

[supergirl2]

This is my first post here. I know that only a therapist can make a diagnosis, however, I would very much appreciate any direction that can be offered as to whether or not I'm on the right track with what I believe may be wrong with my mother, as well as reassurance that her behavior is not right. Some of it I suspect may have  been abusive, but I have no other standard to compare it to. I am unsure whether she has narcissistic personality disorder or borderline personality disorder, or many traits of both. I have had trouble distinguishing between the two because they seem similar in many of the behaviors.

I will try to be as brief as possible. Know that there are a multitude of examples beyond what I write here. My postings will be somewhat vague as I am afraid she may read this.

* My mother's marriage has always been fraught with fighting. She says it was because my father was mean and unattached emotionally. This may have been true in their early years.

* She projected her anxieties onto me throughout my childhood and taught me to be afraid of the world. As a child, I was always told about anything that could hurt me even though it was highly unlikely. Stories about children getting their hair stuck to the drain at the bottom of the pool and drowning, germs, etc. When I wanted to play sports, I was told about how a child died playing a perfectly safe sport. I was made to feel like anyone could break into the house and murder us if the doors were not kept locked in the daytime from within a safe community. As I approached teen years, she told me a story about how a teen girl's legs had to be amputated to get her out of a car driven by a boy she was dating. Etc.

* As a child, I was made responsible for her emotions. She would become angry with my father and sulk around the house for days, giving everyone the silent treatment, and making vague remarks about how no one loved her and no one cared about her. I never knew if it was me that had done something wrong, I always worried it was, and I tried to make her feel better. She also used me as a therapist to my father, telling me how he had been bad or done wrong, and making/letting me talk to him as though I was his therapist. The first time that happened I was around 11.

* She pegged me as the golden child(but simultaneously the scapegoat) and my sister was the bad child. When I entered my teen years and my sister left home, I was then treated as the bad child.

* As I entered my teen years, she began to be what I view as sexually inappropriate in front of me, particularly considering my sexual orientation which she is not aware of but should be strongly suspicious. I don't fit the stereotype, I'm extremely feminine and you would never guess by looking at me, but I have never had a boyfriend and rarely expressed interest. (I consider myself predominantly gay with a "side" of straight. I'm female). She never did this before, but around the age of 13-14, she began to change clothes in front of me. She would also walk in on me when I was in the shower because she said she needed to use the bathroom, brush her teeth etc. despite having more than one bathroom in the house. When I objected, she responded with anger. She would not allow me to lock the door when I took a shower, so she could come and go as she pleased. I had no privacy. On more than one occasion as I matured, she made inappropriate and rude remarks about the physical-sexual development of my body, directly to me as well as to/in front of my father and sister. The being undressed in front of me became more and more common and now she goes naked around the house more often than clothed. She disregarded polite or angry requests by me for her to wear clothes. She sits on the couches like this, knowingly bends over in front of me and my dad completely naked, and does not care that it bothers everyone else. It is disgusting. She is also around 200 lbs. I still have concerns that this may be and may have been sexually abusive because the boundary is neglected.

* When I became "the bad child" as I entered my teen years, despite my behavior not changing from prior, I was always in trouble for something. Most often it was about school work or household chores despite my best efforts. I was made to do many chores too young. At 9/10 I was vacuuming the 5 bedroom house, doing my own laundry, emptying the dishwasher, cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen, sweeping the floors, taking out the trash cans, and pulling weeds in the yard. I remember always feeling dread when I would hear the garage door as she got home from work each day because I would get yelled at for forgetting one of numerous chores. What I had done was never paid attention to, but what I had forgotten or not done right in either parent's opinion was focused on. I was told I was loved, bought gifts etc. but treated like I wasn't liked.

* At 15 I was grounded for 3 months while made to sleep on a mattress on the floor of the hallway. I had my contacts taken away and had to wear glasses, was not allowed to wear makeup, watch tv, listen to the radio, see friends, or use the computer. This was during the entire summer. My life essentially stopped. At the same time my mother took part in parading my other sister to beauty pageants, buying her fancy dresses, makeup, getting her interview lessons, etc. The following summer she became angry with me for reasons I still don't know, and grounded me all summer again. This time I got to sleep in a bed. I could not go anywhere, see anyone, or have anyone over. I don't remember that summer.

* Particularly in my teen years, she began to do things that constantly caused chaos and upset in the house. She would do things like taking many of the items out of the cabinets to "organize", and after doing so, would lecture and yell etc about how messy the house was (when it looked clean before she pulled everything out). She rarely YELLED yelled, but her anger didn't need to be loud to be sharp like a dagger. Her lectures would turn into how no one loves her and no one cares about her. Anything anyone does is seen as a personal offense against her.

* Being around her is like being on eggshells. You don't know what's going to set her off but you know it will be something. And it's guaranteed the root of it will be that she believes it's a reflection that no one loves her or cares about her, and how she's just the poor hurt victim.

* She ruins everything. Tangible objects (by neglect, just not caring to keep them nice) and ruins emotional environments. There could be peace and happiness, and instead she ruins it over anything she can grasp to say that no one cares about her. If there's nothing in the day that she can use that day, she'll be mad and hurt over something that happened in her marriage 20 years ago or which she perceives is personally against her. She constantly disrupts what could be calm and content. She's almost always in a fight mode.

* She's emotionally vampiric. The only way she seems to know how to bond with me or talk to me is to discuss topics which are painful to me or awful topics in general. Her marital problems, how much she hates my dad, horrific 3rd world country problems, etc. She tries to talk to me about things like friends I no longer have because they were mean, basically just hard times for me.

* She knows no boundaries. Visually, auditory, verbally, or emotionally. She has told me all the details about her childhood abuse over and over since I was very young, around 9. She has told me about her past boyfriends, her marriage difficulties, and even a sexual detail about my father. I never wanted to know any of this.

* She neglects personal care and acts helpless in every way. She is very intelligent, but isn't responsible enough to know where her keys are and keep track of them, to bathe more than every 4 days, to wear clothing, to look where she's walking so she doesn't fall, to do things in a way so that it goes smoothly. When things are difficult for her, she then points out how hard it is for her, like she's the only person in the world who ever has any kind of difficulty in anything. If a car turns in front of her, she complains "of course!" and goes on for another 5 minutes about it, like a victim, as though she is the only person in the world to ever have another car in the way. She is an expert at viewing herself as a martyr with the world against her. JUST her.

* I have told her she has no boundaries before I knew anything about this, and she laughed.

* She is irresponsible, and childlike in how she holds herself physically/the positions she sits in, as well as emotionally. Often I feel like I'm dealing with a 12-16 year old rather than an adult. She looks like an adult but doesn't act like one.

* She seems to resent me for existing while mixing that in with telling me she loves me. It's like I never know if I'm going to get the mother who likes me, or the one who resents me and who I'm inconveniencing. Most often it's the latter.

* I can become very angry with her over justified reasons, and she'll act like nothing ever happened. She's really good at this.

* Anything and everything that is wrong in her life is because of everyone else, never because of her actions or responsibility. EVER. EVER. She blames everything on my dad and always has.

* If you try to get her to take responsibility for her actions and it's impossible for her to blame it on someone else or some extraneous circumstance, she becomes very angry with you. If you try to get her to be responsible in daily living habits, she does the same.

* She will zing you later for the above.

* She will lecture me about anything she believes I've done wrong, or is wrong with me, for up to an hour or more. She does so in a way that tears you down as a person. It's hard to describe but extremely powerful, cruel, and manipulative. Overboard to the max.

* She doesn't see things from anyone's perspective but her own. And conversation is constantly about how she FEELS, her emotional baggage, etc.

* She has made comments about how she "owns" me because she and my dad have paid money while raising me, and said that it's sarcasm.

* She has told me that if I were to die, she would jump off a bridge. She tells me how when things hurt me, they hurt HER.

* Personally, I don't think she sees or understands the appropriate boundary that should be there between mother and daughter.

* Her concerns lay in her "living on" through grandchildren and her children after she dies someday. She's quite concerned with this.

* She cannot handle stress, even the smallest amount. Things that most people float through are like great canyon's to her and you hear all about how difficult it is, OR her other response is to go into victim mode and blame it on being because my dad isn't supportive enough/helping her enough etc.

* My dad consequently has no backbone. He knows her behavior isn't right but doesn't seem to realize just how wrong it is. He's just kind of there, trying to dodge the bullets, even if that means letting one of his kids take the bullet. He's quiet, is not a big talker at all, and lets her fill the air. I've only seen him truly stand up to her once or twice, both times it was a time when it was him who was receiving her fire.

* She takes anything and constantly tells me horrifying stories or goes over unpleasant topics. You know the line in As Good As It Gets where the woman is talking to Melvin and he says "I want to tell you something." and she responds "I'm so afraid you're about to say something awful." That? That's how I feel all the time.

* She is so upsetting to be around. Emotionally she makes me feel inside out, sad, and exhausted. There is just no calm, even though she's a master at acting calm by doing nothing all day. It's like, my day can be happy and calm, and then she gets home... what happens is she starts laying into me about having a cup on the counter or some other small things, wants to lecture me for an hour, then lays into my dad, and back and forth. It's just exhausting and so upsetting. She ruins the peace.

* She has no respect for anyone else. For your boundaries. Yourself. What you want. What makes you uncomfortable. She flat out does not care, at all.

* She obsessively reads about personality disorders, and has many of the people around her labeled with one.

* She had a shopping addiction, which turned into a moderate hoarding problem, which has now turned into an email/ipad addiction (7-8 hours a day).

* She has no close friends aside from one coworker who I think sticks around because my mom basically functions as her unofficial therapist.

* Often times the things she says are coded in a way to point out a past hurt (her childhood abuse, marital issues, problems with my sister etc). It's done in a way where a normal comment to an outsider sounds normal, and to someone close to her has a completely different meaning. It's done to bait me so she can have someone to talk to about it or feel bad for her.

* For a long time she inappropriately used me as her emotional leaning post. She unloaded on me, used me, and used me some more. When I began to refuse, telling her that I'm her daughter not a therapist, she would response by telling me "but you tell me about your problems." When I no longer allowed her to do this, I was met with resentment.

* Sometimes she will cry over problems between her and my sister or her marital issues with my dad and I end up sitting there holding her and trying to make her feel better. It seems wrong but I do it because I have a heart. It leaves me feeling very upset though, just bothered.

* She has been infiltrating me with telling me about her marital problems since I was around 9 years old, to get me on her team. She has gone so far in recent years as to tell me that my dad doesn't care about me. I know he does.

* She always makes it out like my dad is this horrible person who has ruined her life and the family. I don't think that's the case. She's always causing the upset, not him. But my dad seems naive to it. My mom talks like my sister and her don't get along because of some injustice of the universe that my sister has my dad on a pedestal and poor mom got the bad rap when she's been the angel who has "fought for us" against my dad... .she's the martyr. She always says he was so bad, but I look back and I can't think of that many things he did that were bad. Nothing compared to what she's done.

[supergirl2]

Part II:

* A few years ago she decided she was done "being used" by her family, and basically stopped being a mother. She rarely cooks dinner, and just sort of stopped. But at the same time takes part in being hyper critical of other family members, meanly lecturing, etc.

* She overly dramatizes anything she perceives are difficult, into a martyr and victim mentality. Things like making comments about how she's "not the maid" or "not a slave" over picking up something around the house that is someone else's or cleaning something.

* She'll do things for me that I didn't ask to be done for me, and then complain the entire time so I'm supposed to feel bad for her and feel guilty.

* I don't like being alone with her without my dad there because she takes the opportunity to emotionally dive into me, manipulate me, and hurt me emotionally. Sometimes she acts like a normal person, but it's more often than not that she is negative/or mean. From her mouth, she is the most loving mother who has done everything for her kids and would do anything, and will point out what she's done for you, so you can't justify being upset for any reason over anything she does.

* Since emotionally withdrawing from her and refusing to be used by her emotionally, she often ignores me. I talk to her and she won't respond because she's "busy" emailing, and when I ask if she heard me, she'll say yes but that she didn't think it needed a response. It makes me extremely angry. Everything else is more important unless it's to lecture me or use me to hang her emotional baggage.

* She has become angry with me when I say that when I move out I may not live nearby. That turned into her sulking that she's a victim who nobody cares about. Anything that goes wrong, it's like that same script. She'll even make comments to the dogs "you love me, don't you." These comments about nobody loving her or caring about her are never made directly to me or anyone else, she'll just be sure to say it in earshot. She's like a walking tornado of chaos and emotional baggage and anger, regardless of what it is that she's sighting as today's problem.

* I feel like I'm drowning living with her. I can't stand it. It's stressful and you feel like you have to constantly be on guard because there WILL be upset, you just don't know when or over what.

* When she's upset with anyone or about anything, she doesn't contain her emotions. It applies to everyone and anyone in her path. It's like most people are right side out, and she's inside out, wearing everything on the outside and there's no stopping it.

* She engulfs everything and everyone. With her emotions, her anger, her pain (logical or not). She even engulfs physically. When I was a teen she would often eat the food off my plate, and don't try to share food with her with she'll eat it all very quickly and you'll get little. Lately I keep finding her laying in my bed in the evenings. I'll go up to go to bed at night and she'll be in it crying, playing with the cat or whatever.

I could go on forever, but I hope this is enough. I can't figure out where the line falls in relation to her behavior, between narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. Opinions would help. I think the only reason I've survived this is because I had other mother figures in my life as a child, but as I've been around her 24/7 since her retirement the last 2 years (she's no longer working and is home the majority if not all of the day), it's been suffocating and much worse to be around, and I worry what it's done to me and how to cope. I'm just exhausted and very angry with her because the discontent is constant, all the time, every day, and I don't have the luxury of moving out and getting away.

[Octoberfest]

Hey supergirl2,

I am sorry to hear about the things that you have gone through growing up with your mother. As you said, only a therapist can make a diagnosis, but it can help to explore the resources here to help you better understand what you are going through. I think the following links in particular may be helpful:

How a Mother with Borderline Personality Disorder Affects Her Children

How to Forgive an Abusive Parent

You say you are still living with your mother? Are there any opportunities to get away from her?

[Learning_curve74]

Hi supergirl2, just wanted to add my hello to Octoberfest's. Welcome to the community. 

It sounds like you have gone through a lot of very difficult times growing up as well as currently due to how your mother treats you and other family members. It's obvious from your introduction that you are very insightful and have thought a lot about it your situation and your mother.

Since you asked about borderline and narcissistic personality disorders, here is a link about that: What is the relationship between BPD and narcissism (NPD)? It's been noted there is some overlap between many of the personality disorders.

Here is also a link to Lessons on coping and thriving when a family member has BPD, which has a lot of information you may find helpful as well as additional links. Since you say you don't have the luxury of moving out and getting away, the information given in the link as well as help and support in the Healing from a relationship with a parent, relative, or in-law with BPD board are worth checking out.

Here is a link about "Emotional incest" which is described as "a style of parenting in which parents turn to their children, not to their partners, for emotional support."

I hope you can find some help and support from this community. Keep reading and keep posting. Best wishes to you, supergirl2. 

[gloveman]

     You are not alone. We've all been there and done that. Keep posting and reading the self-help material.

     Is there any way you can move out? When I was a child my cousin would have a fight with her parents and move in with us for months at a time. Do you have any relatives you could live with?

[supergirl2]

Unfortunately I don't have any relatives I can move in with. Out of curiosity, does this sound like BPD? I still am unsure whether its NPD or BPD, and thus where to seek support for myself. I was thinking she may be BPD waif, with narcissistic traits that are generally rooted in BPD tendencies. Ie: it takes a lot for her to care or act like a mother, and therefore she reacts with N-like anger and resentment, and BPD-like hurt that contains irrational or exaggerated emotional reactions FOR HER AGE.

[gloveman]

     I'm not sure it matters which she has. The important thing is for you to, I guess you could say, learn how to take care of yourself, protect yourself, cope.

    My dad acted BPD crazy at me in front of employees at our family business. I learned to pretend that I was surrounded by a Star Trek like force field (Shields up.).

    I couldn't argue with him in front of our employees, it was embarrassing enough that he talked crazy, so I put my shields up and he couldn't provoke me. Of course, later I told the employees to do the opposite of what he had said. Because it was the disease talking he never remembered what he said, so I could get away with it.

    Keep posting. Keep reading. Keep venting.