Mother Issues, Or Father?

[UmbrellaBoy]

A poster on another thread had a really interesting "psychoanalytic" explanation of BPD:

I'm at the point now where I find it fascinating how the pathology works.  Before and a little after we are born we cannot differentiate between ourselves and our mother; we are one.  At some point, lying there in our crib, our mother leaves the room, it becomes clear that there is a 'me' and a 'her', two separate entities, and there's no guarantee she's coming back.  Most of us go through that, abandonment trauma as it's called, and the subsequent depression, we make it through, and the experience becomes a vital part of the development of our 'self', and autonomous individual. 

A BPD never goes through that, the separation anxiety and abandonment trauma are just too great to face, so they get stuck, which then sets up a lifelong pattern of attaching, reattaching to their mother at its core, to feel whole again; they literally do not exist without that attachment.  And then the attachment gets too extreme, they start feeling engulfed, losing themselves, so the push starts, then the abandonment trauma, followed by the pull, over and over, continually waffling between 'one' with a surrogate mother and breaking free, freaking out, scrambling back to the attachment.  Could you imagine living like that?  And of course it's subconscious, and we're all aware of how it manifests as they get older; clearly nobody wins but the disorder.

And to me that explains the extinction burst of contact attempts after we go NC; we're the mother who left the room, and there's no guarantee we're coming back.  But then someone else walks in the room, the attachment repeats, and it's off to the races again.

I think this makes a lot of sense, however we know that not all people with BPD are the same.

For example, I read somewhere that 75% of them are abused as kids, and I would not be surprised if my guy were, especially given the gender dysphoria he had as a kid, and his ambivalence about his own sexuality (and some bizarre memories he has).

One could perhaps see how abuse would create the same sort of self-boundary issue problems.

With my guy, however, I'm not sure if the issue was his mother, or rather his father. He idealizes both his parents totally, but then he is also intimidated by his father, felt he couldn't live up to him.

For better or worse, I got pegged as in some way representing his father psychologically. He'd have dreams about a father figure attacking him or beating him, with the implication that it was me. He always seemed to cast me in that role, whereas the other guy in the triangle was more a pathetic victim figure whom he perhaps identified with in that sense and felt the need to nurse and take care of.

So what other sorts of early experiences can lead to BPD, and how might the father figure be involved sometimes?

[Ironmanrises]

Which parent has your ex painted black/white that you have noticed?

That would be your first clue.

[charred]

It is unlikely it is just the mother or just father... .water finds its own level and people tend to find mates with a level or total quantity of dysfunction similar to their own level. Most the time both the mother/father will have issues. If a mother is BPD and the father is out of the picture... .perhaps it would be just mother issues... .suspect both parents are creating a toxic environment in many of the cases. There is talk of it being genetics/luck/predisposition... .and not "the fault" of the mother (or father). I think BPD is clearly an attachment issue, and usually big attachment issues come about in the first few years of life and that is when babies are normally nearly exclusively with their mothers. Like anything it is case by case as to what the factors that came together to cause the disorder are.

My mother lost her mother when she was 5 yrs old... .when her littlest sister was born. Her father dumper her and her two sisters off on the grandparents and left and didn't come back for many years... .due to WW2. In such a case I couldn't blame my mother's mother or even her father for issues she had as a result of her mother dying... and her father being drafted in to the war... .but the effects were bad all the same. I have some attachment issues (keep people at a distance, have trouble getting close enough to people to make/keep friends)... and I own those as my problems, though I am sure my mother's horrible awkwardness with young kids had a lot to do with my issues... .they are my problems. My mother was and is traumatized from what happened... .all you have to do is see her hold a baby or young kid and it makes you cringe, she is so uncomfortable with it. I don't think my mother has any disorder, just a lot of PTSD, and bad taste in men... .she married my dad who was a malignant NPD ass. Both of them contributed to my issues... .and I have as well, learned to disconnect from bad feelings and used that to deal with most of the bad stuff and eventually the good stuff as well. Its not a blame game, just trying to understand how we ended up being ran over by the bus instead of driving it.

Anyway, my exBPDgf went on and on about how wonderful her parent's are... .(her mother is a flaky melodramatic bit of work)... .her father a very depressed alcoholic. Her story was that she went to a school where she was bullied every day because of her religion (it wasn't same as 95% of people in the small town she grew up in)... and her parents ignoring her complaints... her dad just saying to buck up. However I don't think that is all the story... though that one was repeated many times in the 30 yrs I have known her. Now... .I think her mother is BPD, her father earned being depressed... he wasn't an alcoholic when I first met him years ago... but having spent about 4 yrs with my exBPD... .being an alcoholic would have been something I would have had to have considered or pursued eventually... .the r/s was so toxic. Don't know what she went through... .but it created a bit of a monster. My exBPDgf... .well, I followed the Jodi Arias trial, because in every way Jodi acted exactly like my exgf. When my exgf was raging with anger... .never seen anyone in my life so livid and scary. And as the r/s went on and on, I saw more and more of that rage.

Seen my exBPDgf go through a cycle over and over, its like a script for a play that keeps getting acted out over and over again. over 30 yrs and her life is still stuck in a loop.

I doubt we get answers to who was the main one causing the disorder... .the person doing it has issues, the kid/infant is too young to remember most of what happened and by the time we are asking around it is ancient history to most of the people involved. It is sad and way to prevalent.

[UmbrellaBoy]

They're both painted bright white. He definitely idealizes both his parents totally, thinks they're perfect, that he can't live up to them. I noticed that and thought it was weird; everyone has conflicts with their parents and notices imperfections in their character etc. Nope, my ex thought his parents were Ward and June Cleaver. They could do no wrong and he felt like he was such a disappointment compared to their "achievements" (which aren't that huge; they have, allegedly, a loving marriage, two sons [his brother's a thug], and relatively successful careers, that's all). Even though, from what I can tell, they're nothing but proud of him and don't expect him to "live up to" anything in particular, but he feels so inadequate compared to his perfect idealized parents. I just don't get it, though. I guess it shows that painting white can be just as problematic as painting black.

[UmbrellaBoy]

I should also note he was a preemie. Do you think being born premature could have anything to do with attachment issues, having to live in an incubator for the first few months of your life rather than being held, etc?

[ts919]

UmbrellaBoy - your preemie comment just totally caught me!  My uBPDw was a preemie, in fact, preemie's sort of run in her family (it's like this strange honor thing - they are all very proud of it).  I think that insight is very interesting regarding the attachment issue... .

My uBPDw is 28 and I would say that her being a preemie comes up at least once at every family function and her mom will get tears in her eyes... .it's a whole thing.  Very strange. 

I have a cousin who was a preemie and I don't think it's been brought up in years at a family function!

[charred]

Being premature and in an incubator ... .might well be the smoking gun... .the whole field of attachment theory came about from observations of what happened when infants were not able to be around their mothers in hospitals for extended periods of time or at all. A large number of the babies died, and the ones that didn't had serious bonding issues. It was sad reading about it, the book "Becoming Attached" is an excellent text on it. Reads like politics have pushed daycare and pre-school and the story of it being fine for kids... .but the science doesn't seem to back that at all, rather it looks like kids need unconditional love and support, and the parents close by for quite some time.

[triangleheart]

My BPD had a drug addicted, angry and ineffectual father (he passed away) and a mother who seems like a blend of BPD waif and NPD entitlement. She raised my ex to feel that he is 100% special in her eyes and while she sometimes sort of halfheartedly disapproves of some of his disastrous choices in life, she is nonetheless the kind of mother who would think her son is an angel, even if it turned out he was an ax murderer. You would think such approval would make someone secure, but she also treats him like a helpless child and is wildly overinvolved and intrusive with him, and he is a very insecure person. He idolizes her.

I think normal people by early adulthood start to see their parents in realistic terms and both like and dislike things about them. This leads to having a healthy relationship with your parents where you can enjoy your rel but also disagree with them and it's okay. I don't think PD people have healthy perspectives on their parents, whether they completely hate them or completely idealize them.

[triangleheart]

P.S. My BPD ex was a preemie, too.

[Findingmysong723]

My Ex still sleeps with his baby blanket, he is 34 years old. He also has a framed drawing of a mother holding their child on his wall in his bedroom, and I think his Mom told him when he was little, that it was of them. I think that was a sign or an attachment disorder, well using his baby blanket.

He is very close to his Mom, he says they are very much a like. She is always buying him gifts etc, which my Ex thinks its because he feels bad that he is "alone" in the sense that he is the only son that doesn't have kids etc. I know when my Ex Boyfriend was growing up, his Mom worked many jobs, so he was home alone a lot. Most importantly though, which I am sure caused most of his issues were, that her ex husband (his Dad) was physically abusive to his Mom when the kids were younger. My Ex is the youngest son, and he mentioned trying to get in between his Mom and his Dad when he was hurting his Mom. (I think, memory can be hazy) Also his Mom would go into my Ex's room when he was little to get away from his Dad. Basically, he was a child that was needed for emotional support for his Mom, as you say hindsight is 20/20 and I don't want to blame her for the way she reacted, because in a situation like that it's hard to know what you would do. I liked his Mom, but I always felt like she was the parent I had to impress more, because he thought so highly of her.

I think she liked me, but I do realize that she probably liked that I didn't drink or do drugs etc and I was just a really nice person. My Ex is a recovering alcoholic/drug addict, and I think she hoped that I could help him, or maybe that being with me would change him. However, he is still a recovering alcoholic that is still dealing with his issues, because he has symptoms of a "dry drunk." My Ex had been sober for 6 months before we got together (I know too soon), after being sober for 2 years, he had relapsed before.  When he relapsed the last time, he drank for days and took prescription pills and his Mom found him in his apartment and he had to be hospitalized and went to therapy and went back to AA.

When I met him, he seemed to be working on his issues, was back in AA but most importantly he was talking to a therapist. I was very supportive in his sobriety, I would be his biggest fan in his sobriety. I don't think I really knew what I was getting into, but I would of been willing to try if he had tried as well. I feel like he was trying for awhile and then he self sabotaged himself. I know that alcohol and drugs is never the only problem there are other emotions driving those behaviors! At the end of the relationship he let me in on other self harming behaviors. However, when I was with him I never saw any self harm, he seemed to use projecting his emotions outwardly on me! : (

Now his Dad, was an alcoholic, he pretty much stopped drinking at least mostly. My Ex didn't talk to his Dad for awhile, but when we met he had re-established a relationship with his Dad. We spent time with his Dad and went out to eat with him on a bunch of occasions. I liked his Dad, but I do have mixed feelings because of what kind of person he was when he was younger and how he treated his wife and his kids. My Ex would tell me "yeah he's a nice old man now, but man you should of seen him when he was younger!" I know my Ex really wants to feel like his Dad respects him, he said I want to know my Mom loves me but what I want from my Dad is respect.

All I know is my childhood wasn't perfect, but I grew up in a loving home that wasn't chaotic like my Ex. It's horrible that my Ex had to grow up in an abusive home and a place that he didn't feel safe! My ex wasn't comfortable with quiet and when things were comfortable he had to cause some kind of chaos because that was normal. I guess I got a glimpse of what his childhood was, all I had to do was try to love him and try to establish a serious relationship with him... .


By the way, I'm a premie, I was born 2 months early. I am also adopted, I have my own issues with abandonment, but no where the issues my Ex has!