But she's you mother. You HAVE to love her. NO WE DON'T.

[Depression = 72% of members]

I read an old post where a therapist actually said this to the daughter of a BPD mother.  I am sure it is said quite often and I know I have heard it from people in my life.  Love isn't something we can just conjure on command.  Love doesn't come with the title automatically.  I absolutely do not love my mother. I don't like her. I tolerate her and hope that someday I will know what it is like not to have her talking about me behind my back, judging me and manipulating every situation to make herself look like a pitiful victim of life.

My mother talks about my brother "owing her" because they supported him when he was young.  That is called raising a child.  Not every parent keeps a running tally of the money they spend or keeps a record of every time the child needed help. She begrudges every success her children have had.  She is jealous of the fact that her grandchildren like their parents and she doesn't understand why no one comes to visit.  Every visit with her is a work detail, a written list of batteries to change and things to carry to another room and all the while she is droning on and on about all you haven't done for her and how she wishes she would just die and not be a burden to everyone.  How can you "love" that?  I can't.  I don't. I won't. The only thing in life that brings her joy is slot machines. $$$$$$$$$$$$ is her love.  As I child I thought I must have been adopted because she was so cold.  As a teen ager she told us she would rather see us dead than on drugs.  She got her wish when my brother became addicted to drugs and in the end took his own life (while she laughed at his threat to shot himself).  If a therapist could know all of that and still believe I should feel love then they are in the wrong profession.

[nevermore]

I read an old post where a therapist actually said this to the daughter of a BPD mother.  I am sure it is said quite often and I know I have heard it from people in my life.  Love isn't something we can just conjure on command.  Love doesn't come with the title automatically.  I absolutely do not love my mother. I don't like her. I tolerate her and hope that someday I will know what it is like not to have her talking about me behind my back, judging me and manipulating every situation to make herself look like a pitiful victim of life.

My mother talks about my brother "owing her" because they supported him when he was young.  That is called raising a child.  Not every parent keeps a running tally of the money they spend or keeps a record of every time the child needed help. She begrudges every success her children have had.  She is jealous of the fact that her grandchildren like their parents and she doesn't understand why no one comes to visit.  Every visit with her is a work detail, a written list of batteries to change and things to carry to another room and all the while she is droning on and on about all you haven't done for her and how she wishes she would just die and not be a burden to everyone.  How can you "love" that?  I can't.  I don't. I won't. The only thing in life that brings her joy is slot machines. $$$$$$$$$$$$ is her love.  As I child I thought I must have been adopted because she was so cold.  As a teen ager she told us she would rather see us dead than on drugs.  She got her wish when my brother became addicted to drugs and in the end took his own life (while she laughed at his threat to shot himself).  If a therapist could know all of that and still believe I should feel love then they are in the wrong profession.

[DesertChild]

For ME I love and I understand my parents with compassion, but I don't have to like them nor their behavior towards me. I know that they probably don't truly love me back because they don't afford the same courtesies that I do them in a normal relationship. But frankly, I don't care if they do or not. It's my path to forgiveness, not theirs.

You can love a person, care about them, but not like them or want to be around them. For me I'm of this flavor.

I think, also, that the opposite of love and hate is apathy and we definitely are allowed apathy and to choose what we like, hate, love, dislike.

A title gives no obligation that we need to love them.

[nevermore]

God bless you. I wish I felt the same.  I did once.

[larmieq]

Thank you Nevermore and Desert Child.  You put my thoughts into words very nicely

[Sasha026]

I cannot nor will not forgive my mother. Not because it's not in me to forgive (I had done it thousands of times when she was alive), but I finally gave up. I realized that all of her shenanigans were just games to her. She liked to see people squirm - it was fun! My mother had no compulsion to change - she enjoyed the misery that she shoveled out. After my husband died, she finally turned her evil eye on my son. I could see the twinkle in her eyes as she berated him for crying over his father's death. No... .she could do anything she wanted to me, but I could not let her ruin my son's life. I worked too hard to give him a normal life with support and love.

If we forgive, then, in my humble opinion, we negate the goodness of good mothers. Why lump them all in together? I've seen older women whose children adore them. They are good mothers. They deserve the accolades. All my mother was was a relative. A relative that no one wanted to invite for Christmas. The moody grouch.

My husband used to say, "Invite your mother to a party of 50 people all having fun and within five minutes no one will be talking to each other." She loved to see people angry.

[DesertChild]

I think that forgiveness and reconciliation aren't the same thing. I'll give examples.

I will reconcile with myself that I had no control over the abuses in my childhood and it wasn't my fault.

I will reconcile that some of the things that happened effected me in the here and now.

I will take responsibility that my actions NOW are not her fault.

I will not reconcile with her behavior or his behavior towards me.

I will not reconcile so I need to see them again.

I will forgive them. This means letting go of the anger and the control and taking care of myself first. I forgive by understanding their situations and not making them out to be devils in disguise. But I will not go back to them.

I will forgive myself. I had no control over such events, so I do not need to put myself down for them.

Reconcile means coming back to see them. I won't. Forgiving means not letting them control my decisions, blame and life. The path to both I think is different for everyone.

Neither reconciliation nor forgiving have anything to do with the quality of your relationship, how much you love them, how much you like/dislike them. Forgiveness is for yourself first. Reconciliation is for both parties involved. I feel no need for reciprocity here. Forgiveness it is. I just have to realize I need to take care of the aftermath.

[nevermore]

I forgave my father.  He was cruel, physically and verbally abusive but somewhere deep inside of him was a sweet little boy who had lost his mother when he was a toddler.  Through Alzheimer's disease and the medications he became a soft, kind, child of a man.  I loved the kisses and hugs and loved holding him up and "dancing" with him as the nurses changed his bedding.  I found love for him and when he passed away I tucked a letter in with him and I told him I forgive you and I love you.  I can and did forgive a lifetime of hurt and fear of him.

My mother, I cannot or perhaps refuse to forgive. I see forgiveness as letting go of all of the feelings of anger and hurt.  I could have forgiven her for everything she ever did to me, said about me and the pain she caused (with a touch of glee in her voice.)  My mother was the last person to ever speak with my younger brother.  He called her to ask for a small amount of money to keep him from losing his home.  She refused.  He then told her that he would have to kill himself.  She laughed and said "then I guess you won't be needing my money".  This is the story SHE told me.  I would never have known and I would have let everything else go.  This one moment in their lives that connected and her words to him that night ended his life.  Would he have died anyway?  Probably.  Can I let it go?  No.  I have children and grandchildren and if I had to sell my blood I would help them if they were in dire need.  If they told me they planned to take their life I would find them and do all I could humanly do to keep them safe from themselves.  For him I hold on to my very deep disgust.  As she rewrites his suicide and their relationship and spins it into a story of mutual love and respect I cannot erase how I feel. I do not challenge her. I simply say "I will not discuss this with you."  That is my boundary. I won't let myself get upset and I won't let her lies take root.  Each of us have to decide for ourselves whether we can forgive the things that brought us to this forum.  No one is right and no one is wrong for how they feel or what they decide.  We have to be at peace with our decision and I am.   

[Sasha026]

Both of you have excellent arguments - pro and con. Desert Child's analogy that one forgives not for the other person, but to give oneself some peace is one that I've heard before and respect. I wish I could be that person. Nevermore places her feelings behind a boundary and doesn't forgive.

I always wished my mother forgave me. I always wished she loved me. She didn't think she did anything wrong - as a matter of fact, she thought she was a great mother who worked and sacrificed for her small family. She thought that her tactics made me a strong person, but they didn't. I became a frightened perfectionist who had daily panic attacks. I don't think I ever got a warm hug from that woman. Maybe once in a while, but it had to be when she felt like doling out hugs. I assumed the responsibility for the tension in our relationship for many years. I always thought it was my fault - until I came here.

I lived with her hatred of me for 59 years - forgetting me for the last two. If she could forget me, why can't I just forget her? Many would ask, "How did you know she hated you?" Well, she finally broke down and told me in 07. I always knew she blamed me for all the problems in her life, I just had never heard it. In 07, she finally told me. It took me a while to compartmentalize it, but when I finally did, it broke my heart. Her response when my son told her what she did to me? "Good, she asked for it."

I wasn't the only one who she tortured - she waited for her sister's husband to die, then went after her. By the time my mother got through with her, she wasn't the same. My mother hammered at her until the woman went quietly insane. It wasn't fair. I loved that woman. When my husband died, she went after my son. She always waited until she could get you alone, then she would spew her venom... .like a snake.

So, to forgive or not to forgive. I think I have to remember and acknowledge before I can let it go. For the last six years I've been looking for answers, not sympathy. I've spent all of my life looking at myself through my mother's eyes. Now it's time for me to see what really went on. I hope I'm strong enough.

[nevermore]

Sasha, what in the world would there be for your mother to forgive you for?  You did nothing to be forgiven for. 

[DesertChild]

I have to agree--if you want reciprocity in forgiveness, that's not up to you. You can't control what another person feels about you. You can influence, them, yes, but you can't control what they do or don't do. (And I learned this the very hard way, which may be why it sounds blunt. 'Cause I need to hear it blunt for myself and repeat it over and over.)

The question becomes then, can you forgive yourself? Correct me, definitely, but you seem to want forgiveness. If you want forgiveness, maybe the person you really need to forgive is yourself? You won't be able to control it externally, but you can control it internally.

Forgiveness towards others and self is in your own control.

[BlueCat]

I very much disagree that you "have" to love them. We definitely don't.

But I also agree that forgiveness is for us, not for them. My goal was not to get to a place where I love my mother again (I honestly can't tell you if I do or not - I would have said yes awhile ago but after a stunt a few months back, I just feel nothing when I think of her). My goal is to get to a place where I am at peace with myself and the world.

I know I am fully justified in the anger I had toward my mother, that's not the issue. The issue is that I don't want to be an angry person. I don't want to be like my mother and sister. Both of them are justifiably angry at their parents, but I know from experience that this anger overflows into the world in general. Both of them get angry at the drop of a hat. I used to be like that too. I didn't like me as much back then.

So I did a lot of work to get to where I am. I'm still not there, but I'm pretty far from where I used to be.

And being red-hot angry was part of my journey. I had to go through that anger. Eventually it wasn't serving me anymore and I moved on, but I wouldn't be where I was if I hadn't allowed myself to spend some time there. Some call it wallowing, I called it healing

Anyway, no, we certainly don't "have" to love them. But I guess we do have to accept how hard it is to have parents we can't love and do the work ourselves to make up for that lack in our lives.

[Sasha026]

I lived for a long time thinking that it was all my fault... .until I came here. You see, I was brainwashed by her that night on the couch. She had me convinced that I was a horrible child. I've never even touched on that subject here... .but it's true. I discussed it with my therapist this afternoon. I also showed him a copy of the post about the "couch" scene. He said that I was one of the worst trauma cases he's ever seen. I see him for panic attacks - he's really helping me.

It's hard to forgive. I know it's good for me but I hid it for so long that I need to talk about it. I need to be angry for a while... .as long as I don't let it bleed into my outside relationships. Most of my anger comes out in jokes. I joke about it. Sheky Green here. I always had to keep both of my parents laughing. It was one of my jobs. When you're a teenager and your driving in the car with your dad and he's drunk and getting darker by the minute - keep him laughing! If he's laughing, he's not criticizing.

[nevermore]

I am not an angry person at all. Aside from my mother I don't have a single problem with anyone. My life is very full and happy and I enjoy every day. Perhaps I have managed to compartmentalize how I feel about her and my lifelong roller coaster.  For example just today she told me I have "beautiful features and look far younger than my age."  This is the first time in my life that she has ever complimented me.  Am I over the moon about that?  Not a bit. It didn't affect me at all. Had she been hateful and snarky it wouldn't have made a difference in my day either. I simply stopped reacting and stopped putting any importance at all on what she says, thinks or feels.   Maybe it would be more accurate to say I feel NOTHING toward her.  No love, no like, and hopefully no hate. Just nothing... .and that works for me.   I am able to have her as a guest in my home along with the rest of my family every holiday and she no longer has the power to ruin the day.  She sits quietly pouting in the corner but I don't hover over her trying to guess who she is mad at.  Nope... .no reaction.

[nevermore]

When I wrote the title of this thread I actually left out a word or two. I didn't mean for it to read "we don't" as in none of us love them. I meant to write "we don't have to love them".  That is a very individual thing and I know for me how I feel about her changes from time to time.  I just don't like to hear people say that because someone is your (whatever family member) we must feel love for them.  I do not want anything bad to ever happen to my mom and I hope she lives a happy life but given her lack of feeling for everyone and everything I don't think that is going to happen.  Her hairdresser who sees her every few months remarked to me "She doesn't really like ANYTHING, does she." 

Anyway, for those who love their BPD I salute you. For those who do not and can not, I stand with you.  Peace to all.

[Sasha026]

I'm glad you've been able to deal with this. I discover something new everyday and I talk about it on line here. This doesn't mean that I "wallow" in it. I really try to leave it behind me... .but it's so hard.

A lot of other things happened that I don't discuss on this forum because it's not the place to do it. I have never found a spot where I can discuss and understand what happened. All I know is that I was isolated for many, many years, not due to my mother, but other circumstances. Saying that, I was capable of raising a wonderful child who has turned into a successful adult. I just don't understand what was going on. Right now I'm on the precipice of understanding, but there are still things that confound me. Things that just don't make any sense.

To demonstrate the cyclical nature of my mother's abuse, I will give you a quote from my late husband. He said, "What do you think will be different from all of her other visits? Do you think anything will change?" and I looked at him and said, "I don't know, I hope so." I kept up hope or 59 years that she would change. I tried everything - to the point of sacrificing my marriage. I even tied her relationship with me to my Lenten duty in 07. I was determined to make it work. I figured that if I tried hard enough, something would give. It didn't. She emotionally gutted me.

So forgive me if I don't forgive her - I tried so hard. She robbed me from so many things. Important things.

[DesertChild]

I think anger is part of the natural process--there is grief and anger comes with grief.

I discovered it and was angry and sad and emotional for a long time. Sometimes I'd simply feel numb. Breaking with her was the one of the best things for me, because it allowed me to heal and come back to the self I'd forgotten.

I challenge the voice ingrained into my head from her as a way to find out what is true or not, give myself time to explore and the more I do so, for me, that's how I find forgiveness for myself. I do things for myself that don't involve her, were never in her purview and try to break out of it. I'm finding footing.

I found forgiveness (my own process--which I had to discover) by understanding it was a mental illness. Something she could not control. The reasons for her actions and letting myself grieve for however long it took. By taking care of myself first. And understanding her history. I still get angry at her, but I don't let that rule every action I take and I take responsibility for the things I did that she didn't control--such as engaging her, etc. I'm working hard to separate my actions from hers--something she wouldn't allow me. And by understanding that the way she feels is not my responsibility--it's her POV.

After all that anger, hashing, there is a sense of peace and I find for myself that is my forgiveness. She did some terrible things and made terrible choices that affected me, but I don't need to let that affect me for the rest of my life and cripple me.

But that's just me.

[isilme]

I love my mom, and the person I wanted my dad to be.  But when faced with the actual people, I cannot remain healthy myself and be in contact with either of them.  You don't keep the limb with gangrene and risk dying yourself, you have to amputate.  This is really only something someone who has survived abuse can understand.  The rest of the world sees abuse as something easily 'fixed' as per an After-School Special.