Spoke to my uBPD mother on her birthday for a few minutes - made me sick

[Calsun]

OK, after not having contact with my uBPD mother for several months, it was her birthday, yesterday.  And I felt sad about not calling her.  I went to a twelve step meeting and spoke with someone very unhealthy after the meeting who nonetheless shamed me a bit about not calling.  This was probably someone who has her own disorder.  So, I called.  Nothing terrible happened in the conversation, it's just being around that energy even for a little while puts me back in a place of feeling I am the problem.

And the terrible thing about these little calls is that it leaves me with the feeling that there is nothing really wrong.  My sister insists, in her terrible denial, that I'm the only one that hasn't gotten over it  My sister's getting over it was like my father's getting over it, it came from the drug companies. Pharmaceutical companies made a lot of money off of my father and sister getting over or not being affected deeply by my mother's uBPD abusiveness and craziness.

And that's the most harmful part of this. I am now seeing my father as being highly abusive, this very mild and nice man was abusive to me and betraying to me. For years I thought he was the good one.  I guess it was hard to accept that there was really no one for me in that family of origin. That in many ways I didn't really have a family, of course, if depend on how you define family, if family are the people who are trying to destroy you, then I had a family, but if family are the people who are loving and nurturing you and making sure you are safe, then I didn't. 

My father was a passive accomplice with my mother.  He invalidated the reality of the abusiveness. How sick must you be to not validate the reality of what went on?  My father took valium for years, that was his response and then developed heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer's later in life.  I was taught to follow in my father's footsteps, to just go along with my mother, to stay in and ignore the damage it was doing to my emotional life, my sense of wholeness and ultimately to my physical health.  My father died over two years ago.  I want to finally bury my father, to thrive in the ways he could not and be healthy in the ways he was unable to.  Yet, I still feel that I am supposed to take care of and stay loyal to this fragile, abusive man, who was more like a brother to me than a father. I feel like Hamlet here.  I feel terribly disloyal for even writing this, even though I need psychologically to finally separate from that harmful sense of loyalty to his sick and self-destructive way of living his life, his accepting abuse, his lack of inner strength.

What a burden to feel responsible for your sick parents and the pressure that I felt yesterday, that the world will judge me harshly for not "loving" my mother, for not calling my mother on her birthday. And the still deep longing that I have for a loving mother and the way my denial can kick in, see she's really not that bad, I can call her on her birthday, she's an elderly woman.  I need to stop caring what "people" or society might think about having no contact with my mother now, that internalized voice of family and societal shaming. I need to finally get that my experience of reality was right on and not my sick father's or brother's or sister's way of dealing and responding. Cutting it off altogether, if possible, and having little contact with my siblings because the denial of the disease is so problematic, that I feel as though when I am around that denial, and I have enough of it still in myself, I end up carrying the disease.  And it literally makes me physically ill. And I want to get healthy and be happy and feel safe in my own body.  Let them think what they will.  I just want to be happy and healthy, finally.  Free at last.

Calsun

[Up In the Air]

Calsun - I'm so sorry you felt pressured into calling your mom. I'm glad the conversation went pretty well and I definitely relate to the 'fine' feeling after a short moment with a BPD. It's awful having those feelings of false guilt creep over you, especially when you know you're not the guilty party. It's so frustrating to move forward after even small bits of contact.

Others not understanding... .our societal shame? Oy. I completely hear you.

The MOMENT my DH and I went NC with his uBPD mother and father, nearly everyone I knew (who knew about it) thought badly of us. It was devastating. I even had my parents telling me that we should call, that it's not right for a family to remain broken, that it's our responsibility, etc. I have friends who stopped talking to me over it.

For me, it's frustrating that people don't understand and are uninformed. In addition, it's so hard for people who have mentally and emotionally healthy parents and families to grasp the concept of how damaging the illness really is and therefore how estranged the family can be (even if they appear to be close). People don't understand that you're protecting yourself, not trying to be cruel to your mother. It's terribly difficult to explain to someone how tangled the relationship is and how hard you've worked to get to where you're at - in a healthier place. I think our society has most definitely forgotten the importance of individual mental health and even when we're in a conversation with someone, it's so hard to keep in mind how much they may not 'get' our experiences and therefore give us advice without being aware of the full gravity of their words to us.

In our case, we don't even mention my DH's parents and stop any conversation (with the people who generally know about it but don't understand it) by saying "I really don't want to get into it. It's just too tender a topic." Then they back off. As for people who pressure me, I remind them that we've had a hard time and that I hope they can trust the decision we've made - that it's the best for us for right now... .and leave it at that. If they want to get all judgy - let 'em - they're not the ones that have to deal with the BPD and if they did, they'd be singing a different tune.

Calsun - you're doing the right thing, you're healing, you're focusing on being happier... .as hard as it is, just keep your energy on those positive things, inch by inch it moves you forward, closer to where you want to be. We're all right here healing with you buddy.

[Finding Courage]

I resonate with quite a bit of your post.  My father also is very passive, codependent and anxious and did nothing to protect or take care of me.  I used to feel protective about my dad, felt sorry for him.  Now, I realize that he was an adult and that he failed me.  And that was his choice.

I also really struggle with the society pressure to be nice to our parents or call them etc.  I still struggle with feeling guilty the FOG.  However, other times I think to myself that I don't own her anything.  My not calling or building a relationship with her is her fault, not mine.  She is the one who made choices all of those years that led us to where things are at now.

Healing is a journey and is so hard, but worth it.  Good luck to you.

[GeekyGirl]

I'm sorry Calsun.   The feeling of FOG can be hard to fend off.

Nothing terrible happened in the conversation, it's just being around that energy even for a little while puts me back in a place of feeling I am the problem.

And the terrible thing about these little calls is that it leaves me with the feeling that there is nothing really wrong. 

You know that's not the case, though, right?

I guess it was hard to accept that there was really no one for me in that family of origin. That in many ways I didn't really have a family, of course, if depend on how you define family, if family are the people who are trying to destroy you, then I had a family, but if family are the people who are loving and nurturing you and making sure you are safe, then I didn't. 

That is a lot to deal with, and it's so painful when your family isn't the family that you wish you had. How are you doing today, after you've had a day to reflect?

I feel terribly disloyal for even writing this, even though I need psychologically to finally separate from that harmful sense of loyalty to his sick and self-destructive way of living his life, his accepting abuse, his lack of inner strength.

Do you feel like you've accepted him for who he really is? I know how difficult it can be to see our enmeshed fathers as the people they really are... .I too thought of my father as my knight in shining armor, and sometimes even now it's hard to accept his role in my mother's disorder.

And it literally makes me physically ill. And I want to get healthy and be happy and feel safe in my own body.  Let them think what they will.  I just want to be happy and healthy, finally.  Free at last.

Healing is a process--and it can be a long one. Remember that you've had successes while you've worked through this.

[Calsun]

Thank you Up in the Air, Finding Courage, and GG,

What you wrote was so supportive and helpful.  I thank you.  You know, after two days now, I do feel better.  And, of course, that was only about a seven minute conversation I had with her.  What I'm really starting to get is that a BPD mother has really gone against the nature of things.  In the animal kingdom, mothers instinctually look to protect and take care of their young.  And most human mothers do the same.  It's natural.

The BPD mother has gone against nature in some profoundly disturbing way.  I think that's why it is so difficult for someone with a healthy mother to understand how bad a borderline mother can be.  My BPD mother really sought to destroy her children, which is so against nature and is incomprehensible to the person who grew up with a good or good enough mother who naturally didn't do that.

It has taken me so long to accept the reality of what I really experienced. as opposed to negating my sense of reality because it is in disagreement with how things are supposed to be.  Yes, mothers are supposed to love and protect their children, not inflict injury on them and try to destroy them.  But my experience with my mother was different than the way things are supposed to be, different than the natural course of things.  Now, I can honor my sense of reality as correct even though it ran against what my mother, father, siblings, society and nature would dictate the reality is or should naturally be. 

In my family growing up, the natural order of things was upended.

Best,

Calsun

[P.F.Change]

But my experience with my mother was different than the way things are supposed to be, different than the natural course of things.  Now, I can honor my sense of reality as correct even though it ran against what my mother, father, siblings, society and nature would dictate the reality is or should naturally be. 

This reminds me of one of the first workshops I ever read here at bpdfamily, Radical Acceptance for family members It totally altered my way of looking at my relationship with my mother. I started to understand that I should expect my mother to behave like a person with a personality disorder, not like a person without one. Even though I still wouldn't characterize being around my mother as "easy," now I am not nearly so frustrated when she doesn't behave like a "normal" mother.

And that's the most harmful part of this. I am now seeing my father as being highly abusive, this very mild and nice man was abusive to me and betraying to me. For years I thought he was the good one.  I guess it was hard to accept that there was really no one for me in that family of origin.

This is so very common, Calsun. Every child needs to believe that his parents love him. When one parent is overtly mean or abusive, he will idealize the other (usually more submissive) parent. For many of us, it takes a long time to see the reality that our non-BPD parent was not protecting or defending us, but rather sacrificing us in order to avoid suffering himself. I thought my dad was my hero for a long time, and it hurt when I realized he should have stood up to someone abusing his children.

It looks like you are having some big breakthroughs. Do you currently have a therapist who can help you process some of what you are going through?

Wishing you peace,

PF