Dealing with anger and guilt

[Depression = 72% of members]

Hi,

I'm brand new, and I guess finding this website (on Christmas Eve, because I was home) has made me think a lot about the behaviors I still (despite being in therapy for years) almost instinctively engage in when I am dealing with my dad.  I was wondering if anyone has any insight on how to change the following patterns:

Pattern 1: Dad is verbally or emotionally abusive to one of my siblings, or he criticizes them and puts them down behind their back to me, or he puts down my favorite relatives on my mother's side (my mother is dead, she died when I was a teenager). I react by becoming extremely angry and resentful because he is victimizing people who can't defend themselves, it's a weird trigger for me, when I was younger he was verbally abusive to me and sometimes hit me and I always tried really hard to stand up to him and I hated myself when I would cower or cry, so I guess that is why. Anyway I say something angrily--most recently I said, "fine, don't apologize to [my sister, who my dad had called up and abused on the phone, telling her she was just like her alcoholic mother, for half an hour until she hung up on him], it's never because of anything you did, it's always everyone else's fault."  Dad reacts by being the victim, and being incredibly hurt and angry at me for "not understanding." I leave, because I refuse to acknowledge this claim that he is the victim, but then am filled with fear and guilt that he is now going to kill himself because he feels abandoned (this is partly because he often used to talk about how he wanted to kill himself after my mother died when I was younger, and he still does this and often talks about how depressed and alone he is) and I feel sad and unhappy that he is so unhappy and I can't help him. Then I feel angry, because I shouldn't be feeling afraid of my dad killing himself, but I can't help it!

Pattern 2: My dad starts talking about his depression and loneliness and how sad he was after my mother died, or how sad he is now, or how sad something else made him, etc. I know that he wants validation and for me to comfort him, but I just make my face blank and refuse to react.  I guess this is because after my mom died all he did was come to me (and my little brother) and tell us how depressed he was and how he wanted to kill himself, and then he would tell us about his sexual relationships with other women, or about how he cheated on my mother because she abandoned him by taking a job in another state,  etc, etc, inappropriate sharing to the max. I hated him for it when I was a teenager because he never once asked me how I was doing or asked my little brother how he was doing. He only talked to us about himself. But I read that people with BPD need validation to calm down. But I can't validate him when he does this! I want to be able to let go of feeling so angry as soon as he starts, but I don't know how.

[susie queue]

Hi,

I'm brand new, and I guess finding this website (on Christmas Eve, because I was home) has made me think a lot about the behaviors I still (despite being in therapy for years) almost instinctively engage in when I am dealing with my dad.  I was wondering if anyone has any insight on how to change the following patterns:

Pattern 1: Dad is verbally or emotionally abusive to one of my siblings, or he criticizes them and puts them down behind their back to me, or he puts down my favorite relatives on my mother's side (my mother is dead, she died when I was a teenager). I react by becoming extremely angry and resentful because he is victimizing people who can't defend themselves, it's a weird trigger for me, when I was younger he was verbally abusive to me and sometimes hit me and I always tried really hard to stand up to him and I hated myself when I would cower or cry, so I guess that is why. Anyway I say something angrily--most recently I said, "fine, don't apologize to [my sister, who my dad had called up and abused on the phone, telling her she was just like her alcoholic mother, for half an hour until she hung up on him], it's never because of anything you did, it's always everyone else's fault."  Dad reacts by being the victim, and being incredibly hurt and angry at me for "not understanding." I leave, because I refuse to acknowledge this claim that he is the victim, but then am filled with fear and guilt that he is now going to kill himself because he feels abandoned (this is partly because he often used to talk about how he wanted to kill himself after my mother died when I was younger, and he still does this and often talks about how depressed and alone he is) and I feel sad and unhappy that he is so unhappy and I can't help him. Then I feel angry, because I shouldn't be feeling afraid of my dad killing himself, but I can't help it!

Pattern 2: My dad starts talking about his depression and loneliness and how sad he was after my mother died, or how sad he is now, or how sad something else made him, etc. I know that he wants validation and for me to comfort him, but I just make my face blank and refuse to react.  I guess this is because after my mom died all he did was come to me (and my little brother) and tell us how depressed he was and how he wanted to kill himself, and then he would tell us about his sexual relationships with other women, or about how he cheated on my mother because she abandoned him by taking a job in another state,  etc, etc, inappropriate sharing to the max. I hated him for it when I was a teenager because he never once asked me how I was doing or asked my little brother how he was doing. He only talked to us about himself. But I read that people with BPD need validation to calm down. But I can't validate him when he does this! I want to be able to let go of feeling so angry as soon as he starts, but I don't know how.

[Sitara]

Hi susie queue, welcome, and sorry to hear you're having difficulties with your dad.  Is your therapist familiar with BPD?  My undiagnosed BPD mom also often would talk about people behind their backs.  One of the hardest things to come to terms with for me was realizing that I can't change her.  I can't make her stop talking about people behind their backs.  The only thing I have control over is me, and I didn't want to hear it.  So I asked her politely to stop talking (specifically about my dad) to me because he is my dad and I didn't need to be hearing these things about him.  She was really angry, but she stopped for awhile.  Your dad is probably picking on people because he's projecting his insecurities on other people - he's just not capable of admitting anything can be wrong with him.  This is also the reason he gets so upset with you for pointing it out.  People with BPD are just not capable of admitting anything is bad about them, because of their black/white thinking, if they admit something is bad about them, they feel that means they're all bad.

I feel sad and unhappy that he is so unhappy and I can't help him

It is so hard to watch someone you care about be so miserable, and it's difficult to understand why they would want to live their lives in misery, but it is unfortunately true that you can't do anything to help him.  Unless he wants to change, he's never going to change.  You can't make him want to change, or force him to see the light, or convince him that things can be better.  He has to reach a point where he wants it for himself, and with  people with BPD, that means they'd have to admit something is wrong that needs fixing, so it is not something that often will happen.

I never had to deal with suicide threats myself, but here's a thread on how to deal with threats you might find useful.  https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=79032.0

Here is a workshop about validation if you want to learn more about how to validate someone with BPD. https://bpdfamily.com/content/communication-skills-validation

There are a lot of helpful topics in The Learning Center boards that I encourage you to check out.

What do you want from your relationship with your dad?

[susie queue]

Thank you for the reply I guess I am bouncing around a lot. I have actually worked with my therapist about asking my dad to please stop talking about X, and it does work -- but it doesn't work if I am just watching him treat X badly, then if I intervene he only gets worse. And also sometimes I just get tired of having to manage conversations so closely and then I don't stop it and then I get upset.

With regard to my relationship with my dad, I guess I would like to be on the "healing and developing relationships" board, but I decided that I don't feel I have worked through all the negative feelings I have about my dad. It just occurred to me the other day that it isn't okay to spend 15 years making your  child feel scared and guilty that if she does somethin you do not like, you might kill yourself, and all of a sudden I was so hurt and angry that my dad would do that. Similarly, even though when I was a teenager, I knew it wasn't right for my dad to call me a ___ing bhit and hit me, somehow just HOW indefensible that was never occurred to me until recently. Same goes for how he never comforted us after our mom died, he expected me to comfort him, to listen and sympathize while he would tell me about cheating on our mom like she deserved it, all this stuff. And even small stuff like going through my room, throwing away my things randomly if he was mad at me, just making fun of me if i ever got upset at something he did, etc.  I knew it was wrong, but I don't think I realized how really wrong it was. I would try to stand up for my little brother when my dad would bully him, or when he was older, go through his mail, go through his room, etc, but whenever I tried they would BOTH get mad at me. Plus I went through this period of having these dreams where my mom was alive and I was so angry at her I would hit her. I would wake up feeling really guilty, but it occurs to me now that I was angry because she left us with my dad when she died.

So, yeah. I guess I would like to get past all this anger and hurt, but only just realized that it is actually valid  for it to be there.  In my heart I would love for him to validate ME and my feelings about this but, as you say, that will never happen. I tried once to bring it up and he just denied that any of it happened. I brought it up once with my little brother and his response was, "Well, you WERE kind of a bhit." I guess he also takes my dad's side whenever my dad is mean to one of the older siblings and he is generally really defensive of my dad. Actually I worry about my brother -- my dad was an alcoholic and my brother drinks too much, and they make derogatory jokes about women together and stuff. But I don't know what I can do about that either, although it also makes me angry, because my brother is a really sweet human being.

So I guess, actually, maybe before getting to changing these behavioral patterns, I want to be okay with being angry at him and refusing to validate him, so that it doesn't make me feel so guilty or like I am a terrible person.

[Marcia]

 Isn't it amazing that all of his outrageous behavior and cruelty results in YOU feeling guilty? These folks are incredible,and all of us here on this board are the same--we feel guilty about their abuse of us.

I would encourage you to set some strong boundaries with this man. Keep in mind these folks can live a long time and do no work on themselves, which could result in a mighty long sentence for you!

Good luck Susie--we do understand here on this board... .

[Moonbeam77]

Isn't it amazing that all of his outrageous behavior and cruelty results in YOU feeling guilty? These folks are incredible,and all of us here on this board are the same--we feel guilty about their abuse of us.

I would encourage you to set some strong boundaries with this man. Keep in mind these folks can live a long time and do no work on themselves, which could result in a mighty long sentence for you!

Good luck Susie--we do understand here on this board... .

Well said Marcia.  What you wrote was pretty much what I was thinking.  Hugs to you Susie 

[Sitara]

I want to be okay with being angry at him and refusing to validate him, so that it doesn't make me feel so guilty or like I am a terrible person.

You're not a terrible person for being angry that he refuses to acknowledge he's hurt you or that he's unwilling to see that he has problems.  And you shouldn't feel guilty about expecting your parent to love you unconditionally and treat you with respect.

I have a hard time with the validation too.  I was the adult in the relationship my entire childhood.  I'm tired of still having to be the adult.  For me, I felt all the communication techniques were a lot of work on my end for someone who wasn't willing to do any work on their end.  But ultimately, you have to decide what relationship you want and what's going to be healthiest for you.

[susie queue]

Thanks everyone for the replies I really appreciated hearing from others and it is kind of nice to hear that other people have to deal with similar things, even though I'm also so sorry that you all have also had parents or other people in your lives who have behaved in these ways :-/