But she's my mother. Mothers love their children.

[Calsun]

For all of the understanding that I think I've gotten about my mother's uBPD,  I still can go back into a feeling that she is my mother, and she loves me. Mothers love their children. She'll even say that she loves me and can be nice and mild at times.  I had been NC for many months and saw her yesterday.  And I got lured in, and then all of that borderline stuff came out, the instability, the controlling, the dysregulation I grew up with.  The uBPD riding the coattails of the archetype of motherhood.

It really affects my health now. I felt light-headed and tightness in my chest. It always did, but I now, having gotten sick not too long ago, feel that it is life-threatening.  Of course, it always was.  Now, it is much more difficult to deny that reality.

One of the hardest things in life to assimilate, that a mother who is supposed to love you and want the very best for you, was so sick that she was trying to destroy you, your autonomy, your sense of yourself and ultimately your very life.  Who other than a child of a borderline understands that Jekyll and Hyde mother, a mother who is so sick that she tries to sadistically attack the very heart and essence of her child and then blame the child for not being close to her.  How I tried in my life to win her over.  Booze to an alcoholic, just another drink, just keep trying. Forsake loving people, good things, a life for myself, a real home, to try to win over the approval of the person who can never love you, a mother who is unwittingly trying to destroy and demean and devalue you. Like the character in the book Of Human Bondage. If only she would just approve of me, then I could deep down approve of myself.  I would have that inner permission.  Only she can let me go.  That's how it feels sometimes, and it is a powerful feeling.

The denial about my mother's sickness and my own.  It has been destroying me all of my life. It had made me a divided self, trying to win the approval of someone who was simultaneously trying to destroy me. My self-destructive addiction.  To win the love and approval and have a loving relationship with a uBPD witch.  I have punished myself all of my life, deprived myself and ultimately hurt my health because deep down I felt like a bad person, the person she characterized me as. And I punished myself for her inability to love and value me, because she treated me as a bad person, I thought of myself as a bad person. And if only I could change the way she felt about me, if I could only get my mother to love me, then I could love myself and feel good about myself.  Then I would deserve to live, really live. I could feel like a good person, not a bad person.  I could feel lovable.

Just telling on my disease here. I work with a really good therapist.  I am part of a recovering community. It has subsided, but I relapse.  I went back to that bar in a dangerous part of town yesterday for another "drink."  Passed up on healthy, better, more productive things to do with my life to go there. Want to give up trying to feel I'm a good person until my mother and family of origin feels that way about me.  Wanting to stop punishing myself, killing myself, for my uBPD mother's hatred of me and for not somehow being able to bond with a mother with whom I was incapable of forming a healthy attachment. To really accept that it wasn't my fault, that she didn't love me, didn't see me. When your mother is trying to destroy you, the inner conflict that that causes. I'm feeling like a wounded and hurt and lonely child tonight.

I want peace, finally, health, safety, sanity, and love. An end to that self-destructive, self-hating addiction to winning the approval and love of the uBPD mother that is still inside of me, that bondage.  I know that yesterday was a step backwards in some ways.  Some mother's really do try to destroy their children. I just don't want to participate anymore, to be an addicted accomplice in my own destruction. And psychologically I can do to myself what my mother did to me. Feel very sad and lonely tonight and feeling how powerful and self-destructive this addiction to winning the approval of the uBPD  mother has been in me.  Telling on my disease and wanting to let myself go from the power of this addiction.  Needing support and love.

Calsun

[Livin4me]

In fact, she does love you... . understand this, though.  In order for them to fully show love, they have to show they are weak in a sense (which causes the defense mechanism to start).  So, there is always that need to make anyone who is close them feel inferior.  They are broken... . There is never enough pieces to put them back together.  Like a thousand piece puzzle and there is there on only 999, and they are searching for that final piece.  We can't provide it, because we aren't the ones who disposed of it.

[Livin4me]

and in fact, that piece of the puzzle never really existed...

[Clearmind]

Calsun    

The faulty beliefs we inherit from our BPD parent can be debilitating - however we can start to see it a lot clearer if we begin to work through what those faulty beliefs are and set about to turn them around.

One of the faulty beliefs that I carried around was that I am valued if I am fixing someone else rather than being valued for who I am.

As adult kids of Borderlines its important to process what it is that makes us who we are - our likes, dislikes, values, morals, beliefs and begin to despite the ones instilled in us as kids. We all too often still ride on the curt tails of our childhood and relive the faulty beliefs over and over.

Its OK to feel vulnerable, fearful, wounded, lonely - its important to feel all that and process it and then dispute them with some data and positive self talk - rather than turn it on you.

In the Survivors Guide ---> where do you see yourself?

[Calsun]

Thank you, Livin4me and Clearmind.

It's true about the faulty beliefs.  One of my faulty beliefs was that I could only be "loved" if I was dependent on her and that I needed her or that internalized voice of her inside me to guide decisions.  That that intuitive voice inside me was wrong and that her way was best and would make me safe and successful.  And that I was bad when I was powerless to do anything for her, when she would reject help or assistance.  It kept this cycle going of her playing the martyr and my being cast in a role of someone hateful and unloving.

I am a very loving person, and I have good friends who see me so differently than how I was portrayed in the family of origin.  Important to finally detach more from my sister who lives with her, who carries so much of her daily influence.  I do love her dearly though.

I think I need to finally give up the family denial of my mother's illness.  I still am not completely there in accepting that she is uBPD and has a severe emotional, mental condition which affects her cognition and her behavior.  And that this illness has created a pattern of faulty beliefs and thinking that I have been deeply affected by myself.  To finally see just how dysfunctional and self-destructive her beliefs have been and how that has affected me. It has made me unhealthy too, and it is necessary to challenge them to come to a sober and healthy way of seeing myself and others, to really have the kind of loving relationships that I long for. To bring me into the healing stage of really thriving, which right now I'm not doing.

I am getting there.  I think I had a slip yesterday, but one that confirmed how ill the system is and how much in need of this forum, my therapist and loving support from others I am.  :)on't want to do this alone.

I think that I am still in the remembering and mourning area mostly, trying still in #6 not to turn it on myself.  And I can sense and appreciate the inner child who survived it.    I do want to take an inventory of the problem areas in my adult life and identify the parts of my life connected to self-sabotage, to be clearer on that.  And I am identifying the faulty beliefs that I have adopted and mourning the abandonment and abuse from both my uBPD mother and my non-BPD father.  And ultimately I want to really thrive, to really heal and to truly be myself, fully.

Thank you, again.

Calsun

[PrettyPlease]

That that intuitive voice inside me was wrong and that her way was best and would make me safe and successful.  And that I was bad when I was powerless to do anything for her, when she would reject help or assistance. It kept this cycle going of her playing the martyr and my being cast in a role of someone hateful and unloving.

Calsun,

You're doing a great job, your post is thorough and clear, and I relate directly to almost all of it; it was the same for me with my deceased uBPD mother -- especially that quote above. Thank you for posting.

And as for you going back and visiting her, hoping she'll be different this time, yes, I did that many times, and it's so painful, but so natural for us to do -- we were set up by a million-year history in our genes to expect certain things to be given to us as infants and children, and we didn't get those. We got something outside of what we needed, something outside our ability to cope without pain. So we coped with pain.

Perhaps someday we as a society will understand how it is that human beings -- so many of us, seemingly -- have gotten knocked off the path of a natural healthy family development. Maybe we'll be able to figure that out, step back from the brink, and stop producing borderline parents.

But until that happens, we can be thankful for this place to share our story of what's happening -- of what is, in effect, a large-scale social disaster that's only gradually coming into focus.

At least we're not alone in it.   



PP

[Tayto]

hi, can you list your good points or traits about yourself, if you cant ask your friend what they think about you as a person.

for too long we have listened to one side of what our parents should have spoken to us but instead misinformed to service their own needs.

[P.F.Change]

It really affects my health now. I felt light-headed and tightness in my chest. It always did, but I now, having gotten sick not too long ago, feel that it is life-threatening.  Of course, it always was.  Now, it is much more difficult to deny that reality.

Sounds a lot like the panic attacks I had. There can be a rush of adrenaline and it does feel in the moment like life or death--but it isn't. Have you felt like that before? What does your therapist say about these physical reactions?

Just telling on my disease here. I work with a really good therapist.  I am part of a recovering community. It has subsided, but I relapse.  I went back to that bar in a dangerous part of town yesterday for another "drink."  Passed up on healthy, better, more productive things to do with my life to go there. Want to give up trying to feel I'm a good person until my mother and family of origin feels that way about me.

It is an important step to be honest about your addiction to alcohol, Calsun. Do you have a sponsor you can call to talk about this? Or have you already phoned your therapist? I wanted to ask about the part I put in bold, as I think there are a couple of ways to read it. Are you saying you felt defeated and wanted to give up on trying to love yourself, at least until your FOO loves you first? Or was it that you are ready to work on letting go of allowing your FOO define you? It's a pretty drastic difference in meaning and I want to make sure I understand you.  

It sounds like you are struggling with some deep inner shame. I know I have been there, too. Have you seen this workshop? Toxic shame--what is it and what can we do about it?

I also used to think, how could my mother love me if she treated me that way. Now I understand she can feel love for me while at the same time not know how to show me love consistently. She's got some major handicaps, and it's not as all-or-nothing as I used to think. At any rate, I finally learned that my worthiness of love had nothing to do with her ability to give it. That helps me a lot.

Wishing you peace,

PF

[rebl.brown]

What a relief to read someone else tell my exact story, honestly I sometimes still think I'm the crazy one

[Soulsisters]

Calsun

Your mom loves you the best she can.  She just sucks at it.  In her eyes she thinks she is showing love.  I'm sorry it hurts.

But I am worried about the tight in your chest and the dizzy.  I was dizzy for years with my x.  Ears ringing dizzy.  Then I had a huge panic attack that took forever to get over.  I was dying, my body didn't want to breathe. 

Please be good to yourself.  You can't change mom, believe me I wish I could and she doesn't even have BPD or anything.  She is just awful by nature. 

Be good and kind and gentle with yourself and your body.

I wish you well

[Calsun]

Thanks to all of you for your support and your kind feedback.  Just to clarify, I am not an alcoholic. Alcohol is not an issue for me. I was using the "drink" and "bar" metaphorically to represent the way I can reflexively go back and seek love from a uBPD mother who is unable to be functional.  That need to be loved by someone who could never truly see me and love me for who I am is really the heart of it.  I spent so much of my life seeking after love from places where it was unavailable.

That is changing for me.  I am able to inventory my positive qualities, and I am learning through therapy and loving friends to put the uBPD parent's voice into proper perspective. I have my slips. It was almost like an addiction to just keep going back, like Einstein's definition of insanity, trying to do the same thing over and over and seeking a different result.  That is the "disease" or illness of which I was speaking.  And it came with a deep desire to deny the severity of my mother's illness.  To take on and manifest illness so that i could deny that my mother was ill, so that on some level I could make this irretrievably ill person well, at least in my imagination.

You know, the more acceptance of my mother's uBPD, the more compassion I can have for her, because I can accept that it is an illness.  It really doesn't have to do with my person.  That doesn't change the hurt of never having had a functional and loving mother, but it certainly makes it easier to stop blaming myself for why I could not bond with her.  It does help me to stop feeling unlovable inside.  And to finally acknowledge that I can love, I can bond, I can feel deeply attached to human beings, and I can genuinely be loved by others.  And it is not dependent on passing some test or doing some incredible thing.  The fault, Horatio, was never in my stars or myself, it was in the very distorted mirroring that I received from a mother who when I was a child was the first and most influential person who shaped my understanding of who I am; the first face that looked into my face. Regrettably, sadly, tragically, that person is and was a borderline personality, someone whose understanding of me and life was deeply distorted, someone who could not truly love as a functional human being.  It may have been the first loud voice or mirroring of who I am, but it is not the last, nor is it an accurate image of who I am. 

Thanks again,

Calsun

[PrettyPlease]

You know, the more acceptance of my mother's uBPD, the more compassion I can have for her, because I can accept that it is an illness.  It really doesn't have to do with my person.  That doesn't change the hurt of never having had a functional and loving mother, but it certainly makes it easier to stop blaming myself for why I could not bond with her.  It does help me to stop feeling unlovable inside.  And to finally acknowledge that I can love, I can bond, I can feel deeply attached to human beings, and I can genuinely be loved by others.  And it is not dependent on passing some test or doing some incredible thing. 

Well said. Thank you.

PP

[Calsun]

Thank you.  Connecting with this site has been so helpful, to know that there are others who understand what it was like to have had reality shaped by a uBPD mother or father, to have been exposed as a child to the chaotic, violent and volatile world of a BPd parent.  I have heard the stories of other people who were abused in their family of origin when they were children.  I have friends who grew up children of alcoholics.  It is a unique experience to have had a borderline mother, and it is one which others cannot readily comprehend, a mother who attacks her own children with such laser-like intent to undermine and destroy, who is that unstable, dysregulated, out of touch with her own behavior.  Much of my life I felt not believed, my mother appeared mild in public.  I didn't believe it myself, and no one in my family talked about her out of control behavior. That denial has steadily lifted. And with it I know I am getting stronger, something the BPD did not want me to do. That exercise of strength felt and can still feel life-threatening.  Don't show strength, she'll knock you down.  But this community has helped me to do that, to summon up courage to grow and to become stronger.

Best,

Calsun

[P.F.Change]

Alcohol is not an issue for me. I was using the "drink" and "bar" metaphorically to represent the way I can reflexively go back and seek love from a uBPD mother who is unable to be functional. 

Sorry for the misunderstanding! I saw "disease," "relapse," "went back to that bar... . " and just drew a line. I see now what you meant, thanks for clarifying.

You know, the more acceptance of my mother's uBPD, the more compassion I can have for her, because I can accept that it is an illness.  It really doesn't have to do with my person.  That doesn't change the hurt of never having had a functional and loving mother, but it certainly makes it easier to stop blaming myself for why I could not bond with her.  It does help me to stop feeling unlovable inside.  And to finally acknowledge that I can love, I can bond, I can feel deeply attached to human beings, and I can genuinely be loved by others. 

I agree, this is a very helpful way to look at things. I'm glad you are learning to love yourself and others.   Have you had a look at the Survivor's guide? ----^ What step do you think this describes?

PF

[Tayto]

as a child I was taught that I was a monster. I myself feel like a monster still at 35. I asked my wife the other night would she allow our daughter to marry a person like me as I believe I,m a monster. I was shocked to her response

of course I would you are a wonderful thoughtful person she said.

we believe in the lies we were told as children and it affects our happiness in later life unless we change it.

[Calsun]

Hi Tayto,

Sorry that you went through that as a child.  I certainly felt a lot of the same things.  I was taught to think of myself as less than, dirty, bad, evil, just all projections of an aspect of my mother.  Of course, parts of herself she could not acknowledge, so she projected them onto me.  And then, of course, she really wanted to destroy me because she was projecting onto me all of her worst qualities. Take your demons, project them outward, demonize someone else and then try to destroy that person because that person now represents everything you fear and hate about yourself, but can't acknowledge. Twisted to do that to a child.  That left me with lots of fear of being annihilated and feeling as though I deserved to be annihilated for being "bad."  Scary, scary person my mother.  And, of course, she was totally unconscious that she was doing this.  And no one else saw it either.  The family unconscious.

But I felt it inside me, and for all of my accomplishments it became a kind of core identity.  It's being uprooted now and replaced with the real me, not the person that my mother projected onto me.  Little by little.  My mother was a deeply troubled, fragmented BPD who could not see or love her own children.  It was not in her capacity to do more than project identities onto them.  No one won in that situation, but what a particular scary burden to be the one upon whom she projected her sinister stuff.

Wonderful to hear that your wife can mirror and affirm the real you, not what your BPD mother projected onto you.  There is healing and change and recovery.  The BPD is like the wizard of oz, just a very small man casting a very troubling image from behind the curtain.

Best,

Calsun

[Cordelia]

Calsun, I also found the language of AA to be a helpful metaphor for my experience with my uBPD mother.  I found my relationship with her was like an addiction where I was engaged in a destructive behavior pattern that I thought was essential to my survival. 

I'm sorry you're having trouble right now separating yourself from her.  It really is incredibly hard and I have been there too.  Now that I have my own kids I really understand as an adult how intense and deep the connection is to a mother.  When you're small, they ARE crucial to your survival, and you look to them to tell you everything, from which are your hands and which are your feet, to what the numbers are - everything!  Our feeling of connection with them is not irrational or distorted it's just from an earlier time in our relationship.  We didn't get what we needed then so we can't move out of that stage. 

I'm so glad you have a loving community and strong relationships in real life as well as here online.  Seeing that positive image of yourself reflected back is so important.  I still have trouble believing that people don't see me as my mother did, as distorted, terrifying, disgusting.  It helps every time I really slow down and allow myself to SEE the love that's around me now... .

[Calsun]

Cordelia,

Thank you for your response.  It gave me something to think about.  It's true that anyone might still feel the pull to a mother based on the earliest bonding or connection that was forged in childhood.  There is something biological about it.  

But I think what happens for the child of an uBPD mother, at least this was my experience, is that one is constantly getting one's wings clipped by the mother.  My mother would consistently undermine my sense of competence and take credit for my achievements. Perfect example from my childhood.  When I came home from school with straight A's, my mother would say:  "Tell me the truth, would you have gotten all A's if it wasn't for me pushing you?  You would have gotten all F's."  Now a healthy parent would have encouraged the child to feel a legitimate sense of competence and achievement, an opportunity to feel confidence in his or her abilities. But my mother did not want that, that would encourage a process of individuating, of felt independence in the child. She didn't want me to be independent and abandon her. So I took in the message over and over that I should be in terror of my own inner judgement and compass and become dependent for decisions and guidance on my mother and her internalized voice inside of me. I learned to feel incompetent despite many achievements and much evidence to the contrary.

My mother's mirroring of me, built on her own needs was just off.  By a certain point in my maturation, I truly needed my mother less and less. A healthy parent encourages and even delights in that maturation. But the pounding overt message from her was you need me or you are going to be all F's, your insides are all F's, while my external coercions are all A's. And the covert message from her was just as insidious: I desperately need you to need me. So, overt message, you're incompetent and you will screw up everything if you listen to yourself. Terror. The covert message, don't stop being dependent.  Being independent means you don't love your mother, bad child, It is selfish to want to be independent and leave me.  Guilt.  Now it's no longer about my mother, it's about overcoming the internalized voice of my mother, that internalized fear and guilt trying to drown out my inner voice.

The relationship with my mother was not built on love which always encourages and delights in growth and freedom; which recognizes that a child is supposed to become an independent and interdependent adult, it was built on trying to prevent freedom and create dependence.  And the dependence was fostered by my uBPD mother in her illness and unconsciousness, although my mother sent the message that her children were just forcing her to do for them by their incompetence and lack of initiative.  She created a sneaky version of reality because extended family felt sorry for her and bought into her picture of herself as the long-suffering mother taken advantage of by her children.

And all of my life I significantly bought into my mother's version of reality, that she was doing for her children because they could not do for themselves or chose not to do for themselves.  She was a selfless mother who loved her children so much that she did for them that which better, more self-reliant children would have done for themselves. Now, I didn't understand that she was a uBPD and that she did this very confusing double bind masquerade because of her own terror of abandonment.

I felt terribly ashamed of my lack of confidence in my own ability and judgment and my seeming lack of independence.  I was  a leader inside, a person of keen insight and intelligence and yet I was constantly allowing myself to be led around by people, like my BPD mother, who were unhealthy,  ill-informed know it alls convinced that they had all of the answers, misguided, and even destructive people.  Or people who could not possibly know what I specifically needed, although they might know certainly what was best for them.

To finally shift power away from the internalized voice of my BPD mother and all her proxies in the world, to me, to be confident to be guided by my inner compass, is happening surely, but it is honestly scary.  She made my essential being into a kind of Boo Radley.  I didn't want to go near the inner self, that was like going near the Boo Radley house.  Stay away from Boo, all F's.  

Because no longer being "dependent" on her psychologically was framed by her as not loving her, it also brings up feelings of guilt, all of this internalized.  She could not envision a relationship in which the bond was forged by choice, by love, she needed to foster dependence, clip the bird's wings, and create a sense that I owed her for everything she did for me.  That is the BPD's terror of abandonment and her misguided rigid, black and white inner conviction that the only way to prevent abandonment is to foster dependence and learned helplessness in her children, to foster a bond not of love but of "you owe me" for everything that I did for you, that really deep down you never wanted or needed me to do for you because you wanted and deserved to feel independent.  But I needed to make you feel dependent on me so that I could say you owe me for everything I did for you, so that you would never leave me. Does that make sense?

I have been getting more and more awareness of this dynamic of dealing with the effects of having had a BPD mother, and there is a lot of painful and satisfying growth that I've done and more growth I trust that lies ahead.  So much ice of the BPD iceberg lying beneath the surface of the water. Thanks again for your feedback.

Best,

Calsun

[PrettyPlease]

... . I needed to make you feel dependent on me so that I could say you owe me for everything I did for you, so that you would never leave me. Does that make sense?

Yes, good analysis; I believe I reached a similar conclusion about my mother, though on a subconscious level; but I believed it strongly enough to allow me to make certain steps towards inner (and outer) freedom, over the years. And now, it's very good to get it all spelled out, thank you. It's helpful in dealing with the instilled guilt, which is still rearing up, even after her death, even after understanding that she was psychologically disordered and almost fully responsible for crafting the events that mediated her last years -- including by crafting me.                                            

PP