What would have helped you deal with your BPD parent?

[PinkieV]

Hi everyone,

I'm mostly on the custody and parenting boards, but right now we are in a holding pattern as we wait for my DH's uBPDew to decide whether she wants to settle or go to trial for custody of my SS13.

Two weeks ago BM really laid into my SS and threw him for a loop.  He finally verbalized that he wants to stay with us.  She actually asked him and he said he'd think about it.  It's just too much for him to tell her, so with his counselor's approval, he sent her a letter this week.  His counselor also approved limited phone contact in favor of cards and letters - it's hard enough just to get her on the phone as she lives at a halfway house in work release.  We have a pretty solid case since she's been in jail for 9 months, is losing her house, and the GAL has recommended DH retain custody with serious mental health work after her release.

Now to my question, for those of you who grew up with a BPD parent: what would you have liked done, or what do you feel could have helped you deal with this parent when you were a child?  SS is in counseling and we know the counselor suspects a PD with BM, as did the GAL.  So he's getting targeted help from her.  What can his dad and I do to make sure he's as strong as possible?  There will come a time in the next few months when he will have to see her, and we want to have as much support for him as possible.  Luckily, we live two states away, so it won't be regular visitation, but still, she'll be able to phone him, and he will have to visit at some point.  He's a very sweet, low key kid, and won't fight back yet the way his older brother did.  I guess we want to also give him the tools to handle her, since he'll have to for the rest of her life.

Thanks so much for any advice you can give!

[Shadowcat]

I hope everything goes well for you and yours - it seems as though you have started on the path to healing for your SS, and I hope it continues well.

As to your question, well, it's rather hard to answer. When you grow up with someone with BPD who has authority over you, it can be incredibly confusing. On the one hand, you're supposed to love your parent, but when they emotionally or physically abuse you instead of giving you the tools you need to grow, it hurts. The first thing that went through my head as a kid all of the time was "What did I do?" As a child, you always assume it's somehow your fault.

The thing that I think would have changed my life is if I still saw my mother, but she didn't have authority over me anymore. Then, I wouldn't have felt so much like her subject.

[Sitara]

I'm having a really hard time following the abbreviations that I can't find on the translation forum. What do BM and GAL mean?

[PinkieV]

Sorry Sitara!  I'm used to the other boards where we throw them around quite a bit.  BM is biological mom, my DH's ex.  A GAL is a guardian ad litem, basically an attorney or representative for the child(ren) who investigates both parents and then recommends custody, etc. to the court.

Shadowcat, thanks for your response.  I definitely see the "what did I do" look on SS's face when she starts yelling over the phone.  I usually will ask after his mom, and if was pretty loud, say "she must have had a hard day - it's not your fault".  Hopefully, his being with us full time and so far away will make him feel more secure since she won't have authority over him unless he's visiting her.

[Sitara]

Doing what you are already doing will be a huge help. My parents are still married, but I would have loved for my endad to stand up for me like your husband is doing, and I think if I had been able to get therapy I would be doing better too. Sounds like you're already doing the right things, fighting for custody and having him in therapy. I was kind of the same way, not willing to fight back, and I'm going to take a guess here that he's basically a good kid? If so, his personality type likely needs more love and understanding, less heavy on the discipline. Encourage him to develop his own personality and tastes, try new things.

I'd probably leave the tools for dealing with her to the counselor and focus more on just being there for him and being loving parents. Sure, he may talk to her on the phone, but you'll be there to support him when the conversation is over and remind him he's loved.

Good luck, and what a lucky boy to have loving parents like you two in his life.

[sanemom]

This is a good question that we worry about all of the time.  BPD mom has the kids' ears with her lies about their dad, and it feels like they just believe her.  BPD mom has told them that their dad beat her, that he had affairs on her, and far worse.  We have been fighting to get DSD counseling in court for over a year, but BPD mom keeps blocking it.  She is almost 17 now, yet she still seems to believe that her dad is bullying her waif mom.  Although all of her siblings live with us, she still claims that she wants to live with BPD mom, even though she has had a very unstable life there since she made that choice (her dad had primary for 9 years--she always dreamed of living with her mom).

The counselor who was already appointed by the court (BPD mom is in contempt for not cooperating--have a date soon) said that she is feeling like she is actually going to have to let DSD know something horrible about her BPD mom soon because it is about to come out in court and with that revelation, DSD is going to have a very hard time understanding who her mom really is. 

On one hand, I think it is better to learn in your own time about the truth of your parents.  On the other, I wonder if it would be better to find out while you still have a supportive family and counselor to help you through?

Sorry, OP, for a bit of a hijack.  I read your thread and just thought how wonderful it must be to have a DSS who will actually stand up for himself against BPD mom with a counselor's help.  It is good he is allowing you to take over.  A child of divorce once told me as an adult that it would have just been nice to know she was worth fighting for... to know that her dad (in this instance) had kept trying to fight for her in court.

[PleaseValidate]

Your child is extremely lucky he has you for support.

I had no one. It was me, the BPDmo, a Grams who was possibly also uBPD and an abusive alcoholic crack-addict uncle. Nothing made sense. I excelled at school because most of my friends did, not because anyone monitored that. I took dance lessons because my mo resented her mo for not letting her do so. And although i enjoyed the lessons, i would have traded all 9 years of them in return to have never heard my mo tell me daily how poor we were and why everything was my fault. She itemized every penny she ever spent on me and would run down the list at least once a week.

By the age of 10, I was parenting a 27 year old unstable teenager. I really saw no choice other than try to "keep it together" because no one else could or would. I tried to become neither seen nor heard. When i was seen, i was yelled at for something one of the three of them fabricated. When i was heard, i was never listened to. All of the reasoning and rationalizing in the world would not get through. And oh, how i tried so hard with this one- topic sentences, factoid bullet points, modeling stable behaviors of the Jonses, etc. I believe my current addiction to facts can be traced back to these early years. Facts were so vilified in my home which only made them more seductive. I believe that my addiction to "facts" (in addition to my minor struggles with thought, logic and reasoning) led to my spiral into depression in my early teen years and kept me there for the next decade.

I received empty praise and thus i never received praise. I once brought home a report card with all "C's" (C meaning commendable and being the highest grade possible) and my Grams replied, "Wow, congratulations! Keep up the good work." It was only later that she laughed as i told my mom what "C" meant (I assume because she was not invested enough to read it herself) that my Grams chuckled, "Oh, I thought she got all "real Cs!"When i was late for school so many times that i got suspended, my mother told me, "maybe you should wake up and go." Good thinking.

So what would have helped me deal with my BPD parent? I think a nice start would've been if she gave me up for adoption. She did threaten to have me "put away" throughout the years. I now realize that you can not be "put away" for simultaneously crying while speaking facts, or for not putting your clothes away. In the 9th grade another girl my age, Amanda, who coincidentally also was an only child who lived w her mom and Grams, offered to let me live with her. Actually, her *mom directly* offered to let me stay there. In another universe, i am still with Amanda's mom, living in one of their many bedrooms, caring for her elderly Grams, and raising my fictionalized child.




PinkieV- i think you are doing a GREAT job! Just knowing that "normals" exist would have been of great help to me in my processing the situation. I also would've liked the opportunity to go to therapy, but i was denied that medical care. One of my mom's many mantras were: "You can't be depressed when you have such a wonderful mother!"     

[lucyhoneychurch]

Pinkie 

Wow, is he lucky he has you and his father. His bio mom is a huge huge rough start in his life, but the fact he has a safe place to land while she's bs'ing him long -distance - abusing his heart and mind with her own sick twisted stuff - I am hoping your ss will really feel as safe inside as he is outside.

what would've helped me? I am chiming in with PV in post above - I am like a crazy person about facts. The issues I currently have with anyone who's snowing me with some kind of crap is... . well I go way way way WAY too far re-establishing the facts (really what happened, not just my perspective but as basic as did it or did it NOT snow yesterday?) as a ground work for interactions. I hear or see someone tweaking what they said or did, to either hear what they want to hear afterwards or to not take accountability - I have to watch myself since I am not the fact police. But my very young years, as oldest of four, was being a tiny little mother to other siblings with *nobody* to look to for help - extended family steered clear of my mother to suit themselves - I have since asked them, in a letter I mailed a few years back, "What did you think that was like for us, that you were aware how horribly she treated us but took care of yourselves first?"

I knew I would get the "we didn't realize" stuff but they did - because they only made req'd visits to either see my passive silent father or just to shut her up (a few hours at best even if several states' drive).

I appreciate your ability to ask him what's up with his mother and then verbally remind him, "It's not you."

He will need that validation over and over even if he mentally gets it as he ages.

It was us right up to the day my abusive mother died a year ago.

Step-parents can get a bum rap sometimes but I have heard so many times over the years where a person has suffered with an abusive parent and the stepmom or stepdad was the stopgap loving protector.

So I guess what would've helped me, saved me, would've been just what you are already giving your SS. Time, attention, respect, validation, and mostly just lots of love.

Bless you for that.

[Contradancer]

I learned to cope, to some extent, in my early teens when I realized there was something mentally wrong with my mother that had nothing to do with me.

[Frameshift]

SS is in counseling and we know the counselor suspects a PD with BM, as did the GAL.  So he's getting targeted help from her. 

I'm not sure I entirely understand, are you saying he's developing borderline traits?

Regardless, I think growing up with such maladaptive role models makes it hard to understand normal interactions, so my advice would be to continue to model normal relational behavior. I think a place where this practice would become pivotal would be if he acts out, and you need to enact a punishment of some kind. In his past, punishment was capricious and likely centered upon "fixed" supposed moral failings he had (he's just a bad child, for example, that's why his room is messy, so why even bother developing a habit of tidying?). This makes it hard to accept legitimate criticism later, which is an incredibly important skill for an adult.

Luckily, 13 is still very young, and it sounds like he has a good relationship with his therapist so you have a strong ally in his learning. If you must punish, taking extra time to explain explicitly why you're enacting the punishment, giving him space to discuss whether he thinks it will work and fair alternatives if he finds your proposal unfair, and revisiting the topic when emotions aren't high all will go a long way to undo the damage of his chaotic upbringing.

I had to learn as an adult that I can have disagreement with friends or disappoint bosses without automatically becoming a deplorable person in their eyes, and was extremely lucky that my friends and supervisors were either trained in psychology or familiar with BPD. Demonstrating that you can be upset with someone without despising their existence or attempting to unseat someone's self-worth will be extremely helpful in undoing some of the maladaptive lessons he's learned from his mother. He's a lucky young man to have such a conscientious ally.

[PinkieV]

Hi everyone, and thank you for your kind words, encouragement, and advice!  We are lucky that at almost 14, SS has managed as well as he has after being solely with his mom for 10+ years.  She is very good at parental alienation, and it was just a fluke that my DH found out she was going to jail for a year and filed for emergency custody.

Frameshift, SS is not exhibiting any borderline traits.  From what she says to us or asks us, it seems like the counselor suspects mom has a PD, as did the guardian ad litem.  The counselor has told us that he developed very good coping skills to deal with his mom and the situation.  One was to stay her "little boy" to stay out of the line of fire.  He is very sweet, but also VERY immature, but it kept him safer, for the most part.

It's funny that you mention disagreements.  This is the one area that we see "issues", other than the immaturity.  Take school.  DH gets alerts for good grades and low grades.  When he sits down to talk to SS about low grades, more often than not, SS will get really loud, upset, and emotional.  DH will keep speaking calmly and telling him he's not attacking him, just having a conversation, and he'll calm down.  But we think this is a remnant of dealing with his mom, and getting her to back off when he'd had enough.

Contradancer, we're hoping that SS will get to this point too.  I think mentally he's there, but emotionally, he can't give up the belief that his mom is a sweet woman who's been victimized by everyone she ever met, including her own parents and sisters.

Lucyhoneychurch, his mom's sisters and parents knew there were a lot of issues, a lot of things wrong, and so many times came this close to calling CPS on her.  They are really good, nice people, and I think they didn't want to believe she could be doing the things she did on purpose.  She kept the kids (SS18 and SS13 along with their younger sister from another husband) alienated from family when they didn't behave the way she wanted.  So they walked a very fine line to try to keep the kids in their lives as best as they could.  They were so relieved when DH got custody, and welcomed us into the family with open arms.  Talk about shock!  And I know that just about had to kill SS's mom.

PleaseValidate, I'm so sorry for everything you endured growing up.  Reading about the offer from your friend's mom brought tears to my eyes.  Have you kept in touch with that friend?  I bet even now she would love to hear from you.

We praise SS a lot because he hasn't ever had it.  Not overdoing it, but just letting him know it's okay to celebrate his accomplishments.  The look on his face when I surprised him with a $10 iTunes gift card when he made honor roll was priceless.

Sanemom, we have no idea what she has told the boys over the years.  We figure it's pretty bad, since she writes letters and SS leaves them around for us to read.  She tells him straight out lies in those, and the boys will both mention things from time to time that DH and/or I immediately correct.  Once I read that taking the high road wasn't the best action, we started having conversations about it.  Sometimes we address the comments immediately, other times it's later. 

For instance, SS13 told me that he only remembered visiting DH once and they went to Disneyland, but that his dad had to work the rest of the time and didn't want them.  I asked DH about it, and he told me that mom and her bf brought the kids to visit and she let him see the boys for one afternoon, even though they were there for a week.  It would make SS13 so sad to hear the whole unvarnished truth, so DH just brought up how lucky he was to go to Disneyland with him again when we were there last month.  Then he said "and I'm glad you're with me all the time, I always wanted that.  That's why I arranged my work now so I can take you and pick you up from school every day".  I know we'll have to deal with much more horrible truths, especially with the custody issue, and I'm scared what it will do to SS13.  I'm so glad we've been proactive, that he likes his counselor so much, and that the counselor understands PDs.

Sitara, you're right about the discipline.  Like I mentioned earlier, he really has an issue with people being upset with him.  We are learning how to handle this with him so he feels safe and can calm down.  He is normally very mellow, and a sweetheart.  Both the boys are really awesome and must have some heavy survival skills.

Phew, sorry this is so long, but I wanted to acknowledge and thank you all.

[appleman]

Honestly, I don't know that there's anything I could have done differently short of having the wisdom I achieved in my 40s back when I was a child.  In many ways I was also a parent to my Mom.  If I didn't play the role of her amateur therapist and agree with every negative thing she said about anyone else I loved, I'd have been ostracized.

I look for ways to cope with the FOO now of no-contact and I do what I can to keep myself emotionally healthy now, but as a child one doesn't have to tools to work with that they have as an adult.

[CrazyNoMore]

I've been a long time lurker for a while on this board and occasionally post, although not so much in the last years.

What would have helped me would have been if someone, anyone, could have done what you are doing now.  Providing a safe place, both physically and emotionally, and keep telling me that it wasn't me, it wasn't my fault, that there's nothing I could do or not do to ward off the rages. 

Bless you for your kindness and love to this child.

[Islandgrl]

Hi pinkie

I'd echo what crazynomore said.  I would have loved to have had a safe place and someone to care what happened to me.  I stayed often at friends but I didn't feel I could share what was happening or make them understand and as other children they weren't in a position to help.  Bless you for your kindness to this child.