Did your BPD parent love you?

[Ziggiddy]

How can you tell if they do things out of love for you or to chalk up a credit?

Are people with this disorder capable of love? Or something like?

It occurred to me yesterday that maybe my definition of love is warped by impaired upbringing.

It would be easier to try and work toward some kind of amicable r'ship if I felt like I understood. Today I saw UBPDm briefly - she is getting distressed as she senses my withdrawal and I admit I lack motivation to even try to be 'friends'

Because I was unwell she had so many concerns/cures for what ails me. It seemed like love, then cynicism gripped me and I wondered if it was just an opportunity to be needed or display superior knowledge.

It felt like 'being cared for by mum' in the way i always wanted but I don't know how to trust the motive. Are there clues? Do you get better at discerning what's behind it? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated

[scallops]

dear Ziggiddy

Welcome to the family. I am sorry you are struggling with your M. I want to encourage you to read more about BPD. There are a lot of articles here and are very helpful. When a family member has BPD, the illness can negatively affect everyone in the family system, including children, siblings, and in-laws. Senior members on the [L5]  Coping and Healing from a BPD Parent, Sibling, or Inlaw board are experienced with and can help you with setting boundaries, finding relief from FOG, encouraging self-care, improving your handling of relationships impacted by your BPD relative, and pursuing a path of recovery from traumatic experiences. The validation, information, and support will give you strength on your journey.

Is your M getting any counseling? ARe you getting any help?

Children of BPD Parents: Reclaiming Our Lost Selves

Coping when a Family Member has BPD Lessons/Survivor's Guide to Childhood Abuse

I want to encourage to post on the healing board... . there are many here going through the same struggles as you... . you are not alone... .

[clljhns]

Ziggiddy,

Even at almost 50, I still struggle with this as well. I recently posted a question very similar to this, and so when I saw yours, I wanted to respond.

Whenever I received any scraps of kindness by my mother, it left an indelible mark upon me that I could not shake, and yet at the same time, could not believe. My childhood was a mix of stroke your head with one hand (on rare occasions), and then pull you hair with the other.

I really didn't trust what was behind the kindness. When I went into therapy, I really tried to make sense of all this. My therapist reframed these situations by telling me this was my mothers fantasy moment, not mine. So when my mother was having a fantasy of being the kind and caring mother, we would see fleeting glimpses of this. Usually, it was followed by her raging at one of the other siblings, because they were disturbing the sick child.

The bottom line for me is that my parents were incapable of real love. I know deep down in their souls they know what they have done, and have the memory of what love really is. It just isn't important enough to them to dig deeply and find it. I don't know if this makes sense, and I hope that I am not hurting you with my words.

I can say, that I still wait for the day that they will call and tell me they are sorry and they love me. So, I do hold hope for a better ending.

Peace and blessings 

[AsianSon]

Hi Ziggiddy,

Your question made me think.  Love is so simple and so complex at the same time. 

I recently came across a "definition" that I thought was pretty good:  love is wanting to take care of, or to give up something (big or small) for, someone.  (There is a quick side note that there shouldn't be any ulterior motives.) 

I liked the definition and did not realize (at the time) that it was only from the viewpoint of the person doing the wanting.  The definition does not take into account the someone who is the subject of the love. 

I think your question is whether a pwBPD "loves" under the above definition.  I suspect that pwBPD, in their minds, believe and feel that they "love" their children (maybe because they probably don't recognize any ulterior motives they might have). 

This is not to say that the pwBPD actually does enough for the children to feel loved.  It also does not say that whatever the pwBPD does is enough to overcome the BPD negatives put upon the children. 

Your question (and the comments from clijhns) also made me wonder if you might mean whether we children feel loved.  This is completely different because we can remember to control what we accept as love.  And we don't have to give up any boundaries to do so!

If someone (even a pwBPD) gives a kindness, we can choose to accept it as love, and so feel loved.  Of course if there is an ulterior motive, or the kindness is nothing compared to the negative, it might be impossible to accept it as love. 

I think we should trust our instincts on this, and with this acceptance, remove another space that others rent in our heads. 

Peace to us all. 

[MyLifeNow]

I do believe that my dad loved me and still does. I can't be certain because I was so young when my parents got divorced, but I think my mom got the brunt of his BPD behaviors. I can remember a time when I felt free to be myself and not having to worry at all about his emotional state. I do recall during this time feeling that love. It wasn't until some time after she left that it all turned on me, because he had nobody else left to use to manage his emotional state.

If he loved me before, he must love me now even if for a long while now everything he has done has been to try and keep some hold over me. Last fall when I went limited contact with him I was furious with him over the way he has treated me in recent years. After I got into therapy and, at the end of it, learned about BPD that started to change. This is how I think of it, if someone who loved you was drowning and you jumped in to save them without a life preserver they might try to climb on top of you, drowning you in the process. It's kind of a hard wired survival instinct, to push yourself out of the water. Even though they're hurting (and potentially drowning you) they still love you, they just don't have that much control over how they're behaving. I still get a little angry over the things he's done, but not angry at him really.

So I think the trick is to throw a life preserver and remember that as dangerous as it can be to get close, deep down the love is still there. It's just hidden behind a desperate survival instinct.

[StarStruck]

Hi Ziggiddy - I think she thought it was love. So this type of love mixed with nasty times.

Being able to empathize is an important component in being able to love unconditionally. From what I know, BPD lack empathy (for reasons to do with their background/their FOO/their experiences), then they have built a defense mechanism to survive.

Instincts are there to guide us but it's sometimes difficult to believe them ie: no one wants to come to the conclusion that a parent/s didn't love them in the same way 'a non' knows love.

I think this saying's quite helpful regarding a sum up of an individual, although a little short/sharp; If you feel loved you are, if you don't you're not.

Peace.

[Ziggiddy]

Firstly thank you for all those great replies. Each one so different yet helping me create a coherent picture and better questions. Also sharpening up my realisation that I need to do a lot of checking of reality because I think my (and maybe all of our) realities have been deeply affected by having been formed under the guidance of people who live in a whole other reality.

You raised an excellent point here, StarStruck

Instincts are there to guide us but it's sometimes difficult to believe them ie: no one wants to come to the conclusion that a parent/s didn't love them in the same way 'a non' knows love.

I think this saying's quite helpful regarding a sum up of an individual, although a little short/sharp; If you feel loved you are, if you don't you're not.

As I learn to measure current reality (as seen outside of the perspective I had before under the influence of disordered parents) I may feel safer trusting my instincts.

MyLifeNow

I do believe that my dad loved me and still does.

If he loved me before, he must love me now

This is worth some reflection I think. I guess love that has an enduring quality about it is much more easy to believe than one that is fleeting or appears to be attached to obligation. It helps me understand what love is NOT!

  I suspect that pwBPD, in their minds, believe and feel that they "love" their children

AsianSon this is an excellent point. And it begs the question is that the same definition by which we view love? if it's an apple to me but an orange to someone else, how will we ever compare our experience? I will have to think about that.

Is your M getting any counseling? ARe you getting any help?

I want to encourage to post on the healing board... . there are many here going through the same struggles as you... . you are not alone... .

Hi scallops - thanks for theat. I have read the articles and both relieving and moving at the same time. I think I burned great laser holes in my eyes from staring at the screen last night! utterly fascinating. Thank you for referencing them and correcting the board I wrote on.

Mum doesn't accept that her behaviour is out of the ordinary so not interested in getting help currently.

I am seeing a counsellor who is helping a lot.

And I am overwhelmed by the kindness, validation and insight so many here have. A level of self honesty I cannot ever remember seeing in such a large # of people.

clljhns

Whenever I received any scraps of kindness by my mother, it left an indelible mark upon me that I could not shake,

YES! I totally read that! it makes me kind of sad - they must have been quite isolated events to have left such an imprint


The bottom line for me is that my parents were incapable of real love. I know deep down in their souls they know what they have done, and have the memory of what love really is

That must have been a very hard thing to accept. It is at the heart of my inner conflict. if I can think "Monster" I can move from there but the lucid moments wreck all that. If there was kindness, can it have been from other motives? if so then Not Monster and  don't know what to think next.



I don't know if this makes sense, and I hope that I am not hurting you with my words.

It makes a lot of sense and no, I have interacted with you enough to know that you don't show unkindness or malice and are careful not to hurt people. And I prefer honest questions as then I can learn what my honest answers are.

I guess it's worth me having a good look at what I define as love. Not love refracted through the prism of an emotionally compromised pair of people any hwo. Thank you all for your insight and honesty.

cldjhns

I would be very interested to read the thread you mentioned - do you know how I can find it?

[StarStruck]

As I learn to measure current reality (as seen outside of the perspective I had before under the influence of disordered parents) I may feel safer trusting my instincts.

This is something I have been practicing - actioning my instincts. You can with thought change your behavior to situations - to stop and think for a moment, then listen to your gut... big bunch of nerves there connect to your brain... it's a valuable tool. You will gain confidence to trust your judgement and allow yourself to stick up for your rights. In time it's gets easier to do and you become more assertive - you've applied boundaries ... and 'they/whoever' knows it.

[clljhns]

Hi Ziggiddy,

The thread you are asking about is titled ":)id they ever really love me?"

I wanted to add that I am not sure if you have read the effects of a BPD parent on a child. Very insightful article and I think that it might answer some of your questions. You can find the article under the resources on this board.

One thing that I think you should remember is that you are lovable and a beautiful person who deserves to be loved and treated with kindness and respect. It is so difficult, when we did not receive this from our parents, but it is still a truth. I wonder if you are doing any reading about loving the self? I have included a  link that I found helpful, as I did not have a framework from which to understand how to love myself.

www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Learning_How_to_Love_Yourself.html

Peace and blessings to you 

[livednlearned]

One thing that I think you should remember is that you are lovable and a beautiful person who deserves to be loved and treated with kindness and respect. It is so difficult, when we did not receive this from our parents, but it is still a truth. I wonder if you are doing any reading about loving the self?

This is so true.

And so hard.

I found that practicing gratitude really helped me with this, and being mindful and in the moment, asserting boundaries, etc. but I don't know that I experienced real self love until I experienced intense grief about not feeling loved. It's almost like I had to practice the acts of self love in order to create safe enough conditions so I could really feel the grief. I'm still trying to make sense of it -- I guess I had expected the grief to lift, but it hasn't, at least not completely.

[P.F.Change]

How can you tell if they do things out of love for you or to chalk up a credit?

Are people with this disorder capable of love? Or something like?

Who can say what another person feels? It may not be possible to decide what someone is really feeling or whether they intend to be manipulative. Sometimes we can see, sometimes we can't.

Yes, I think people with BPD are capable of feeling love. As others said, they do struggle with empathy and have a tendency to objectify others, so that can interfere. I think my mother loves me the best she knows how, which certainly isn't perfect. Her love was also mixed in with a great deal of turmoil and abuse, so it left me feeling confused instead of secure. I think this is the article clljhns was mentioning above, which talks a lot about how BPD impacts attachment: Article 8: How a Mother with Borderline Personality Disorder Affects Her Children

I also think what you said about not knowing what healthy love is supposed to look like is really common here. This article is geared toward people thinking about their romantic relationships, but it still might help--especially since our relationships with our peers tend to mirror the ones we have with our FOO: Article 15: The Characteristics of Healthy Relationships

Wishing you peace,

PF

[Ziggiddy]

Thank you for the articles you guys have referred me to. Not just useful for the query I made but also for the links. Lo and behold the further I went the more I began recognising the narcissistic qualities my mother has. It was very difficult to translate actions into criteria eg lack of empathy. How can I think she has a lack of empathy when she has hugged me when I've been upset? But then thinking about her inability to see other people's side of the story especially when she  is feeling slighted, ignored or criticised. Hmm.

I recalled a time when out family of 4 stayed with friends for 2 weeks in a tiny house camping out on the lounge floor. The family gave up all their routines and engagements to entertain and host us despite 2 very young children. 2 days before we were due to leave the lady confessed when asked that it was getting too much for her. Mum packed us up in a huff and barely spoke to that lady ever again. When I asked why it was because of "how she kicked us out even though we were supposed to be her friends".

Is that a lack of empathy? Being unable to see how trying it is to have 4 (very loud) people intruding on every aspect of your life for such a long time? To lack even the appreciation of all the meals that were cooked for us, all the outings cancelled to hang out with us but to believe wholeheartedly that she had been the 'good' one by providing the odd takeaway and getting dad to give them a bit of money to cover costs? It occurs to me that feels something like.

So I guess the question I needed to define is "What is it that I think love really is?"

I read a few definitions but was very much struck by one from a biblical description

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

As a guideline that fairly summed up a whole heap for me. Patience? Fail Not envious? Fail. Not easily angered? FAIL exponentially. Keeps no account? My father handed me a statement of all the costs each of us incurred from birth to leaving home. Hmm. Always protects. Do I roll my eyes or break down weeping? Anyway it's a good as any place to start.

livedandlearned - thank you for your useful comments about feeling the grief. I have been terrified of feeling grief and I have an irrational and excessive fear of pain but what you said gives me hope that it is copable at least!

I hope you find some security and ease for your grief 

One thing that I think you should remember is that you are lovable and a beautiful person who deserves to be loved and treated with kindness and respect. It is so difficult, when we did not receive this from our parents, but it is still a truth. I wonder if you are doing any reading about loving the self? I have included a  link that I found helpful, as I did not have a framework from which to understand how to love myself.

cldjhns your statement shocked and then moved me. I never thought about feeling like I deserve love. At least not that I can remember. I've felt very grateful for people's kindnesses but I guess that is not the same thing. Thank you for saying such a soul affirming thing. 

What a relief this board is. Finally feel like I am seeing myself.