a wise Bettelheim story and my painful eyeglasses story

[bethanny]

I shared the following on this website way back in 2011.  I felt it was time to re-process the experience but I knew I had put the story together long ago with some effort and detail so I went back and hunted for it.  Thanks for listening!  

In a book by Bruno Bettelheim I read years and years ago, I think it might have been the Good Enough Mother, he tells an anecdote about a mother who consults him to deal with a problem with her toddler son.  Now I am paraphrasing the story from memory best I can.  

Apparently the little boy’s potty training was going well and then suddenly the boy refused to use the toilet.

When presented with the case from the mother, Bettelheim immediately asked the mother, “What does he say about why he won’t use the potty any more?”

The mother looked at Bettelheim dumbfounded.  “I never asked him.”  

SHE NEVER ASKED HIM!

Bettelheim challenged the mother.  “Why on earth would you not ask him?”

“Well, I thought you could tell me better than he, of course.”

Bettelheim had the mother bring the child into the room and directly asked him why he wasn’t using the potty.  If I am recalling correctly, the child readily explained to the doctor that he had decided to toilet train the cat one day, and it didn’t go well, traumatizing himself along with the cat.  This fiasco made him reluctant to want to deal with the toilet.

The child had the answer.  Of course he did.  

The obtuse mother didn’t bother asking, didn’t even contemplate asking him what his problem was with the toilet.  He was the owner of the problem.  He was more object than aware human being to her.

I was so exasperated with that mother since she reminded me of my own mother who seemed to second guess my needs and feelings without ever respecting me enough to ask what they might be.  

This anecdote also reminded me of a painful memory in my own life.

I was beginning seventh grade.  Transitions were hard for me and I remember being quite moody and rebellious (for me at least) that year.  Having an alcoholic father and a upbd mother did not make adolescence any easier for sure.  In spite of having been a very docile child, I did have serious mood swings of anger and grief that year I remember.  Probably from having been so parentified during the preteen years. And adolescence, a healthy one, involves rebellion, does it not?

My mother had removed all the locks from the children’s bedrooms the day we moved in years earlier, so I frequently slammed into the bathroom and locked that door to ensure privacy for frequent crying jags.  

I apparently was going through both an emotional and physical growth spurt that year.

A doctor pointed out that I had scoliosis so I had to go to therapy and my mother fretted about this.  My father hung a bar in the cellar I was supposed to hang from and I think I did once.  Though my mother assured the therapist when we went I exercised every day.  I wondered if she believed this or was telling the authority figure what she wanted to hear.   It was odd she relayed it to the therapist with such conviction and never checked its veracity with me. I probably would have lied to her.

A dentist pointed out that I thrusted my tongue when I swallowed and needed braces.  So that was additional time and expense for family and shame for me among my peers.

I was taller than most of my classmates and my mother always insisted I wear my hair short like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music because otherwise I wouldn’t take care of it if it were longer.  Her assumption.  I had no input. She accompanied me to the hairdressers and they always mutually decided that.  I hated my short hair.  I felt like it made my head look small.

I discovered also that my eyesight was failing.  I was very nearsighted and the thought of wearing glasses on top of the height, hairdo, braces felt so cruel of God.  Nevertheless, I told my mother since the world to me was becoming blurrier and blurrier.  I was having trouble at school seeing the board.  I had a dreamy math teacher whom I was extra shy around.  I was shy to begin with.  He put daily quizzes on the board.  I would try to borrow the glasses of a nice girl who sat next to me, Linda, but she was out frequently.  So when she was out I couldn’t make out the arithmetic problems from my row.

I told my mother about my need for glasses.  She nodded and said she would take care of it, but she certainly seemed to be under-reacting to the situation, especially for her.  But you didn’t tell my mother more than the facts.  She was God.  So I waited.

I waited and nothing happened.  I told her again.  She nodded and said she would take care of it.

I told the math teacher I couldn’t see the board and he put me in the first row.  I discovered to my horror I still couldn’t see the board and now I didn’t even have my friend nearby to borrow her glasses.  I also felt like to tell him I couldn’t see the board even now would make him ask me why I didn’t get glasses and the reality of sharing that I was waiting for my mother to do something daunted me so I shut up and started flunking the daily quizzes.    (Years later the family, myself included, all remembered me as being bad in math.  It became part of the family mythology.  I couldn’t see the bloody board.  I was good in math before then.)

I told my mother more times I needed glasses.  Same scenario.  She assured me she would take care of it.

I began to smile at everyone in school rather meekly since I didn’t want to offend and snub people I knew so I covered myself with this apologetic little smile-mask.  I also hovered around my mother when we went shopping because if we got separated I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find her. I remember once her exclaiming impatiently, “Why have you gotten so clingy?  What on earth is wrong with you?”  No,  I didn’t say because I can’t see anything.  I wish I had but my mother’s pronouncements about me did not seem solicitations for information.  They were shaming declarations.

Finally, in gym class near the end of the year they had the dreaded eye tests.  I embarrassed myself in front of gym teacher and fellow students because when they said read the lowest line you could read I said “E” not because I could see it, but because I knew that was at the top and I couldn’t even see that.

They contacted my parents and my mother immediately dragged me to an eye doctor.  I announced to him “E” again since I knew that was on the top.  He turned to my mother and declared, “Dear God!  This child is legally blind.  How has she been functioning?”

My mother to the doctor launched into this long involved story about how one of my best friends in the seventh grade had just gotten reading glasses and my mother was sure I had lied about not being able to see so I could get reading glasses like her. A friend had gotten reading glasses. That in no way inspired me to want them. Ick.

She had never told me she thought I was lying about not seeing and why.  

When we came out of the doctor’s office my mother flew into a rage and shook me by the shoulders.  “Why did you humiliate me in front of the doctor?  Why didn’t you tell me you couldn’t see?”

I was stunned.  “I told you a lot of times I couldn’t see.”

She was ready to explode.  “BUT WHY DIDN’T YOU MAKE ME SEE YOU COULDN’T SEE?”

What?

I had stumbled around legally blind for God knows how long after telling her I needed glasses, she had presumed I was lying about this and then SHE is enraged at ME for not making her SEE I COULDN’T SEE?”  NO EMPATHY FOR MY LEGAL BLINDNESS ALL THAT TIME! NOT HER FEELING AT ALL GUILTY SHE HAD ASSUMED I HAD LIED TO HER AND I HAD NOT!

Of course, my mother was a uBPD and I could not only not express my anger at her at that moment, I had to pretty much swallow and repress it from myself for survival with her.  She got to feel the rage.  I who deserved to have rage, could not safely process a legitimate response to such an insulting situation.

I entered the eighth grade with glasses and a re-broken spirit.  My uBPD mother held all the aces, and I had better do whatever she said if I wanted to survive life, like being able to see more than two feet in front of me.

[polly87]

Hi Bethanny,

I just read your story and it made me very sad that you were put through this and not taken seriously. It reminds me a lot of my own mother, who also refused to give me glasses even though I could not read the blackboard (I am near-sighted). Years later, during my driver's test I had to read out a licence plate of a car that was parked some way ahead up the street. I guessed the numbers but I happened to guess correctly. I learned all the traffic signs in my home town by heart so that I would cause any accidents. It was only a year ago when I finally got glasses and I found that I could actually read traffic signs while driving! 

Your story also reminds my of my T. I have told her so often that I need more intensive therapy. She has refused time after time. I realised today how hard it is to speak up for yourself if the other person is not willing to help. You can scream and shout but they just will not listen. It is so sad. I hope you can find the strength to deal with the meanness you were subjected to in your youth.

Wishing you the best.

[GreenGlit]

Thanks for another very insightful and fascinating post. There is a quality to your mother's anger that is so similar to mine - it's really validating to read someone's stories and feel like I'm not alone. The story about your eyeglasses is simply heartbreaking. Such a tangible example of how your mother saw you as a direct extension of herself, to such an extent that to her, her thoughts were yours. The idea that you might have experiences or thoughts that are different from her own assumptions is not even in the realm of possibilities to her. You asked for glasses because you couldn't see? Absurd. But somehow you were expected to alert her when these "misunderstandings" arose (i.e. you were supposed to KNOW she believed you were lying, and then "make her see that you couldn't see". It's so illogical and absurd, but that's the world of BPD.

The eyeglasses story reminds me a lot of how I felt around my family, particularly around my uBPD sister, who in many ways was very similar to my uBPD mom. She was very selfish - and not intentionally I don't believe. But she was very... .egocentric, if that's a better term. In her eyes, everyone had similar thoughts and motivations to her own, and whoever said otherwise was lying because of some ulterior motive. That was the whole world to her. She thought she knew everyone.

I was always an odd duck in my family. Partially because of being raised largely by my kind, nurturing, and loving nanny for 16 years while my mother was working. Partially because I think I was just born that way. Partially because my feelings didn't matter to others in my immediate family, since they already "knew" what I wanted (after all everyone thought like them, right?) and if I said otherwise, it was because I didn't know better. I grew up keenly aware of the emotional needs of other people because I was always expected to know/understand my mother's and cater to her. I was basically completely selfless since I needed to be to survive.

The expectation to always care for my mother seeped into my friendships and relationships outside of the home. I found that I was always trying to understand the motivations and needs of others around me, and I felt an urge to resolve their problems or help them through a tough moment. While I was obligated to do it at home and hated it, that awareness of the feelings of others somehow evolved into making me a kind person in real life. I figured, I was suffering - so who knows what other people are living in their own homes. I defended and protected the class nerd (I was a pretty strong little girl), and would give my new crayons to the poor kid whose parents couldn't afford any, etc. I think, in my own way, being kind to others was also my way of feeling like I could do something good, since in my house I felt completely useless and powerless.

I remember describing this motivation to understand others around me and to go out of my way to be kind to others with my sister. She would laugh and say, "Come on, V, nobody thinks that way. That's complete bullsh*t. You want something in return." Or something like "quit sucking up to mom and dad, nobody's that NICE just to be NICE. Please." Perhaps I was seeking friendships, support, alliances, and love... .but it wasn't with the expectation I would get something back. I'm not saying this to say that I think I'm awesome. But I do know that I'm a well-intentioned person who likes to see other people happy.

When I moved to the city my sister lived to start medical school, we spent 5 days together, just us. It was the first time in basically our whole lives that we had some real alone time. We talked a lot, about life and philosophy and our wants for the future. At one point she got really quiet and said, "You know... .I never believed you when you talked about being nice to others. But I guess you ACTUALLY think that way. I don't understand why - I just don't get it. But I guess you are just a nice person. I didn't think people like that existed." That moment was the closest she's ever come to catching a glimpse of the real me. It was a fleeting moment. I was elated that for the first time in my life my sister actually SAW me, not through her own lens, but through mine. But that feeling was overwhelmed by sadness when I realized she really believed genuinely nice people didn't exist in the world. It must be a very sad world she lives in. My mom's world.

The comment about "Why in the world didn't you ask him?" - I so relate to that. Nobody ever asked what I wanted, felt, dreamed of. Nobody ever asked me what made me sad, or why. My "needs" and "wants" were always "known" - because mother knows best, and knows what's good for me. Mother would seek answers to questions about me not through me, but through other means - much like the mother in that story asked the doctor first. She "knows" me because, in her world, I am her. I am an extension of her. It led to a lot of arguments because not only would she assume she knew what I was thinking, but she would catastrophize everything and assume the worst.

I have a vivid memory of one of my mother's birthdays when I was in middle school. My sister and I spent several hours at the mall selecting two really nice designer track suits (the pants with matching zip up jackets that were so popular in the early 2000s). She wanted something casual that was comfortable that she could also wear to run errands. We spent a huge amount of time selecting the nicest ones. One was a lovely maroon velvety one from Juicy and another dark green one from Ralph Lauren. We carefully packaged and wrapped them, put a bow on it, and wrote her a nice card. We woke her up in the morning and gave her the gifts while she was in bed with my dad. We were so excited.

She opened the gifts and looked at them, at first excited. But then she frowned and said, "You got me two? Why? You probably just went to the mall and snatched the first two you saw so you could be done looking for our mother's birthday gift. Because who cares enough to look for different gifts? Not you apparently."

I started to cry. My sister did too. I must have been 12 or 13. It should have been ok if I would have given her a hug and said "happy birthday, love you mom," much less scoured the mall for hours selecting the perfect items, and getting two of them no less. But despite all our efforts to make things perfect, she was dissatisfied. In her mind, she would have gotten two different things. The only explanation, to her, that made sense out of the fact she got two of the same "kind of thing" was that we just didn't care to look for other things. She never asked how we picked them, or even said thank you. Instead she told us we were ungrateful for not looking enough or trying harder. It was so hurtful, made me so angry, and at the same time consumed me with guilt and regret for being a bad daughter. For failing to make mom happy. So confusing. How was I supposed to ever please her?

Turns out I never figured out how. Now I stopped trying, which at least makes ME happy.

Bethanny, I hope you can find peace and forgive your mother. I carry a lot of resentment towards mine. How cruel it is to feel so misunderstood by the one person in the world who is supposed to love us and know us the most. At the same time, the more "normal" my life continues to become based on the choices I make and the people I choose to surround myself with, the more I can see so clearly that my mother is incredibly ill. She can't enjoy her own blessed life, her good fortune, her daughter's successes, our husbands, our careers, my incredible friendships, or her own retirement - all because her illness consumes her and twists every good thing into something ugly. She also has no concept of how much her actions and words have damaged me and have created obstacles in my life that I have had to overcome. At the end of the day, I am incredibly sad for her. She has missed out on being happy. She has failed me in so many ways, but I think she believes she tried her best. I guess there is some credit in that. I would be curious to hear your feelings on your mom now. Do you resent her? Feel sad for her? Indifferent? My feelings have evolved so much over the years, and I'm only in my late 20s. I'd be curious to hear your evolution.

Keep fighting, my friend and fellow survivor,

Greenglit

[CeliaBea]

Hi All, Hi Bethanny,

Thanks for posting your summary of Bettelheim's story (I remember reading him a long, long time ago—something about fairy tales) and for sharing your experiences. It must have been very difficult to navigate school etc. with such vision problems. And then, your mother not believing you and blaming you—that must have been horrible.

BPD mothers seem to rarely see their children, or others in general, as autonomous beings with rights, opinions, or needs. My mother, too, doesn't ask questions; she simply assumes all kind of things (often absurd ones). I don't remember her asking me anything, ever, regardless of whether I was struggling at school or crying (I was very depressed as a teenager). Her MO was to assume, accuse, project, and blame.  :'(

Best,

Celia

[bethanny]

Polly,

Thanks for your empathy about this frustrating episode in my history.

I too was and am seriously near-sighted.  Sounds like you too were trapped in the fog and had to be resourceful and overcompensate to function.  We were like little guerrilla fighters in our childhood jungles to try to survive.

You know I have an acquaintance who lives near me. I have detached over the years from a lot of people, been isolating a lot in general, but also this woman could be very righteous and dominating about things.  I respect her astuteness.  She is smart and has not had an easy life. But I often felt easily controlled by her.

I have felt guilty for being so remote for so long.  I asked her if we could grab dinner some time when we accidentally crossed paths recently.

When I called her to arrange the dinner I told her a few needs I had about my schedule of working nights.  When I finished she countered with a detailed plan that stunned me.  She chose the restaurant I didn't know without thinking twice though I had my own in mind, an inconvenient time for me as if she had never heard me just explain my circumstances.

I felt punched in the gut.  I also felt a familiar disorientation and a sense of futility and premature surrender that always got triggered with my mother, and with people who seemed to have that domineering way abou them. And people who creep you out by defying what you just said in a crazy way. I get afraid of them instead of outraged by the disrespect.

After all the consciousness raising about surrendering my will growing up, I totally went with the woman and her plan. Shaved off sleep.  Went to her choice of a restaurant when she didn't even factor in my wishes, my taste in foods, my economic feedback re the meal. Some of it was guilt over my obvious remoteness from her. But part of it was my old passivity triggered.

I was repelled but I did not do the healthy and self respecting and even respecting of her honest confrontation.  I thought, oh yes, I remember and she was dominating and I will follow up with this one meal, allaying my guilt and also having re-tested the potential of this relationship, and assuming I should detach once again.

I wanted to try a reconnection but within a NY second, I was ready to detach again.  I don't want to play handmaiden to anyone ever.  But I did play handmaiden by going along.  Like a zombie in a way.

So we had lunch.  It was pleasant.  And the conversation was interesting and it was nice to reconnect with someone whom I have stuff in common with and who once had more interaction with me. But she is someone that I automatically would walk on egg shells with during those ODD moments I sensed would still come as they had once in a while come in the past and I don't want to do that any more. And her obtuseness about my lunch needs was just so darkly gobsmacking to me. I didn't want to do the work of pushing against the display of narcissism.  Yet I wimpily following up with the lunch. Sigh. 

Why didn't I challenge what she did in the moment. Why didn't I negotiate more for my needs.  I asserted them easily and clearly to begin with. But she simply ignored them. And I think that bit of crazy and narcissism makes me not want to engage with someone. Makes me hold my breath, do the deer in front of crazy headlights mode, and ease my way out of it.  My PTSD trigger. In face of extreme narcissism I go back to infant vulnerable time.

I can be so distressingly passive.  Maybe also I am choosing my battles.  Maybe also I am just plain tired.  Let me tiptoe away from narcissistic people or people too easily showing me narcissistic behavior.

I am not always passive.  I have become much more assertive over the years.  I still have struggles with people from my past who were used to a more pliant me and I seem to pick up that old script, even though I have detached from many in my past. I keep procrastinating getting back in touch with them.  But I also have a struggle with my tendency to be codependent and to automatically sacrifice my needs at the drop of a hat the way my mother demanded, even though sometimes she would criticize me for being so passive.  She did so much to make me passive and then mocked it when I was passive with people she didn't want me to be passive with. One more instance of the double-binding that was crazymaking for us.

Thanks for writing and listening to all this.  So hard to combat the hardwiring.

best,

bethanny

[bethanny]

Greenglit,

Thanks for commenting on this one.  Yeah, "Why didn't you make me see you couldn't see" has got to be a classic in uBPD crazymaking.

Thanks for expressing this:

(i.e. you were supposed to KNOW she believed you were lying, and then "make her see that you couldn't see". It's so illogical and absurd, but that's the world of BPD.

That was so insulting. Someone wrongly blames you for lying and then is angry at you for not having lied and embarrassing her before the authority figure. My mother prided herself on tending to her children's physical needs.  So if anyone else suggested she "should" do something to take care of us she was on it. But not if it came from the proverbial horse's mouth.

What haunts me further is that in 7th grade I was rebellious and then the sight challenge was very convenient in keeping me in line for her.  Finally my getting the glasses was a reminder how dependent I was on her good will and I became less rebellious and obsequious as I recall.

My mother used to suddenly flare up and make a declaration at me, like once "you always have to copy and be like everyone else" when I asked for a shirt connected to a tv show. 

It was so not true. I often wore expensive hand me downs from my cousins.  They were nicer clothes than I would have gotten first hand but they were second hand which was a bit of a bummer.  But i didn't argue or ask for much with my mother. i knew not to.  But then she would rant away in a rage about this was me and it so wasn't.  I didn't often ask for anything but having her go off like that was terrifying.  I didn't deserve it.  And I just stood and looked at her in confusion and hurt, and of course, arguing with her was too terrifying and futile.

Greenglit, one of my brothers treated me like the mole in a game of whack a mole.  The raging and shaming he did at me was gobsmacking.  For years of high school he vilified me for liking the "wrong" music.  How can someone like the wrong music? You like it or not.  But if you didn't like the music he liked, you were an idiot.  Music was one example of many.

I am glad you had a loving nanny and for 16 years.  I am glad my grandmother and great aunt seemed to love me unconditionally and an aunt I respected. My mother didn't bully me when I was in their presence.  I think she was jealous of my bond with her mother. She and her mother seemed to be respectful to each other and my mother was a devoted daughter good girl, but there was a bit of a strain. Was my grandmother uBPD to my mother?  Some anecdotes seem to suggest that. 

Yes, we were mandated to be selfless to survive. And when we had opportunities to explore the world we were in jeopardy of being crucified figuratively by our mothers for our grotesque selfishness and shamelessness. 

I so relate to your caretaking inclinations with others. I preferred being the giver than the taker.  To me taking from someone would allow them to presume that I owed them too much of myself. 

I read in Codependent No More I think the line "some people have friends, others have caseloads."

You know re your sister. My brother vilified me for being a goody goody. My mother vilified me for not being a goody goody and ever daring to imitate my brother's independence and temperamental-ness. So the whack a mole game, whichever one you were trying to please the other one was clobbering you. My drunken father was more an arbitrary whacker.

That moment when your sister acknowledged how nice you were. Once my brother admitted he was astonished I seemed to have really nice friendships with people.  I think he was also acknowledging that people were actually capable of liking and respecting me. Dear God, so many years of his Greek chorus spouting what a disgusting and embarrassing creature I was. So much irrational malice from him. Why? Yes, we had different temperaments but it was so chronic and so debilitating being told over and over how awful and disgusting you are. Like drops of water that happen so often they manage to dramatically erode a rock face.  Imagine a tender self esteem.  I tried to be nice to him which inflamed his disgust.

Your story about your mother and the gifting from you and your sister.  What a cruel thing to say to you both.  My mother could be so lovely at times, and then there were others when she was stunningly cruel, gratuitously cruel.  Sometimes to me, sometimes to punish the kids or the family. Or my father. But he gave it back when he got drunk.

You certainly do get the insanity of the uBPD mother assuming she knew everything and God help anyone who challenged that belief.

Once at a party my alcoholic and narcissistic father was expounding to someone my supposed ultimate career dream. It was not my career dream.  So I interrupted him and straightened him out. He barked at me that I was wrong and then turned to the very confused person to resume his story. 

Greenglit, my mother has passed on and my dad. I resumed LC with both my parents after that very hard but necessary NC decade away from all of my family.

My mother suffered two strokes late in her life.  My father's alcoholism continued. 

My parents moved nearer my brothers after the NC decade with me. 

I visited them and they and I pretended the decade away never happened.  My mother was made very vulnerable from the strokes.  My mother had caretakers at times during the day to help her but she was very vulnerable to my alcoholic father.

I have enormous survivor guilt and guilt as a daughter that I put my mental health needs above my mother's grave needs as a stroke survivor and that she was at times alone and at the mercy of a drunken man whose narcissism while sober was also troubling considering her physical maintenance needs.  He was also burdened by the caretaking.  I chose and continued the LC but it tore at my heart.

I also have sadness and guilt not having helped my father re drinking though one can't fix someone else's addiction but that had been what my mother dangled in front of me as my doorway to freedom.  Stop your father's drinking and make our marriage happy and you can enter independent adulthood. What a sad trap, a quicksand that was. And I wanted him to stop drinking for his sake as well as my mother's!  So much pain in my family.

I am crying as I type this now. How do I feel about my mother? Like I had three. One I cherished and loved and who in her sane and sweet moments cherished me. One who appeared when there was any kind of challenge to her control and turned witchlike. And the third was a wailing child in hysterics or maybe toward the end of her life one who was so overwhelmed with physical challenges in a very vulnerable and dependent upon others mode, so much in pain, in confusion, in sadness and who at times I shared sweet moments with.

I learned a strong work ethic and friendship ethic from my mother and father that are mostly healthy.  Maybe too much and in need of reining in in the codependency and people-pleasing department but all in all strong values.

I carry tremendous guilt over what I think ironically was me making the best choice of putting my mental health over my mother's needs the last part of her life.  I did what I could in an LC scenario.  But I don't think I will ever in this lifetime forgive myself for that.  I am being heartwrenchingly honest right now. Maybe this website can help me with that. I hope so.

I think I have devoted so much of my life to the freedom of enlightenment of those enormous childhood challenges.  I am not sorry i worked so hard on recovery and enlightenment, but it has also brought a great degree of loneliness and stress avoidance. Sadly, avoidance of positive stress which accompanies joy and risk and adventure.

I am a work in progress like all of us.  When you reach a certain age, however, like i have you have to drop some early dreams and hope that self-possession will stop being such hard work and at times so elusive. As for self-acceptance and unconditional self-love, they are still so hard for me. I have never been in a long term loving relationship ever. I hope I will some day but if not I will be all right.

Again, I am hoping frequenting this website will help me shake out of a kind of limbo I have been in too long.  A stress avoidant one and isolating one.

But I followed the road less travelled and I got to the full bottom of what the heck has been so wrong with my spirit all these years and that was no easy win and it matters to owning my own spirit and being, to enjoying an existential security I missed out on the first major part of my life.

Best,

bethanny

[bethanny]

Celia,

You wisely write:

BPD mothers seem to rarely see their children, or others in general, as autonomous beings with rights, opinions, or needs. My mother, too, doesn't ask questions; she simply assumes all kind of things (often absurd ones). I don't remember her asking me anything, ever, regardless of whether I was struggling at school or crying (I was very depressed as a teenager). Her MO was to assume, accuse, project, and blame.  cry

Thank you for reaffirming that crazymaking episode. We were like dolls to them. And when we tried not to be dolls and to answer the calls of natural children and then young adulthood and beyond, we were like malfunctioning dolls and they became enraged toddlers demanding their dolls continue their role with them.

I remember having a strange dream.  Now my mother was very giving re food.  Food was the kind of gratification that was okay (as opposed to sex, etc.)  I associated food with love because of her. Anyway, in the dream from years and years ago, I am on a balcony. Below is a naked mannequin on the top of a dumpster filled with garbage.  I am holding a big bowl of spaghetti.  I toss the spaghetti over the side of the balcony and it falls all over the mannequin.

I think symbolically I was rejecting my mother's treatment of me, as doll and her offering food in lieu of real love.

Best,

bethanny

[GreenGlit]

Hi Bethanny,

Thanks for your response. I am sorry it stirred up so much emotion for you.

I can relate to feeling like I had three mothers. It is difficult to make sense of in my mind without compartmentalizing her personalities. I have memories of my mom swooping in when I had a life crisis, like superwoman, my hero, my savior, with nothing but kind words and love to share. And I have moments where she has kicked me and made me feel worthless in extremely vulnerable moments. In other moments when I played the parent, she would ask adolescent Greenglit what to do about managing her marriage with my father in times of conflict.

I feel for you so much the guilt you feel about your mother. It's a cruel world your mom created where you have to make a choice between caring for your mother or caring for yourself. There is no in between. I live in that universe too. It wasn't my fault someone divided those two worlds that for most people can coexist and in fact usually grow with each other. I have found I am happiest when I share the least amount of my life with my mother. At the same time I am racked with guilt knowing she feels I am turning my back on her. I worry all the time she will die and I will never get a chance to make something good with her. At the same time, I'm afraid to admit that I hope my very kind but passive father will outlive her so I can pursue the relationship with him I've always wanted but could not because of my mother, who hovers and obscures him from me. It's hard not to feel horrible guilt to think about how good my life could be if mother wasn't around, but also to desperately want her to live longer so I can have more time to possibly improve things (which I know intellectually will never improve). I worry about when she will become ill, and about how I will be the only practicing doctor in the family and would naturally be expected to step in. But then I have that fateful choice I've already described. It's just unfair and makes me really angry because it makes me feel guilty. All the feels.

You describing how you felt about your ailing mother defending herself basically on her own in her final years reminds me of the many elderly hospitalized patients I have seen who appeared to have no family around. I always felt for them, but as I got to know them, they all had their dark tales. I remember one man in particular - an older guy in his 70s who had COPD and heart problems. When I asked if he had a next of kin, or someone to contact in the event he was unable to make decisions, he said, "I don't trust anybody. I'll tell you now what I want." I felt sad for him, being old and alone - it seemed unfair to live on this earth for so many years to end up lying in a hospital bed by yourself with nobody to hold your hand or tell you they love you. But over the week he continued as my patient in the hospital, I realized he was an aggressive, offensive, rude man. I had an "a-ha" moment one day when I sat with him to dispel this idea he had that one of his medications was causing a rash around his eye (the rash was in fact a bad infection and had nothing to do with the medication, which he needed to take for his survival). I was very patient with him, but he was so defensive and personally offended that I came to explain something to him that he, very suddenly, stood up and clenched his fists as if he was going to punch me. He must have been like 6'3" and 280lbs. I'm a 5'4 little white girl. I fearfully ran out of the room as he followed me into the hall yelling obscenities. After that, I wasn't surprised he was old and alone.

My mother, a family physician who mostly saw geriatric patients, frequently had ailing elderly folks who were nearing the end of their lives. Many times she asked permission to call their children, and on occasion some of them would tell her awful stories about their past and say, "I'm not coming. I'll pay for his/her care but that's it." She and I are of the mindset that if you're alone when you're old, it's because you earned it. You would think that my mother, having those experiences so personally in her practice, would make the effort to be kinder to her own children, especially her daughter the future physician (my sister takes care of her kids and left her career, and has little say in how her family spends money). She should be kind just to be kind, because I'm a good person, but besides that you would think she would keep me close because I could be useful. She is smart enough to know better, so if I ever have to make the same choice you did, I would choose the same. Even though I know I will feel just as guilty.

Interestingly, from what I have seen, with parents who are just sh*tty and don't have personality disorders, the children don't feel guilty about abandoning their parents. It must be nice for them. My fiancé had an abusive alcoholic father for many years. The man eventually quit drinking and is now an extremely kind and gentle person who works hard to rebuild what he lost with his sons (it's like he also had two fathers, but they had very discreet ending and starting points). F has grown to love him again, but still talks about how much he hated his dad growing up. I was stunned that he never once felt guilty about feeling that way. "Why should I?" he said. "He was crappy all of the time. Why would I feel bad about him being a horrible person?" It was just so simple for him. My F has pointed out to me how "messed up" my mother's world is to make me feel so bad about how she inspires me to feel. As he puts it, "She treats you like this, earns your hate, and then simultaneously earns your guilt for inspiring those feelings. Somehow you recognizing that she's abusive and cruel, and not standing for it, makes you an ungrateful brat? It makes no sense." Indeed. But it's the lack of consistency and predictability that makes our world so confusing. And makes it so hard to enter the normal world and know how to interact with others in a "normal" way when we carry these scars with us always.

I wish you luck on your quest for peace and happiness. I like to tell myself, when I am feeling particularly sad, that if my mom were normal, she would understand why I have kept her from much of my life. That she would tell me it was ok, and that she understood, and that she was sorry she couldn't do better, because she would want me to be happy and have all the good things in my life I have been working for. I hope you can someday truly forgive yourself for making the choice to make yourself happy. It should never have been a choice to begin with. Any normal parent would hope their child would have the inner strength to rebuild and fight with the veracity that you did, even though that decade of NC was so difficult. I really believe that while many children of BPD parents feel meek in the world, we are some of the most resilient and adaptable people if we can manage to be introspective enough to know to defend ourselves. I hope you meet someone who can appreciate you and add to the happiness you have built for yourself - everyone deserves that. But in the meantime, we can fight for ourselves and eachother on this little special forum