intro

[solidstate]

To begin, I am a daughter of an undiagnosed borderline mother. Took me years of reading to figure out the confusing difference between my family life and those of most people I know. In my family of origin, I am a combination scapegoat and hero. I think because I was so often blamed or totally ignored, I have always tried my butt off to please my mother. Took close to a half century for me to decide that I need to please myself. My brother is abusive to most, but especially to her, and shows very narcissistic traits. Have tried for years through various channels (legal, medical, social services) to break up that little mess to no avail. I have resigned myself to feeling they are happily unhappy with the way things are and I just need to live my life.

As a kid I showed traits of BPD, but several therapists have said they don't think have the disorder. My thoughts about the way the world works are decidedly different from BPD. My relationships outside of family are pretty normal. Obviously being raised by one, there are sometimes residual outlooks that I will catch myself engaging in where I think "wow, that's pretty borderline." I see the error in my own thought process (either with help of another's perspective, or just on my own). I think understanding that other perspectives exist is itself a good indication that I'm not BPD and don't have many left over traits.


Today, my daughter from my first marriage (she is 28) is the main person I struggle with in terms of BPD. She has other mental health diagnoses with borderline traits. So many hospitalizations, to the fact that she was full blown psychotic by the time I was able to convince them to take her- and had to have her admitted involuntarily, due to the degree the other illnesses had progressed before they would help her. We spent the day prior to that in the ER, only to be told they couldn't take her because she was not at that moment suicidal. She was discharged, with the instructions to contact her community providers (which I did- she was too out of it to even do that. I have permission to talk to them, thankfully). Too little too late, now she is again hospitalized. I attended the hearing to allow them to keep her, which they did.

All I can say, is this is frying my nerves. In my role as hero of my family of origin, I regularly worked to fix crisis. What I first learned from my mother (and am seeing with dd), there is always another crisis which can be manufactured, seemingly out of thin air.

So I have been dealing with this my whole life. Unfortunately, I viewed early marriage as the escape route from my mother's mess- only to take on early parenthood of a person who eventually developed BPD. So no break in between.

I greatly appreciate people sharing experiences and advice. Been reading here for a while and decided to introduce myself- thank you to everyone here

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[AVR1962]

Amazingly our situations are quite similar. I was the high achiever wanting to please my parents as well. I could not understand why my mom would see every little thing I did as wrong and my sister could do nothing and get away with everything. My mom would actually tell me things like, "you deserved it" when my sister picked up a shoe and hit me in the nose. My sister was a constant little tattle and my mom was always there to support whatever my sister said, regardless of the situation and I was never heard. I am 52 today, started into counseling at 48 and learned I was the scapegoat, sister was the golden child and my mom is narcissistic. Narcissism and BPD comes for the same cluster B personality disorders and look very similar in many accepts.

I married a man who my parents hated and I didn't take their advise by not marrying him so I was in the doghouse for my choice. Of course as nature happens I married a man much like my mother in many ways. It was his way or no way. He though was extremely manipulative, very dishonest, terribly needy and very jealous. He filed for divorce once I caught him involved in an affair. I would later learn this had not been his first but once caught he had to make sure the world knew he was innocent and blamed me, telling family, friends and our children that I was the one that had the affair and filed for divorce. I could not wrap my head around what he had done. It was like I had been brainwashed, I would in time find out my whole life with this man was a lie. Unfortunately, when you have children with a man like this they are genetically predisposed and when my husband left our oldest started acting out.

At 18 daughter was diagnosed with BPD which at first she accepted, but since has denied and says I am the one with issues. She is the spitting image of her father and relationships for them are all about what makes them look good regardless of the truth. In reality my daughter sits on the couch and texts old boyfriends and is on every media site talking to all her friends. She does not cook or clean, those responsibilities are left to her 3 children and her husband.

I see each one of her kids trying to earn my daughter's love. She hugs on them and says sweet things but then turns around and yells at them. Oh but she is such a good mom and brags about hr role as mom to her children... .look what I did and how involved I am but reality doesn't show that unfortunately. I have had so much concern for my daughter's children for years. I know that she has said things to them to convince them that I was abusive towards her. Their heads are totally warped to my daughter's world and the support for her. It makes me wonder what their world will be like once they get away from their mom.

I cannot imagine how what your life was like being raised by a BPD om and then trying to struggle your way out of her hold.

[solidstate]

AVR1962- yes, its kind of a bad parallel universe we seem to live in. Did not mention the narcissistic husband (current). It's like with all this stuff going on, trying to get empathy from a rock. I know, I know- N's just don't do empathy.

I agree, the N's and BPD do share a lot of traits, both dramatic types. Both not very good at considering others. The difference as I see it are N's land on their feet and BPD's seem to control stuff by being the perpetual victims of circumstance. When I challenge my daughter on how it could be that some circumstances she feels have befallen her are actually tied to horrendous choices along the way- watch out!

I think even with fairly decent boundaries drawn (I used to teach high school, I know some things about drawing a line in the sand), this takes it to a whole different level.

[AVR1962]

Solidstate, after husband left I met a man 2 years later who had full custody of his sons 5 & 7. He, to me, seemed to need help (my codependency talking) and I thought the two families could combine. His ex had not had contact with the boys for 2 years and my ex had not had contact with me and my 2 daughters for 2 daughters. We thought it was safe to combine the families and at first it worked well. I am one of those that keeps trying, despite the hardships. Not long into my second marriage I realized my husband had not been fully honest with me about his first marriage and found he had a drinking issue and was a classic picture of a passive-aggressive.

Thru therapy I have been able to bring it all together. I am still married to my passive-aggressive husband, 23 years, but have learned to deal with him... .learned to react to him differently. What I learned in therapy is that raised by narcissistic parents I learned people did not need to treat me well for me to love them and boy does that bode well when dealing with a BPD child!

Narcissist have no empathy towards others, typically my mother. What I have seen is both BPDs, PAs and N have a need for control but the BPD is extremely needy. With a PA the best thing is to confront the actions and once found out they will actually buckle to their game, even though they may make excuses. Confront a N or a BPD and they will run, cut you off, place blame (project).

I read recently that the N and the BPD feed off one another but that the BPD is much more manipulative and will outwork the N.

What a crazy world we are born into!

[lbjnltx]

Hi solidstate,

So glad that you decided to post and that you want to share your experience with us.

Glad you are here!


lbj