I want to connect with my father and I don't know how

[Depression = 72% of members]

So I'm a new member here, and I've been truly struggling over the past couple of months.

My mom received an official diagnosis for BPD when I was fourteen (I'm 22 now) (although as soon as she came to understand exactly what Borderline is, she flipped out on her therapist and stopped seeking treatment).

Basically my mom and dad separated when I was an infant, their divorce was finalized before I was two years old. My dad kept custody of me as long as he possibly could, but back then (and to this day, probably) family courts favored the mothers so she became my primary care giver. He fought this, and would often keep me from going back to her after his visits. It was a messy thing throughout my childhood.

She was my primary care giver from the time I was two until I was thirteen (the age that the custody agreement stated I could choose my home). Life with her was extremely chaotic. She married four additional times, had countless boyfriends, both live-in and otherwise. I have three half siblings through her, and all of us had our own personalized abuse experience.

Her abuse varied from neglectful (UTI's because my diaper was never changed, locked in rooms alone for hours at a time when she was working or socializing, left in the care of abusive babysitters, etc) to the emotionally incestuous, to violent, rageful "witch-mothering". My siblings and I all took on different roles at different times, myself and my youngest sister usually being the "good ones" and my brother being the "bad one" (although this rotated frequently). When there was a man in her life, we were secondary. She would latch onto them like a leech. She was often violent towards them, or heaving tears at the slightest problem, and we saw all of it. I've watched her chase her ex around with a knife while naked, I've watched her destroy a boyfriend's windshield, etc. It was like a constant see-saw between us and her romantic partners: when she loved them, she hated us, and vice versa.

Flash forward to my teenage years. I had my dad come and pick me and all of my stuff up the summer after I turned thirteen. My half-siblings were removed from her custody by DCF that fall. She hated me for months after this happened and refused to ever even call me. Not only was I bad for choosing to live with my father, my leaving somehow caused her other children to get taken away from her. But we eventually resumed a relationship with visitation.

This came to a complete halt after I started to exhibit major signs of depression, anxiety, and self harm, as well as developing a nearly-fatal eating disorder. It was something that had been in the works since I was probably eight or nine, but my symptoms really came to a head when I was seventeen. My dad and stepmom immediately got me treatment, but my mother absolutely shut me out and refused to speak to me.

I keep my mom at arms length now, I've visited her a few times in the past three years or so but I think of her as more of an aunt than a mom. I am incredibly lucky to have my stepmom in my life, I see her as being my true mother, and I've felt that way since my dad married her when I was four years old. My mom has always sensed this, and it's created terrible tension between the two parties. To the extent that when my stepmom called my mom to tell her I would be inpatient for a couple of days my mom cussed her out.

So I've been processing this for a while now, and when I was seventeen and going to a therapist it was really hard to pinpoint the source of all of this. I knew my mother had been diagnosed BPD but I never researched what that meant. Now, over the past six/seven months or so I've been doing lots of reading and everything is being made so clear, and I'm so grateful for the understanding, but at the same time lots of old wounds are being re-opened. I'm finding out lots of things about my childhood I accepted as normal actually harmed me a great deal.

My dad and I have never, ever talked about my mom in any great length or detail. He has usually danced around the subject, and just gets kind of sad and quiet whenever it's brought up. My stepmom and I have talked about this a lot, and she told me how when I was a little kid he used to cry almost every night because he felt like he failed me. This absolutely breaks my heart and I'm tearing up just typing it. I want to connect with him on this so badly but I don't know where to start or what to even say. Part of me really just needs acknowledgement from him. I just really want to talk to him about it. Any advice at all would be so helpful.

Thanks a million if you took the time to read all of this.

[eastoftheshire]

So I'm a new member here, and I've been truly struggling over the past couple of months.

My mom received an official diagnosis for BPD when I was fourteen (I'm 22 now) (although as soon as she came to understand exactly what Borderline is, she flipped out on her therapist and stopped seeking treatment).

Basically my mom and dad separated when I was an infant, their divorce was finalized before I was two years old. My dad kept custody of me as long as he possibly could, but back then (and to this day, probably) family courts favored the mothers so she became my primary care giver. He fought this, and would often keep me from going back to her after his visits. It was a messy thing throughout my childhood.

She was my primary care giver from the time I was two until I was thirteen (the age that the custody agreement stated I could choose my home). Life with her was extremely chaotic. She married four additional times, had countless boyfriends, both live-in and otherwise. I have three half siblings through her, and all of us had our own personalized abuse experience.

Her abuse varied from neglectful (UTI's because my diaper was never changed, locked in rooms alone for hours at a time when she was working or socializing, left in the care of abusive babysitters, etc) to the emotionally incestuous, to violent, rageful "witch-mothering". My siblings and I all took on different roles at different times, myself and my youngest sister usually being the "good ones" and my brother being the "bad one" (although this rotated frequently). When there was a man in her life, we were secondary. She would latch onto them like a leech. She was often violent towards them, or heaving tears at the slightest problem, and we saw all of it. I've watched her chase her ex around with a knife while naked, I've watched her destroy a boyfriend's windshield, etc. It was like a constant see-saw between us and her romantic partners: when she loved them, she hated us, and vice versa.

Flash forward to my teenage years. I had my dad come and pick me and all of my stuff up the summer after I turned thirteen. My half-siblings were removed from her custody by DCF that fall. She hated me for months after this happened and refused to ever even call me. Not only was I bad for choosing to live with my father, my leaving somehow caused her other children to get taken away from her. But we eventually resumed a relationship with visitation.

This came to a complete halt after I started to exhibit major signs of depression, anxiety, and self harm, as well as developing a nearly-fatal eating disorder. It was something that had been in the works since I was probably eight or nine, but my symptoms really came to a head when I was seventeen. My dad and stepmom immediately got me treatment, but my mother absolutely shut me out and refused to speak to me.

I keep my mom at arms length now, I've visited her a few times in the past three years or so but I think of her as more of an aunt than a mom. I am incredibly lucky to have my stepmom in my life, I see her as being my true mother, and I've felt that way since my dad married her when I was four years old. My mom has always sensed this, and it's created terrible tension between the two parties. To the extent that when my stepmom called my mom to tell her I would be inpatient for a couple of days my mom cussed her out.

So I've been processing this for a while now, and when I was seventeen and going to a therapist it was really hard to pinpoint the source of all of this. I knew my mother had been diagnosed BPD but I never researched what that meant. Now, over the past six/seven months or so I've been doing lots of reading and everything is being made so clear, and I'm so grateful for the understanding, but at the same time lots of old wounds are being re-opened. I'm finding out lots of things about my childhood I accepted as normal actually harmed me a great deal.

My dad and I have never, ever talked about my mom in any great length or detail. He has usually danced around the subject, and just gets kind of sad and quiet whenever it's brought up. My stepmom and I have talked about this a lot, and she told me how when I was a little kid he used to cry almost every night because he felt like he failed me. This absolutely breaks my heart and I'm tearing up just typing it. I want to connect with him on this so badly but I don't know where to start or what to even say. Part of me really just needs acknowledgement from him. I just really want to talk to him about it. Any advice at all would be so helpful.

Thanks a million if you took the time to read all of this.

[Turkish]

Hello eastoftheshire,



That is a sad story, and the events recent, by your age. Bless your step-mom for being there for you, and you should be proud of yourself for having the strength to choose the healthy home when you could.

It sounds like your father stood up to your mother as best he could. It sounds to me that this ordeal is still a source of great pain to him, as if he failed you. It might be that he feels shame about this, which is much more powerful than guilt.  That, and he's a guy, and when people ask us to talk about our feelings, we tend to 

Firstly, do you feel anger or resentment towards him?

Turkish

p.s. is east of the shire Weathertop, Mirkwood, or The Lonely Mountain?

[eastoftheshire]

Thanks Turkish   

Yes, I definitely got the impression that there is some kind of guilt going on, at least from what my stepmother has told me, and his non-verbal reactions whenever the topic has come up. Everything I know about their marriage (besides my mother's demonization of him) comes from family members like my aunt and my grandparents. From what they've told me it was probably a pretty painful thing for him to go through before I was ever even in the picture.

I was definitely a little angry with him at different times when I was a teenager- I didn't understand and felt like he didn't try hard enough, and when I moved in with him we never talked about it so those feelings sort of festered. As I got a little older and gathered more knowledge of the situation, I was able to see that he did in fact try, and he tried really hard, but my mom used every possible tool she could to not only keep custody of me and isolate me from him, but to make me feel like this was by my father's choice.

So at present I don't have any negative feelings towards him whatsoever. I adore my dad. And he's definitely the kind of person who has trouble expressing his feelings. He's not stoic by any means, but for example, when I moved 2,000 miles across the country, he said he wanted to just drop me off curbside at the airport because he didn't want to have to deal with parking. I thought this was super dumb and got upset. As it turns out, he just was really having a hard time with the idea of saying goodbye and didn't know how to admit that. So that's the kind of person I'm dealing with here, haha.

Also east of the Shire is Bree- which is also my name 

[Turkish]

Cool name. I'll keep referring to you by your handle though.

It's great that you love your dad and are able to see through his defense mechanisms, like the airport story. We talk here a lot about using validation tools on pwBPD (people with BPD) in order to reduce conflict from an emotionally dysregulating person. The tools work on anybody, however. Plus, everyone needs validation.

Communication using validation. What it is; how to do it

Your dad is invalidating you by not being emotionally open with you. I'll posit that he isn't obligated to discuss past events, though it would probably go a ways towards both of you healing.

Speaking as a father, I don't know if I would ever tell my kids the particulars about why I and their mom split. I'm just glad they were young enough (3 and 1) not to remember the last year before she left. The difference, though, is that I'm not dealing with an alienating mother who hates me.

[eastoftheshire]

So I talked to my dad, and actually the day after I made this post, I kind of got the catalyst I needed to start the conversation.

It was brought to light a couple days ago that my mom is probably not my grandfather's biological child. My grandma (who has some serious unaddressed mental health issues of her own) had an affair, and the man she cheated with came forward trying to get in contact with my mom. The dates line up, and it makes total sense (my mom has black hair/brown eyes/dark skin and her "parents" both had light hair/blue eyes... .you do the math) but it's caused a huge family uproar, and my mom is currently trying to get me sucked into her hype about it all. She called me, and was like, "you're the only person who could understand what this means, you're the only one I want to talk to about it, this could be the father that was never there for me," and etc.

So I was able to pick up the phone and call my dad and lay it out for him, like, "hey, this is going on right now, and it makes me severely distressed, I need support" kind of thing. And it did start a little dialogue. It kind of got emotionally out of hand, we both started crying and he told me how my childhood is the biggest regret of his life. Not going to lie, it hurts a lot to think of him beating himself up about it. I said some pretty extreme stuff that I'd never previously expressed, like how I wish my stepmom was my mom instead. The conversation got cut somewhat short because I had to leave for work but it was definitely a start to things.