The golden child's "success"

[Smile41869]

I'm wondering how other golden children feel about their successes?

More so, I am wondering how your BPD parent responds to your success? AND, how their response affects you?

In the last few years I have started to gain a bit of a "profile". I have always been confident in my ability but I am not one to gloat about it.

My upbdm however uses me as a trophy, constantly telling anyone who will listen about my 'wonderful achievements' and how 'high profile' my work has become. I'm pretty sure she finds all of my public work and sends the links to her friends. To the point that I think her friends get pissed off about it.

All of this has started to make me more and more uncomfortable with being 'successful'. I feel like she calls me every week with the purpose of hearing another success story so that she can get on a high about raising 'such a successful daughter' with more stories to gloat with.

I don't do the work I do for accolades or money, much of my work is altruistic. Yet her emphasis on 'one upping' other people makes me feel like a fraud. More over, it makes me feel pressured and as a result, demotivated. I have already gone on hiatus to a faraway country once. And I am now planning to do it again. I don't want to live a life of outdoing others but I feel like I am in a round-about way.

Does anyone else have experiences like this related to their career? Thanks in advance!

[enlighten me]

Not with a parent but with my exs. They seem to use it to show how worthy they are. "My boyfriend earns ... ." A sort of he is successful so I am a worthy person because a successful person wouldnt want someone who isnt worthy.

They also use their children for this. My child is so bright translates as im a good mum because i have raised a bright child and it is my influence that has done this.

Its success by proxy.

[Panda39]

This type of behavior can also be tied to the pwBPD's lack of identity.  Your mom with no identity becomes "Smile41869's Mom" that is her role. 

As far a your work keep doing your work for those you do it for and keep them in mind.  The work is for them and for your satisfaction not your mom.  Maybe set boundaries around how much discussion you have about your work with your mom.  Try to dial back the conversations on that subject. Try coming up with a SET statement that you can tell her about this topic... .

Mom, I know you are proud of my accomplishments and it's natural for you as my mom to want to share them with people but it embarrasses me and I don't want to talk about work all the time... .Can we talk about something else... .What have you been up too?

Hope this helps,

Panda39

[Leaving]

Hi Smile,

I'm not the Golden child but my brother is and although he's very successful, he absolutely can't stand for me or our NBPD mother to know what he does for a living ( specfically).  I think it's very sad that he feels so afraid to share but I now understand why he is that way.  It's not that our mother doted on his success ( not that I am aware)  but as Panda mentioned about identity, my brother never felt comfortable sharing because he sensed that our mother would 'assume his identity. N's are masters at sucking a person's soul right out of them.   The reason he doesn't want to share with me is because our mother has always painted me as a pathetic worthless loser and he feels sorry for me and ashamed when he is doing better than poor pitiful me.

[claudiaduffy]

Yes, this has been a bit of an issue with me at times. Right now, it's more my happy marriage than my work success that she's trying to capitalize upon. Very, very irritating - sometimes worse than irritating, as she tries to insinuate herself into parts of my life that she wasn't interested in before. I have a good marriage, so she wants to be in it with us. Nope. Not going to happen.

It does help me to remember that I can't control how my mom talks about me, my work, or my marriage; that I have no control over how her friends and relations see what she says and does. I actually don't WANT to have control over it. Yes, it irritates me when she brags on me or acts like she's more intimately involved than she is. But it doesn't have much to do with my everyday life. So I quit following anything she says on social media, and when I get feedback from relatives or mutual friends on things my mom has said, I respond as neutrally as possible and gently encourage people to ask me directly if they want to know how I am doing.

In short, while my mother wants to share in my identity, she can only at best project that she is sharing in something that she doesn't fully understand and doesn't have much access to. So what if she pretends? It's a knock-off, a cheap copy of my life - and my life is not actually lessened by her pretending. She can't actually steal my life and my accomplishments - I still have my life, and it is good.

[Turkish]

Something similar may be starting with my kids. Both S5 and D3 are called "geniuses" by their uBPD mom. She wanted to skip S5 ahead to 1st grade the first day he started kindergarten. A week later, S3 started preschool, and as I was filling out the emergency contact form and the kids were filling into the classroom for the first time, she commented about moving her up to pre-K halfway through the year. S3 is over a year younger than S5 was when he did the same class, same teacher. That doesn't even make sense, since if she finished preK early, we still couldn't enroll her in kindergarten due to her age, and she'd be in limbo for a whole school year.

The cynical part of me thinks that she wants to do this so she can trumpet about how the kids are geniuses. Some of it may be anxiety as well.

[Leaving]

Something similar may be starting with my kids. Both S5 and D3 are called "geniuses" by their uBPD mom. She wanted to skip S5 ahead to 1st grade the first day he started kindergarten. A week later, S3 started preschool, and as I was filling out the emergency contact form and the kids were filling into the classroom for the first time, she commented about moving her up to pre-K halfway through the year. S3 is over a year younger than S5 was when he did the same class, same teacher. That doesn't even make sense, since if she finished preK early, we still couldn't enroll her in kindergarten due to her age, and she'd be in limbo for a whole school year.

The cynical part of me thinks that she wants to do this so she can trumpet about how the kids are geniuses. Some of it may be anxiety as well.

Turkish,

My mother did that to me!  When I was in the 3rd grade, we moved to a different town and my mother insisted that the school system put me in the best elementary school of the two in town.  THEN, she had me bumped to the 6th grade in two courses... English and Science.  Three grades may not sound like much to some but to a child it was like being put on a different planet.  A third grader isn't anything like a 6th grader ( developmentally speaking) and I felt so alone and like such a pariah.  It never occurred to me until just now why she did that.  I actually thought that it was because she wanted the best for me but I think she enjoyed watching me struggle all alone.  It's not as if my mother ever helped me in school or even took any interest in my academic career. She always got others to do that.  It's like she wanted to have no accountability for my education at all and except when she could assert her control over the administrators.  I don't know ... very bizarre.

[GreenGlit]

It's interesting to hear stories about people being the "golden child" - my mother has gone through phases where my sister and I switch between golden child and being painted black. These phases can last years - only in the past year I was painted black, after about 10 years of being the golden child.

I agree there is tremendous pressure to perform. Somehow my mother de-merited my achievements by repeating to me and everyone about how smart I was. That I could do anything I wanted. But sometimes things are hard, or you don't do so well, or you try but it's not the outcome you wanted. I was always made to feel that these failures were completely my fault, because of lack of motivation. She would never acknowledge difficult circumstances, or even that I did my best. Because according to her, "I could have done it if you really wanted to." It's a very easy way to kill motivation.

In terms of career, everything is seen through colored lenses. While I was the golden child, every choice I made in school was amazing. Now being painted black, I'm somehow a disappointment despite the fact I'm graduating from medical school in May. "It would be such a shame if you didn't end up at an academic institution for training," my mother said. "With all the work you've done, it would be such a failure." Seriously?

My mother raised us with the mentality that we should be ambitious and have careers, even when we are married with kids, because it's important to contribute financially and also to make sure our husband knows you could survive if he left you (this was a facet of her BPD, lack of trust, and a backhanded threat). My sister left her law firm quickly after giving birth to her child at the insistence of her husband, who wanted a stay-at-home wife. My mother was angry towards my BIL about this for many years. Once I turned the tables and I was the one painted black, my BIL is "the perfect father" and "I can't imagine how you could raise children and still work!" (my mother is a doctor and always worked when we were kids... .)

Smile: I've learned to do my thing and not involve my mother. I can related to Leaving's brother... .I don't share much of my career with her, despite the fact I know my parents are thrilled they have one child who is following in their footsteps. I just can't share much of my life with them, because it is too destabilizing. Whether I'm the golden child and she blows up my successes or aggrandizes my intellect, or whether I'm painted black and can do no right ... .it's never a realistic perspective, and it's never helpful.

Remember why YOU enjoy your job - don't let your mother's expectations be demoralizing to your own motivations. YOU are not the fraud - she is! My mom talks about me frequently to family, about how everything I'm doing is wrong (remember I'm painted black these days), but I know in MY heart who I am and what my life is like. You can't control her thoughts or actions. All you can do is to continue to do what make you happy.

[Gerda]

GreenGlit, what you say about your failures always being your fault really rings true with me.

I got a Master's degree in Biology, but graduated right during the Great Recession. It took me 10 months to find a job. My mom said it was because I just wasn't "ambitious" enough.

My mom never even graduated from high school! And she's lecturing me about not working hard enough or being ambitious enough!

Of course, when she came to my graduation from graduate school, she said my degree is really HER degree, because I never would have gotten it without her. But really I got it DESPITE her.

For a golden child, your successes are really your BPD mom's successes, but your failures are always your fault.

[lisazoe]

Just reading this makes so much sense about my partner's mother.  Sometimes I would think she was uNPD instead of uBPD as she hypes up about my partner saying how clever he is and how he can be anything he want's to be.  Looking back on his school life and the school life of his siblings they were all made to do subjects she wanted them too instead of ones they were good at and enjoyed.  My partner although he knew it was very controlling allowed this control to happen and when it came to after school jobs and then his career anything he wanted to do was wrong or she wouldn't let it happen.   When he was in the middle of his geology degree he knew he hated it and wanted to leave but she wouldn't let him... .sounds silly but I have now learnt how much she had got into his head so to speak that he did what she said. 

Unfortunately it did lead to a depressive episode for him but he's fine now and can see how she manipulated the whole situation.

My partner is now doing dairy farming and he loves it!  Mother doesn't of course!  She thinks its a job for dumb people and he's just wasting his potential.  Then she accuses me of making him doing dairy farming as its a life style I want... .he totally made the decision, I actually warned him it was a hard job with long hours.

I can also see his Mother is very jealous of my career.  I only work 3 days a week and earn more than my partner (which seems ridiculous but hey I've earned it) yet she still accuses me of taking his money... .

I've always said my partner being the first born and first son was golden boy and I think now she's so disappointed that he's got a job she thinks is below his potential.  She doesn't give a damn that he's really happy in life.   Instead of blaming him though she is blaming me for controlling him and tells people he has depression because there's no other reason he'd be making these "poor" choices.   

Damned if you damned if you don't I guess!