My uBPD relative told ME I'm BPD... lol. You have to laugh

[hopeful12345]

What's with that? It was an attempt by the relative and a few others to tell ME to get help because they think I have BPD. Why? I get so mad at them. They did not give specifics. I was too stunned to reply. I just excused myself as they shouted t hat "there is help." I stayed in my locked bathroom until they got tired of waiting for me to come out and left. I will not engage them.

They had the gall to come to my house and do this. I think my mother put them up to this, but I'm already getting therapy thanks to them and I have been diagnosed with complex post traumatic stress disorder, not borderline.

My PTSD is at an all time high now. I still can't believe they did this after years of no contact. It's a longer story than that, of course, but I don't want to give out too much info. It started on FB.

[Kwamina]

Hi hopeful12345

I'd like to give you a formal welcome hug to bpdfamily

It sounds like your family-members were engaging in the BPD behavior known as projection:

In general, emotionally healthy people base their perceptions on facts.  Projection is basing your perception of reality on feelings.

Projection is a defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, in which what is emotionally unacceptable in the self is unconsciously rejected and attributed (projected) to others.  Projection is denying one's own unpleasant traits, behaviors, or feelings by attributing them, often in an accusing way,  to someone else.

Commonly the projection is an exaggeration of something that has a basis in reality. For example, the borderline may accuse you of "hating" them when you just feel irritated. Sometimes the projection may come entirely from their imagination: for example, they accuse you of flirting with when you were just asking for directions to the shoe department. ~ Randi Kreger

Some adults who enter into relationships with borderlines feel brainwashed by the BP's accusations and criticisms. The techniques of brainwashing are simple: isolate the victim, expose them to inconsistent messages, mix with sleep deprivation, add some form of abuse, get the person to doubt what they know and feel, keep them on their toes, wear them down, and stir well. ~ Elyce M. Benham, M.S.

If you want to read more, we have a workshop about this subject:

BPD BEHAVIORS: Projection

It's very unpleasant that they did this to you in your own home. Was this a planned visit, did you know that they were coming over?

c-PTSD can be quite challenging to deal with so I'm glad you have a therapist to help you with this. What would you say are the areas you currently find yourself working on or would like to work on?

As you work on your healing, I encourage you to also take a look at the Survivors' Guide for adults who suffered childhood abuse in the right-hand side margin of this message board. The guide takes you from survivor to thriver through 3 major stages:

1. Remembering --> 2. Mourning --> 3. Healing

Each stage consists of 7 steps. When you look at the guide, where do you feel you are now?

Take care

[hopeful12345]

I did not expect it. I think they have watched too many Intervention shows because they called it an intervention. For me. This is done by people who have abuse issues, eating disorders, and substance abuse, but I needed the intervention. It would be a laugh out loud if it weren't so weird. There were  more of them than me and let's just say they wouldn't leave, kept trying to hug me, and took my cell phone out of my hands when I was going to call the cops. They told me that this refusal to understand I had borderline was part of my disease. They'd heard it on some talk show.  I am pretty helpless around my family. They traumatize me and scare me and I just retreated into a locked room crying until they left. I heard them saying things loud, so I could lhear like, if I wouldn't help myself they were done with me. They had said things like that before.

I have not contacted them in such a long time and I think it makes them angry.

I tried to tell them, calmly, that I have complex post traumatic stress disroder, not borderline, and that I AM getting help, but my mom laughed and said, "She's lying. That's another sign."

After they left I stayed in the locked room until my kids came home from school. Then my husband came home and he was furious.

I still can't believe this happened and that I'm such a wuss that I let it happen and let them take my phone. I hae had nightmares and emotional flashbacks from this incident and cry a lot and my kids get upset so I try to not do it around them.

While they were here and I was locked up, I heard a few laugh at how "fat" I had gotten, which triggered an old eating disorder too. Yes, I am aware of it. Much of the eating disorders in my FOO, and I got stuck with one too and it crops up when I'm under stress. Yes, I am getting extra therapy. My husband is a Saint. He told me to go as often as I need to go and he'[ll pay out of pocket, if necessary.

And, of course, I feel like he doesn't deserve a mess like me.

Thanks for being here.

[Charlie3236]

Wow, the mental manipulation that went in to that! And your mom calling on a liar! Let me remind all of us that normal, healthy families & people don't talk like that to each other, and don't threaten to "give up on you." Jerks! Ok, done venting! Just remember who you are and be proud of how far you've come, and never let them steal your joy again! Love & hugs from a ptsd sister ❤️

[hopeful12345]

Thank you, Charlie.

My FOO had me pegged as the scapegoat and the cause of all ill since I was very little. My mother made sure my siblings would see it that way too.

The intervention was probably in retaliation for my total no contact. They really don't get what their name calling, labeling, and misreading my intentions plus other issues did to me and believe I am in the wrong. My husband is going to install a videocam outside so I have a clear look at who is outside. If they ever come back, I will tell them to leave through the door and, if they don't, call the police. That is very hard for me to think of doing to my family. I am so brainwashed to love my family, even though they don't love me. But I have to do it if it happens again.

I never should have let them in last time, but I am so conditioned to being afraid of them that I did. Plus I wondered if something horrible had happened for five relatives to be standing there. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice... .

[Auslaunder]

Hopeful,

The fat insult is one my father's most common projections because he can never lose weight and binge eats. He tells everyone in the family we are fat even though we are all normal weight or close. My brother developed anorexia from the constant harping on his weight. I feel infuriated reading your story. Your weight is your own business. Your family doesn't have the right to insult the way you look. Please feel better soon!

[Panda39]

Wow, what your familly did sounds like somekind of emotional home invasion... .not an intervention.  I'm sorry that happened no one deserves that kind of treatment.  I agree with Kwamina... .Projection 

... .My husband is going to install a videocam outside so I have a clear look at who is outside. If they ever come back, I will tell them to leave through the door and, if they don't, call the police. That is very hard for me to think of doing to my family... .

 

Your husband has a great idea about the videiocam and sounds like a good guy by the way. 

Maybe instead of engaging them through the door you just don't respond at all.  It might avoid the need to call the police if you just pretend like you're not home and don't engage at all.

I am so brainwashed to love my family, even though they don't love me.

It sounds like you are in what we around here call FOG (Fear, Obligation & Guilt) when it comes to your family.  Emotional blackmail is tough to deal with here is some information on FOG that you might be helpful.

https://bpdfamily.com/content/emotional-blackmail-fear-obligation-and-guilt-fog

Take Care 

Panda39

[hopeful12345]

Thanks for the support. I appreciate it a lot.

One of  my uBPD tormentors is anorexic and another, a male, seems to have  it as well. They think everyone is fat. I am the one who tends to be the heaviest in my FOO. I do watch my weight and have had times when I secretly binged, but they don't know about that. "Fat" is one of the big things I used to hear from my biggest tormentor, along with stupid, lazy, selfish, useless, unlovable and other things. I also have a "nasty temper" for sticking up for myself. I don't bother trying to stick up for myself anymore with them. Still, often they are in my head and my trauma from childhood can be triggered by just a look from somebody that reminds me of one of them.

The funny thing is, I had no idea I had been abused because nobody hit me or sexually abused me. I thought I was just weak to be so affected by the words of those who raised me and others who were always in my life. Nobody ever stuck up for me. They just agreed with my mother, who was and is the worst one of all. Although they all talk about how "crazy" I am. Thank the Lord for my husband or I may not even know I'd been abused. I may still think that the family dysfunction was all my fault.

I feel for anyone who has gone through anything similar and I've read worse too. Why have children if you are going to abuse them and make them dislike each other?

[Turkish]

Their behavior is so cruel, it's almost behind words. It's like playground level bullying.

Definitely projection. My mom lured me into family counseling when I was 13. She abandoned me after one joint session. It took her 25 years to tell me, almost as an aside in casual conversation, that the therapist told her that I was one of the most well-adjusted young men he'd ever met.

My uBPDx also.lured me into couples' counseling, also abandoning me after one appointment. He concluded that I had no PDs, nor any mental illnesses, and was even frustrated that I tried to  get him to diagnose me.

Struggling with accepting whether you were abused or not because it wasn't physical isn't uncommon. You were, and you are. Maybe this can help:

I saw this article on the FB feed of a local organization which runs a domestic violence shelter and outreach:

www.nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/10/emotional-abuse-can-be-as-damaging-as-sex-abuse.html

Some depressing news for your afternoon: Kids who are emotionally abused suffer the same mental-health consequences as those who are physically or sexually abused — and in some cases, psychologically abused kids may actually fare worse. That’s the takeaway of a sobering new report from the American Psychological Association that was just published in the journal Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy.

“Psychological abuse” covers a wide variety of mistreatment, including parents bullying kids, exerting excess control over them, or insulting or threatening them; at the other end of the spectrum, isolating or ignoring kids is also considered to be psychological abuse.

[Kwamina]

Hi again hopeful12345

Now that you've shared even more details, I can only say that what your family-members did to you was horrible and indeed cruel. I am glad you have a loving and supportive husband, that can really help when you don't have to go through all of this alone. C-PTSD can be quite difficult to deal with so I'm also glad you have a therapist to help you with this.

When it comes to your family of origin, I'd say protecting yourself from their abusive behavior definitely is a top priority, especially considering the fact you've got c-PTSD which could make you particularly vulnerable at times to their 'interventions/invasions/attacks'. I've selected some resources that you perhaps might find help for setting and enforcing/defending firm boundaries and forcefully asserting yourself:

Setting Boundaries and Setting Limits

BOUNDARIES: Examples of boundaries

Assert yourself: D.E.A.R.M.A.N. technique

[hopeful12345]

Thanks. I have a lot of work to do. I appreciate what you have given me to read.

My therapists have not said I'm stable as  my nerves are bad, but they do not think I'm abusive or cruel, as my family insists. And borderline? No, never had that diagnosis. Therapist thinks I have PTSD. On the other hand, my therapist does feel my abuse was severe, even though there was no hitting or sexual abuse. It is just hard to accept it because when I hear about people who got bruised from head to toe or were sexually abused, I just feel like I should be able to handle some words from FOO. Remember "sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never hurt you." My FOO tormenters used to tell me to stop being so sensitive. It's not like they were hitting me. They said I couldn't take a joke.

At any rate, lots of thanks. I will read everything. I am NOT going to contact my FOO again and am going to go through great pains to make sure they can't get to me. And I won't let them in the house again. But, honestly, seeing them there, all of them, was shocking. They never visit me. I truly thought maybe somebody had died and because I wasn't answering the phone when they called, I needed to find out what happened.

No more of that.

[Auslaunder]

Hi Hopeful,

There was a resiliency test posted on this forum not long ago and having adults in your life that supported you as an abused child is very important. Ive read that having someone to intervene in the abuse would be best, but others that modeled healthy behavior and built up your self esteem were important too. I suffered sexual and physical abuse but my FOO supported me except for my BPD father. They rarely intervened though, which would be best. I understood from a young age that he wasnt treating me fairly and that I could expect better. Emotional abuse is just as destructive as other forms of abuse but it's effects are insidious, because it's less clear to the victim that it's wrong. Where are the campaigns to end child emotional abuse? It sounds like you have really suffered due to not having any allies to protect and guide you as a child if so many in your FOO are so abusive. That doesn't make you weak at all. I know I have to credit so many people in my life for helping me through tough times.

[Kwamina]

I just feel like I should be able to handle some words from FOO. Remember "sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never hurt you." My FOO tormenters used to tell me to stop being so sensitive. It's not like they were hitting me. They said I couldn't take a joke.

I understand why you might feel this way looking back as an adult. Keep in mind though that all those early years that you went through this, you weren't an adult but just a young child who's identity was still being formed. Subsequently you were a (young) adult who came forth from that hurt child. Adults often find it very difficult to deal with people with BPD, let alone a young child or adolescent who's also dependent on those same abusive people.

Another term that has been proposed for C-PTSD is Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD). One of our senior members, HappyChappy, points out that this term in many way is a fitting description for the trauma young children incur when they have dealt with longtime abusive behavior, regardless of the nature of the abuse.

There was a resiliency test posted on this forum not long ago and having adults in your life that supported you as an abused child is very important. Ive read that having someone to intervene in the abuse would be best, but others that modeled healthy behavior and built up your self esteem were important too. I suffered sexual and physical abuse but my FOO supported me except for my BPD father. They rarely intervened though, which would be best. I understood from a young age that he wasnt treating me fairly and that I could expect better. Emotional abuse is just as destructive as other forms of abuse but it's effects are insidious, because it's less clear to the victim that it's wrong. Where are the campaigns to end child emotional abuse? It sounds like you have really suffered due to not having any allies to protect and guide you as a child if so many in your FOO are so abusive. That doesn't make you weak at all. I know I have to credit so many people in my life for helping me through tough times.

I found this test Auslaunder refers to very insightful. You can find the thread here:

TEST: Adverse Childhood Experience | Resilience

There are two tests there:

- The Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) test

- Resilience test