Possible complex-PTSD characteristics from BPD family captivity?

[bethanny]

Anybody relate?

1) foreshortened future sensibility (no hope of marriage, family, good career, etc.)

2) sense of helplessness, no sense of control/empowerment

3) inability to feel joy

4) chronic fatigue

5) survivor guilt

6) clumsiness

7) forgetfulness

8) excessive generosity

9) excessive empathy

10) difficult to trust

11) need to justify every decision to others

12) financial vulnerability

[HappyChappy]

Bethany,

You raise a good point, in that it is common for children of adults with BPD or PD to have C-PTSD. You could argue that if you're "tirggered" badly by BPD, then you do need to look at C-PTSD more closely, as it's not always obvious you have it.

Here’s a more in depth piece.

What is PTSD and how do you define "trigger"?

Lets not forget, many people with BPD also have PTSD, here’s more detail:

What is the relationship between BPD and PTSD?

More importantly, what are we doing to address our C-PTSD ? I have found CBT has helped me big time. Here's more detail:

Free CBT course.

[isshebpd]

I can relate to many of these. In particular, lack of future sensibility, sense of hopelessness and lack of trust. Those three have worked together to undermine me throughout my life. I also explain myself too much, which can irritate people.

On the other hand, I am probably less generous and empathetic than a lot of people.

[HappyChappy]

I also explain myself too much, which can irritate people.

Hi issheBPD,

I also explain myself too much, mainly because my BPD would grill you like the Gestapo, so the sooner you told her everything the sooner you were allowed to relax again. She would also jump to very negative (incorrect) conclusions all the time, so here again the explanation was to prove with facts, her fantasy thinking was wrong. Why do you think you explain yourself too much ?

[isshebpd]

I also explain myself too much, which can irritate people.

Hi issheBPD,

I also explain myself too much, mainly because my BPD would grill you like the Gestapo, so the sooner you told her everything the sooner you were allowed to relax again. She would also jump to very negative (incorrect) conclusions all the time, so here again the explanation was to prove with facts, her fantasy thinking was wrong. Why do you think you explain yourself too much ?

I remember my uBPDmom as being like a deranged drill sergeant. Nothing I did was right and nothing I said could stop her from screaming in my face (sometimes even hitting me). Oh, what that does to the mind of a teenage boy. At least, with a normal drill sergeant, you could figure out what they want, do it, and get them to chill out.

So I usually react to suggestions or constructive criticism by over-explaining myself. I feel like I'm somehow "wrong" and go into defensive mode because I don't feel I can become "right". Also, when I come up with an idea, I can go on a bit too long due to lack of confidence.

The other affect of my uBPDmom's raging was to turn me into a very angry young man. Up until my mid-teens I was mostly quiet and passive, tending to look for other kids to follow. To avoid the daily rage when I got home from school, I stopped coming home after school. I started dropping my activities, and hanging around with a bad crowd. Even my worst "friends" were easier to deal with than uBPDmom.

Now that uBPDmom is elderly and better behaved, she talks about how her friends have so many grandchildren. She has three children, but two grandchildren (both my sister's). I guess the bloodline is shrinking. There are days when I'd like to hold a mirror to her face, and say "No grandchildren for you."

Oops there I go explaining again. 

[HappyChappy]

I remember my uBPDmom as being like a deranged drill sergeant.

My friends called my BPD the Gestapo, due to the aggressive cross questioning. I also kept out of the house as long as I was allowed, that daily nagging realy does take it's toll. Repeating a message over and over, is a very effective tool of propaganda/marketing/brain washing. I found CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) has helped. So what things have you been doing to reverse the toxic effect of the daily barrage you had to take ?

[bethanny]

HappyChappy, thanks for response.

My mother was seen as "saintly" by my social network because of my incredible minimization of her oppression and until she became so surreally cruel and irrational I could not deny her disorder any longer. I kept blaming my alcoholic father for stressing my mother to insanity. She was part of what was sending him to drink I now can see.

No excuses for either parent.

Alice Miller writes of how we couldn't let ourselves consciously know what we deep down knew, the inability of unconditional love/acceptance of a toxic parent. She wrote Drama of Gifted Child (Prisoner of Childhood), For Your Own Good, Thou Shalt Not Be Aware. She nails it. Also writes of a society that is dysfunctional as well from lack of respect for natural evolving behavior of each precious human being.

What was particularly toxic to me was not fear of consciously defying my mother, but simply doing my best to accommodate her and being shamed by her for my unwitting failures, my outrageous choices, normal and natural for an adult daughter my age, but in my mother's necrophilic bubble, any focus away from her immediate needs and situation was unforgivable. Sometimes -- often -- I was given simultaneous and contradictory injunctions to be fulfilled asap.  So one has the SHAME and CONFUSION wondering if this person who has demanded absolute trust and control is right and one is crazy-selfish and obtuse because if not she is downright malicious and evil and irrational.

CBT I have read about. Maybe time to reread.

Thanks for emphasizing the chronic invalidation as crazymaking. I had ambushes from 3 sources playing whack a mole with my sanity and spirit.  Over decades and decades.  Sucked into accommodating them out of pity for the hurting inner child wihin each of them (and real terror which I made myself deny/minimize) while their inner children give my inner child a punch in the nose more often than not.

My inner child must come first. I don't want to do any more eggshell walking. I am not young any more!  

Scott Peck said it is EVIL to demand to control AND titsuck from the same person all the time.  A horrible and toxic captivity. Two of my three oppressors have passed on. Yet, I find myself snapping my heels in obedience to uBPDs and narcissists in my secondary network or even randomly in life. One has to stay remarkably alert to sustain any kind of boundaries after what we have been through.

Best,

Bethanny

[bethanny]

IssheBPD,

I think the most despairing one for me is the foreshortened future.  I had a taste of life as an adventure not gauntlet when I went away to college, though was expected home every weekend.

After college I went away to grad school for half a year and was vilified by my mother as selfish and was told that it was my DESTINY to forego an adult life and my own family perhaps because my family (she) was suffering so much and she had sacrificed for her family and I must for mine.  She further shrieked at me that she should not have to be telling me this, the daughter she thought I was would have simply foregone her will and future automatically.  The witch BPD mother had taken over full time from the waif one and I was isolated from healthy, respecting network and it was slippery slope to C-PTSD captivity crazymaking.

How can we get trust back for others but mostly for ourselves when after chronically being tasered for daring to leave the script demanded for us by crazed and pathetic and terrifying uBPD?

best

Bethanny

[isshebpd]

I remember my uBPDmom as being like a deranged drill sergeant.

My friends called my BPD the Gestapo, due to the aggressive cross questioning. I also kept out of the house as long as I was allowed, that daily nagging realy does take it's toll. Repeating a message over and over, is a very effective tool of propaganda/marketing/brain washing. I found CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) has helped. So what things have you been doing to reverse the toxic effect of the daily barrage you had to take ?

One of my better friends had a word for my uBPDmom which I can't repeat here. I'm thankful I didn't end up a misogynist. I'm even more thankful that I found my wife at a time in my life when I didn't care if I lived or died. I wasn't suicidal, but I wouldn't be around today if it wasn't for her.

Circumstances caused us to live far away from my parents for well over a decade. That alone caused some healing. As for the recent past, I had a few therapy session and was diagnosed with PTSD (I assume complex). I know I should go back into therapy because I won't find my solution at the bottom of a bottle.

[isshebpd]

IssheBPD,

I think the most despairing one for me is the foreshortened future.  I had a taste of life as an adventure not gauntlet when I went away to college, though was expected home every weekend.

Thanks, Bethanny. I'm glad to hear you are on the road to recovery.

Going away for college is a good idea. I stayed at home for college and university, and regretted it. My parents wouldn't co-sign so I could borrow enough to live on my own, and my work was minimum wage plus tips. I should have moved out anyhow. I strongly recommend to any young adults reading this to try move away for college or work or whatever reason. Get out as soon as you can. Even if you have to live in poverty for a few years.

As for trust, I still have issues with authority figures. As for people in general, I'm happier having just a few in my life. When I was young, I had too many people around me and a few of them always ended up being toxic.

[unicorn2014]

Anybody relate?

1) foreshortened future sensibility (no hope of marriage, family, good career, etc.)

2) sense of helplessness, no sense of control/empowerment

3) inability to feel joy

4) chronic fatigue

5) survivor guilt

6) clumsiness

7) forgetfulness

8) excessive generosity

9) excessive empathy

10) difficult to trust

11) need to justify every decision to others

12) financial vulnerability

Yeah, I was actually diagnosed with and treated for complex ptsd by a psychiatrist. I still take the medication I was prescribed although I am currently looking for a new sleep medication. You been diagnosed too?