How long did it take you to feel "normal"?

[Our abuse recovery guide]

I thought I would feel more free than this after going NC with my uBPD mother. Instead I feel lost. I don't feel like myself anymore. I imagine this is what an addict must feel like going cold turkey.

I just want to get through a day without feeling like a piece of me is missing.

I don't want to go back to the way things were but I don't want to feel like this forever either.

Any insight or even a simple "I felt that way too for awhile" would be helpful to me today.

[Amelia]

I thought I would feel more free than this after going NC with my uBPD mother. Instead I feel lost. I don't feel like myself anymore. I imagine this is what an addict must feel like going cold turkey.

I just want to get through a day without feeling like a piece of me is missing.

I don't want to go back to the way things were but I don't want to feel like this forever either.

Any insight or even a simple "I felt that way too for awhile" would be helpful to me today.

[cleotokos]

Hi Amelia, how long has it been since you went NC? It is very hard. I had to do it with both my uBPDmom and with my dad and nStepmother a few years back. I felt very lonely, lost and sad. It wasn't easy. I mean, I had stress relief because they had been putting a lot of pressure on me that I couldn't deal with. But it's still a loss.

[Amelia]

It really hasn't been very long. We haven't been talking much at all since early January but it's been completely no contact for only a few weeks. The way you described feeling is the way I feel. My husband has been working nights, too, which I am normally okay with but this week it feels pretty lonely. Evenings are hard. I try to stay busy and keep myself distracted from thinking about it all.

[Sarah girl]

Any insight or even a simple "I felt that way too for awhile" would be helpful to me today.

A few years ago, my mom had a psychotic episode in front of me and my children and stormed off saying she never wanted to see us again and we were dead to her. She went from calling me four times a day and coming over regularly to complete radio silence. The change was so drastic that I remember feeling like an orphan.

The thing I didn't realize was that I had been an orphan all along. It took a very long time for me to get my mind around the reality of her BPD and its consequences on me and my family.

I felt a great deal of guilt and anxiety. I felt rootless. But for the first time, I had the opportunity to see and feel things for myself. As painful as it was, it was also one of the best things that had ever happened to me. With the noise of my mom's constant needfulness verbal abuse gone, I could hear myself think. Over time, the loneliness and sense of loss turned into a sense of freedom and inner peace. It's still a work in progress and I do struggle with guilt and sadness.

I am lc with my mom. She did start to seek that close relationship again after that incident but I was the one who steered clear of the enmeshment. I never want to go back to that.

I remember having the same thought about addiction and cold turkey at the time. It will be that way but a new reality will eventually set in.   

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi Amelia 

I am sorry for the loss you are feeling after NC. Each of the responses you"be gotten have been good, and I hope it helps you to feel less alone. This is a very tough step to take. I guess I didn't have the opportunity to go NC exactly with my uBPDm, because she passed away before I understood what that was. I did however have LC by my own choosing through my adult years because I lived in the north and she in the south 1200 miles apart. That helped but the worst was when we literally had to go NC because of her death.

At that time I had barely begun working with my T on my issues from having a pwBPD. So when she passed, I felt lost probably much like you do. It is this ripping apart after being glued together (not necessarily by choice but more by demand and obligation). You are very normal in your feelings. They will settle bit by bit. How are you doing today? Let us know how you are.


Wools

[Amelia]

Thank you so much, everyone is so kind.

Yesterday was the first day in a long time that I felt somewhat normal. It was a beautiful day out, I had errands to run and I opened the windows and sunroof on my truck and had a great day.

Random memories keep surfacing, which is odd. It's like my brain is working on this problem in the background and every once in awhile I experience this memory and "a-ha moment".

Tomorrow is going to be hard, I think, but I will stay with my family and celebrate the good things I learned about how to be a mother (even if some of those things are more like "how not to be a mother" and rejoice in my beautiful son and my family. This year we actually get to visit my husband's mother on Mother's Day without any guilt or having to juggle or explain visits.

It's good to know that I'm not the only one who has felt this way and that good days come with the bad. Soon I hope the good days will outnumber the bad.