Hello new here

[Depression = 72% of members]

Hello

I have been visiting this site for a while.  Im happy to have found it and now I feel I need to join.

Im a middle child of three girls.  My younger sister has BPD.  My older sister was the preferred child in my mother's eyes. Im not sure what my mother suffered from but she was not normal, I suspect BPD.  

All three of us were told we were never good enough but only my older sister was shown any type of love or affection, but it was more of a friendship than a mother/daughter relationship. And it was fraught with conditions to stay on my mother's good side.  My older sister aligned herself with my mother and did whatever my mother wanted.

My older sister suffers from severe anxiety and mild OCD.  She is also co-dependent.  

My younger sister and I were pretty much ignored until my mother's flew into one of her many rages or we needed to be trotted out to impress someone.  In order to get some type of positive attention, I became an overachiever and to escape I usually had my head in a book.  I was very quiet, kept to myself and was out of the house as much as I could be.  I tried to avoid my mother and not set her off.  

My younger sister began to harm herself when we became teenagers... .she was anorexic and bulimic, threatened and then attempted suicide, began using drugs, and self harmed.  She also began to lash out at everyone in the family. As an adult,she was diagnosed with BPD and depression.

At 18, I got a scholarship left for university and upon graduation joined the military and spent years overseas away from my family  with only phone calls for contact.  My parents never showed any interest in visiting me and they never have.   I always felt like I carried a big terrible secret... .that there was something very wrong with me and I was not worthy.  I had a series of disastrous relationships and through that, I realized I was the constant and sought help to change how I approached them.  But I never looked further than myself.  And I never looked into my childhood.  I just know it wasn't a good childhood but I put it behind me and thought Im doing ok as an adult.  I thought I had dealt with the hurt of my childhood.

I now have a wonderful husband of 7 years.  I live closer to my family and I visited a couple of times a year and video chat regularly with them.  But now Im suffering from major depression and Im not sure why.  And when it comes time to visit my family, I become stressed and anxious.  Afterwards, I become even more depressed.  I told my husband it feels like I have to go and be a person that I dont even know anymore.  Actually just a body, as they dont want to hear or know anything about me or my opinions.  We reduced our visits to once per year and shortened them.  About three years ago, my younger sister had a final falling out with the entire family and is NC.  I never had a relationship with her so I wasn't part of the conflicts.  

About a year ago, I got busy with my in-laws and I didnt call my mother on mother's day.  I called first thing the next morning and it went to voicemail.  I called a couple of more times and continued until we had a family video chat on the next Wednesday evening.  My mother was mad and my dad said someone didnt call on Mother's day.  I apologized.  My mother said she didnt want to talk and as she approached the camera to disconnect she gave me such a hateful look.  Then she disconnected.  I experienced such an emotional event from the look she gave me.  I realized I was so familiar with that look.  And I was suddenly overwhelmed with emotion and feelings and memories that I had forgotten about.  I sobbed for hours afterwards and from then on, I keep having flashbacks to horrible events from my childhood.  I cant believe I forgot about all of it.  I have worked to deal with it but I find it difficult to interact with my mother.  At Christmas we were supposed to all visit my nephew, but at the last minute, 2 days before, my mother and sister decided to move it to my parents house.  I felt this was not fair so we didnt change our plans and went to my nephews house instead of my parents.  

When we skyped with my family at Christmas, my Mother and my older sister refused to speak to me.

I had ruined Christmas.  I was very embarrassed in front on the other members of my family. I am now even more severely depressed and barely able to function.  My mother has not spoken to me since the, and since mine and my husband's birthdays have passed as well as our anniversary, I can only assume she is NC with me.  I know if I begin to apologize and ask to be forgiven, she will let me back into her good gracious.  But now Im having so many flashbacks and memories are resurfacing, I dont think I can interact with her.  I feel sad, broken and so ashamed.  I dont think I can push this down and so I am going to work my way through this.  Im at the phase of remembering and trying to decide if I was abused.  It is more emotional abuse and some physical.  Today, I had a memory surface of her flying off the handle and beating my younger sister.  My sister was drunk and I was trying to get her into bed.  My mother came in and just began hitting and slapping her. My sister curled up on the floor and my mother just continued to hit her.  I stood there helplessly, I knew if I interfered my mother would turn on me.  After she left, I put my sister into bed. With the memory, I feel so bad about watching my helpless sister get beat and not doing anything to help.  So Im here.

[Coffeegirl]

Hello

I have been visiting this site for a while.  Im happy to have found it and now I feel I need to join.

Im a middle child of three girls.  My younger sister has BPD.  My older sister was the preferred child in my mother's eyes. Im not sure what my mother suffered from but she was not normal, I suspect BPD.  

All three of us were told we were never good enough but only my older sister was shown any type of love or affection, but it was more of a friendship than a mother/daughter relationship. And it was fraught with conditions to stay on my mother's good side.  My older sister aligned herself with my mother and did whatever my mother wanted.

My older sister suffers from severe anxiety and mild OCD.  She is also co-dependent.  

My younger sister and I were pretty much ignored until my mother's flew into one of her many rages or we needed to be trotted out to impress someone.  In order to get some type of positive attention, I became an overachiever and to escape I usually had my head in a book.  I was very quiet, kept to myself and was out of the house as much as I could be.  I tried to avoid my mother and not set her off.  

My younger sister began to harm herself when we became teenagers... .she was anorexic and bulimic, threatened and then attempted suicide, began using drugs, and self harmed.  She also began to lash out at everyone in the family. As an adult,she was diagnosed with BPD and depression.

At 18, I got a scholarship left for university and upon graduation joined the military and spent years overseas away from my family  with only phone calls for contact.  My parents never showed any interest in visiting me and they never have.   I always felt like I carried a big terrible secret... .that there was something very wrong with me and I was not worthy.  I had a series of disastrous relationships and through that, I realized I was the constant and sought help to change how I approached them.  But I never looked further than myself.  And I never looked into my childhood.  I just know it wasn't a good childhood but I put it behind me and thought Im doing ok as an adult.  I thought I had dealt with the hurt of my childhood.

I now have a wonderful husband of 7 years.  I live closer to my family and I visited a couple of times a year and video chat regularly with them.  But now Im suffering from major depression and Im not sure why.  And when it comes time to visit my family, I become stressed and anxious.  Afterwards, I become even more depressed.  I told my husband it feels like I have to go and be a person that I dont even know anymore.  Actually just a body, as they dont want to hear or know anything about me or my opinions.  We reduced our visits to once per year and shortened them.  About three years ago, my younger sister had a final falling out with the entire family and is NC.  I never had a relationship with her so I wasn't part of the conflicts.  

About a year ago, I got busy with my in-laws and I didnt call my mother on mother's day.  I called first thing the next morning and it went to voicemail.  I called a couple of more times and continued until we had a family video chat on the next Wednesday evening.  My mother was mad and my dad said someone didnt call on Mother's day.  I apologized.  My mother said she didnt want to talk and as she approached the camera to disconnect she gave me such a hateful look.  Then she disconnected.  I experienced such an emotional event from the look she gave me.  I realized I was so familiar with that look.  And I was suddenly overwhelmed with emotion and feelings and memories that I had forgotten about.  I sobbed for hours afterwards and from then on, I keep having flashbacks to horrible events from my childhood.  I cant believe I forgot about all of it.  I have worked to deal with it but I find it difficult to interact with my mother.  At Christmas we were supposed to all visit my nephew, but at the last minute, 2 days before, my mother and sister decided to move it to my parents house.  I felt this was not fair so we didnt change our plans and went to my nephews house instead of my parents.  

When we skyped with my family at Christmas, my Mother and my older sister refused to speak to me.

I had ruined Christmas.  I was very embarrassed in front on the other members of my family. I am now even more severely depressed and barely able to function.  My mother has not spoken to me since the, and since mine and my husband's birthdays have passed as well as our anniversary, I can only assume she is NC with me.  I know if I begin to apologize and ask to be forgiven, she will let me back into her good gracious.  But now Im having so many flashbacks and memories are resurfacing, I dont think I can interact with her.  I feel sad, broken and so ashamed.  I dont think I can push this down and so I am going to work my way through this.  Im at the phase of remembering and trying to decide if I was abused.  It is more emotional abuse and some physical.  Today, I had a memory surface of her flying off the handle and beating my younger sister.  My sister was drunk and I was trying to get her into bed.  My mother came in and just began hitting and slapping her. My sister curled up on the floor and my mother just continued to hit her.  I stood there helplessly, I knew if I interfered my mother would turn on me.  After she left, I put my sister into bed. With the memory, I feel so bad about watching my helpless sister get beat and not doing anything to help.  So Im here.

[Naughty Nibbler]

Coffeegirl: 

Welcome to the BPD family!  So sorry about your family situation and your depression.  It's great that you have a good husband.  Sounds like you made a good choice.

You will need to set your own boundaries, in order to maintain your own sanity.  Video Chatting sounds like punishment that I know I wouldn't sign up for.  Social media and BPD's don't appear to mix well.   I've reduced contact with my uBPD sister to US Mail? She still behaves badly, but it slows her down a lot.  U.S. Mail is the only way I will currently reply to her. 

There is a lot of good information on this Website that you should find helpful.  There are some links on the right hand side of the page.  You can, also, go to "The Learning Center" area on the board (find the main index page or use the navigation drop-down at the bottom of this page).  The links below are likely helpful:

Here is a link to info. about Fear, Obligation and Guilt (FOG).  I think you will relate to the situation:

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

Here is a link to a thread about boundaries - you might find it helpful:

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=61684.0

This link is to:  SELF-AWARE: What it means to be in the "FOG"

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=82926.0

Are you seeing a therapist?  If not, it could be helpful for you.  I started therapy to try and sort out things with my uBPD sister.  Genetics play a part in depression, as well as environment and situations.  It could be possible that your depression might be, at least partially, caused by body chemistry.  I think that some of us who have family members with aspects of depression, can have periods of time in our life when we hit a boute of depression as well.  I've come to think of myself as being marginally normal with body chemistry, as I've hit a few bumps in the road where I tilted on the side of anxiety and depression.

I believe I have had some level of Winter Depression (SAD) for most of my life.  Information about it wasn't readily available when I was young.  As I got older, I encountered a few very bad Winters.  I suspect that hormonal changes may have contributed to the situation.  Anyway, after having a couple of Winters with significant anxiety and depression, (then a panic attack), I got a prescription for a low dose of an antidepressant.  I only take it for part of the year, generally start it late August/Early Sept. and then wean off of it around February.  I resisted using medication for awhile, but came to realize that it did help me and that If I weaned my way on and off of it, I eliminated side efffects.

My parents both recently passed, at age 92.  I'm not sure what the diagnosis would have been for my dad. The more I read about BPD, the more I think that he had some BPD traits, along with an anxiety disorder and bouts of depression (perhaps a bit ADD & OCD as well). He was never physically abusive (or a substance abuser), but he had a bad temper and tended to be grumpy, picky and controlling.  When I was young, my parents would have verbal fights.  WOW, income tax time was the worst.  My dad would go weeks without talking to my mom.  Thank goodness, they finally decided to get a tax accountant, .  My dad would usualy inspect things after a course of vaccuming. ("look, you must have scratched the table, the door jamb, etc.".  Dad was a volcano.  It was such a relief, when I moved to start my own life and got away from the daily nagging.  My mom mellowed, as the years passed, and seemed to have mastered the art of tuning my dad out (or she ran out of energy to react).  My Dad was my Dad and I loved him, but I knew that I could never be married to someone like my dad.  I don't know how my mom endured it.

If visiting your parents causes horrible side effects, then you might ask yourself why are you going.  Perhaps something to explore with a therapist?  If your depression has gone on for awhile, there is no shame is asking for meds to get you over the hump and feeling better.  Depression really sucks and if you have the anxiety type, it can be easy to ruminate on certain negative things.  You have a wonderful husband and with a little help, you can get back on track with making the rest of your life the best it can be.  We can't change the past, but we sure can do something about the present and future.

Best wishes.

[Notwendy]

Actually just a body, as they don't want to hear or know anything about me or my opinions.

I can relate to this phrase, as my parent's don't know me. They can't know me. I am just the canvas upon which they place their projections of me.

Welcome to this board- you are not alone.

I can relate to some aspects of your story. Like you, I made sure to attend an affordable college- in state- one I knew I could pay on my own- as I realized they would not be reliable with financial support. Like you, I had the grades. This was of course essential to our independence, but it also masked any neediness on my part. People rarely caught on to my home life, often saying " look how you turned out". Or if they heard about my mother, would say " well things could not have been that bad look how you turned out".

We didn't achieve because of them. We didn't get what kids needed in terms of unconditional love, yet people didn't think we needed it. Thank goodness for the resilience. You would not be as independent and strong as you are without the drive to get the scholarship, join the army and build a life with your husband.

I think though, genetics or not, being an unloved child may have it's own timing as out of the blue that black cloud appeared for me too, and I had nobody to call, nobody to come help, because, well I had been the one emotionally taking care of everyone else- my parents, siblings, children, husband.

Yet, the child part of me - little Notwendy-  began to cry and could not stop. But I asked for help, from a T, and began a journey of emotional growth. You can do it too.

I too cried buckets over being rejected by my parents for some unforgivable inexcusable "crime"-among them- not giving in to my mother's demands , doesn't matter what. The way they acted, it was the crime of the century.

Coffeegirl, it isn't easy for resilient people to ask for help, but please do it. Let people help you- counseling, medication if you need it. Let others nurture that part of you, even if your parents can not. Know, in your heart, it is their sickness that makes it not possible to give you what you need. They can't even love themselves enough to love someone else. But you can, and you can ask for it.