What was your pwBPD obsessed with?

[Aerials]

Purple: Everything in the house from the carpet to the kitchen utensils to her car were purple. I don't allow purple in my house now.

The lives of others, especially office coworkers ("allies" and "enemies" and celebrities like they are her friends

Shoes and in general everything about looks (make-up, hair, buying too many dresses). She had heels in every color and then later started collecting miniature shoes. So much money spent on all of these appearance obsessions.

Jackie Kennedy Onassis. She famously wore a purple coat, going back to the first obsession.

Mod Note: Split from 2007 topic  https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=66407.40

[Pilpel]

--Something that has become an ongoing issue:  the temperature of her food.  Her food has to be perfectly out of the oven hot.  And if it isn't, someone else besides her should care.  And don't even suggest she microwave her food.  Because dinner will get completely cold if she has to take the time to explain the dangers of microwaving food. 

--She's from a different country, so constant comparisons between her home country and America.  Usually in reference to how fat or badly mannered Americans are compared to her home land.

--Birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays.  Our family has always been very casual about birthdays and holidays.  But BPD SIL has changed that.  She's mellowed out a bit over the years.  But in the early days, I got a call from her on my brothers birthday as she wondered why my husband and I went out for dinner to celebrate my brother's birthday but we didn't call him and wish him a happy birthday.  We went out because it was the first opportunity we had to go out since having a baby months before.  Also, if grandma offers to host a holiday dinner, she better have all the expected things: turkey, gravy and potatoes... .or else!

--taking posed pictures.  Even in the middle of an egg hunt, she will get angry if her kids don't stop what they're doing and smile for the camera.  Because she can't do an action shot for some reason. 

--Things needing to be a certain way, and she can't just do it herself.  And if she does have to do something herself, it isn't going to be done quietly with a smile on her face.

--She likes people doing things for her.  Even if people offer to do things graciously, she will treat them like incompetent servants.  And she inevitably makes people feel used. 

[kim peter]

This thread has really resonated!
My brother's obsessions:
Women drivers (bad of course)
(His perception of) my failures as a sister, teacher, woman, human being.
A constant procession of 'the next big thing/s"
Poker
Weed
Sex
How he is supremely logical and rational (when he is the most emotional person I know)

[cleotokos]

I have to join this. uBPDmom's obsessions:

1. Money. She has little of it and is therefore a good person. "Rich" people (anyone with even slightly more money than her) are bad people.

2. Conspiracies. Child sexual abuse rings, government conspiracies, the "scientific establishment" covering things up, etc.

3. Doom and gloom. Evil is winning in this world.

4. My dad. He done her wrong over 30 years ago and she'll tell you all about it if you let her. To the point where she'll start yelling about things that happened 25 or 30 years ago!

5. Dictating what opinions others may hold of her. For example she sincerely believes my dad owes her an apology because he stated he thought my stepmother was a better mother than her.

6. Martyrdom

7. How awful her parents were to her, particularly her father. From what I can tell there wasn't really any abuse, but most of her distress seems to stem from not being able to control her parents, what they thought of her, etc.

8. Declaring with glee that other women her age have "really lost their looks". She clearly hasn't looked in a mirror in a very long time. Metaphorically and literally. 

[Pilpel]

Yes to this Cleotokos: 

5. Dictating what opinions others may hold of her. For example she sincerely believes my dad owes her an apology because he stated he thought my stepmother was a better mother than her.

That definitely goes up there on my list, too.  That was something that probably struck me as the most odd characteristic about my BPD SIL.  She acted so bat s+++ crazy when I first met her.  Then when she found out that I tried to talk my brother out of marrying her, in her mind it was clearly because I hated her from the beginning because she's a poor immigrant and it has nothing to do with how weird and self-absorbed she was acting.  What I took from that is if you don't treat her like she's the perfectly sweet and innocent Christian she is in her own mind, then it's just further reason why you're a bad person and deserving of blame. 

Which was weird because when I know that people think something critical about me, I just treat them decently as decently as I can and hope that they'll eventually think better of me. For me, that's just basic ":)o unto others."   But my SIL will become resentful and act out on her resentment. 

[cleotokos]

Pilpel, it's not a normal reaction is it. If my ex said I was not as good a mother (or girlfriend, or wife, or whatever) as his current flame I might be hurt, or I might not depending on whether or not I even cared about his opinions anymore! But I sure would not expect an apology for someone's opinion. She seems to think my dad is the biggest jerk she ever did meet so I don't even know why his opinion would matter to her. My mother can't even make up any rationalization for him having this opinion, like your SIL did - she believes that my dad is out to hurt her by saying "untrue" things such as this because he's just a very mean person.

[isilme]

the idea I might be sexually abused by anyone, including my dad.  I was not "overtly" sexually abused, but on here I've learned a lot about covert sexual abuse as well as emotional incest, and while that was certainly happening on all fronts , no one touched me in any way.  I got the birds and the bees talk at 5 so I'd know what to tell her if anything happened.

the idea I was sexually active at 14 without her knowledge (I didn't have my first boyfriend till I was 19 and in college, away from BOTH parents, and was a virgin till 22).  She loved to drag me off to OBGYNs for exams starting at age 11.

she still has money cuz she still had checks left!

Dad secretly made her OD during her suicide attempt.

She was the best driver, ever (killing multiple stop signs, getting out and falling to the ground while the car was in reverse, not park, means nothing)

Punctuality - meaning 15 minutes early is late.

Because an MD prescribed it, she can't be a drug addict.  Even if she has to go to several doctors without any knowing about the others, so she could get the supply she wanted (easier in the 80s I'm sure)

[Finding Courage]

Cancer:  How to prevent it (fyi:  you really can't too much), how to treat it, people who have it etc.  She would read books about it, tell me all about things that "cause cancer" and even blame those who do have cancer that they just didn't do the things they should have to prevent it. 

Money: And how to not spend it.  At all costs (relationships, comfort, sanity).  Judging others who are not as "thrifty" as she is. 

Dates:  Counting the number of days until things happen (like my high school graduation- ick).  Knowing exactly what happened on this date 2,5,25 years ago.

Me- how to consume my life and me as her own narcissistic supply (the main reason I had to go VLC with her)

Having a grandchild:  To fulfill a status, not to actually be a grandparent

Being alone in life:  Without much insight as to why she doesn't have quality relationships.

Lots of others too.  Very weird stuff usually.

[MzAnneThrope]

My late uBPD mother's three main obsessions:

- Her looks/physical appearance. She would apply gobs of all types of makeup in an effort to cover up what she feared was her basic unattractiveness, and she was absolutely terrified of aging, which to her meant losing whatever attractiveness she did have once she carefully painted her face on each morning. Her sexual appeal to men was her main source of personal validation, and she frequently objectified herself by dressing provocatively in low-cut tops and short skirts or tight jeans, desperate for any male attention, even when it was highly inappropriate.

- Her weight. She had a massively distorted body image, and always felt 'fat', even though she was underweight. She was severely bulimarexic, basically starving herself all week long (eating like one sliced-up apple and a few cups of dry popcorn/day, drinking lots of coffee, and smoking two packs of cigarettes/day) and then bingeing on massive amounts of greasy high-calorie foods on the weekends. Ironically, although she had been overweight in her adolescence (and lamented to me regularly about how painful it had been to be cruelly teased about this by her peers), she nonetheless felt perfectly free to cruelly criticize me for being overweight in my own adolescence, which ultimately contributed to my own body image issues, which I'm still in the process of healing from (although I have made significant progress in this area).

- Others' approval. If she sensed that someone didn't like her, she would bend over backwards in an effort to win their approval, which she craved like a junkie craves heroin. I found her utter lack of personal integrity and self-respect (which I subsequently came to learn was a hallmark of her disorder's personality instability issue) to be so appalling that it instilled a lifelong determination in me to be authentic and true to myself, regardless of whether others liked or approved of me or not.