Do they really believe we don't have a clue?

[Notwendy]

My mother has BPD. Virtually all the behaviors including a long history of psychiatric visits, hospitalizations, medications.

It's been a big family secret, she pretends she is normal. The whole family goes along with it. Like the emperor has no clothes.

Sibs and I know, and we talk among ourselves. Dad is deceased, but when he was alive, we were not allowed to mention it. He would get angry.

She's elderly and I am middle age. The family patterns are pretty set with her, so changing isn't an option. More so, she has no desire to take the steps to change as I think she believes ( or at least is invested in having others believe) that she doesn't have a problem. She was recently hospitalized, but the whole time was saying " I am not like those other people here who have a problem"

I know about denial, but it amazes me that she acts like I don't have a clue. She recently told me that the current psychiatrist she sees for medication doesn't think she has a serious problem. My response has been to just let these comments slide as there really is no point in debating it.

Once I dared asked my Dad if there was anything else to do for her. In a rare moment when that kind of response wasn't met with anger, he replied "she lies to the doctors".  I didn't know her diagnosis for a while, but I was an inquisitive kid who didn't go along with the "normal" charade and as an older teen and adult started to read up on her behaviors- so I knew something was going on even if I didn't know exactly what it was. My FOO was invested in me being silent, and speaking about her to anyone was a not allowed. Once in grade school I said something to a teacher about the things that were going on at home. The teacher called my parents in, and mother was her charming self, telling them about my wild imagination. My parents tended to discredit me to others, so I soon learned not to bother telling anyone, as they wouldn't believe me if I did.

Yes she does lie. She often tells her doctors  stories about me that are not true. I wonder if she believes that, or she is setting up a situation that if they ever spoke to me, I would not be believed. I don't speak to them- HIPPA laws don't allow it and also, it isn't my place- it is up to them to work with her. I can't imagine what else she says to them about her family.

She habitually lies to me, so I take what she says to me in context of that. But really, does she think I am that clueless? I also wonder if her doctors ever catch on to her or if she's put on such a good front with them that they don't.

Just speculation here, part venting, and curious. Anyone who grew up in our house would see that what went on was not normal behavior, and yet, we are all expected to go along with the idea that she is perfectly fine.

[Harri]

Hi Notwendy.  What a frustrating situation, especially because your mother does have a history that includes psychiatrist visits and hospitalizations. 

I have no great wisdom about this other than to marvel at the power of denial.  I am not sure if she is consciously trying to put one over on you so when you ask "if they really believe we don't have a clue" I would say no... .they are not even consciously aware of their own reality and truly believe their own fabrications.  They have to believe them otherwise they risk annihilation of their own self.  The false self they have constructed over the years to make them feel okay and to deal with what they can not bear to see or admit about themselves.

As for her doctors... .sheesh.  I have found many doctors who have been around a while are burned out, seeing too many patients in too short a time and simply take what is presented to them at face value, putting symptoms into convenient little boxes so diagnostic and treatment decisions are rote.  (yes, I am jaded re: the medical community... .only just starting to deal with the psychiatric community on a personal level).

it could be too that some of the doctors do see the disorder and the associated behaviors but know that she is resistant and will possibly stop seeking any kind of help at all if pressured or confronted. 

None of what I have said is meant to excuse or rationalize any of this... .just trying to make sense of the nonsensical in my own limited way.  I've been struggling a bit lately with the fact that my mother managed to so effectively pull the wool over my eyes and for such a long time, aided a great deal by my own denial.  The fact that you were able to see through all that leaves me stunned a bit and feeling foolish about my own situation,  *and* fills me with admiration for your intelligence and determination when you were so young. 

I hope you gain a sense of peace regarding this situation soon.

Be well

[Notwendy]

Harri,

Don't feel badly. I didn't see through all the leaves. The awareness was in stages and not always linear. My mom is that good at presenting her behavior as normal, and her FOO, along with my father supported this myth. I knew something was not right, but their denial and insistence that she was fine, and the issue had to be my issue made me doubt myself. I was well into middle age when the situation became clearer.

A typical pattern was for my mother to have a rage episode  and a huge argument with my father at night. In the morning, the two of them were affectionate and acted like nothing happened. If I dared to question what happened I was told nothing, or "all couples fight" but this wasn't just a fight- hours of raging and screaming with items being trashed- dishes, whatever could be thrown. Sometimes I would even help clean it up. But according to them, nothing happened.

As I became a teen, the explanation I heard was that I was the cause of her behavior, that if I wasn't such a challenging teen ager, all would be fine. I don't know what they thought was a challenging teen ager- I was in honors classes making good grades, had friends, did some teen antics, but not out of the ordinary. But I had lost all respect for her by then, and that was the challenge to her. I thought that once I left for college, all was fine. I really believed that, and so, since I didn't spend much time at home, I assumed all was fine- problem solved. Since nobody else in the family spoke of it, I had no reason to believe that all was not well.

It was much later when she had a huge dysregulation that I realized something bigger was going on, and started to put the pieces together. She had seen many psychiatrists over the years but the reason was always something explainable- blamed on something, or someone else. The memories of hospitalizations were fuzzy for me. I was sent off to stay with relatives when that happened. So I confirmed these vague memories with other relatives who remembered them clearly.

I recall as a teen being interested in psychology and reading a lot. It was the belief that all was well once I left home for college that delayed me knowing the real situation.

[Notwendy]

They have to believe them otherwise they risk annihilation of their own self.  The false self they have constructed over the years to make them feel okay and to deal with what they can not bear to see or admit about themselves.


This is a good point. My mother would make statements about herself that were obviously not true or not feasable. It would be a huge issue if anyone contradicted her. She would disregulate and we soon learned to just agree with her. But it feels like we are being manipulated when we do. It just feels icky, because we are playing into the lie. However, the hours of disregulation weren't worth saying something to the contrary.

She would state that she was going to do something- take a trip somewhere, or drive a long road trip- but she is too dysfunctional to do this on her own. The way she gets what she wants is to rage at someone to do things for her. She would sign up to bake cookies for a school function, then come home and rage at me to do it. If she wants to go somewhere, she would rage at one of us to take her. If we did things for her, she would tell people she did them.

She is elderly and so seems to have grown into this role. It makes sense for someone her age to need assistance. Maybe this is why she can pull off "normal" to health care staff. But what nobody knows is that, she was also like this when she was younger.  She does much better with a caretaker. Since it would have looked odd for her to have one as a young woman, she made us help her. Now, it looks appropriate to have one.

I think this is why I assumed all was well when I left home. I wasn't there to see what was going on and when we spoke, she would tell me all the things she was doing. I had no reason not to believe her.

[busybee1116]

As for her doctors... .sheesh.  I have found many doctors who have been around a while are burned out, seeing too many patients in too short a time and simply take what is presented to them at face value, putting symptoms into convenient little boxes so diagnostic and treatment decisions are rote.  (yes, I am jaded re: the medical community... .only just starting to deal with the psychiatric community on a personal level).

it could be too that some of the doctors do see the disorder and the associated behaviors but know that she is resistant and will possibly stop seeking any kind of help at all if pressured or confronted. 

Here to give an inside perspective. As a medical professional, working with BPD is really difficult!  Like Harri said, first, it can be easy to miss. I see patients for 15-20 mins, once to 6 times a year. Families deal with those same people the remaining 23/7 year-round. Second, people can be very well behaved in 15 minute increments, and when they are difficult, there may be other good reasons for it (being in sick/pain, frustrated by insurance or medication costs, side effects…). I have three patients who have been formally diagnosed by their psychiatrists/ psychologists with BPD, and while I understand how they made the diagnosis, they have never been a problem for me in the office.  Third, I have many, many more who I think have BPD and I'll never get them into see a psychologist or a psychiatrist. it's easier to dance with them in order to continue some form of contact so their medical needs are met, like Harri said.  Lastly, I'm sure some of my BPD patients have pulled the wool over my eyes. BPD patients can be very manipulative and crafty, resourceful.  My mother, for example, uses her doctors to her advantage. She was very careful to play the game with them so she got her pain medications and sympathy that she would then use as ammunition against my father and me.  She claimed her doctors and psychologists said all kinds of things that I'm sure were not true.

[Notwendy]

Thanks Busybee-
Yes my mother is very charming with her health care providers. She also knows how to get pain medicine. I  can't tell if she really needs it or not- she's petty good at this. Although I sometimes wonder if her providers are on to her-but I wouldn't know and she doesn't tell me.

She also reports to me what they say and I don't know what to believe. Another thing she does is tell them things about me that aren't true. I suspect it might be because I am next of kin. They don't have consent to talk to me but if she needed to have an emergency contact- I think it is me. So if I were to say something they might doubt my perspective if she discredits me to them.

Well that's between her and her health care team. It just irks me sometimes at how good she is at presenting herself- something that doesn't occur to me. I'm the same person with whoever.

[Harri]

Hi again, Notwendy.  I did not mean to make this post about me and my frustration with myself for being duped and oblivious, but I do appreciate that you elaborated on how you came, eventually, to see things as they really were.  You, and I, were gaslighted by our parents.  Looking at it this way, as a symptom of the disorder, gives me a bit of comfort right now.  I am sorry you experienced that and were held responsible for the dysfunction of both your parents.  When I think of the lies, denial and avoidance you experienced in your youth and later as a young adult, I think it is remarkable that you have reached such insights about your situation.  I never realized how gaslighting fit into the life of a child being raised by a pwBPD until thinking about your post.  If adults who enter into a BPD relationship have difficulties, I would say 'we kids of' were faced with an almost impossible task of seeing through the lies and deception especially when the spouse of the pwBPD supported or went along with the denial and stayed passive in the face of what should have been obvious if only they had been healthy (or, in my less generous moods, had some balls). 

[Sunfl0wer]

I have been on both side of this issue.  At work, or in any situation dealing with people, I try never to make generalization comments such as, "You have such a supportive husband" or such because just the fact that a person may behave supportive for 20 mins in front of me does not mean that person is actually supportive behind closed doors.  I try in my language to get more accurate and watch how I state things.  Maybe instead I would say, "Well, that plan your husband came up with, sounds quite supportive."

I guess my point is that many folks do not mean to invalidate another's experience.  They simply may not be mindful of the words and the meaning they convey and are seeking a way to speak in positive upbeat tones vs accuracy.

I am finding myself more aware, after reading around here and studying so much about personality disorders in general, more aware of not allowing my perceptions of who a person is to be determined by compartmental controlled encounters of a person.  For example, my friend is dating and says the girl is wonderful.  I often correct him and say, "sounds like you two have shared some wonderful dates, sounds great." My point is that ALL of who she has presented to him during these few dating encounters is not ALL of who she is. One cannot determine that she as a whole person is anything at that point. Easy to be wonderful on a preplanned date, but does that mean when my kid is in the hospital needing emergency surgery and I need support, will that person be there for me or behave uninterested? 

I guess my whole point is that there is some ownness on the person for making character judgments based on encounters that are compartmentalized vs living with a person or in close proximity to a person intermingling all life matters.  Then there is the understanding that people make these kinds of judgments all the time and there is an acceptance that that is the way it is with many.

It's been a big family secret, she pretends she is normal. The whole family goes along with it. Like the emperor has no clothes.

This feels very familiar to me and my experience with the FOO.
I even recall loving the Emperor story and relate it always to the feeling of growing up in an invalidating environment.

I feel there are many layers to abuse.  There is the abuse itself, how people respond when one seeks help, how people respond in a fashion that enables abuse, etc.  For me, the abuse was more like a seed of harm, then the denial around me was like watering my pain to make it grow causing me more damage, then the people who treated me like I was crazy for even wanting to claim harm had been done was maybe fertilizer to that original seed of hurt.  This is not the best analogy, maybe a better one exists, I'd like to hear, but for me, all these dynamics interacted/connected with the original harm and made their own hurts, and maybe it didn't even start with the seed, there was a climate of dysfunction that caused a situation for planting a hurt seed... .I think it started with that climate.

So today, when I am in company and the weather feels foreboding of dysfunction, I feel it in the air.  I separate, shield, and stay away.  This keeps my mind freer of allowing these things to permeate me in anyway.

[Notwendy]

I get that Sunflower. My mother may have done the abuse, but the secrecy and denial was so invalidating. To this day, there are members of her FOO who have said that I am the problem. My mother has explained this to them as a teen age mother daughter issue and they wonder why I just can't get over it.

Because it wasn't that and her behavior wasn't just during my teen age years. It persists today.

There isn't abuse at this time, as I have boundaries on that. However, there are now major riffs in the family because of the stories she has told her FOO about me. They don't contact me, and i just let the relationship go. Although I am sad over the loss of relationships, I also wonder if those relationships aren't worth being sad about if they didn't try to get to know me in the first place.

[Harri]

Hi.  It is so painful when others continue to believe the lies and manipulations.  I am sorry you are experiencing that still. 

Although I am sad over the loss of relationships, I also wonder if those relationships aren't worth being sad about if they didn't try to get to know me in the first place.

I would say they are not worth much attention, though feeling sad sometimes is, I think, a healthy response to a bad situation. 

I have a theory about the people who cling to the lies and continue to deny abuse in the face of obvious evidence.  I think they may be denying what happened with your mother because to see the dysfunction in your family would also require that they see the dysfunction in their own.  I think of my friend who claims that even though her father was an alcoholic (high functioning she calls him--- whatever that is?) it did not affect her at all and she had a happy childhood.  Flash forward to today and she is waiting for her divorce from her high functioning alcoholic husband and says his constant sleeping when home and drunk and the 'just neglect' (as in not really abuse abuse) of their kids had no impact.  To see it would require that she lift the veil about her own childhood and the role her father and enabling mother had on her.  She actually denied anything being wrong while sitting next to her mother in her childhood home... .plain as day to me, but she is in denial.  She recreated her childhood and copied her mother's role in it and still can't see it.

How many times have you read here that pwBPD can be great parents even when they are not in treatment and are incapable of accepting responsibility for their own actions?  When they are actively engaging in parental alienation?  When the pwBPD spends the day lying in bed due to depression while the kids come home to a silent, sad, scary place?  How true can that be when talking about a disease that is pervasive and one that occurs in intimate relationships?  There is no more intimate relationship that that of a parent and child. 

I think this may also play into that phrase you mentioned in a different thread:  "how bad could it have been if the kids turned out so well?"  More denial.  What could those kids have accomplished if they did not grow up in that environment?  How many of us are falling apart and or re-evaluating our entire lives in our 30s, 40s, 50s and up?  How many of us are just now figuring things out or at least trying to?

Notwendy, as much as I know it is sad that they are basically refusing to get to know you, I say it is their loss because I bet you are a really cool lady.  Leave them to their comfortable misery and life of denial.  Maybe feel sad for them, not about them.

[Notwendy]

You make some really good points.

One is - how could those kids have done without the abuse? Well, one doesn't know for sure, but perhaps we would not have had the emotional/relationship issues. We looked OK in the academic area- because school was a happy place for us and we liked it- and worked hard. The part they didn't see was relationships, dating, self esteem that we had to do personal work on. Yet, perhaps all people have some personal work to do- some more than others.

The other is that they don't want to see the dysfunction in their family and that side of the family to me just looks a little too good to be true. Yet, the few times I have been able to see through this image- there are aspects I question some real pain. I have a cousin, who starts to open up to me, and then when I respond- clams up and doesn't respond. She will message me a vague statement about issues in the family- then, I would reply- telling her I understand, would like to talk to her ( as a support) and then, I hear nothing back for a long time. I don't know for sure, but I think the secrecy taboo in my FOO is part of this. All I can do is let her know she can talk to me and leave it at that. The rest of the family hardly speaks to me, and yes, perhaps there is more there than I want to be involved in. 

For us, Harri, I think the challenge is to work through the issues in our pasts and move forward. It isn't an easy task- but the personal work is worth it.