Hello! I just found this site after reading a book on BPD parents. After reading through some of the posts here I can tell I am in the right place to get some of what I've been thinking/feeling off my chest.
I've struggled with anxiety and MDD since I was a teen. This journey has included various different medications, counseling, and a suicide attempt when I was a senior in high school. Although I have gotten better about managing my mental health, I still never feel like a normal person, and even with counseling I never felt like I understood why everyone else seemed to "get it" and I just don't. Learning about BPD has been like a punch to my gut, at times I really feel like the wind has been knocked out of me when I realize how much of "myself" has been shaped by my mother's BPD.
I always said I had a really great childhood. My brothers and I played sports, joined boy/girl scouts, we had a pool and pets and we took vacations all over the west coast in our RV. As my brother puts it, our childhood was the "all-american prototype." My mom even got to stay home with us much of my middle and high school years. But all of that ignored the fact that I was wildly unhappy. I always thought (and was told) the problem was me, my moodiness as a teen, my own irritability, my lack of gratitude, etc. I was a difficult person, and thus my life had been difficult.
As I've progressed through my 20s, I've had many "that's weird" moments, in which the realization that something was off with my own family slowly became harder to dismiss. The best example of this was when a friend of mine invited her mother to their bachelorette weekend in Vegas a couple years ago. "How bizarre!" I exclaimed to my friends. "I love my mother but I would NEVER want her to come to my bachelorette party, she would totally
ruin it." The reality that none of my friends felt that way about their mother, that they all actually regularly wanted to (and did) take trips/vacations with them, was mind blowing. After that, I started noticing more and more, how many people I knew, that really enjoyed being around their mom.
This isn't to say I didn't know that my mom and I had problems. I knew she struggled with depression as well. Her issues got markedly worse after the birth of my youngest brother (he is 12 years younger than I). I had always been "mommy #2" in our house, a nickname I took on because of how I cared for my other brother. However, with my mother's intense PPD and my age, "mommy #2" became more of a reality than a sweet nickname for a caring older sister. I was expected to watch him whenever "the family" deemed it necessary, regardless of my own plans. This was always done for free (even when I started babysitting for other families for cash), because it was my duty to help the family. This arrangement went on even after I moved away to college, when I would be called upon to drive home to help out multiple times a month. I always considered this a necessity of helping the family, and I rarely said no, and this was always met with resistance.
Aside from being the family babysitter, I was an excellent student, participated in Academic Decathalon, played on my HS softball team, was active in my youth group at church, as well as many other extracurricular activities. I never drank, never did drugs, never snuck out of the house, I played by my parents rules. Despite this, once HS began, I could no longer spend the night at friend's houses, although they were welcome to stay at mine, and there was a general distrust of my social meetings and friends in general. This created a huge divide, as many friends' parents took this (rightfully so) as a direct "we don't trust your parenting." I was drug tested by my mom (who still denies this ever happened) my junior year when my depression and "moodiness" were apparently so bad that I must have been on drugs for her to believe them. Once my parents became convinced that I snuck out one night, despite never having done so. I was grounded for that. All of this combined for a really sorry social life. I had few friends, typically my closest friend was a boyfriend (who i wasn't allowed to see very often) and I withdrew socially my senior year, eating lunch in my math teacher's classroom and generally avoiding after school functions like dances etc. Many of my friends were people that didn't have many other friends, and more than once I found myself friendless when these people "moved on" to larger social circles. I felt very lonely much of my HS and MS years.
My parents had a very rough relationship. My mother held grudges for everything my dad ever did, he wasn't a saint but even if he was she would've found something to be angry about. I remember frequently carrying my brother(s) out of the room to hide in a bedroom while they yelled. My dad had an issue with pornography that I became aware of as a 6th grader (due to my usage of the computer). This became not just the family secret, but a secret for just me and my parents to share, even when it resulted in a demotion at his job, even when he moved out temporarily, even when I caught him again and my mother took his side. It was incredibly alienating to know the reason why my parents didn't get along, but to have to lie to my brother, my grandmother, my friends. I didn't even tell my therapist. It took my years to finally open up to someone about it, and I still have never confronted either of them how damaging it was to force their 11 year old to lie to the world to cover for dad/mom. (My dad completed a 12-step program and has apologized to me and my brothers for not being the parent we should've had.)
My parents lasted almost 25 years together, before my mom abruptly called for a divorce. Well to us it was abrupt. Their relationship had never seemed stronger in my life, and just a week before my mom had sent me a selfie of them in a kayak, down at the harbor for another date. In reality, 7 months prior, my mom had attended a ":)ivorce Seminar." I'm still not entirely sure why she asked for the divorce, or how she could be sure enough to attend (and lie about) a costly "how to" event for divorce, but still not say anything to my dad for months, only to blindside him and the whole family.
This is when my mom really started to go off the rails. I was living at home after college at the time (I had a bad break up and had to move home for a bit), and I stayed with her when my dad moved out (even though I honestly wanted to go live with him), because she still had my youngest brother living there, and I felt she would need help with him and with the large house she was left with. This lasted less than a month. One morning, she was complaining about her phone and essentially thrust it at me and implied the need for help (this was her usual was of requesting help- being angry and shouting the problem at others). I began to help her with her phone, asking her questions and finally got tired of being yelled at. I will never forget this, it was the first time I ever had the ability to realize she was the problem. I told her "you know, I'm helping you right now, I don't need to do this if you're going to yell like this." I set her phone down in front of her, wished her luck and returned to my room to get ready for work. Something in my mother snapped. She stormed after me, flung my door open and screamed at me, called me a ___ and said "no wonder every boyfriend you ever have leaves you, who would ever want to be around you. No one will ever love you." She told me that if I was going to be this difficult that I didn't need to live under her roof, and that I should get out of her house. I was shocked, it was the first time I really saw how cruel my mom was. I was still recovering from a break up, she knew this and had used it against me. She just wanted to hurt me. My mom, told me no one would ever love me. I held my tongue, went to work and stayed with my dad that night. A few days later, I went to move the rest of my things. My mom was home, I said nothing to her and simply loaded my car. On one of my last trips out, she abruptly said "I want you to know that I'm not mad at you" She continued on, but after that statement I couldn't hear her. She wasn't mad at me? What crazy reality was this? I interrupted her and said "That's nice, I am very mad at you, and I've moving out"
Me moving out, started years of my mother claiming that my dad had in someway "stolen" or "manipulated" all 3 of her kids. This became her mantra towards us, even when she moved into a two bedroom condo, and my dad rented a 4 bedroom house and opened his doors to not just my brother and I but also our significant others when we hit hard times trying to start our lives. She became her own martyr, we all had conspired against her, seeing that we all spent time together became a personal affront. Nevermind that we all needed a place to live, and she simply didn't provide that- by choice! (Not to mention that she had actually told me not to live with her, something she still denies). She now has limited custody of my youngest brother, and this too is yet another thing we have collectively done to her.
The past few years I kept my mom at a distance. I moved an hour away and this was also something I had to apologize for doing to her. She moved in with her boyfriend and my brothers and I had to rescue our childhood items and photos from the garage sale and garbage pile she created. She thrusted her hope chest upon me- stating that there wasn't room for it at her new house, (not the way I had envisioned receiving what as I child I thought was the ultimate heirloom) and when I opened it, it was full of my own baby clothes and hand made gifts I had given to her throughout the years. This was devastating. I closed the chest that day and haven't opened it since.
All of this culminated recently. Every December since they divorced, my mom has planned a Christmas activity to do with my brothers and I. The first few years this went well, but as time goes on this event becomes more and more forced; this event has taken on a whole new meaning to my mom and anything negative that happens ruins it and also calls for a reminder that my mom doesn't get to see us very much any more and the guilt that she JUST wants to have a nice Christmas time with us because we'll all be with my dad etc etc. This year was no different. The plan was to have dinner and look at the lights at a popular attraction. The area was more crowded than anticipated, and we had a difficult time finding a place to eat. It was decided to that we should get snacks from the vendors, look at the lights and then perhaps search outside the area for a dinner location. We did just that, then stopped to search for a place. After a short while, during which my mom shot down numerous suggestions because they weren't "special" or "nice" enough, she asked again what we would like to do. Would we like to walk around for a while? I couldn't believe my ears, we had been communicating for over an hour that we were all hungry and we had already looked at the lights, what the heck? I told her that we were hungry and we wanted to eat, and that we had been saying that for some time. I also reminded her that we already looked at the lights. She bristled, but picked a place. We walked half a mile before discovering we could not be seated. Ok I said, lets just go get the car and we can drive somewhere less chaotic and not have this problem. She seemed a bit quiet and down, so I attempted to reassure her that everything was ok, and hey this walk was good because we got to see stuff we didn't see on our first walk around the area. She did this thing where she doesn't listen but just gives "uhuh" responses. She has done this my whole life and her reaction when confronted is always the same. I said "oh did you hear me? I was talking about the... ." She continued her fake listening, so I stopped and said, "are you ok? you seem kinda down and there's no reason to be, no one is upset about dinner." She proceeded to say "this was a bad idea we shouldn't have come here you guys don't like this." There it was. She was the victim again. She did this same thing the year before. I couldn't listen to it. It probably wasn't the best reaction but I told her she had done this before and that I wasn't going to listen to it again. I finally reached my limit of babying my mother, having to reassure her that we were enjoying something or she was going to ruin it with her bad attitude. This interaction soured the mood, and I decided I did not want to go to dinner just because it was what we had planned, I was tired of having to suffer through my moms moods just because "that's what we were supposed to do." She wanted some Hallmark version of Christmas that simply doesn't exist, and there wasn't anything I could do at dinner that would make it better. I wanted to go home. And I told her that. She lost her mind. On the drive home she proceeded to scream at me (in front of my brother and my boyfriend) about what a horrible nasty person I am, how no one likes to be around me, how difficult I am for others to endure. I tried to remain calm, pointing out when I felt like she was saying truths about herself and not me, but eventually lost my composure when repeated again and again how much everyone hated to be around me. My boyfriend stepped in and stopped the conversation by asserting that he likes to be around me. Later that night, my mother posted pictures of our outing to facebook, complete with tags and with cryptic captions alluding to love etc.
After that, I felt terrible. Just awful. I texted her twice over the next few days and told her how sad I was over what happened, how I was worried about her. After a week of silence, she emailed me. This email asserted that ever since I was a teen, I had pushed her away. That my unkindness towards her was unwarranted, and that she would no longer tolerate my nastiness. She told me I was not longer welcome at her house for the day after Christmas gathering we planned. In fact, until I had fixed myself, I was no longer welcome around her at all! But I could still transport my brother to her house for her that day (she benevolently said that my boyfriend could do it for me if I chose). I read, re-read, and even read aloud this email. I couldn't believe that after all of the nasty things she yelled at me in the car, that she somehow had it in her head that I was the one (the ONLY one) that had been out of line. There was zero acknowledgement of any wrongdoing of her own. And then I slowly realized that she really had been telling me ever since I was a teen that I was a miserable and nasty person, and that no one liked being around me. I told her to work out a different method for getting my brother to her house. I was truly devastated that my mom didn't want to see me for Christmas. Even with everything she had said. That was the last I interacted with her. On Christmas, she asked both my brothers to pass me the phone, and I declined. She later texted me, telling me how she knew that we weren't "getting along" but that she loved me and wanted to wish me a Merry Christmas. This was when I really fully and finally realized that there was something wrong, fundamentally, with how my mother and I interacted. It felt like a game. She had no clue how hurtful she was, why the hell would she want to wish me a Merry Christmas when I'm not welcome at her house because of how horrible she thinks I am. It made no sense. Did she just want a reaction? All I knew was that I had stepped outside far enough to actually see in, and I didn't like what I saw.
Since then I've been searching, trying to figure out how this happened. How I can't even imagine the relationship others have with their mom. How almost all the negative thoughts that swim around in my head, have actually come out of my mother's mouth. I'm no longer willing to sacrifice my own happiness to try to keep her happy. At this point I'm not quite sure what that means for my relationship with her, I'm not sure when I will approach her again. I have experience in the mental health field, and had only seen very severe and acute cases of BPD. Understanding how the less severe forms manifest has been difficult. Some times I feel relief at understanding that I'm not just a difficult person, that the thoughts I battled for years were actually put there. But that relief frequently turns to sadness and anger at the loss of my self esteem and the loneliness I felt for years because of it. I recently told my dad that my mom used to refuse to drive me to visit with friends. I never before thought of that as anything unusual, she always asserted that she was busy and that she didn't have the time to cart me around. I mean, that's not abuse or anything, she didn't have to take my places. My dad was shocked and saddened, he never knew that my mom openly stood in between me and my social life. His sadness sits with me, as I slowly realize how much of what I accepted as "normal parenting" just wasn't.
Anyways, this got way longer than I expected it to. Thank you for letting me speak my piece on this.
