Family of Origin

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

   The more I have learned about my ex's personality issues and his family, history, experiences, etc. the more I look at  my own family of origin and see problems. It is making me angry. I was raised to fall prey to disordered people. It is very hard to look at oneself. It is even harder not only to see the problems I grew up, but the problems still around.

[rarsweet]

   The more I have learned about my ex's personality issues and his family, history, experiences, etc. the more I look at  my own family of origin and see problems. It is making me angry. I was raised to fall prey to disordered people. It is very hard to look at oneself. It is even harder not only to see the problems I grew up, but the problems still around.

[steelwork]

Yep yep yep. All that.

Is there anything in particular you want to talk about?

For me, the first "aha" was that, while I was being frozen out, I was tying myself in knots trying to imagine what he was thinking, empathizing with him but not myself, and basically inventing a whole inner world for him that would explain his behavior while still preserving the idea that he cared about me. And I realized: this is exactly what I've always done with my mother.

[rarsweet]

I grew up made to feel that my self worth was only what I could do for someone else. If my siblings had a problem it was my fault. I am the oldest of 3, all of us are only 3 years apart. My father was abusive to my mother and they split when I was 12. I was always the second mom, teaching my siblings to read, cooking, doing dishes, cleaning my sister's room, etc. When I was 13 I was hospitalized for an eating disorder. I was horribly depressed and skipped school for months. The school put a CHINS on me and I was put in a foster home. I was sent home 3 times from then until I was 18. Each time lasted for less than a month before I asked to be sent back. I was very lucky that my foster parents kept taking me. I finally left foster care a month before turning 18. I went back to my mother's and met my horrible ex husband halfway into senior year. I was so desperate to be a grown up that I moved in with him and dropped out of school. My ex husband is not my exwpbd. That came after my divorce. When I was in foster care I would spend alot of weekends at my mom's. My sister did drugs, skipped school, dated 18 year old boys when she was 13, etc. My brother did drugs and was extremely violent, chasing us with hammers, knives, a fishing pole. He smashed the bedroom door with a hammer one day while chasing us. I eventually got him outside and locked him out. When my mother came home she was furious that I had locked him out. One day my brother was attacking my sister and tried to push her down the basement stairs, she got away and locked herself in the bathroom. He tried to break in the window from outside. I wasn't there, I was at my foster home. My mom made excuses, said he always got worked up before I came home for a weekend. One time he smashed his bed and went after my mother with the bed post, breaking a window. I called the police and she was furious that I had called them. The school wanted to put him on meds, she fought it, even having to go to court to fight neglect charges. Both my brother and sister dropped out, they kept failing until they were old enough to drop out, never making it past 8th grade. My sister was pregnant at 16. After I met my ex husband I just worked and worked. More later.

[steelwork]

It's already a lot! A lot to survive, and you are a survivor. How do you see it as having set you up for the relationship with the pwBPD?

[rarsweet]

A counselor once told me that I was a "chronic nurterer". I didn't understand then. When I see disordered people I think that I must sacrifice myself to help them. This obviously does not work in a relationship. I get that now. I attended some seminars recently and it was discussed that sometimes we have to "sting" family members in order to improve ourselves. It basically means leave them behind, even if temporarily, if they are holding us back. I am about to graduate college in March, 6 months early. I have busted my butt, and I realize my mother has never once told me good job. Not about anything, ever. She is the most negative person I have ever met. She discourages everything. She babysits for me so I have pretty much daily contact with her. I literally can't do anything without her criticizing it. This morning it was snowing and sleeting. She showed up to babysit while I went to work. I live less than a half mile from my job, one of 2 jobs. It was 15 minutes of her trying to talk me into calling in. I can walk it much safer than drive it. I haven't missed a day of work since January 2014. There is not a week that has gone by that she hasn't encouraged me to call into work, with every reason from actually being sick to just calling in since I never do.  She criticizes my school course load, says there is no reason to push myself.

[rarsweet]

 I have alot of volunteer work I do, she will discourage it saying it's too cold outside, too hot outside, I should be tired after working. Every single day when I leave for work she tells me what I should wear, gloves, hat, scarf. I snapped and told her I know how to dress so now she will literally speak through my 2 year old. She will say "tell mommy not to forget her gloves". Now I completely ignore her(my mom) and she will keep telling my 2 year old to say it.  She thought it was funny to tell me that my 2 year old was hysterical one day while I was at work because she saw my gloves on the counter and was crying because I had left them. So now my 2 year old is worrying about me while she should be being a kid. And my mom thinks it is funny.
      She did this to me when I was a kid. I was supposed to be the messenger even with her standing right beside me. I can remember yelling for her to say it herself when I was a teenager. I am a single mom working 2 jobs and putting myself through school. I am very responsible about paying my bills. If we go on a shopping trip together she will point out things I should buy, nothing I need or want, and certainly not stuff I want to waste my bill money on. She encourages me to buy stupid crap instead of paying bills.
       For years she takes it upon herself to buy crap from thrift stores and bring them to me. Alot of times I come home and find vases and different lamp shades, different table clothes, just stuff I hate, and I hate clutter. I have spoken up about this so many times. Clutter actually gives me panic attacks. I have a tremendous amount that I do and disorganization costs me time. My decor is ocean colors. The other day I came home to find a bright pink table cloth on my kitchen table. She brought me a loaf of bread last week, I don't eat bread. She thinks I need to eat bread. I moved a little over a month ago. After the move I discovered I had accidentally thrown out a huge box of my shoes, about 20 pairs. It isn't a big deal to me, they weren't expensive, I had way more than I needed anyway. She was almost in a panic over my shoes. This morning she brought me 2 pairs of her shoes. They aren't even my size. I told her that and she is insulted that I "don't like them". No they actually don't fit! I am going to go for a weekend to D.C with some friends and their kid. She said I shouldn't go there because they don't have property taxes on government buildings? Lol, no idea what the relevance is.
       From the age of 13 to 28 she really wasn't that involved in my life. It was only after my divorce that she became like this. Meanwhile my sister is a recovering addict, 3 different fathers for her 3 kids, and a new husband who isn't the father of any. He is a recovering addict also. She has worked maybe 3 years out of her 31 years. Multiple theft convictions. She took off across the country with her new husband and has been homeless atleast once a year her entire adult life. She took her kids away from their involved dads. My brother is 32 and has been sleeping on my mom's couch for over 3 years. He has never worked. He lived with me when I was married, I kicked him out, he then lived with my sister, she kicked him out, lived with a girlfriend for years, she kicked him out. His I.Q is around 150, he has been tested, he is an amazing artist, he is just purely lazy. I have spent alot of time trying to find jobs for him and passing along info, getting numbers, I found a free training program he could do, offered to even do the paperwork for him. Nope nowhere. I give up now. The worst though is that the last time I tried to talk to my mom about my brother getting a job she said "he is nice to have around." So I am wondering how much is him being lazy and how much is her holding him back. My mom has been wanting me to get a bigger place and live with her for a few years now. She thinks we should both support my brother. Not happening.
        I feel like the better I do the worse it makes my brother and sister look and she doesn't want that. I am always supposed to sacrifice myself. Well I'm not. Sometimes I wonder when I go to work with the flu if I am doing it just to spite her. Last time I called in I was pregnant and fell on the ice. I haven't called in because of being sick since maybe 2010. I have been wicked sick, pregnant, frozen shoulder 4 times, pink eye, I just go no matter what. I watch other parents with their adult children and I don't see discouragement. I have had simple problems like schedule a meeting and then have one agency I work with schedule a conflicting meeting and I have to choose one and miss one. She will smirk and laugh like it's a good thing I can't have everything. I was on the front page of the newspaper a couple of weeks ago, I had become a certified recovery coach. There was a 3 page spread about the group of us that did this. You would think she could be happy for me, nope. Last year I was on the front page for being a speaker at an event about early childhood education, no recognition from her at all.
     I have sworn off dating since my split with exwBPD 2 and a half years ago. Alot of it is that I don't want to take time away from being a parent to date, but some of it is that I know I am attracted to damaged people. People I feel a need to fix. So I swear off dating and throw myself into social services, I can help people, but keep boundaries.
     I am just at the point where I feel I shouldn't speak to her about anything. Yet I worry about the point where she can't physically work enough to support my brother. She is very aware of my opinion about it now so she is starting to make excuses before I can say anything. We were taking my kiddo to something last week and as we were leaving her driveway my brother came running outside. He asked my mom for money to give to his friend for gas so they could go hang out. My mom starts muttering " I can because "friend" never used to pay me back but now she does, so it's ok". This friend of his doesn't even have a job either, noone is paying her back. She used to give away so much money that she wouldn't have any for herself and she would borrow it from me. I finally put my foot down and told her I wouldn't give her any more money so she could give money to him and his friends. Ugh, just craziness that I dealt with silently, without really realizing it.

[Sunfl0wer]

Hi raresweet,
I would write this in PM but I don't have PM priveleges... .
Sounds like you are processing lots of stuff from early life.  You may not have a parent with BPD but just wanted to suggest... .The family board has some really helpful, supportive folks there (even a board Parrot!) who would do great helping you sort through this stuff... .it could be worth a shot to post there too.  Idk if that is something you have tried. 

(Sorry cannot post regarding your content, kinda hard to focus on that atm)

I'm obviously not a mod, just have worked through lots of FOO stuff myself over there from time to time.

~SF