Back to the drawing board

[Madison24]

Hello there,

I am an adult child of a mother with BPD. I am here today because as has been the case over the course of my life, I am at a moment where once gain, I am in need of answers, dialogue, validation for what my life has been and what I have been through. And what I continue to go through. Because as anyone with a BPD parent knows, the person who you most need to comfort you, reassure you, support you, is THE person who is not only the least reliable, she is the person from whom you most need to protect yourself.

I have done a crazy amount of work on myself. I have been proactive, I've taken responsibility for my life and my history. I move forward, always. But despite this, every now and again it gets to me. A hurtful comment, a disparaging email. And my mind launches into mental arguments that I just can't seem to free myself from. What are these mental arguments really? A need. A perpetually unfulfilled need, to be seen, heard, understood. To finally have my experience of hurt and abuse be validated by the perpetrator of that abuse: my mother.

Never going to happen. And so I stand alone. Weighed down by a secret and insoluble hurt. And I ask myself, once again: my god, will I EVER be free of this?

[Fie]

Hello Madison !  

Welcome !

I so much understand what you mean. My paternal grandma and my mother are BPD. My father was and is enabling. Although I like you realize it will never ever happen, I wish I had a mum.

It seems like you have done an awful lot of work on yourself, I would like to congratulate you for that. I hope that life has gotten happier for you over the years.

A perpetually unfulfilled need, to be seen, heard, understood. To finally have my experience of hurt and abuse be validated by the perpetrator of that abuse: my mother.

Never going to happen. And so I stand alone. Weighed down by a secret and insoluble hurt. And I ask myself, once again: my god, will I EVER be free of this?

I know that it is not the thing that is most helpful for a good relationship with our BPD, but I confronted my parents with my version of the story. Most members here will tell you that it's not a good idea, and I agree for most cases, but for my situation it was the only option I had to be free from it all. I knew my mother was not going to validate me, and indeed that did not happen (at all). But that's fine, I was not waiting for that. The relationship with my parents also got worse, but also that was ok, because it was bad already. So I wrote them an email. It was not an angry mail or so, not at all. It was just me wanting to get the family secrets out of my system. And wanting to feel like an adult, and not like a little kid anymore, anxious for their reaction if I don't participate in their madness anymore. I know that my parents did not *really* hear me. My mother probably also read a lot in my mail that was not there, as BPD does. But I got it out of my system and I was so happy about that. I felt proud and relieved. It was one of the most difficult things I did in my life, but I had to in order to feel good.

I do not mean you should do what I did. For most situations this probably is not such a good idea.  I just wanted to let you know that yes, there are ways of being finally free of a secret hurt. For me the only way was to just stop participating in the secrets. My best friends now know my mum is BPD, I am not ashamed of it. I am done with keeping secrets about things that are not even mine to own.

That being said, I do think there will always be some kind of void in me where normally the love of a mother is. But I have come to accept that. I don't fight it anymore. It's a part of me, and it probably will always have some repercussions in my life. But regardless I am a quite happy person.

Once again, welcome. I hope you will find here what I have found : people who understand and walk along with you.

[Kwamina]

Hi Madison24

I would like to add my welcome to the warm welcome you've been given by Fie

A need. A perpetually unfulfilled need, to be seen, heard, understood. To finally have my experience of hurt and abuse be validated by the perpetrator of that abuse: my mother.

Never going to happen. And so I stand alone. Weighed down by a secret and insoluble hurt. And I ask myself, once again: my god, will I EVER be free of this?

You have done a lot of work on yourself but it makes sense that there would still be times when you find yourself struggling. Accepting the reality of our BPD parent and what this means for the relationship we are able to have with them really isn't easy. Accepting this requires us to let go of the loving 'fantasy' parent we probably never had, likely won't ever have, yet deep inside still might long for very much. Accepting and letting go is hard, to quote Dr. Marsha Linehan:

It is hard. It's really hard.

All of us are still practicing this. This is not one of those things you're going to get perfect at.  There's not going to be a day when you can say, 'Alright, I've got it; I've got it.  I can radically accept. I turn the mind all the time and I'm willing.'  That day is not going to come.

This is the only set of skills that I teach that I would have to say just about everybody has to practice just about every day of their lives.
... .
If you keep practicing these skills, they do get easier. It's really the truth - they do. You'll get better at it. Life will get easier.
... .
Now, I know that these are really difficult skills.  They, they've been difficult for me.  They are difficult for everybody I know.  And the facts of the matter are, every single person  I know is practicing these skills.

But I think if you practice them you'll find over time, may take a while, maybe slower than you want, but I think you're going to find them really helpful . The secret is, don't reject them right away. Don't reject them if you don't feel better right away or somehow your life isn't worth living right this minute.  These skills take time to work.  But, if you keep at it, I think they will work.

If you want to read more about acceptance, we have a transcript of one of Dr. Linehan's talks about this subject:
From suffering to freedom: Practicing reality acceptance

Take care and welcome to our online community

I hope you will find here what I have found : people who understand and walk along with you.

As Board Parrot I will not just walk along with you, I will fly along with you!

[madeline7]

Madison24,

I could have written your post. I am taking great strides towards grieving the loss of the Mother and FOO I didn't have. Yet I still feel like I may never have the peace I so very much desire and deserve. I see many of the individuals who have worked successfully towards acceptance still describe an underlying sadness about having a BPD person in their family history. I don't have any pearls of wisdom at this point (newbie to NC so kind of fragile right now), just wanted to echo that I know what you are going thru, you are taking good care of yourself, and I found comfort in hearing your story and your voice.

[Madison24]

Thank you Madeline7, Kwamina and Fie. I am so touched by your responses! My heart was pounding so hard as I read your posts. What a foreign and exhilarating feeling it is to realize that someone "gets it".

Also, this is my first time on a message board EVER so I am just figuring out how this works.

Building on your responses, there is something I need to ask you. Before I do, I would mention that at this stage in my life, I cope very well with the fact that I never had a mother. Of course I suffered tremendously throughout my life - the loss was particularly excruciating during my youth and young adulthood - I mean, what an incredible challenge it is to be able to find purpose and faith in life and in oneself when the very person who brought you into the world makes you feel like such crap that you don't deserve to live... .I have made my peace with the fact that I will never know the empathetic, supportive, secure and unconditional love of a mother. My mother kicked me out of her house when I was 14. In a vengeful fit of rage, for no reason other than "she was mad at my father" who was living on another continent. As you might suspect, I was a good kid. I was struggling but I was docile, like any child who lives in terror and that will do anything to avoid the unpredictable wrath of the beast that lurks beneath the surface. That event was the single most defining moment in my early life. I was thrown away like an afterthought. And I am her only child. It's not like she was overwhelmed by her parental responsibilities. I am 49 now. I have had a lot of time to come to terms with my reality.

What catches up to me though, every now and again, is the deep seated anger I feel towards her. Actually, not anger: rage. It is way more primordial than anger. And that just kills me. It depletes my energy, highjacks my focus and concentration, and casts me into a spiral of internal dialogue and argumentation. The only person this hurts of course is me.

She is always the one who sets me off. After decades of estrangement she has been back in my life for the past 6 years. Mainly so that my children can have a grandmother and she grandchildren. She is quite isolated and lonely and part of me feels responsible. And also, when she is not ignominious towards me, she can be quite enjoyable as a person. My kids like her and are very attached - she has never treated them as she did me. They know she is "different" and that at times it is best to just get out of the way. On rare occasions they have seen her lash out at me. The dynamic of course is twisted, as is everything infected by BPD. My mother identifies with my kids and projects her identity onto me. I am the bad guy that she and my kids must protect themselves from... .But I digress.

Rage. What do I do with that? Because I have tried everything: numbness by food, sex, exertion through physical exercise, "workaholism", talk therapy, inspirational readings, meditation, yoga, to name a few. But as I stand before you now, I have to reckon with the fact that there is one thing that I have not been able to do and that is forgive.

So, my question to you is the following: How does one forgive the unforgivable? I sense very strongly that the only way to free myself from this is to forgive her, but how do I that? I sincerely do not know. I feel tremendously challenged in this. To be clear, the forgiveness I seek is not for her benefit but for my own. To find peace and resolution. But how does one forgive in the presence of so much anger and resentment?

Have any of you been able to genuinely forgive those who have wronged you?

Thank you for all your kind and supportive words, I wish you love and light and peace.

[Fie]

Hi Madison  

So happy we could help.

First of all I would like to say that I think it's normal that you are angry. Anger is a healthy stage of a grieving process.

Once I realized (and remembered) that my FOO was not normal, I started to feel angry with my mum, and after that also with my enabling dad. I recall I sometimes was quite furious. I sometimes felt quite overwhelmed by it.

Now I'm not angry anymore. I have come to accept and understand the reasons why my parents did what they did. I do not approve though, and sometimes also the old anger kicks in, but never for a long time, and the anger is also not so deep anymore, not so overwhelming.

I am trying to recall how exactly I got over it - thanks for making me think about that  :-)
At one point I realized that my mother must have been quite a lonely unhappy little girl. I tried to picture her, she was quite shy apparently and was never really seen. She must have felt bad. I think it must have been from that moment on that I gained some understanding for the way she acts now.

I am not sure I have forgiven her though. Forgiveness; it's a strange concept. I guess forgiving someone means that you are not angry anymore for the things they did to you. And I can't say that I don't feel *any* anger anymore, never.
People always say you need to forgive in order to move on. A very good friend of mine is a psychologist and according to her you can move on without forgiving. I personally don't know. But I do have the feeling I have moved on (with slight fallbacks sometimes) but I'm not 100% sure I have forgiven.

You made me think, thanks ! I'm curious about the other answers you are going to get.
Keep posting !

[Charlie3236]

Hi Madison24! I do believe forgiveness is important. Not to say what she did isn't HORRIBLE, but for you to recognize that she is SICK and it is her issue and not yours. We forgive for our own freedom, not to allow them back in, but to release the pain, hatred, emptiness, etc. that is a result of their treatment toward us. It is a process that occurs in small steps for me, probably forever!

It seems like your mother is still traumatizing you however, by painting you black to your children. That would ENRAGE me too! So with active re-victimization I think forgiveness would probably be almost impossible. How often is she around your children? How much does she try to come between you? If it continues  would you be able to limit contact?
Hugs!

[Kwamina]

Hi again Madison24

So, my question to you is the following: How does one forgive the unforgivable? I sense very strongly that the only way to free myself from this is to forgive her, but how do I that? I sincerely do not know. I feel tremendously challenged in this. To be clear, the forgiveness I seek is not for her benefit but for my own. To find peace and resolution. But how does one forgive in the presence of so much anger and resentment?

Have any of you been able to genuinely forgive those who have wronged you?

You've already gotten some great responses to your question. For me forgiveness is very much related to acceptance and letting go and that is very much related to grieving. When I consider the consequences of having an uBPD mother, it becomes clear that I am not only grieving the loss of the 'fantasy' mother, but many more losses too. The loss of friendships that were made impossible, the loss of the person I could have become, the loss of the life I never had, the loss of many years spent hurting, the loss of all those years in which I tried to reason with her before I found out about BPD etc. So even after accepting the reality of my mother's BPD and letting go of the 'fantasy' parent, I still had a lot of grieving to do, a lot of losses to grieve. I agree with Fie that anger is a normal part of the grieving process. Perhaps the following thread can help you move through some of your anger:
Grieving our losses

It can be very difficult to heal though in a hostile environment and I think Charlie3236 makes a very good point. When you say your mother views you as the bad guy that she and your kids need to protect themselves from, is this something she also tells your kids, either directly or indirectly through her actions?

[Basenji]

So, my question to you is the following: How does one forgive the unforgivable? I sense very strongly that the only way to free myself from this is to forgive her, but how do I that? I sincerely do not know. I feel tremendously challenged in this. To be clear, the forgiveness I seek is not for her benefit but for my own. To find peace and resolution. But how does one forgive in the presence of so much anger and resentment?

Have any of you been able to genuinely forgive those who have wronged you?

Thank you for all your kind and supportive words, I wish you love and light and peace.

Welcome to the board, Madison24!

My heart goes you to you. I've been trying to reconcile some similar issues in response to my uBPD mother. At the moment my thoughts are a work in progress and they may or may not be relevant to others.

Yes, there is anger! And that is entirely reasonable given the abusive nature of my childhood. What matters (I think) is that I recognise the anger and know where it has come from. With recognition comes awareness - if I am in an angry state, there are things best not done lest that emotion be transferred inappropriately (resist the urge to call mother and tell her how it is or vent at someone who doesn't deserve it!).

I know the feelings do pass (try not to attach to the emotion but let it breathe and wither), so I am becoming wise enough to just let such feelings pass. I was watching a "revenge" movie the other night - my anger emotions were triggered and I just sat and "watched" them, come and go. Be aware, observe, don't attach.

In terms of an outlet, music is an important part of my life - I can listen to a piece of music to match my mood or go and unleash my emotions on my grand piano. I am lucky to have such an outlet. Interestingly my parents attempted to block this outlet when I was a child by refusing to buy me a musical instrument (so I went to school ours before class to use the music room) and may mother blocked my wishes to have a dog in my life (didn't want to compete for affection, no doubt). Add potentially accomplished pianist and the healing joy of a companion animal (I finally got my dog at age 44) to the long list of things denied me by my uBPD mother!

Like you and some others that have replied, I recognise that forgiveness is not about absolving the abuser for the abuser's sake, but arriving at a state of mind that fosters a more liberated state of mind for myself. Cleansing anger may or may not be part of that deal. I am just not sure it is a given that forgiveness will lead too cessation of anger (unless that defines forgiveness for your own individual needs).

When I look back in time (I am 54 now) I can chart the patterns of my responses. Over time I would go and see mother or deal with her, and it brings up stuff! I have come to the conclusion that I can only avoid challenging emotional states and heal myself by detaching emotionally and psychologically from my uBPD mother. I just can't see how you can have a "healthy" emotional / psychological relationship. I need to accept this and its consequences, mainly that I will never have a "normal" or "healthy" relationship with this particular person. I have worked to resist the temptation to validate this position with mother and thereby re-enter the loop.

I am currently working through the idea that the anger is about accountability and justice rather than forgiveness. Is forgiveness a separate issue to justice / accountability? If I have to forgive to move myself forwards, so be it. That said it is my current position that might easier if I could see that this person who abused me and stole so much of my life from me would be held to account in any way! Ask me again in a week or two when I've thought about it some more... .

My own experiences have led me to a position when I wouldn't trust my mother anyway near a significant other or children (not that I have children). Kids have more than one grandparent and maybe aunties and uncles and cousins and good friends. My mother is just too devious to trust or let in whatever the apparent justifications - recently I have come across examples of her backbiting that I never realised was going on. Personally I would never ever trust a BPD person. I must stress my experience and conclusion may not apply to others!

May I quote from the book. "Silent Partner"... ."violations are usually done in the name of loving and caring... .there is nothing loving or caring about the parent-child relationship when tit services the needs and feelings of the parent rather than the child".