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Author Topic: Did I do this to my son?  (Read 60 times)
Always Hoping

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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Child
Relationship status: married
Posts: 4


« on: July 03, 2025, 04:12:10 PM »

I made one post a while ago about my adult son. I suspect he either has a mild form of BPD, or else I am just a PLEASE READ mother.
For context, I have 4 children. 3 are biological. My other 3 are well adjusted but do suffer from differing levels of anxiety and/or depression. I am starting to believe that some of this is handed down biologically, but I could be wrong.
Could I have handed this BPD down to my adult son? The more I learn about it, the more I suspect my mother had it, and that I potentially do, also. I know that some of the ways that I behave when I'm stressed and/or fear abandonment were not healthy.
So did I do this to my son? He was certainly the most sensitive child I had, and certainly the one that was the most anxiously attached to me right from day one. I sometimes wonder if I was his favorite person for a long time, and that he kicked me to the curb when he fell in love with the woman he's married to now. The family he married into is also a religious cult, so that doesn't help with the complicated situation I am now in.
But my son, even as a late teen, would become very agitated if he didn't know where I was. He would get aggressive, abusive (verbally), and DARVO every situation.
He loved deeply.  Very deeply.
But then one day, when me speaking out against the cult he married into (because they were harassing my other children) came between us, he just checked out it seems. He would still try to keep up with the facade, but he clearly had to take sides with this family he is now married into and in this religious cult with.
As recently as January, he would contact me to see if I was angry at him. He would do it surreptitiously, but I knew what he wanted. But I believe that the pressure of this cult and his wife, against us, became too much. Now he doesn't speak to any of us in the house unless he needs to for something.
He did attend Mother's Day and father's day at our house. He acted normal, like his old self, but then "disappeared" again. It is very confusing. It is painful.  Very very painful.
I have let him know I love him. I have let him know I'm always here for him. I have paid his debts that he can't pay and that are ruining our credit...which is another story. He at least has a compulsive shopping addiction that has caused a lot of damage, and I hope he isn't gambling or anything, too.  Our credit was pretty wrecked for over a year due to him, and they just closed another one of our accounts because of his failed payments he promised he would make.
I have paid out over $15,000 in the past few years.
He used my debit card many times without my permission. He admitted to stealing the money. I suspect he also stole cash from his brother's stash in the house. He told me he hates himself because of all of this. He told me he is depressed.
But yet he won't talk to me anymore. He doesn't respond to texts unless it's a reminder to make his truck payment, or to tell him I had to sell his lawn mower because they threatened to repossess it.
I don't know what is happening. It's like he presents himself to his wife and new "family" as this fine upstanding, hard working christian man, but in reality he is this person that has abused, betrayed, and stolen from his own blood family that loves him unconditionally. I don't understand. Please someone help me understand. He is not cold, it is like he is just two people, or living a lie, or faking it, or something. I just don't understand.

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Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders
Always Hoping

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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Child
Relationship status: married
Posts: 4


« Reply #1 on: July 03, 2025, 04:28:38 PM »

I want to add (I'm the OP) that for years, he bullied his younger brother. Mercilessly. He was mean to him unless he wanted something from him. This other family did the same, and he went along with it. Extreme people pleasing. He would not stand up for him. Then when he needed his younger brother to work for him, he would be nice on the surface, or in front of me, but still used him and bullied him. He was mean. His younger bother defended him for years, as he loved him and wanted to believe in him, but my older son just hid it better. He would leave him out of things by lying about where he was going, and eventually sold his brother out for this family that he married into because his wife's sister is my younger son's former BEST friend (they grew up together) and he stabbed his brother in the back by siding with this other girl when she did some pretty horrible things to my younger son.
I'm ashamed of who my older son is. But yet he is just the most amazing person to this other family.
They don't know about the abuse, the stealing, the lying, the betrayal, the ignoring texts, the other things he has done. So IS he really two people? Which one is real? How did he spend $5000 on a vacation when he had just stolen money from his 60 year old father because he couldn't pay his car payment? His 60 year old father that helped him financially and physically to start the business he destroyed due to depression and not working, but lied about working?

Who is my son? I know his heart. I really do. But what has happened to him, where did he go, why did he go, why is he doing this....I have so many questions and so much I wish I could say to him. I just want to understand at this point. I want to know if he still loves me but is falling apart with the stress of this conflict, the cult, the money, etc, or if he hates me. I want to know how he can go from so attached and loving to me to literally not speaking to me and acting like he doesn't even know me. Who can do that?
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