First Thread for a Long Journey

[memnat1]

I am the child of a parent that displays traits of borderline personality disorder. My mother is currently undiagnosed, however, she exhibits many traits of BPD. I learned of this disorder from my own therapist who had provided resources relating to BPD and advised that although she could not diagnose my mother formally, she felt the research would provide useful insights given my experiences that she and I had spoken about throughout my time with her. She also provided me with resources on codependency and childhood trauma which has been extremely insightful and quite honestly, life changing.

I moved out of my mother and stepfather's house when I was 18 years old to live with my grandparents as living with my mom was having detrimental effects on my emotional and mental health. Because of this decision, my mother and stepfather did not speak to me for 5 years. I am now 25 and have open communication with my mother, however, the relationship is still strained and to quote a book, I feel as though I'm "walking on eggshells" still around her.

I have never been given the opportunity to express my feelings to her or the hurt that I still carry and the healing that still continues to be a struggle each and every day. For this reason, I unfortunately suppressed many of my emotions and pain to spare her pain and have had a lot of difficulties within my adult life as far as trusting others and especially myself, forming my own opinions and making my own decisions without the influence of others, setting boundaries, and dealing with stress as it arises (or dealing with it at all for that matter).

A fair deal of anger, hurt, sadness, and confusion is harbored within me when it comes to my feelings and relationship with my mother.

Without going into a long winded past history... .I suppose I will explain why I am here and why I need help.

I am finally ready to set boundaries with my mother and I am struggling miserably to know where to even begin with this as it all feels so new to me, and to be completely honest, I'm not quite fully comprehending what this means.

My mother and I share small talk and oftentimes run out of things to talk about when we are together. She told me that we need to let the past be the past in the first conversation we had after not speaking for 5 years and has since then shut  down conversations regarding the hurt that I felt and the struggles we went through together in my childhood and teenage years.

I am finally ready to let her know that I am not okay with ignoring and suppressing the past and our emotions so that she may avoid pain. That instead, I want us to heal and mend our relationship and that I believe we can get through the pain together. I believe that therapy together could be our best bet. However, I am open to any other ideas.

I love my mom. I really do. I do not want her to be in pain or suffer. But I also need to take care of myself and stop prolonging my own suffering. I need to stop carrying her burden and her pain for her. I need to stop choking down my own feelings because she doesn't want to hear it. I need to let her know that I want to talk about the past and I want us to heal and mend our mother/daughter bond. I understand, however, that these may not be things that she accepts and that she may not be ready to confront the pain or seek help. 

1) If anyone has advice on how to begin this conversation with her, I would greatly appreciate it. Because the conversation needs to take place first and foremost. And in order for that to happen, I need to tactfully begin the conversation in a way that won't instantly flare her defenses and cause her to immediately shut down and walk away.

2) Any advice or information on setting boundaries is also greatly appreciated. I have read books, articles, personal accounts and I still cannot get the hang of this. I am still working very hard on breaking codependent habits and learning to express my own needs and establish boundaries. Examples or personal accounts are extremely helpful. Not that I will follow them exactly as I understand everyone's situation is different, however, hearing personal experiences may be more helpful than reading a textbook explanation.

 Sharing of personal experiences is greatly welcomed and appreciated as I find it helpful to hear many perspectives and different understandings. It helps me to find my own voice and opinion in the matter.

Also any words of wisdom or advice would be wonderful.

I feel that I don't really have anyone to talk to regarding this other than therapists as my friends have not gone through anything like this, and my family, well they are biased and don't want to get in the middle.

A big reason why I joined this forum is because I feel alone. I have a strong support system and they graciously listen even though they feel they can't provide much input. And although they are too polite to say it... .I can tell they're probably tired of listening ().

I suppose I just feel alone because it's difficult to feel understood, as many of those who are close to me don't understand what I'm going through or how this situation even came to be.

Thank you so much to everyone who read this thread. And I look forward to hearing from whoever is willing to lend some help, advice, or encouragement. 

-memnat1

[Sprinkledinkles]

I've been exactly where you are, educated myself and reflected back on scenarios to try to avoid the same results. With me it was futile because I was bringing intelligence into an emotional disaster.  The only time my mom is willing to go there is when she's in a vulnerable humble state of mind... .which is rare. Otherwise it's life through rose coloured glasses the rest of the time. History is grey and only on her terms. I'm met with invalidation and more hurt feelings and confusion than any real results. I've learned that those feelings of validation we seek come in the form of self love and others who just get it. I link it to a methadone fix for a heroine addict, kinda helps but will never be the real thing. Which comes to acceptance and most of all trusting your truth. To work with a professional to help you make sense of it, get rid of the shame associated with it and forgive yourself and love yourself enough to stop taking on their views of us and allowing yourself to see the true version of yourself.

The boundaries are for you. How they react is up to them. A good example of setting and keeping boundaries while keeping the ill person in your life would be: Boundary-I will not accept my mom calling me names or putting me down in any way, Reaction-stay calm and either walk away or hang up the phone, Result-you're removed from the situation. A good rule of thumb is to only allow yourself 15 mins of hard thinking about what went on then to let go with grace. My first sentence was the boundaries are for you and I mean you don't have to tell anyone your boundaries because in the real world you don't go telling your coworkers before hand that you don't appreciate put downs so you don't have to tell her, she's the one who has to learn. When you call her or see her again simply say in a calm voice that she hurt your feelings and your goal in life is to avoid unnecessary, preventable hurts in life. Don't engage in fighting, don't demand an apology just be consistent. Her learning not to do the behaviour with you is worth more than any apology in my opinion.

I hope my tact works if not I look forward to hearing how it works out with you either way. I'm new too yet feel slightly more hardened than you at the moment, I hope you don't become cynical and angry like me and you can salvage the relationship that you want. Best of luck.