Gut Punches

[Irish1477]

I'm immersed in therapy, from trauma therapy to inner child healing, and am learning how my mom's dBPD affects my mom & how it has had a lasting affect on my own inner voice about myself. Most days I handle this all well, and the feelings of being unlovable & a truly horrible person at my core are beginning to be a thing of my past because I am able to see my actions do not support this.

And then a family member tells me that for the last 20 years my mom has said the only reason I was close to my father in law was because he has money & I was waiting around for my inlaws to die so I could inherit it.

My mother, step-father, and father were all horrible parents who repeatedly traumatized my brother & I as children, and as adults they have continued to be a source of drama & never ending stress in our lives. We have to take care of them, as we always have, with no feelings of unconditional love being given. My father in law was the first real father I ever had. I met him at 17, when my husband & I began dating, and over the next 20 years was one of the closest relationships in my life. He was a rock, he was stable, and he showed me parental love I had needed my whole life. He died very suddenly & unexpectedly almost 3 years ago, and I feel like an orphan once again.

I don't really know why I'm posting this. I have been no contact with my mom for months, there is nothing that can be done with or about this new character assassinating information. It just HURT hearing that my relationship with my father in law was defined in such a materialistic, disgusting manner. I would give every dime I have to bring my father in law back, and trade every dime of any future inheritance my husband will one day receive to have him here.

I can read about BPD until I am blue in the face, but I will never will fully understand how my mother can hate me so much that she makes me out to be a monster constantly.   

[zachira]

You are struggling with how your mother can act so terribly and say such mean things about the loving relationship you had with your father in law. It can be really hard to understand the mean behaviors of others when we are not that kind of person, especially from our mother whom we expect to love us unconditionally. I have several aunts and uncles from both parents' families whom my parents constantly said horrible things about that were either not true or gross distortions of the truth. These aunts and uncles gave me the love that my parents couldn't as I was the scapegoat of the family, and I think my parents were threatened by my receiving the love from others that they were incapable of providing me. Those of us who were raised by a parent with BPD traits, will probably never giving up hoping that our parents will love us the way we deserve, and it will always be a threat, a fear of abandonment, when they see us in any kind of loving relationship. Understanding why a mother treats a child so badly certainly does not lessen the hurt or the pain; it can just help us to slowly move towards acceptance while periodically grieving our life long loss, while continuing to surround ourselves with people we can love and they can love us back.

[Turkish]

I can read about BPD until I am blue in the face, but I will never will fully understand how my mother can hate me so much that she makes me out to be a monster constantly.   

Because of this, her self-loathing which she projected onto you:

Most days I handle this all well, and the feelings of being unlovable & a truly horrible person at my core are beginning to be a thing of my past because I am able to see my actions do not support this.   

She really hates herself.

[Irish1477]

Thank y'all for responding, and the reminder. Every time I believe I am out of her clutches, something else comes up & it is another gut punch all over again.