BPD and logic

[Being Honest]

I have a question about BPD and logic. There is a specific type of logic my mother may have struggled with.

There was a frequent argument I used to have with my mother, and I was never sure if she was sincere of just messing with me. She used to forbid me from all parts of a thing one at a time and then insist I was exaggerating when I stated she'd forbidden me from the whole.

I know that probably sounds a little confusing, so I'll give you one of the  easiest to understand examples. When I was in early grade school, my sister (who is three years older than me) was put on a strict diet for medical reasons and was not allowed to eat many commonly beloved foods such as chocolate. Eating these foods can make her incredibly sick to the point where she requires hospital stays. When this happened, my mother placed me on an even more restrictive diet than my sister. She explained to me, "You can't eat anything that tastes good that your sister can't eat, because that will make her jealous, and you can't eat anything that tastes good that your sister can eat because she needs to know that she has her own special foods that are just for her."

I said, "You're saying I can't eat anything that tastes good?"

She rolled her eyes and said, "It's not everything that tastes good. It's just everything your sister can eat and everything your sister can't eat."

There were lots of these kinds of rules when I was growing up. My mother forbid me from being in all the rooms of the house without special permission or leaving the house, but she would always insist I was exaggerating when I said I wasn't allowed to be anywhere.

At another point, she put into place a long series of rules that, when put together, made it impossible for me to prepare my own meals, even something as simple as a peanut butter sandwich, while also refusing to prepare meals for me or to require my siblings to prepare meals for me. "I'm not going to make them your servants! That's ridiculous!" So for months, I had to eat in secret and if she saw me eating, I was in trouble.

To this day, I don't know if she really just didn't understand what she was doing, couldn't see what all those rules meant when put together, or if it was all just an act to  torment me.

[RavenWatcher]

Hmm, interesting. This does resonate with me.

Any food that had one of mom's allergens were banned from the house, even if it was in a food that Mom would never eat (for example, if she would never eat, oh let's say a brand of potato chips because she didn't like them, we weren't allowed to have them if they had a food allergen for her). It wasn't because she was scared of cross-contamination, but because it wasn't fair for us to have what she couldn't (even if she didn't want it). Top Ramen was a hard fought for victory for us.

It always felt like it came from a place of 'If I have to suffer, then so do you.'/'It's wrong for you to enjoy something if I can't enjoy it'.

[Turkish]

It sounds like she was a slave to her anxieties and by extension mafe you one too.  There's no logic to it. And shame on her for not taking care of you properly. 

[Harri]

Hi!

That is a weird way to go about helping your sister deal with the change for sure.  I agree with Turkish who said there is no logic and her behaviors were probably fear driven.

To this day, I don't know if she really just didn't understand what she was doing, couldn't see what all those rules meant when put together, or if it was all just an act to  torment me.

  I would rule out the latter part:  that it was to torment you.   pwBPD heck, even mentally healthy people, process things differently and will have all sorts of weird rules and ways of coping.   In general, when it comes to BPD, I rarely interpret their acts as being deliberate.  BPD is a disorder of emotional regulation and as such pwBPD can be fear driven all of which occurs just below their level of awareness while dysregulting much like many people when they are very upset.

[MagicMeg]

Oh my. We had some weird rules too. Mine, as the female child was that I couldn’t shave my legs or wear deodorant until I was in ninth grade because BPD mom wanted me to “hang onto my precious innocence” as long as possible. Problem was that my body changed regardless of her inability to handle reality and all it did was made me a target for bullying.

As cruel as it was, I don’t think she meant to hurt me, she just can’t handle her feelings or reality in general. She had this “ideal” in her mind, an Andy Of Mayberry world where children don’t learn to cuss and believe in Santa until they are 30. What insanity.

[Being Honest]

MagicMeg, I can definitely relate to what you're saying. Sometimes I've wondered if the reason my mother scapegoated me so much was because I was always shining a light on things she didn't want to look at. For example, when my much older brother hit me and I came running to her, I think my mother was more angry about me acknowledging his violence than she was at him for being violent. There are also a lot less extreme examples.