A small epiphany

[stellaris]

When I was three, I threw my building blocks into the bushes in the garden.  My mother told me to pick them up.  I didn't.  Eventually they vanished - taken by other children, sank into the dirt - I don't know.

I have been hearing about this incident as a fundamental failure in my character ever since.  Every time she wants to underline how difficult, disobedient, unmanageable I was, every time she needs to justify her screaming rages and neglect, every time she wants me to feel guilty about something - she calls up this incident.

After decades it occurred to me that this was crazy.  What else did she expect of a three year old?  And decades later - ie yesterday - it occurred to me that the reason she keeps bringing it up is that she feels guilty about it.  She's been just dumping her guilt on me, for failing to do the normal maternal thing of helping her small child learn to pick up things, and so the blocks were lost.  She may also feel guilty because she had a meltdown at me over picking them up.  Or perhaps at some other point I missed them and asked where they were.

Amazing how projection works.

A long time ago a wise board member suggested that when a BPD accuses you of some crazy, nonsensical thing - just turn it around and imagine them accusing themselves.  It will usually make a lot more sense.

[Harri]

Hi Stellaris!

I find it so interesting when suddenly there is clarity about something that has hung around in our memories or is brought up for decades like you describe here.   To me, the incidents seem small and insignificant on one level but when I finally get to the point of clarity and release any feeling of guilt or shame attached, all of a sudden I realize what a heavy and significant weight such an incident had on me.

My mom brought up similar incidents to indicate what a disobedient, ungrateful, blah blah child I was.  I am not sure I see projection in her actions but I do see unrealistic and impossible expectations for a toddler, child, etc.  It also proves to me she never really saw me as I was but rather expected me to think and act in ways she thought were appropriate, forgetting I had to be taught.

Thanks for sharing.

[Methuen]

Hi stellaris,

I love your epiphany story.  I think those stories are so important to tell. 

I have a slightly different story to share.  When I was an infant, my mom decorated the Christmas tree, the way she had always decorated it, with the glass balls right to the bottom branches.  As an infant who was crawling, I found a shiny glass ball (they were glass in the 1960's) at the bottom of the tree, and as all infants do, put it into my mouth.  It broke in my mouth.

My mom would tell this story to large family gatherings, or when friends were visiting like this:

"When you were little, you took a glass ball and put it in your mouth!" always laughing out loud at me, as if I was a silly child and should have known better.

I probably had to listen to that about twice a year, until I was almost 50, and one day finally replied with this:

"Who hung it on the bottom branch where a crawling baby who puts everything into their mouth, could reach it?"

Since then, she has never repeated the story.

[stellaris]

Yep.  Who put the glass balls on the bottom of the tree?  She did.  And she would have felt awful over your injury, and guilty, and at least until you recovered, fearful that it might be fatal - had you inhaled or swallowed a fragment.

I do not get the mindset of "I feel so guilty over this that I'd going to blame it all on my child, and then get angry at them 'cuz it's their fault."  That is such  destructive way of dealing with things.  It does feel good when they pull that bullPLEASE READ and you can call them on it though.  A few years ago Becky Borderline was in ICU.  I went (against my better judgement) to see her, and she was going on about "Oh, they shouldn't be wasting medical resources on an old woman like me.  It's a waste of taxpayer money, there are young people who need them, blah, blah blah."

I just said "You want me to pull the plug?  Say the word and I'll get you Do Not Resuscitate order and have them shut everything down."

I really, really, really do not believe in playing these point-scoring gotcha games, but I have to admit the look on her face was priceless.  That was the end of that pity play. 

[Shenandoahgirl]

These are so important!  I also had a diagnosed BPD mom.  (She never shared this, i found out as I helped her move) It was either a event like your blocks where it was pointed to as a weakness of character.  Or it was a story outline, which would explain the event in a way that she could tell the story and get a laugh at our expense.
My sibling used to run away regularly. He started at 3 , would sneak out at night and go to the only place open.  She made it a story of him being a candy fiend “running away” to get candy.  He ran away after bad beatings.
After awhile you just get emotionally beat down.  I used to guess what her story would be about my “clumsiness”. She had no problem throwing fists at me.  During college I had it. I was done   I moved across the country and within a few years I began having these epiphanies.  It was so freeing.  Congrats! 

[stellaris]

Wow, beatings at 3, that's just - wrong.  I have to say, whenever I am tempted to feel sorry for myself, I'm reminded of how very lucky I actually am, Becky Borderline and all. I was only beaten once, at 12.

I did, a long time ago, have another epiphany which applies.  I once had a bad accident, broke a bunch of stuff, a week and change in hospital.  It was much more serious than the beating - which was, to be precise, my father kneeling on my shoulders and delivering four full-force slaps across my face.  It was hard enough to break my nose (which I didn't know at the time) and of course it bled profusely, but even at that I got off lightly compared you and your brother. 

Here's the thing though - the accident wasn't actually traumatizing, nor were the injuries.  In fact, it was very affirming, the way everyone rallied round to help me recover.  I realized then that there is >only< emotional abuse.  Physical abuse is simply emotional abuse made manifest in visible form.  What matters isn't the actual pain, it is the intent behind it. 

Today, I count my many blessings, and my burdens don't seem to heavy.

[Methuen]

Physical abuse is simply emotional abuse made manifest in visible form.  What matters isn't the actual pain, it is the intent behind it.

Wow, I like this.  I've never heard it put this way.  It's powerful.  Just wish the social service systems recognized it.  Where I live, there is intervention in a home if there is physical or sexual abuse, but not where there is emotional abuse.

[stellaris]

The fact that physical abuse is just emotional abuse was a really key insight for me, and has done a lot.  The way I once put it to my mother is "My father hit me once with his hands.  You hit me every day with your words."  In fact, for my money, strictly emotional abuse is worse, because it's entirely deniable.  I am actually glad my father lost it that day and beat me, because that was the loose thread that let me unravel the whole tragic reality.  There was no way to excuse it, to justify it, it was just wrong.  And things like that don't happen with no backstory.  The backstory being my mother's mental illness, the abuse she inflicted on all of us, and in this case the way she recruited my father into doing the abuse for her.  Doesn't excuse him of course, he's a failure in my eyes and always will be.  Too bad, because he had a lot going for him otherwise, but some things are inexcusable, and that's one.

The really neat thing about that experience is that it triggered flashbacks to the day my father beat me (I hit the pavement face-first and slid, massive facial injury amongst the other fractures and bleeding).  I mentioned the flashbacks to my sister, who was present, and central, to the whole drama that led to the beating.  Her response was "I don't remember that, and I don't want to talk about it."

That comment let me understand how deep my sister's denial was, because a normal response would be "That's horrible, and it's weird I don't remember it.  Tell me what happened."  It's funny how the truth always finds a way to come out.  And that let me know how committed she was to the family narrative that I was the problem.

Another good result was they fixed my nose straight - it had always had a slight bend after my father broke it the first time, because they didn't take me to a doctor.   I've got more plastic surgery than Jane Fonda, but damn am I handsome now!

Or at least, that's what they write on the wall in the women's washroom.

C