Anyone else have a BPD parent that uses food to manipulate and control

[Depression = 72% of members]

I mentioned in another post that my dad is morbidly obese because food is comfort and love for him. My mother with uBPD is painfully thin. They look shocking together because she is SO tiny and he is huge. My mother uses food to control and manipulate so with my dad she will give him a great feast if she wants something (she is shopping addicted and he controls money) but if he refuses her she will put him on a diet blaming his obesity and diabetes. She will starve herself because she prizes her tiny body and takes a great deal of pride in being so much smaller than everyone else. Needless to say my teenage years were blighted by bulimia.

They have always acted dependent on each other for needs. She would never earn her own money and he would never cook his own meals. As children our needs for food were a demand and we would get fed when she was hungry. My brother too is overweight but because of years of therapy I'm pretty good about food now and know that I can give myself what I need when I need it. I don't fear going without although I still get stressed if someone else is in control of food.

Does anyone else have experiences of this they would like to share? I am finding reading other people's experiences so helpful. It's also so good to write stuff down

[Goldcrest]

I mentioned in another post that my dad is morbidly obese because food is comfort and love for him. My mother with uBPD is painfully thin. They look shocking together because she is SO tiny and he is huge. My mother uses food to control and manipulate so with my dad she will give him a great feast if she wants something (she is shopping addicted and he controls money) but if he refuses her she will put him on a diet blaming his obesity and diabetes. She will starve herself because she prizes her tiny body and takes a great deal of pride in being so much smaller than everyone else. Needless to say my teenage years were blighted by bulimia.

They have always acted dependent on each other for needs. She would never earn her own money and he would never cook his own meals. As children our needs for food were a demand and we would get fed when she was hungry. My brother too is overweight but because of years of therapy I'm pretty good about food now and know that I can give myself what I need when I need it. I don't fear going without although I still get stressed if someone else is in control of food.

Does anyone else have experiences of this they would like to share? I am finding reading other people's experiences so helpful. It's also so good to write stuff down

[Harri]

Hi Goldcrest.

I can relate to some of the food issues I think.  My mom used food as both punishment and humiliation and as a reward when I was growing up.  I was not fat as a kid, just regular bordering on chubby, but if she caught me eating something she thought was bad, she would go out and buy a bunch of candy and junk food and make me eat it over the course of a day or so to the point of me getting sick, crying, etc.  She also used food to humiliate me in front of my friends.  It was kind of awful really.

It was all about control for her and some projection.  Apparently she was bigger than her sisters growing up and they teased her.  So when she had me, as I was an extension of her, I too was told I was fat, as big as a house, etc.  I was tall when I was a kid and looked older so that did not help either.

Good for you for getting the bulimia under control and doing the hard work.  Now I have issues with binge eating.  It is a way for me to avoid feelings but also a way to punish myself.

Sorry, I am not much help in this area, not even knowing which questions to ask!But yeah, I can relate to the mixed messages and the control aspect, both from my mom and myself.

[Goldcrest]

Hey Harri, thanks for your response. I am so sorry to read about what you endured it's awful Harri...What you wrote resonated with me as my mother has huge issues with weight and "greed". I went through the puppy fat stage and she projected all her phobias around weight on to me. When I went through adolescence and started to slim down that's when her anorexia really kicked in. It was always like she felt she had to compete. She used to measure herself with a tape measure then measure me, to use me as a kind of mirror.

The bulimia was for me a way of managing emotions. The purging aspect was like a form of rage for me. It took many years to completely eliminate the behaviour. I started by simply writing what i was feeling/what happened before I binged. Once I could see the triggers I could create space before I purged and talk myself down. Then purging would only happen infrequently when I was very upset or very drunk. Now I can tell if I am going to over eat because I become a bit obsessed with a particular food and find myself hoarding it. I try to avoid sugar as that just seems to trigger me to overeat. I'm still very messed up around food and controlling. I need to know what I will eat every day and I need to eat at certain times. I am secretly afraid of not getting enough food and if I go to someones house to stay I have to take snacks with me so I am not at the mercy of my host. So sad really.

You will get there Harri, be kind to yourself. I try to step outside of myself and imagine me as a child - if that makes sense. I can be the parent to that child and I can look after her and make sure she gets what she needs. It might sound a bit odd but feeling empathy for who I was and what I lost has been important. 

[HappyChappy]

Hi Goldcrest,
On the upside, if your parents ever go to a fancy dress party; Laurel and Hardy. Similar experience to yours, our mother also used food to conrole. Well done getting the bulimia under control. No snaks avaible except sower home grown fruit. Rock sold rule that we had to eat everything on the plate. We weren’t allowed to leave the table until we did. I remember having to eat food that had gone off, some really digusting stuff. She would get stake for herself and we ate cheapest chewy sinews she could find. As it was nothing on the plate, had to swallow fat, grissle the lot.

My bro and I had this, but my sis is 9 years younger and they were very lax with her so she could eat what she wanted where she wanted. Drove my GC bro up the wall - he got NPD , I got PTSD and my sister got bulimia. I read the latter two ailments are the most common, if you have a BPD mom. I was cooking for my syblins from age 12, because our BPD wasn't interested unless she was eating it. I remember thinking I was a great cook (with my fish fingers and beans) because mom always burnt our food - probably purposefully. Does that answer your question ?

[Goldcrest]

Hey HappyChappy, thanks for sharing. It sent a shiver down my spine reading about your experience. Honestly it is just so so PLEASE READ for all of us. I Often remember crying because I was so hungry, Sundays were the worst. My mother was Catholic and so religion featured to further screw us up. On Sundays there would always be the biggest meltdowns for her and we would hide upstairs in our rooms while she tore into my father. We wouldn't get fed anything till late in the evening and I, being the more sensitive would get very distressed and then be so choked up not be able to eat - which would further anger my mother.

I don't have contact with my brother (my only sibling) because of triangulation from my mother and because he took a lot of his anger out on me. He has a binge eating disorder, once said to me it is a form of self punishment. Just so sad.

[zachira]

I can relate to having a BPD parent that uses food to manipulate and control.
My mother with BPD passed away last summer. She constantly tried to get me to finish the food on her plate that she did not want to eat. It did not matter how many times I told her no and made it obvious I did not like being treated like the garbage disposal, she still tried to get me to finish what she did not want to eat.
My mom was a great cook, and very generous in making great meals with foods she know her children loved. She also entertained family and friends often by making really good meals. I have had challenges with emotional eating my whole life, and I know that I associate food with love.
I once asked mom if I was breastfed, and she acted like I was asking about her sex life with the embarrassed look on her face. I think mom was pretty clueless about her children's emotional and hunger cues. I am now working on paying attention to when I am genuinely hungry and when I am just eating to pacify my emotions.
My brother who was mom's favorite child and annoited caretaker since birth, was pushed to overeat by mom, and very overweight. Mom abused my brother so badly when he was dying of cancer that the social services had to get involved. I remember one very painful scene in which she was trying to force him to eat dinner, when he could no longer eat regular food. The look of distress on her face and that of my brother who was in terrible physical and emotional pain, still hurts me to this day.

[Goldcrest]

Zachira I am so sorry about your brother...and to be left with painful memories of him being force fed by your mother, that is truly awful.

It's so sad how far reaching the damage of our childhoods extend. I'm even afraid to drink alcohol now in my late 40s because it can trigger paranoia or cause me to binge eat. I'm constantly in conversation with myself,  negotiating every meal, every special occasion. When I do find the courage to visit my parents I am appalled by my dads weight not because of the aesthetic but because he is SO uncomfortable, he can barely walk but he is so shutdown that he doesn't care. I am always scrutinised by my mother, I sit at the upper end of a normal weight but next to her I am massive and she will always ask me to stand in the mirror with her, she will use some excuse such as she wants to see who is taller. She also does this thing that I hate...She will ask complete strangers who do they think I look like if I am out with her and my dad. It is excruciating. The strangers will be embarrassed but obliged to stare at me...She loves to study me and tell me where my various body parts have come from and laugh about my big bottom and boobs like so and so...Aaarrgggh. No wonder I have spent my life thinking people will notice every flaw and imperfection. One of the joys of getting older is that you really do become less visible and it is liberating.

Zachira I can also relate a bit to the breast feeding stuff though different as with my mother it is a constant reminder that I wouldn't feed. I wouldn't take to her breast and that I had terrible diarrhoea...so a messy, rejecting baby. I find her talking to me about breastfeeding really really uncomfortable - yucky.

Anyway I'm rambling but thanks again for chatting and sharing. This forum is so helpful. Simply typing stuff out is so illuminating. Even though I have had these conversations with myself and my therapist it feels newly observed here.

[Turkish]

My mother's dad was likely BPD, (suggested to her by a therapist) maybe NPD, but sounded like a psychopath. Her mom died when she was 12. The older siblings had moved out. He thankfully died when she was 14 and she only had to live alone with him for about 2 years until he croaked.

She told me one story where he'd go into a cafe to eat breakfast and coffee.  She could see him though the car window. He left her in the car because he told her he couldn't afford to pay for her breakfast. What an  

[Methuen]

My mom was diagnosed with anorexia sometime around having me (not sure if it was before or after I was born).  The way the story goes, the doctor prescribed stout for her to drink. That was in the early 1960's.  

I suspect that issues with food could be a common thread for pwPD's, because it's all about control.

I suspect my mom's father was BPD/NPD or worse.  Her mother died of cancer when she was 14.  Reportedly body image was of utmost importance for her father.  He withheld food from his children, and hid candy for himself under his bed.  His children and wife were hungry.  Many stories of how their mother hid "chicken eggs" to sneak them for her children.  The eggs were sold for family income.  Mom and all 6 of her siblings ALL had body image issues their entire life.  Five of them took on the pencil shape, and 2 of them took on the overweight round shape.  My mom throughout her life only judged people about the "kind of person they were" by "how nice they looked".  If they had a "nice body" and dressed nice, she would say "what a nice person they were".  She had NO filter on these kinds of comments.  They drove me absolutely crazy.  I hated it.  I eventually asked her to stop talking about people's images around me.  It didn't change anything.  As an adult with young children I challenged her on this every time she said stuff like that.  I would respond with comments like "I care about a person's heart and their character and how they treat other people, not what they look like".  She ignored me every time.  This dance went on for decades.  I am a casual dresser.  My H's favourite clothes are his "oldies but goodies".  Our casual approach probably drove her crazy.

About a year ago, I was cleaning out the house and downsizing, and I came across a bunch of diaries I had kept from my teen-age years.  In one entry I think I was about16 years old and maybe 70 pounds  (I'm short).  In my diary I wrote that "mom had set up a contest for us.  We would go on a diet together, and whoever lost the most weight would get a new necklace".  Holy  .  Everybody already called me an underweight runt and I was probably about 4'8" at that time.  Reading that kinda triggered me, 'cause it really exposed to the adult me the depth of her problem and how hard she "worked" to "teach me" her sick attitudes, and how innocent I was to all that exposure.  I was always the kid who was at the end in the front row of every grade school picture ever taken.  The runt.  I was bullied at school as a runt.  And she wanted me smaller.  And there I read it and realized again..."Never good enough", right?  I haven't read another diary entry past that one.  The diaries are still sitting in my bedroom, but I'm not ready to read more yet.

My mom has a twisted fettish for "small" things.  She lives in a cute "small" house.  She wants a "tiny" car.  She eats off a "small" plate.  She likes "small" dogs.  She only drinks a "small" cup of coffee.  She will only eat "half" a cookie.  And she kept me small.  I never grew beyond 4'10.  She once told me how well she fed me when I was small.  Her example: for lunch she fed me a whole boiled egg.  She was proud of that.  

[Mata]

This is an interesting topic, I hadn't thought about food issues as being related to my mom's BPD before.  But it makes sense. 

My mom has always been thin and small, and has always placed a huge value on that.  So did my dad.  Growing up, I heard endless comments from both of them about the importance of "not having a big a**" and that if my mom got "fat" my dad would have grounds to divorce her.  So they fed off each other in this way.  Along those lines, she never ate very much.   

I was an extremely small and skinny child, as were my younger siblings.  When I was about 11, my mom pretty much stopped preparing any meals for me.  My siblings are 10 years younger than me, and after the last one was born, my mom stopped taking care of me.  I learned how to make a few things, like ramen noodles or ate cold cereal.  I never ate breakfast and rarely lunch (where we lived the school did not have a hot lunch program).  Instead I would buy a soda from the vending machine and that was my meal.  I remember being teased because my stomach growled during class.  As a child/young adolescent, I desperately wanting to gain weight.  I used to envy the girls with strong athletic legs, and whose ribs didn't show.  But my mom would tell me that it was gross to be "so fat" that you couldn't see your ribs. 

When I was 20, I moved away from home, and for the first time gained weight.  But rather than finally feel good, all the messages I heard my whole life about being fat started to creep in. I developed some really unhealthy habits and thoughts around food/my body.   I knew I was in trouble when I read a sign in a women's bathroom identifying signs of eating disorders.  Somehow that sign gave me the resolve to make some changes and accept my body.  I got rid of my scale, measuring tape, and stopped "dieting." I still have to watch myself.  I tried using a food tracking app once, and quickly became obsessive about it.  Over the years though, I've learned to focus on what my body can do, not its size.  I have no idea how much I weigh.  I'm proud of the fact I have a good body image, it's one area where I feel like I have things mostly figured out.

My mom, however, is still "small obsessed."  She had pretty much stopped eating, and was down to 85 pounds last fall.  Then, she moved to my town and into an assisted living apartment where they cook all the meals and encourage her to eat.  She's now up to about 120, and talks endlessly about how "huge" she is.  I went to a Dr appointment with her a few months ago and she weighed in at 108.  When the nurse (who was a larger woman) weighed her, my mom started going on and on about being a fat "ogre", and "oh my god, I'm so huge" and "how disgusting" it was, and "how could anyone let themselves get like this."  It was sad and embarrassing.  Thankfully, the nurse was super professional about it. 

My mom has a twisted fettish for "small" things.  She lives in a cute "small" house.  She wants a "tiny" car.  She eats off a "small" plate.  She likes "small" dogs.  She only drinks a "small" cup of coffee.  

Yep, my mom is very similar.  Everything of value to her is "little."  My sister only weighed four pounds when she was born, and my mom has always bragged about how perfect  her "tiny" baby was.  The only thing she doesn't try to downsize is her pets.  They are both extremely fat and she feeds them constantly.  Before COVID, she would buy her dog a fast-food hamburger everyday for lunch.  The vet has told her the dog is sick from its diet, but she doesn't listen.  Again, I think it comes down to a control thing. 

[Goldcrest]

Thanks again for the responses. Again different bits of your stories resonate with me.

Turkish that is so sad about your mum, imagine the core message that sends out and to lose both her parents in her teens.

Methuen my mother is OBSESSED with appearance and has a terrific clothing addiction. When I was living at home she kept all her clothes in my wardrobe so that I would have no space for my stuff and would come in at 6 in the morning while I was still asleep and start getting things out of the wardrobe , throwing them on the bed where I slept as if I didn't exist. She would have me in second hand school uniform that didn't fit yet buy all the finest things for herself. She will cry at animal cruelty but then a hour later buy a fur coat. She would cry about animals being slaughtered (get really distressed) but eat veal. I used to get so angry at the hypocrisy but my father would swoop in to protect her and tell me I was bad for upsetting her. In later life she still spends hundreds on tiny cloths but lives in rags. Everything is neatly boxed up with tags on. And she loves dolls houses and dolls...CRIKEY I could go on and on. Methuen well done for seeing how your mothers abusive messages about weight and size have effected you and getting a handle on it.

Mata, I never got fed breakfast or lunch either and used to be called "scrounger" at school because I would beg for food from other girls or stare at them while they ate their lovingly prepared pack lunches. My mother would feed us oven chicken and chips every night. She could just sling it in the oven and it was always tiny amounts.

[Turkish]

When i was in 7th through 10th grade, i never remember eating breakfast before school, and never ate lunch at school. Sometimes I had $2, enough for 2 Reeses and 2 milks.
After the 18 mile bus ride home, I would make two huge government cheese sandwiches (if we had bbq sauce, I'd add that for "meat"), or a huge plate of fries I'd make in a pan of congealed grease that would last weeks. At least my mom obtained government cheese and potatoes.

My mom never bothered to contact the school to see if I could get on the reduced meal program. Spring of 11th grade, I got a weekend job at a cafe. Not only could we eat anything included, but I finally had steady money for food.  Now that I think of it, a local guy hired me the summer after 9th grade to clean up his home addition site and that gave me some cash. 

I guess unlike the other moms described here, mine wasn't controlling, but more negligent. 

I have canned food for emergencies, mostly. I gave my 10 year old boy chef boyardee the other week to see if he'd like it so I could cycle though the food. I told him that when I was a year older than him, I had to eat it could out of a can, and even then it was a treat, because we had no way to heat food.

I get annoyed at D8 who sneaks ice cream for breakfast or asks for cheese and chips (nachos), yet refuses bananas and blueberries. I refused to make her nachos for breakfast so we settled on an Eggo waffle and then reluctantly on cereal. She drives me nuts, but I try not to food shame her.

Last night she ate only half a bbq chicken thigh with corn tortillas. I gave the rest to the dogs. The kids have no idea! "I didn't really like it." I wanted to say, "try canned tamales, cold, where you had to scrape off the congealed grease to be palatable." But I didn't...

What I worry about is their mom's bordeline eating disorder. When I met her, she was anemic because she tried to go Veg but didn't do it right. Years later, after she left, I found an old journal of hers that stopped at the time she met me.  I read:

"I'm at my perfect weight of 112."

"I'm at my perfect weight of "110."

Then 108, 105, 102... She's 4'11, but is strong, does real push ups. I knew what was going on,  she was still in love with a past bf who left her.  Not being able to change her personality, she focused on her physicality. I think parents who do this project their own shame, not seeing you daughters as entirely separate entities.

But I read that and fear for our daughter's propensity for carbs, and how mommy might deal with that once she reaches puberty in 3-4 years.

[Methuen]

Turkish:
I'm wondering if your D8 likes smoothies?  They're a rage with kids and teens, and full of all the good stuff - frozen fruit and yogurt + juice (or kefir if you want to go all healthy) etc.  Just thinking that might be a "like" replacement for the ice cream breakfast kick... if you don't already do that.  Also, could it be she eats ice cream at your place, because her mother restricts it? (coming from the daughter of an eating disordered mother)

fear for our daughter's propensity for carbs, and how mommy might deal with that once she reaches puberty in 3-4 years.

From reading your posts, you sound like just an awesome dad who's got it pretty together.    Not sure if D8 lives with you full time, or shared time, but she's already sponging up attitudes at age 8.  That doesn't wait until she's pre-teen unfortunately.  Some girls are hyper aware with all the media exposure around body image, advertising, etc etc. Boys too are affected by body image, albeit for more of a buff look than a twiggy look.  She's lucky you are so aware, and can provide a kind of counter-balance to whatever influences about food, that her mother has on her.  Since there is nothing you can do about the attitudes mom will try to implant on her, the best you can do is always provide the healthy counterbalance.  The good thing is she's got you to help her develop healthy food attitudes.  Many of us on this board were raised by parents that lived under the same roof, and I can honestly say my good dad had NO CLUE about the food attitudes and body shame my mom was teaching me.  He was away at work all day, and she stayed home to raise me the best she could with her BPD issues, so when it came to food and attitudes I was a true innocent under mom's thumb.  Your daughter is going to get a lot more "balance" than lots of us got.  
PS  

I think parents who do this project their own shame, not seeing you daughters as entirely separate entities.

Yah...also, in my mom's case she really really tried to make me into the "perfect" image of herself.  Tiny tiny tiny, and thin thin thin, amongst many other things.  I'm well over it at 58, but that "imprinting" is something I think most of us always have to butt heads with, pretty much forever.

[Turkish]

I made smoothies last summer.  I have yet to this summer.  She asked if there was anything "healthy" in them. If I told her she'd refuse. I love my stubborn girl, but she can be a handful. Greek vanilla ice cream (yoghurt), blueberries, bananas, milk. Nope!

I threw out the nutella after being convicted by the dentist last week, she settled for a peanut butter sandwich and a Eggo for breakfast, refusing the fresh bananas I bought, and certainly not the blueberries. Tough girl.