Lawson (Understanding BPD Mother) - (1) 1st part Chap1-The Make Believe Mother

[Depression = 72% of members]

Tonight I pulled out Christine Ann Lawson's remarkable book, "Understanding the Borderline Mother."  I have ordered a copy for a dear friend and I want to re-educate myself, and also now, refresh her disclosures since turning to this website again.

I especially want to help support this friend in her recovery process.  I suggested her stepmother had been a borderline personality disordered mother.  She has since passed. I may be right or wrong.  But I know my friend has issues with her stepmother. And I know if she did have a borderline stepmother, examining their history will be freeing but painful.

I get frustrated with family members who discourage talks with me about the borderline and alcoholic chaos in our history -- who still idealize our mother to a great extent, but I too am often reluctant to review painful memories. This wonderful book has sat on my shelf untouched for a good while now, and I know re-skimming it will be valuable.

Tonight I was adding margin annotations to it yet again.

In her preface Lawson says "borderline" refers to a person's emotional state when it exists on the border between neurosis and psychosis, particularly when faced with abandonment or rejection. 

Lawson describes the relationship between a child and a borderline mother as "an emotional labyrinth." 

We have an "attachment disorder" to our mothers who were so emotionally unstable we could not readily trust them if they were unrecovered borderline personalities.

Lawson  says these mothers have the power "to shatter their children's souls."

She estimates over 6 million people in the US suffer from uBPD and the number of children or relatives suffering from their loved ones' disorder and its manifestations is also exponentially daunting.

My mother  was so over-reactive to any natural and maturational move to separation and development that my sense of confidence and empowerment was crippled in an ongoing way.  Maturing was a form of treason to her. 

I was at the same time expected to reflect an "altruistic sensibility" like an adult from too young an age crazymakingly (the false personality I heard about in 12 step meetings -- cued by a parent's ego needs to be a perfect child), only if that rhetoric or thinking mirrored my mother's exact code and rulemaking and ego needs to impress people in our social orbit.

Real genuine maturation and exploration was regarded as treasonous and punished. Mistakes received frightening over-reactions.  -- At times.  At other times there was more rationality from her. But it could never be counted on. The inconsistency between sane moments of mothering and irrational ones made the anxiety all the higher it felt. Added to the confusion re trusting her.

Life became more of a gauntlet rather than an adventure as I struggled to grow up.  I had to consider every consequence of an action as to the potential hysteria of my mother, rather than my own wants and impulses.  Hence the walking on egg shells life mode.  Indoctrinated to be passive and reactive rather than proactive.  The fact that i was a "girl" child seemed to increase my bondage to her needs for emotional control over me.

Lawson observes that a borderline mother's rules are crazymakingly both vague and at the same time rigid.  I felt shamed even more than guilt-mongered by my mother, since she always emphasized how shocked she was that I would do or say anything that went against her wishes and needs.  I was heartless or evil or colossally stupid not to have known at all times "how she would feel."  And the command was I was not to do anything in my life that was not attuned to HOW SHE WOULD FEEL. I was so careful not to willfully offend her rules, but I couldn't help inadvertently at times getting into trouble not being able to second guess them.

She didn't touch me often, but I do have memories of being shaken by the shoulders by her with her demanding, "Didn't you know how I'd feel?" in such intense fury.  I mean from a very early age!  Toddler and up.  Frankly I didn't know how she would feel. I was a little kid.  WTF?

She often accused me of lying growing up.  Maybe I did lie out of fear of her.  Or maybe she projected onto me her own irrational malice and suspected me of ... I don't know what.  When it often turned out I hadn't been lying and she had ignored or minimized important self-disclosures I was trying to get through to her, I never got an apology or an acknowledgment.  I was blamed for not having communicated to her well enough.  She would often lie to me she would take care of the need I was trying to share to her about, and then simply not deal with it after dismissing it as a lie in her own mind.

After elementary school my vision worsened considerably and I kept telling her I couldn't see well enough, especially in seeing the chalkboard in school.  She kept reassuring me she would take care of it. When the school discovered my poor sight in a random eye test in gym class, she whisked me  off to an eye doctor and I finally got glasses. 

She was so humiliated because the eye doctor expressed deep dismay over just how poor my eyesight was and how on earth I had been functioning, when we got outside she roared at me for embarrassing her. "Why didn't you tell me you needed glasses" I replied honestly, "I told you a lot that I couldn't see."  She shook me by the shoulders exclaiming, "Why didn't you make me see you couldn't see?"

Whaaaa?   

That must have enraged my inner child I am sure, but expressing anything but a convenient feeling or simply shutting up around my mother brought frightening punishment.  No accountability for her injustice.

Triggering my mother's hysteria not only brought fear in me at her anger, but dismay and fear at the anger her hysteria at me would provoke in others in the family toward me for upsetting my mother so. The details didn't seem to concern them, it was the fact that I triggered her "opera mode" ranting about me and my sin.

Also, since my father's alcoholic behavior brought so much stress to the family and particularly my mother, any addition to her stress was met by her and others with profound agitation and guilt/shame-mongering.  As the oldest and the daughter I know I myself did much to promote pity for my mother in the family since my mother vented so often to me as a sounding board the frustrations of her marriage.

I think I am going to break off here. I intended to make a few notations from the first chapter in this post, but it is so rich and provocative in simply skimming, I will leave the rest of chapter 1 to tomorrow or soon I hope.

xxx

[bethanny]

Tonight I pulled out Christine Ann Lawson's remarkable book, "Understanding the Borderline Mother."  I have ordered a copy for a dear friend and I want to re-educate myself, and also now, refresh her disclosures since turning to this website again.

I especially want to help support this friend in her recovery process.  I suggested her stepmother had been a borderline personality disordered mother.  She has since passed. I may be right or wrong.  But I know my friend has issues with her stepmother. And I know if she did have a borderline stepmother, examining their history will be freeing but painful.

I get frustrated with family members who discourage talks with me about the borderline and alcoholic chaos in our history -- who still idealize our mother to a great extent, but I too am often reluctant to review painful memories. This wonderful book has sat on my shelf untouched for a good while now, and I know re-skimming it will be valuable.

Tonight I was adding margin annotations to it yet again.

In her preface Lawson says "borderline" refers to a person's emotional state when it exists on the border between neurosis and psychosis, particularly when faced with abandonment or rejection. 

Lawson describes the relationship between a child and a borderline mother as "an emotional labyrinth." 

We have an "attachment disorder" to our mothers who were so emotionally unstable we could not readily trust them if they were unrecovered borderline personalities.

Lawson  says these mothers have the power "to shatter their children's souls."

She estimates over 6 million people in the US suffer from uBPD and the number of children or relatives suffering from their loved ones' disorder and its manifestations is also exponentially daunting.

My mother  was so over-reactive to any natural and maturational move to separation and development that my sense of confidence and empowerment was crippled in an ongoing way.  Maturing was a form of treason to her. 

I was at the same time expected to reflect an "altruistic sensibility" like an adult from too young an age crazymakingly (the false personality I heard about in 12 step meetings -- cued by a parent's ego needs to be a perfect child), only if that rhetoric or thinking mirrored my mother's exact code and rulemaking and ego needs to impress people in our social orbit.

Real genuine maturation and exploration was regarded as treasonous and punished. Mistakes received frightening over-reactions.  -- At times.  At other times there was more rationality from her. But it could never be counted on. The inconsistency between sane moments of mothering and irrational ones made the anxiety all the higher it felt. Added to the confusion re trusting her.

Life became more of a gauntlet rather than an adventure as I struggled to grow up.  I had to consider every consequence of an action as to the potential hysteria of my mother, rather than my own wants and impulses.  Hence the walking on egg shells life mode.  Indoctrinated to be passive and reactive rather than proactive.  The fact that i was a "girl" child seemed to increase my bondage to her needs for emotional control over me.

Lawson observes that a borderline mother's rules are crazymakingly both vague and at the same time rigid.  I felt shamed even more than guilt-mongered by my mother, since she always emphasized how shocked she was that I would do or say anything that went against her wishes and needs.  I was heartless or evil or colossally stupid not to have known at all times "how she would feel."  And the command was I was not to do anything in my life that was not attuned to HOW SHE WOULD FEEL. I was so careful not to willfully offend her rules, but I couldn't help inadvertently at times getting into trouble not being able to second guess them.

She didn't touch me often, but I do have memories of being shaken by the shoulders by her with her demanding, "Didn't you know how I'd feel?" in such intense fury.  I mean from a very early age!  Toddler and up.  Frankly I didn't know how she would feel. I was a little kid.  WTF?

She often accused me of lying growing up.  Maybe I did lie out of fear of her.  Or maybe she projected onto me her own irrational malice and suspected me of ... I don't know what.  When it often turned out I hadn't been lying and she had ignored or minimized important self-disclosures I was trying to get through to her, I never got an apology or an acknowledgment.  I was blamed for not having communicated to her well enough.  She would often lie to me she would take care of the need I was trying to share to her about, and then simply not deal with it after dismissing it as a lie in her own mind.

After elementary school my vision worsened considerably and I kept telling her I couldn't see well enough, especially in seeing the chalkboard in school.  She kept reassuring me she would take care of it. When the school discovered my poor sight in a random eye test in gym class, she whisked me  off to an eye doctor and I finally got glasses. 

She was so humiliated because the eye doctor expressed deep dismay over just how poor my eyesight was and how on earth I had been functioning, when we got outside she roared at me for embarrassing her. "Why didn't you tell me you needed glasses" I replied honestly, "I told you a lot that I couldn't see."  She shook me by the shoulders exclaiming, "Why didn't you make me see you couldn't see?"

Whaaaa?   

That must have enraged my inner child I am sure, but expressing anything but a convenient feeling or simply shutting up around my mother brought frightening punishment.  No accountability for her injustice.

Triggering my mother's hysteria not only brought fear in me at her anger, but dismay and fear at the anger her hysteria at me would provoke in others in the family toward me for upsetting my mother so. The details didn't seem to concern them, it was the fact that I triggered her "opera mode" ranting about me and my sin.

Also, since my father's alcoholic behavior brought so much stress to the family and particularly my mother, any addition to her stress was met by her and others with profound agitation and guilt/shame-mongering.  As the oldest and the daughter I know I myself did much to promote pity for my mother in the family since my mother vented so often to me as a sounding board the frustrations of her marriage.

I think I am going to break off here. I intended to make a few notations from the first chapter in this post, but it is so rich and provocative in simply skimming, I will leave the rest of chapter 1 to tomorrow or soon I hope.

xxx

[PearlsBefore]

Please consider adding your review to https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=53779.0 - which is full of other reviews of Lawson's book (including mine!)...I agree with you it is an absolutely amazing book for somebody interested in the actual mechanics, concerns, comorbidities and symptoms specific to parenting young children. Far better than any other book published, so far as mothering young children is concerned.

[bethanny]

PearlsBefore ...

I will definitely check out your link and your review. 

Yes, Lawson's book was a puzzle piece, a huge one, that had been eluding me so much of my life.

After all the sad years of books, 12-step meetings, therapists, etc., when a friend suggested my mother was a borderline personality and recommended this book I was awed by the revelations that I recognized and had been so confused and frustrated by.

I have sent it to a friend and I hope it helps with some of her grieving.  I won't presume that it is her answer, but if it offers her even a small amount of insight that Lawson's book gave me it will still be significant.

xxx

[bethanny]

PearlsBefore ... I tried to find your particular review but there are a daunting amount of reviews.  Couldn't figure out if I could search for it.  Was it near the beginning or is it buried in there?  I want to go back and indulge in reading as many as I can but figured I would start with yours.  Sorry I couldn't find. Will try again tomorrow.