Helplessness of BPD mom

[zachira]

On another thread, someone mentioned that their BPD mom did not do housework or cook. It reminded me of how my mother hired people to do everything even though we weren't rich. She had people who did the ironing, cleaned the house, did the yard work. I was always embarassed at how mom hired teenagers who were my age to do babysitting and yardwork with over the top praise of what great work they did, and would never think of letting my siblings and I do these kinds of jobs. Whenever I had a job, mom was upset. My first job as a waitress, mom had me wait on her, then called the boss over to tell him what a terrible job I was doing. I am wondering if I was brought up to feel incompetent and helpless. I often struggle with getting things done. Does any of this resonate with those of you who were raised by a mother with BPD?

[Riv3rW0lf]

My first job as a waitress, mom had me wait on her, then called the boss over to tell him what a terrible job I was doing. I am wondering if I was brought up to feel incompetent and helpless. I often struggle with getting things done.

Does any of this resonate with those of you who were raised by a mother with BPD?

I would say this is a fair assumption. On top of that, I would add that as women, we will generally use our mother as our primary role model, so it would stand to reason that a child with a mother who is a BPD waif, incapable of doing things, might struggle a bit more in getting into action mode. Also, being frozen as a child during extended period of time, might also contribute to this.

In my case, my mother was mostly Queen, with me anyway, so she would make me do everything in the house, but WITH her, and she would do more and then tell me I wasn't good enough, nor fast enough.

So in the kitchen, baking with her was a nightmare. She would gently call me over to bake with her, and then I wasn't doing anything right for her so she would always end up taking over. But she would still get mad if I didn't bake while she was gone, or if I didn't clean.  She would also have me cook diner while she was at work, and while she would never compliment me on my meal, my stepfather often would. She wouldn't agree with him and to this day, it takes her a lot to say one of my meals is good... But somehow I always focussed on the compliment from my stepfather, rather than on the spite that my mother showed, so thankfully I didn't lose my love of baking.

I went to visit my cousine yesterday and it turns out we are very similar : always doing more than we should, flight people, to the point of accomplishing tasks that are downright stupid, sometimes dangerous. We were raised similarly, but her to a greater extreme because she was on a farm. Life in the city was a bit easier for me !

But yes, even this morning, I woke up emotionally fragile and see, I just had to carry a work table upstairs... It was not too heavy, just very big, and I did it by myself, all the while thinking : why the hell am I doing that? And blaming my husband for not doing it before...I have a fragile lower back, and shouldn't do this kind of things, but when I am out of myself, something just takes over... And now I know, honestly, that I chose a husband who doesn't want to do much so that I can exhaust myself and work, work, work, like my mother does.  And I am working on it ...

So in our family : you are raised to work, work, work, but you are never good enough, and so you need to work faster, and better, and stronger, and faster, and better, work, work, work until exhaustion or depression kicks in.

My children are what forced me to calm down. Usually, people say having children is exhausting... For me, it is hard emotionnally, the eyes opening hit me hard, but the cuddling while breastfeeding, the playing with them, it was a nice break for my body and it decreased my critical parent dramatically. Now when my head tells me all I need to do, I can answer : sorry I can't, I need to take care of my children ! Hopefully it doesn't come back when they are grown, and I keep this new found chill.

[lm1109]

My first job as a waitress, mom had me wait on her, then called the boss over to tell him what a terrible job I was doing.

I'm so sorry this happened to you! My mother was very similar to this...she demeaned me every single chance she got. She especially enjoyed demeaning me in front of others..which seems to be what your mother did with your boss. It got to the point where I knew better than to invite any friend or boyfriend over to my home... because I knew my mother would try to embarrass or belittle me in front of them. When I'd get embarrassed or angry at her for doing it, she would then flip the narrative, and tell me she was "joking" and tell me I was "Too Sensitive" A parents job is to lift their children up and unfortunately it seems that bpd mothers are incapable of this. When she would tear me down..she felt superior.

I am wondering if I was brought up to feel incompetent and helpless. I often struggle with getting things done. Does any of this resonate with those of you who were raised by a mother with BPD?

Yes! I believe my Mother raised me to feel incompetent and helpless as well...I think she thought that would ensure that I would always need her!

When I moved out at 18 I knew very little! My husband had to teach me how to cook and do laundry...my Mother never taught me basic life skills like that...never invited me in the kitchen or baked with me, etc. I cleaned the house as a child...but as Riv3rwolf stated...it was NEVER good enough!

Another aspect of this that I have thought about over the years is self care. My Mother never taught me how to do my hair, how to dress nice, how to do makeup, etc. When I look at photos of myself as a child I feel so sad for little me. In all the photos my hair is a mess, my clothes are mismatched or too big/too small...I was just left to figure it all out by myself...which of course led to some very awkward years of my childhood. Meanwhile my Mother would primp in the mirror for HOURS a day! My brother and I would joke about not getting near her in the bathroom or you'd get "hairspray bombed" because she would spray regardless of someone being behind her. I think the worst part of this is that after I became a teenager I also became obsessed with appearances...I learned how to do hair and makeup from friends, dressed differently, and ultimately became bulimic/anorexic and THEN she began to praise me. I specifically remember her telling me on multiple occasions how happy she was that I outgrew my "awkwardness" and how embarrassing I used to look...as if it WASN'T HER job as my parent to teach or guide me? The sicker I got in my eating disorder...the MORE praise I received from her! So...yes...I believe my Mother wanted me helpless AND sick...because that made me controllable!

My children are what forced me to calm down. Usually, people say having children is exhausting... For me, it is hard emotionnally, the eyes opening hit me hard, but the cuddling while breastfeeding, the playing with them, it was a nice break for my body and it decreased my critical parent dramatically. Now when my head tells me all I need to do, I can answer : sorry I can't, I need to take care of my children ! Hopefully it doesn't come back when they are grown, and I keep this new found chill.

I totally relate to this as well. In my "home" growing up ...you were lazy if you ever sat down to relax. My Mom would bark out cleaning orders at everyone and talk about how SHE "did it all!" After I had my kids I realized that my Mom NEVER stopped to play with us or watch movies with us, etc. She didn't have the ability to stop or relax or have fun! Thankfully...my Mother In Law told me after I had my first son to calm down and enjoy my kids. She told me how having kids and allowing herself to enjoy their childhood(games, holidays, movies, trips, etc) gave her a chance to relive some of her own childhood that she missed out on due to abuse. It was the best advice I ever received and I'm so grateful I listened to her and calmed down 

[Notwendy]

I think I am the one who wrote that post. BPD mother has an emotional need to have people do things for her. One way to do that is to refuse to do things. She also had hired help at home and yes, we were embarrassed as kids about that because our friends' parents seemed to be able to manage these things.

I don't think she wanted to raise me to be incompetent because she expected me to do things for her and as soon as I was able to, I did help at home. But to her, it also wasn't good enough. At one point I knew Dad had financial struggles and I suggested doing more to help myself. He refused. However, I also think he had his own motives. If he was at work, and someone was in the house with her, then he worried less because she would be less likely to harm herself. So part of this took care of  housework but also some part may have been for safety for her, and for us, while he was at work.

Also, though, if I did something, she'd be critical of it. Once I was raking leaves and she was making fun of the way I did it. Yet, she didn't rake leaves. She also didn't seem pleased with whatever we did. She's critical of a siblings choice of employment. I believe it's true that a parent with a PD sees the child as an extension of themselves and that this criticism is projections of their own uncomfortable feelings, not about the child.

She once said something to me that I found interesting. I was in the midst of doing the usual things like driving carpool, fixing supper, helping with homework and she said "I feel sorry for you" because I did what she hired people to do. To her, these were menial tasks- she saw them as being "beneath her" and perhaps her need to hire people to do them was a way to feel better about herself.

[Turkish]

My first job as a waitress, mom had me wait on her, then called the boss over to tell him what a terrible job I was doing.

That was a supremely crappy thing to do. Not only couldn't she tell you herself, she had to lie and triangulate to humiliate you.

 I believe it's true that a parent with a PD sees the child as an extension of themselves and that this criticism is projections of their own uncomfortable feelings, not about the child.

^^^^this.

[zachira]

Turkish,
The weirdest part was I was actually doing a good job. When she told the boss I was doing a bad job, he looked sad and angry. It often helped me to observe the facial expressions of other adults who clearly felt sad about the way I was being treated by my mother. Many times other parents went out of their way to be kind to me. I have often said that being kind to an abused child/teenager/young person even if only for a few minutes, can mean the world; it certainly did for me.

[Turkish]

Yeah, I got the feeling that other parents and a few teachers felt sorry for me.

I'll forever be grateful that my BFF's mom suggested a tech program to me at 17 as my mom was zero help, borderline sabotaging me.

[zachira]

Notwendy,
Yes, you are the one who wrote that your mother has an emotional need to have others do things for her.
What I can't figure out about my mom, is she was always so lazy. She came from a very poor family in which children were expected to help out and apparently was not much help on the farm. My father usually spoke highly of my mother, yet he mentioned several times to me how perplexed he was that she complained about being tired all the time when she really didn't do all that much, which was true. Do you think your mother was actually capable of doing more around the house? I wonder how all the emotional dysregulations affect self esteem and energy levels in a person with BPD.
My mother was also very critical of my helping out. When I was around 13, the Girl Scouts gave me an assignment of cooking dinner for the family and provided the recipes. I was perplexed at how upset mom was that I was cooking in her kitchen. The one thing she did do was cook dinner. After dinner, when I was proudly cleaning up and so pleased my dinner had turned out well, my mom came into the kitchen; she looked angry and had only one thing to say about the dinner I had cooked: how bad the food was.
I do agree with you that mothers with BPD see their children as extensions of themselves. I believe that maturing into an adult, is a threat to the mother with BPD who sees this as a form of abandonment.
I am sad for you that your mother does not realize and appreciate what a wonderful daughter she has.

[zachira]

Im1109,
When I left home at 18, I too barely knew how to do anything. People often commented on how I did not even have the most basic of life skills. I too have had people outside my family teach me things I should have learned in a healthy family environment. I too was a very unkempt child, while my mother was meticulously well dressed and had her hair done every week. I too avoided bringing people home, not only because how mom would embarrass me but because of how badly mom would talk about my friends after they left. I once brought home a teenager who had terrible acne, and mom went on and on about how terrible she looked, after she left.
I feel like I have spent my whole life growing up and learning from other people who are more mature than I am, often from people who are young enough to be my children.
I see a real strength in both of us in that we found people to help us learn the things we would have learned in a healthy childhood environment.

[zachira]

Riv3rWOlf,
You grew up often feeling you were not good enough and you needed to work harder because your mother criticized everything you did. I am so glad you had a stepfather who was able to compliment you on the meals you cooked.
I do think having children and/or working with children can really undo a lot of the damage done by a BPD mom. We want to be the mother/caretaker to our children and/or other children that we never had.
I started this thread because I too often have a critical voice in my head, telling me I can't do anything well enough, and I have to work myself to death trying harder.
I am working on being more present, and being kinder to myself and others.

[Notwendy]

Thanks Zachira- I am sad for all of us here dealing with this, but also happy to see that we all are resilient and learning to "undo" these negative ( and untrue ) messages we were told as children.

I think BPD mom's ability to do something is mainly impacted by her emotions. She has difficulty with executive function. I think the "being above it" attitude is combined with not feeling competent. It's chicken and egg though- the more we do something, the better we get at it, so having people do things for her doesn't help this.

I remember wanting to make a recipe out of a children's cookbook and how excited I was to make it. BPD mother also made negative comments about it, how I prepared it the wrong way, how it didn't taste good. Maybe it didn't, but for a first try at something for a kid, you still encourage them.

Zachira- I think these criticisms are projections. They aren't true.

[Riv3rW0lf]

Riv3rWOlf,
You grew up often feeling you were not good enough and you needed to work harder because your mother criticized everything you did. I am so glad you had a stepfather who was able to compliment you on the meals you cooked.
I do think having children and/or working with children can really undo a lot of the damage done by a BPD mom. We want to be the mother/caretaker to our children and/or other children that we never had.
I started this thread because I too often have a critical voice in my head, telling me I can't do anything well enough, and I have to work myself to death trying harder.
I am working on being more present, and being kinder to myself and others.

Part of me feels a bit of guilt though... Reading all of your posts, yours and everyone else, I can see how my mother made an effort to teach me how to care for myself. It was never good enough, but she showed me how to do my own bread, fudge (I mention it because cooking fudge with her is a bittersweet memory for me... I made some yesterday and I know I am clearly processing something unconsciously because it made me deeply emotional and irritable), to cook, to take care of a house, trusted me at 16 to cook and take care of nine elderly people by myself... And I did and during this period, I don't remember her criticizing me. I was a pawn at this point, that she could use to have a weekend off and I barely saw her.

So when I left to live on my own, I knew what to do... The exclusion, the abuse and low self esteem is what made it hard for me to be in the world. I had the skills but not the self esteem. So simple tasks like going to the grocery store felt like going to hell.

Her house was always clean and very warm, with decorations and beautiful green plants everywhere (she loves flowers).

The thing is with my mother is she spent so much time on what the house looked like, that she forgot her real home: her children.

She catered more to her plants and curtains than to us. We always had home cooked meal, but could hear her rage while she was cooking it, making us feel bad she had to do it for us. Opposed to her was my father who would drink his beer, put nice music on and sing while he was cooking, dancing and eating his cheese curds... He was having such a good time cooking, it was made with so much love, and he also did it every night for us: home cooked meals too. But his house was cold (literally, he didn't put a lot of heat), with no plants, no decorations, just the bare minimum.

It's like she projected, on her houses everything she wanted to be, to look like, but she was never able to truly take the time to achieve it with the things that truly matters.

So now, she has a warm looking house with nothing in it...

My daughter laughs a lot, and two days with Grandma, I am looking at the pictures and she looks down, tired and sad... And I have no idea why and how my mother can have this effect on us. It's like a succubus. She tries so much, but it just feels like an empty, unfillable void of attention that we have to endlessly provide until we are exhausted.

It's hard to express in words...

I just... She did show me how to take care of a house, and from what was lacking, I could figure out how to build a home. But I have to give her some credit for trying very hard.

Part of me feels ungrateful, but I also know taking care of children is just not about feeding them... Sometimes it is about doing a simple oatmeal for diner, because you forgot to cook because you were playing with them at the park, or because you took the time to be there for them when they needed a good cry in your arms.

People are home. A house is just a house.

[zachira]

Notwendy,
I think you are right that our mothers with BPD have problems with executive functioning. I believe that some of it is inherited and then made worse by a bad childhood environment. My brother with BPD is so much like mom. My father was very perplexed when he had my two brothers picking up wood in the forest, and the one with BPD just didn't seem to be able to stay on task or contribute much. Both my mother and brother with BPD would sleep for hours on end, accomplish little in their waking hours, and then become easily upset.  
It seems my mother was very jealous of her children. We were all in some ways so much more capable than she was which I am sure triggered her fears of abandonment and made her double down on the criticism.
I never knew when mom was just going to lose it. One day she decided she wanted to have the garage swept. She comes rushing into my room (did not knock on the door as usual) and demands that the garage be swept. I was a teenager and busy with something else. I told her I would do it later. About an hour later, she comes back and is in a rage about how none of her children do anything and says she had to sweep the garage.
I have a lot of work to do on sorting out the projections and the ones that have become true because I bought into them. I go between giving myself credit for surviving all the abuse to feeling terribly sad about all I have missed out on in life. I am planning on going to my high school reunion this summer. So many of my classmates are light years ahead of me in so many ways: long term happy marriages, good relationships with their children, succesful careers, and pillars of the small community I grew up in. I realize that some of the people who were of average intelligence and who came from really nice families have done well in life. The one classmate who is an amazing genius is as immature as ever.

[zachira]

Riv3rW0lf,
I can identify with your feeling terrible when doing simple tasks like going to the grocery store after you began living on your own. I believe that when we are living with our disordered family members that we are in survival mode, and we often fall apart when we are away from them. Leaving can in the begining feel worse than being with the disordered family members, and this is why some people never leave or if they do, they return, many times over and over again.
My mother also kept the perfect house, loved to garden, and was a great cook. Like you, I grew up in a house not a home.
You are there for your children, and have broken the cycle of abuse. Some of us get lucky in the genetic lottery and it never feels normal for us to be like our disordered family members. My family is full of people with personality disorders, mood disorders, and Asperger's. I seem to have many relatives who have no capacity for genuine relating to others, and are incapable of benefitting from therapy. My mother had an excellent psychiatrist who was known to go out of his way to give compassionate helpful therapy to his patients. He tried to give therapy to my mother, and it seems pretty clear to me that he figured out she had no capacity to take a look at herself and her behaviors. Mom liked her psychiatrist very much, and he provided her with all kinds of psychiatric medication for many years.

[Notwendy]

Oh my goodness, the times she stormed into my room demanding I do something right now! Once she showed up at my part time job in a rage over something.

I have watched her try to follow a recipe. She gets so anxious and needs constant reassurance. She has a hard time with the steps which is executive function.

 I hope you enjoy seeing your old friends. One thing I have discovered by reconnecting is that- some of them had abusive parents but we didn't dare speak of this. One of my friends has a mother with BPD. It may look like everyone is doing so well on the surface. It's not as if we make a reunion into a complaint situation. It's just that for many of us, the "illusions" of "normalcy" that we were so afraid to not present don't matter as much. We are at middle age now, and perhaps a bit more open about things. I have friends who are happily married, but then some of them are divorced. What prevails are the connections. Not everyone will be so open about themselves but for the ones who do- we see beyond the surface.

[Riv3rW0lf]

I have watched her try to follow a recipe. She gets so anxious and needs constant reassurance. She has a hard time with the steps which is executive function.

*light bulb opening*

Huh. My mother also can't follow any recipe. She keeps asking if she is doing right and gets very anxious and she always ends up doing something else. And I never really realized how weird this was considering she cooked so much, usually from scratch and it usually is good.

She prides herself that she cooks everything from scratch but now I realize she actually has to, because indeed following recipes stresses the hell out of her!

[zachira]

Notwendy and Riv3rW0lf,
The poor executive functioning of our mothers with BPD really explains a lot of their dysfunctional behaviors. I also was wondering why the simplest things were such a major undertaking for my mother and my brother with BPD. Your descriptions of how challenging cooking was for your mothers explains a lot about how my mother complained about how much work it was for her to cook dinner, her one major task of the day oftentimes, and she was a wonderful cook. It seems that people with serious BPD spend their days mostly being overwhelmed by living. I feel sorry for so many of my disordered family members and their flying monkeys who have ruthlessly abused me and others, yet I have to set the healthy boundaries with them, as abuse of anybody is never acceptable under any circumstances.

[Riv3rW0lf]

Yes, it's like you just opened a brand new ocean for me to dive into...

Memory time: she would ask me if I wanted something knit, a shirt or anything, and I'd choose one and send her the pattern, and she would NEVER follow it. It would always come out with problems, too short, and then she was wondering why I didn't wear what she made. And I would ask her why it didn't look like the pattern I sent and she would answer: I don't follow patterns, I do it approximately, you don't need a pattern, you don't appreciate my work ! She just couldn't follow them, and she probably knew and felt ashamed maybe... I don't know.

Interestingly enough though, my mother always go from one task to another, she always has something to do, or to show... Most of what she does look rushed, but now I understand better why...

She set up her day with so many things to do, and then she is exhausted, completely, much more than I ever feel. Everything makes much more sense now.

But Zachira, in the end you are absolutely right that none of this makes abuse ok.

[zachira]

Riv3rW0lf,
This topic has also opened a brand new ocean for me to dive into. I now know that when I feel so incompetent and helpless that most of it is projection from my BPD mom, some of the projection being things she said to me and some of it having her as my main role model while witnessing all her helpless behaviors.

[Turkish]

A little over a decade ago, my mom started a class with a man in the county who specialized in teaching senior citizens computer skills. She bought a PC and wanted to start a web business because her younger neighbor was making some money doing it (the get rich quick thinking again).

She got frustrated with me trying to teach her and I thought maybe it was mostly me. I've trained lots of people at work, but some complained that I often went to fast. I got her to windows solitaire. So the class seemed good.

After a few sessions, the guy gave her money back 

[Notwendy]

I think not understanding why doing day to day tasks is difficult for BPD mother also took a toll on her self esteem. She has said she felt criticized and admittedly, by the time we got to be older kids, we wondered what she actually did all day and probably said something about it.

We also encouraged her. She tried some volunteer work and also took some classes. She's intelligent, got excellent grades, but none of these endeavors lasted for more than a short while.

It must have been disturbing to see your own kids become more competent if one has low self esteem. Maybe that is one reason our mothers seemed to be critical of us. Truthfully- there are things my children do much better than I do. They studied areas in college that I didn't. They have skills that I don't, however, these don't effect my own self esteem. In some ways, our achievements validated BPD mother and also possibly invalidated her.

Without other skills, my BPD mother's sense of competency probably came from her ability to control and manipulate us and she does that well. I have been astounded at the kind of power she has in the family structure. Maybe we were good at household tasks, but her will prevailed.

[zachira]

Turkish,
I am wondering if learning computer skills was threatening to your mother because she could not be in control, had to follow directions to the letter or would not be able to succeed in mastering the skills.

[zachira]

Notwendy,
It seems that for our BPD mothers controlling others is their means of surviving, and they are masters at it. I see the controlling behaviors as avoiding being seen for who they really are. I can't imagine the torturous existence of being as mentally ill as some of my family members are/were and fearing being abandonned if anybody knew what was really going on inside their heads.

[Turkish]

Turkish,
I am wondering if learning computer skills was threatening to your mother because she could not be in control, had to follow directions to the letter or would not be able to succeed in mastering the skills.

I was thinking it was more Waifish, but I didn't consider another point of view.

[Notwendy]

I think, because of the feeling of incompetence, my BPD mother feels invalidated by suggestions and also indignant. "How dare you tell me what to do".

Instructors may find this frustrating- it's their job to tell you what to do, and as zachira mentioned, the need to be in control could interfere with the instructor's job.

Add the need to be taken care of that impacts the interest in becoming competent at something. So it seems like a cycle that reinforces itself.

BPD mother does this with her helpers. She expects them to just know certain tasks and how she likes them done. If they ask for clarification, she interprets this as "demanding she does something" and so she feels indignant "how dare she ask me this" and gets angry. They either learn how to communicate with her or probably quit.

Once she was having work done on the house and I recalled when I forgot to cover a shelf during some construction and tried to share that. I said "it would be a good idea to cover that shelf" and she snapped at me "how dare you expect me to do that".

I can imagine trying to teach her to do something on the computer. One might say "push that key" in not quite the right way and she'd snap at them.

[Riv3rW0lf]

The dynamic with my mother is a bit different...Although I do recognize her in what you are saying about her expecting people to know exactly how she wants things done without having to show it nor explain it. I realized recently I had been conditioned not to solve things myself at her house. She doesn't react well when we know more than she does either.

Once, she asked me about what I was doing on my thesis. It's not overly complicated, but most people think I am speaking another language when I start to talk about it, which stands to reason. So I started explaining a little bit, trying to make it less opaque, and she would act like she understood everything! So I tried to go deeper and it was clear she didn't.  She was nodding and cutting me off saying : ha yes I understand ! It is simple ! But she couldn't explain it back to me at all, nor discuss it. It was all an act. Most people let me know it is getting too technical, or I back off because I see in their face they don't really get it (they stop talking, and I lose their interest), but she was just going along, acting like she understood it all and could do it herself! It was an interesting experience...

So if you try to teach her something, she will act like she understand it all, even if she doesn't. She won't necessarily snap though, but will say things like : ha you see I would have made it differently (she cannot say how exactly she would have done it differently, but she says it like she knows a better way, or that there has to be a better way but she doesn't have the time to find it).

It made me realize it is very hard for me to discuss anything I truly enjoy with her...First because I think I trigger her. She doesn't really understand theoretical questions. So all our discussions need to be about physical things she does, and in those areas, again, there is no room for anyone else but her. She is the best at everything and she lets you know! She shows her plants off, and doesn't really want to hear what you would have to say about it. So one can just acknowledge and tell her good, yes, yes, you are amazing..

If I talk about personal things, it is dangerous because it gets used against me later on, so this is out of the question too.

And when the discussions move toward anything more theoretical, she cannot follow but will act like she understands and will intervene and cut people off, with things that often don't make sense in the context of the discussion, and if you point it out, she gets angry and defensive, accusing you of not understanding her and what she meant... It makes it almost impossible to have a discussion with anyone when she is around.

I suspect she has narcissistic tendencies for this reason.

[zachira]

It seems we are uncovering some more reasons why our mothers with BPD can't learn anything new or understand another person's point of view. It is all about them all the time. Accepting another person's expertise means it is not about them. So the longer they go without learning new things, the more behind they are, and can be one of the reasons people why people with BPD get worse as they age.
I can't imagine how lonely it must be, to feel less and less a part of the real world, as a person with BPD becomes more behind: in learning new skills, understanding the continuing changes around them, especially as their children mature into adults, leaving the mother with BPD way behind her children in maturity and triggering more fears of abandonment in the mother with BPD.

[Notwendy]

I can't imagine they chose to be that way. I think their self centeredness is due to their constant emotional turmoil that requires their constant attention and their coping mechanisms to deal with. Incompetence causes shame and so needs to be covered up, perhaps with appearing to know something already. If they can't do something, they can't ask for help- that would be admitting they don't or can't do something. So instead, they order someone to do it or manipulate someone to do it.

The other way to save face is to appear "above it all" and designate the task as something they won't stoop to do. I think the narcissism plays into that. So having people do things for them serves both purposes.

Perhaps they would like a different relationship but these dynamics just wreck them.