Still Mourning

[bethanny]

A lifetime of me mourning the irrational malice my ubpd  mother clearly felt for me and expressed at such hyper vulnerable times which was literally crazy-making and fueled my desperate fight to deny her core feelings. To deny such a hard reality.

She was psychotic at times. It was traumatizing for me.. was my mother a multiple personality made crazier with an alcoholic husband or was there no sustained reservoir of good will for me available? The witch mommy reliably surfaced when I had inadvertently broken one of the egg shells on which I so carefully trod.

The political and social power she unleashed against me in our family and social network to punish me, try to get me back in line in mid adulthood when I could no longer deny my bottom line terror of her and saw her ruthlessness to sacrifice my role in the extended and primary family to protect her ego driven impression management of a saintly human being.

Conflict resolution was not possible I learned when I finally faced down my obsequiousness to her was based more on my terror of her from continuing trauma of her psychotic moments growing up than my empathy for her misery as her adult good girl daughter. My absolute obsequiousness was what she demanded. Non-negotiable. Evil. Tragically.

The good son brothers who abandoned and betrayed me for so many years to accommodate my mother based no doubt on their denied fear of her and their need for the illusion of her — they can offer me comfort at this point in my life but I need to let go of the hope they will “get it”. Her inability to truly love and yet her outstanding skills at manipulation to get her needs met. They will never be able to validate what I went through as her primary scapegoat among her children. They have their own wronged history as well.

The dependency of a child on its mother is enormous. When that attachment security is destroyed by repeated trauma the child struggles to trust itself for the rest of its life. Especially after years of indoctrination to put the ubpd mother’s needs forever first.  The survivor guilt part of complex PTSD.

I must accept myself, my life’s plight and not live my life on my knees still so much of the time. I must as one affirmation reads, take off the dark and heavy garments of guilt and shame and be light and free.

Thanks for listening.

[Riv3rW0lf]

Yes, I've also come to the conclusion that my incapacity of securely attaching myself to my mother as a young child is most likely the very reason behind the dissonance between my feelings of anxiety and fear when she is around and what is actually happening in the present (i.e. I am a grown adult with no reason to be this scared of her). The constant stress and crisis with her were overwhelming when I was young, and still today, as a grown woman, I find myself feeling like a scared young child when she erupts.

I still manage her somehow, but am left overly stressed and anxious everytime, feeling like a young terrorized child... I am now no contact, have been for a few months now, and I feel much better.

Am learning to assert myself in relationships that are safer, like with my mother in law, husband and neighbors. It is not always easy, and often triggering, but I am slowly healing, I can tell... And so "changed". I find myself feeling stronger, I have much less self-doubts and am better in putting a leash around my inner critic's neck to be able to use it without it berating me every chance it gets.

Disconnecting and distancing myself from my main trigger (my mother) felt like the only way forward for me, but others successfully managed to maintain a relationship with their BPD parent... It is all very personal and seems specific to the nature of the deep trauma and personality in my opinion, no wrong or good way to go about it.

The healing journey often felt dark and dimmed at the start, but I can honestly say, today, that I feel much better than I did at the start of it, and it is worth pushing forward as there is much light at the end of the tunnel. This board was and still is a huge help for me in this journey of self-discovery.

Sending you support in your healing journey.