Is fear of failure or impostor syndrome common for children of pwBPD?

[justnothing]

Once again it's been a long while since the last time I posted anything here. Generally speaking things have been OK for me outside of issues at work.

I've been wanting to ask about this for a while - is it common for people who experienced role reversal as children (being made to act like their parent's caretakers) to have issues with impostor syndrome later on as adults? Or problems with work/school because of crippling fear of failure?

I'm asking because I've struggled with these issues all my life and lately it's starting to really affect my work. When reading about imposter syndrome I read somewhere that role reversal / parentification can be a cause of it but I'd be interested in hearing other people's experiences with it, assuming anyone else here can relate.

For me whenever I feel like I might be failing at my job and might disappoint my employers (which I guess are kind of like providers) the effect it has on me is much deeper than just fear of losing my job - it makes me sink into depression and feel a sense of never having had any worth to begin with. I used to think that this was only related to the way my mother (who had uBPD and possibly uNPD) used to react when I failed at school, but nowadays I'm starting to think that it had more to do with the fact that, in general, my role in life was to provide for her emotional needs on the one hand and not be a burden on her on the other. She seemed to love me when I was able to play that role... and not love me anymore when I *failed* to do so.

Has anyone else experienced something similar? And does anyone have any idea how to overcome it?

[Riv3rW0lf]

Interesting thread

For me, I don't think I fit the description of the Impostor Syndrome, which I just read... However, I am highly perfectionnist and have obsessive compulsive tendencies I have to keep in check.

I do hate failing and everytime it happened in my life, I felt like my very core was exposed, so I became highly self-critical, hence the perfectionnist identity I developped over time.

It never got in my way of doing things... I am an overachiever, and what I am anxious about is always what I will work the most on, until it is done and behind me, grinding my teeth out all days and nights in the process... I am a work in progress.

I am highly scared of mistakes... But I chose a career which cannot afford mistakes... So I guess I fit right in now, which made me feel better about myself. My colleagues are the same as me, and anyone who is NOT like that in my field is frowned upon, so I stopped feeling like an outsider to the world, and ended up accepting myself over time...

What helps me is to force myself to be silly with my children, getting right down with them and playing, making animals sounds and just being silly... Being a perfectionist, I have very high levels of anxiety and have a very serious demeanor... So it balances me out to be with children... Also my husband is the complete opposite of me : he procrastinates and he doesn't care how the dishwasher is filled... So I am learning to live with imperfections, and learning that it isn't the end of the world...  now, I can even put cauldrons in the dishwasher, imagine that ! I use my husband to balance myself.

So the best advice I can give you is : try your hardest to balance yourself out... Take the seriousness out of failure... Realize that your career is a career and that life is about something else : it is about finding yourself.  The less I saw my career has a main quest, the better I felt.

I don't feel like a fraud at work anymore... Work is now a means to live the life I truly love, it that makes sense? But because of my overachieving nature, I am still thriving at work...

Balance.

Sorry if I make it sound easy, it isn't. It is a journey, and a work in progress for me. But going in the opposite direction of who I am seems to help somehow.

[zachira]

In response to your question: Children of pwBPD often struggle knowing their true strengths because of how they are forced to be what their pwBPD parent wants them to be to be able to survive childhood. From my perspective, healing is about getting to know yourself better, both emotionally and physically, by surrounding yourself with people and activities that support healthy growth and identity.

[Couscous]

justnothing,

Essentially you are experiencing a trauma reaction. When as young children our mothers withdrew their love from us when we displeased them this would have been terrifying to us as our very survival was dependent on being in connection with them, and  the lack of connection was so overwhelming an experience that our nervous systems had to go into "shut down" mode, which is what depression is. It makes perfect sense that your employers would trigger these exact same feelings. 

So what to do? Increasing our felt sense of safety is probably what we need to prioritize. After having spent a 1.5 yrs in talk therapy and basically going nowhere, I now feel that body-based trauma therapies are our best bet. Things like Somatic Experiencing, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, EMDR, TRE or modalities like Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). I have found EFT to be effective when I have tried it on my own for anxiety. Additionally, Internal Family Systems is also something that I think could quite helpful because I believe this is a way to address the false beliefs we adopted. Also check out Inner Bonding. 

This chart might be of interest: https://bigshakti.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Polyvagal-Theory-Ruby-Jo-Walker-small-1024x768.jpg