Is it Forgiveness enough?

[Tortuga50550]

My father has very probably BPD, but is undiagnose. This has affected me a lot during my whole life, and has left me with what I think is Complex PTSD. I live together with him and my mom. During the school time, I succed on not passing a lot of time with him (wich is the only way I have found to have some peace). But with Christmas coming soon, I know I'll have too be see him more often. Yesterday, I had like an anxiety attack, and I started to cry.
I talked to my mom and, well, I was...disapointed. She understands my problem, and I know that she cares, but she said to...forgive him. That he was a good man, that I had to much rage, and that it was better to just forgive him and see the good in him rather than consume me in my rage. She said it from personal experience: for what I've heard, my maternal grandfather was way worse than my father. But she said that, despite what happened, she forgave him and it gave her some peace of mind.
I agree that I have to much rage inside from the pain my father made me and continues to make me feel and I don't know how to get it out of my system. But I feel that forgiveness it's just...not right. Not at least when he hasn't even recognize how much he hurt me, or even tried to change. He promised he was going to therapy...5 years ago. Guess what: he never went. And still hasn't.
I know she means well, but it just makes me feel depressed and marginalised. Have you ever been in a similar situation? Is it even forgiveness truly possible?

[wormslearntofly]

I’m sorry about what you’re going through.  As children of people suffering with BPD we also need to do our own healing. A therapist can help you work through this. A hard truth is that the only life we have power over is our own, you can’t force someone to apologise but you do have the power to forgive. I think perhaps that’s what your mum is trying to say. Not saying you should forgive your dad, I don’t know the ins and outs of your relationship but yes, I think a lot of people will relate to your feelings of anger. It feels completely unfair - why should we have to put the work in to forgive when they can continue their destruction without any retrospection? Well, because, we’re privileged enough to be able to reflect on our behaviour and grow. Their disorder doesn’t allow them to do so.

I get the impression you’re still a minor and I don’t want to give you any concrete advice because I don’t know the details and I don’t want to put you in dangerous situation but there are people out there who know what you’re going through. As adults a difficult choice children with strained parental relationships have to make is - is my relationship so toxic I have to cut ties or do I still want this person in my life? If you choose the later, and many of us do, we have to forgive every day.

[Riv3rW0lf]

Hi Tortuga50550,

Like wormslearntofly mentioned, I am getting the sense you might still be in high school. The reason I mention it, is indeed because depending on your age, the "power" you father thinks and truly holds on you will vary. Over time, pwBPD "lose" power over us physically... because we don't live there anymore, because we become parents ourselves. But being a teenager with a parent with BPD is awfully tough, and if this is your situation, I am glad you seeked help here. My advices might differ for you though, than they would for someone older, if only to ensure your safety. Is you father sometimes physically abusive? My mother was when I was a young child, their outbursts can truly lead them to lose control.

Do you have aunts? uncles? friends? Places where you could go spend a few days during your Christmas break?

I talked to my mom and, well, I was...disapointed. She understands my problem, and I know that she cares, but she said to...forgive him. That he was a good man, that I had to much rage, and that it was better to just forgive him and see the good in him rather than consume me in my rage. She said it from personal experience: for what I've heard, my maternal grandfather was way worse than my father. But she said that, despite what happened, she forgave him and it gave her some peace of mind.

I understand what your mother means... However : you cannot rush forgiveness. Forgiveness is not something you choose, it is something you feel, and it will be impossible for you to feel it, unless you can find a way to validate your hurt, your pain and your anger.

I also understand your mother had a rough childhood of her own, and I am of course sorry to hear that... But this should not, in any way, invalidate your own pain, ever. You have trauma of your own, which are independent of what anyone else went through. Your mother's answer reminds me of what my stepfather would tell me : "She is your mother, you have to forgive her and love her.", but one cannot forgive ongoing abuse. It is one thing to look back, be empathetic, come from a place of understanding and forgiving past hurt when there is a willingness on the other side to take responsibility, but it is another when the abuse is ongoing.

The only way I found to forgive my BPD mother was to cut contact with her. The distance stopped the abuse, and it made it easier to process my own pain, my own hurt, to validate my anger, to hate her, and see him as a monster... and in the end : to see how hurt she was and to hold her in a certain light.

But like I said : forgiveness is something you feel after a long process of soul-searching and healing, it is not something you can simply choose, and get over with.

So my best advice for you is :
Be gentle to yourself.
Recognize your parents limits.
Recognize that this was never your fault.
You were born perfect.
You didn't deserve any of this.
But this is slowly building you into who you are, with the bads (c-ptsd) and the goods (high empathy and wisdom).
Because you are good.

We are here to support you through this. You are not alone.  

I encourage you to seek out, maybe youtube videos from Gabor Maté, about the wisdom of trauma? If you cannot access therapy... There are a lot of tools now on youtube to increase your self-awareness, and help you through... until you can fly of you own wings.

I agree that I have to much rage inside from the pain my father made me and continues to make me feel and I don't know how to get it out of my system. But I feel that forgiveness it's just...not right. Not at least when he hasn't even recognize how much he hurt me, or even tried to change. He promised he was going to therapy...5 years ago. Guess what: he never went. And still hasn't.
I know she means well, but it just makes me feel depressed and marginalised. Have you ever been in a similar situation? Is it even forgiveness truly possible?

You don't have too much rage... You have the amount of rage you have, and your rage is not wrong. It is telling you something. You have a right to be angry. What we cannot do is discharge this anger on other peoples, or direct it wrongfully on people who doesn't deserve it. But you have a right to feel angry at your father, and even your mother. And you have a right to cry, to feel. You are human.

I had so much rage too... And you need to acknowledge it before you can let it go. Be kind to yourself. Nothing wrong with being angry. You are not wrong. And you are not bad.

[Tortuga50550]

Like wormslearntofly mentioned, I am getting the sense you might still be in high school. The reason I mention it, is indeed because depending on your age, the "power" you father thinks and truly holds on you will vary. Over time, pwBPD "lose" power over us physically... because we don't live there anymore, because we become parents ourselves. But being a teenager with a parent with BPD is awfully tough, and if this is your situation, I am glad you seeked help here. My advices might differ for you though, than they would for someone older, if only to ensure your safety. Is you father sometimes physically abusive? My mother was when I was a young child, their outbursts can truly lead them to lose control.

Do you have aunts? uncles? friends? Places where you could go spend a few days during your Christmas break?

Thanks  for your advices, but I'm actually doing a bachelor's degree. But I get why you though I was a teenager. I've been living my whole live with my parents, and because of monetary issues (University is way to expensive), I still live with them. My father has never one to physically hurt people. However, he has the emotional stability of a 3 years old, and has a tendency to burst into rage each time things don't go his way. He used to break things at home, or even start verbal fights with adults around him during this rage attacks. Wich he kind of continues, though he has to tone down? (Not sure, there was this one time I speak up and he was so angry I though he was going to hit me). So I've allways had to parentefied him, while at the same time feeling like a little kid even though I'm an adult (wich I usually try to hide becasue it embarrases me...)

I don't really have family a part from my mother and father, at least not where I live (most of my family lives in another country). I try to work during the Christmas break, or go out with friends, but sometimes that's not possible: my job isn't stable (I'm the new, so I don't get as many hours as the rest), and my university friends tend to return to their familie's homes during the Christmas break.

I had so much rage too... And you need to acknowledge it before you can let it go. Be kind to yourself. Nothing wrong with being angry. You are not wrong. And you are not bad.

Thank you. I theoretically know this, but it's hard to believe it when you still are in the FOG. I'm still figuring things out, and I'm not sure what will happen with my relationship with my dad. But it's nice to hear it from someone else.

[pursuingJoy]

Tortuga, I've also been told I needed to forgive someone and was carrying too much anger. It felt so invalidating. They completely dismissed my pain and frustration and went to a solution that made them feel comfortable.

I realized later that the person wasn't responding to me. They were responding to the discomfort they felt in hearing about my experiences. It had nothing to do with the validity of my feelings. They were (unfortunately) unable to empathize because they were stuck.

I understand forgiveness as letting go - letting go of the intense emotion, letting go of the need for an apology, letting go of dreams of healing and a positive relationship, letting go of the need to keep fighting. Letting go only happens with time, and conversations, and grief, and therapy. Telling someone in pain that they should 'just forgive' is invalidating and harmful. Your mom loves you but she is likely stuck in her own mode of surviving your father's behavior.

How long do you have left until you finish your bachelors?

[Tortuga50550]

Your mom loves you but she is likely stuck in her own mode of surviving your father's behavior.

That's what I think too, pursuingjoy. I know she no longer loves my father (she has told me in multiple times that), but I think she fears what will happen if they divorce. I also think that she might be, in spite herself, repeating patterns with the relationship her own parents had (my grandfather hit their children each time one of them would contradict him, and I think my grandmother suffered a lot in that environment). I know she loves me, I know that the thing she has done was because she though it was the best for me at the time. But I sometimes wish she would truly listen, instead on searching for solutions that aren't possible (at least not now).

How long do you have left until you finish your bachelors?

2 years more or less. I'm searchig for other programms where I could live in another country for a year or so, or even in a nother province. But money is still an issue, and I don't want to depend on my parents to live somewhere else (my father might then reproach me that).

[Riv3rW0lf]

That's what I think too, pursuingjoy. I know she no longer loves my father (she has told me in multiple times that) , but I think she fears what will happen if they divorce. I also think that she might be, in spite herself, repeating patterns with the relationship her own parents had (my grandfather hit their children each time one of them would contradict him, and I think my grandmother suffered a lot in that environment).

 

Has your mother always confided in you this kind of information?

It is a lot to process for a kid, or a teenager, even a young adult... To be the confident of one of our parents... Disclaimer : I was my father's confident.

How does that make you feel, when she discloses all those details to you?

[Tortuga50550]

Has your mother always confided in you this kind of information?

Well...yes? I'm not sure I could call my self my mother's confident. Some things she has talked to me about are things that I have asked her. I asked her two times if she still loved my father (once during my teenager days, another when I was an adult), and she didn't really hide her reasons? Nor she does if I ask her about why has dad gotten mad about this time. Sometimes it was things she would told me about herself to comfort me (in a kind of you're-not-weird-to-feel-like-that kind of way). Other things are more like bribes on conversations she had with us, with my dad. With all the information I have, I think I can make fairely hypothesis.
But still, I'm not sure if I could really be call his confident. I do think that a lot of times she hides her hurt and doesn't tell me. I remember one time my father had broke something that my mother had take so much time in doing it, that she started crying and then suddenly stoped and pretended she was fine.

How does that make you feel, when she discloses all those details to you?

When I was a teenager, pretty scared. I still wanted a relationship with my dad, and I though that a divorce was the worst thing that could happen. Even though my dad's actions made me feel horrible. Now, it's a mix of comprehensino and frustration. Like, I get her reasons for staying (economic mostly, but also worring about how a divorce with my dad would be)...but at the same time I don't.

I feel abandoned in that sense.

[Riv3rW0lf]

I'd first like you to know, here, that I am not judging your mother's decision. When living with a person with BPD, when choosing to marry with someone with BPD and staying in the relationship, it says something about ourselves too. We learn to survive by participating in the drama, sometimes unwillingly, and you are right when you say that both your parents abandoned you.

Sounds to me like you not only had/have to deal with your father's rages, but that you were also heavily parentified, and raised to caretaker him, and maybe even your mother, to meet their emotional need. To be the person your mother needed in her marriage that she couldn't have in your father, while you tiptoed around dad to decrease the number of outbursts.

Does that resonate with you?

Chances are you were always incredibly mature for your age, couldn't fit in with other teenagers, felt responsible for your mother's well being, angry at your father for how he hurt both of you.

Again, not judging your mother here, but she decided to stay. She has choices that she is refusing to make for various reasons.

Why am I talking about that now? Because, to heal, it helps to reparent ourselves. And one first has to see that : we had no parents. We were often raised to be emotionally enmeshed.

I thought, for a long time, that I was caretaking my mother, but low and behold, my emotional enmeshment was much stronger with my father ! 

I had to become completely independant. Reparent myself. To stop hoping for support, to stop hoping they could one way meet the needs for little riverwolf. Because they can't. They are BOTH emotionally immature... It's just dad mom rages, and dad is egocentrist, but nothing is ever their fault, there is always an excuse.

I now have a good relationship with my father, but I first had to let go of any expectations little riverwolf had.

In a dysfunctional BPD family system... Chances are you raised yourself.

Does that resonate? I mean, it might not too! There are as many families as there are people! Trying to give you some trails to look into...

[Tortuga50550]

Chances are you were always incredibly mature for your age, couldn't fit in with other teenagers, felt responsible for your mother's well being, angry at your father for how he hurt both of you.

Oh wow...That hit home so bad.

I was sure that I was parenting my father, that I don't dubt it. But my mother...I can't deny that it defenetly resonates with me, but at the same time I feel guilty thinking like that about her. She did helped me a lot when I started having my insomnia episodes and my stress problems.

I've always thought that parents who parentified their children were more like my father or worse, you know? Inmature kids in a adult's body who do as they please kind of. So that's why I still have hard time thinking about my self being a parent to my mother, who has always been so responsible at home and has taken care of my needs (at least those that my father was not able to). But I can't deny that we have develop some sort of codependency that I don't think is good in the long run.

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi Tortuga, 

Let me extend a welcome to you! I see the other members have warmly welcomed you and shared helpful thoughts. You are brave and courageous to begin to face the tough family dynamics that have come about as a result of having a BPD parent. It's hard. I understand; my mom was an uBPD.  It's awesome that you are becoming aware at a young age of what you have dealt with. So many of us here didn't know we were dealing with pwBPD until well into our middle age years.

Forgiveness. What a topic to tackle! I especially like the work of Pete Walker on this particular subject, and it has been helpful to me as I walk the journey of healing too.

Here is an excerpt from Pete's article published in 1991 regarding forgiveness (You can search on Google for Pete Walker and CPTSD. The rest of the forgiveness article is there too.):
 
Forgiveness: Begins With The Self
As published in: “Recovering: The Adventure of Life Beyond Addiction” Issue 35; November 1991

There has been a lot of shaming, dangerous and inaccurate "guidance" put out about forgiveness in the last few years, in both the recovery community and in transpersonal circles. Many survivors of dysfunctional families have been injured by the simplistic, black and white advice that decrees that they must embrace a position of being totally and permanently forgiving in order to recover. Unfortunately, those who have taken the advice to forgive abuses that they have not fully grieved, abuses that are still occurring, and/or abuses so heinous they should and could never be forgiven, often find themselves getting nowhere in their recovery process. In fact, the possibility of attaining real feelings of forgiveness is usually lost when there is a premature, cognitive decision to forgive. This is because premature forgiving intentions mimic the defenses of denial and repression. They keep unprocessed feelings of anger and hurt about childhood unfairnesses out of awareness.

Real forgiveness is quite distinct from premature forgiveness. It is almost always a byproduct of effective grieving and no amount of thought, intention or belief can bring it into being without a descension into the feeling realms. Conversely, cognitive and philosophical structures unreceptive to the possibility of forgiveness, sometimes block the access to forging feelings, even when such feelings are present. It might be that the most healthy cognitive position concerning forgiveness is an attitude that allows the possibility of its occurrence on the other side of extensive grieving. This attitude will work best if it includes the condition that feelings of forgiveness will not be forced or falsely invoked to cover up any unresolved feelings of hurt or anger. In this vein, it is also especially important to note that certain types of abuse are so extreme and damaging to the victim that forgiveness may simply not be an option. Examples of this include sociopathy, conscious cruelty, and many forms of scapegoating and parental incest.

Grieve, feel, take all the time you need.  It's your time table.

Take care,
Wools