Intentional Abuse?

[lm1109]

Hi everyone! I hope everyone is well. I had the morning off from work and decided to write here rather than journal. The last handful of months has been a lot.. a lot of good and also a lot of processing. I started a job that I love and I'm still continuing to get more certifications and continue my yoga and meditation practice. I am also doing EMDR and began seeing a really great psychiatrist who has helped me find the right medication (which was a BIG and scary step for me) I honestly don't know that I could face all of the extreme trauma in therapy/EMDR without it. I am also in recovery for Narcissistic Abuse. I believe my Mother is also borderline...however...I can see now that she has/had/will never have empathy. I can also see now that she was not usually impulsive but rather intentionally abusive and then scapegoated everyone else for her behaviors. I recognized in therapy that I have no real emotional reaction when I remember physical abuse because that was when her abuse was impulsive(it didn't feel personal) The struggle is detaching myself and sense of self from the psychological warfare I experienced...which WAS intentional.

I have been no contact for over a year now. My Dad called me two weeks before Christmas. I didn't answer and I never returned his call. What's interesting is that for about half of that year I kept(at some level) hoping that HE would reach out to me, apologize, or TRY in ANY way. I STILL had some sort of little girl hope left in me that my Dad would finally step in and be my Dad rather than her enabler. When he finally called.. I had a knowing that it was just to manipulate me(his sick family role) I waited to see if he would email or text because I explained to them a year ago that those were the only form of communication I would accept for that time period after my Mother's last abusive and rage filled phone call. Afterwards my Mom sent a vile and abusive email and my Dad sent an email saying that he would NOT communicate through email or text. Since I didn't answer my Dad's call they have not sent Christmas cards or Birthday cards for my children. Honestly...it is a relief. The more I have disconnected from their constant chaos the more I have found my own self. My healing is actually healing me because I am not constantly re-wounding myself by being around them. I finally see and admit how abusive and manipulative they are and always have been and I choose not to subject myself or my children to that ever again. My focus is no longer on THEM but on the healing of myself from THEM. It can be really overwhelming at times because I understand that my self abuse and thought patterns are shaped from abuse. My neural pathways were formed by abuse. I've been doing "the work" since I moved out at 18...but I've made leaps and bounds in this last year of doing "the work" while I am no longer continuing to ingest their poison.

I wondered if anyone here identifies with the lack of empathy or intentional abuse or if with just BPD's it's mostly impulsive behaviors?  My therapist explained that a person can have multiple cluster B disorders. I realize now that I suffered from an extreme form of denial about this. For years my husband would try to tell me that he believed an abusive situation was created intentionally by my Mother and for years I tried to deny that it was intentional. It was such a hard thing for me to admit...but my Mother gets narcissistic supply from chaos and confrontation...it's what she lives for...and so even when I give her nothing she creates chaos and confrontation from nothing. Once I was able to see it for what it is it's been much easier to untangle myself from THEIR stuff(their responsibility to heal) and MY stuff which I will spend my own lifetime healing. I will say that NC is not for everyone and it is DEFINITELY not a quick or easy fix but there is hope here for me...it's sad and I do grieve having no family of origin...but I am more myself than I have ever been and I honestly believe that my parents could not ever handle or see actual truth. The only way I can forgive them is by not continuing to allow more abuse.

Sending lots of support to you all

[zachira]

You write about intentional abuse from your mother. My mother with BPD is deceased. I also have benefitted from doing EMDR, do yoga and meditation. I agree with you that the person with many personality disordered characteristics takes out how he/she feels inside on others. It is is so confusing as there are times when this type of person can be nice yet can quickly change to being cruel to others if he/she suddenly feels badly. My father also enabled my mother. Your experiences are sadly familiar to many members here. You are doing all the right things to heal. You are not alone in going no contact which is a courageous decision abuse survivors can make as the best way to heal and stay safe.

[Notwendy]

My mother fits all the criteria for BPD and about 4/9 for NPD. So her best fitting diagnosis is BPD but she also has a lot of overlap with NPD. One of them is lack of empathy and she can deliberately cruel and even enjoy being cruel to others. It's confusing as she can also be unintentionally cruel while dysregulating. There is a difference though in that when she's being intentionally cruel, she is not dysregulating- she's calm, calculating, and I have seen her smirk when doing it.

It's confusing when the parent you see as the more reasonable one, the one who also seems to care about you, is also their spouse's co-abuser. This also was the situation with my father.

 I STILL had some sort of little girl hope left in me that my Dad would finally step in and be my Dad rather than her enabler


I can so relate to this hope. He was my Daddy and the hero to the little girl part of me and I didn't let go of this hope until after he passed away. 

I have been able to let go of that hope, but I don't think we ever do completely. To a little girl, their Dads are just superheroes to them. Sometimes I want to remember him that way, and other times I wonder if the belief that he loved me was all just something I imagined because, I wanted to believe it.

[Couscous]

I wondered if anyone here identifies with the lack of empathy or intentional abuse or if with just BPD's it's mostly impulsive behaviors?

Oh yeah, I totally identify with this. What has helped me the most was realizing that even if it seems intentional, it’s actually reflexive behavior on my mother’s part and therefore still not personal — if that makes sense. The way I have come to understand her behavior is that she lacks the executive functions that would allow her to override her antisocial impulses, which means that it’s her and not me.

That being said, while this this realization may have reduced feelings of shame, it was still a painful one because it brought up feelings of hopelessness, because if it’s her and not me, then there is nothing I can do about it. It also brought up feelings of sadness because it means that I will have to accept that I am, for all intents and purposes, an orphan, and always have been.

I have found that through the process of self-reparenting I have been able to help my inner child feel a little less alone and anxious, although I am still very inconsistent and need to remember to connect with Little Couscous far more than I do - like multiple times a day instead of once a week in my therapy session.

Sending lots of support to you too! 

[Riv3rW0lf]

Hi Im1109 ! It's good to hear from you, and I am glad you are feeling overall better and empowered. I am sorry about your father, and how distressed you felt when you heard from him.

About intentional abuse... I can relate to what Notwendy said:

One of them is lack of empathy and she can deliberately cruel and even enjoy being cruel to others. It's confusing as she can also be unintentionally cruel while dysregulating. There is a difference though in that when she's being intentionally cruel, she is not dysregulating- she's calm, calculating, and I have seen her smirk when doing it.

Except, on my end, I don't think my BPD mother is intentionally cruel... It's more like payback for her own pain. Because she sees the world as her enemy, because we all are out to get her, when an action causes her hurt, she retaliate in full force, and not always because of dysregulation. Sometimes, it truly is simply to hurt you, or make you feel smaller, or make sure everyone will be against you in the future, so she can have to high moral ground and decrease her own shame. But it is all based on her own story, and not in reality, so it comes out as a lack of empathy, as : only her pain is valid.

When NOT dysregulated, she can show empathy. But not to people who wronged her.

As for intentional abuse... I mean... I now see my mother as mostly impulsive and I see her rages and impulsivity as the main source of my trauma. Like you, I cannot feel any emotions when thinking back on the abuse... For me though, I didn't see it as proof that it wasn't personal, more like dissociation. I was so hurt, and on edge all the time, that even when she was in a good mood, I was unnerved and on high alert. Overtime, I became completely numb. You know the song "comfortably numb", I am sure. As a teenager, this song described me perfectly. I was an empty body, with no emotion left. Just stress and on high alert, or in front of video games, frozen, or completely stoned. I had suicidal thoughts as early as 9 years old... I was dissociated from the emotions, and they are very hard to recuperate. I did once while listening to an album I used to love as a very young child, and the emotions hit me like a train. There was plenty of it, but I numbed them to survive, and dissociated.

Intentional or not, trauma is trauma. Impulsivity or willingly : a child that doesn't feel loved, isn't loved.

It's a good thing though, that you were able to see your mother for what she is, and to grasp the narcissistic side of her abuse. And I can only imagine how hurt you must have felt. And how traumatic it must feel to truly not be loved. I do believe, feel within, that my mother loves me, and I'd lied if I said it isnt helpful to believe it. When I grasp the contrary, and she doesn't love me at all, I can grasp the pain of the little one inside me who truly believed that back then, and it is huge. So I get how painful it must have felt for you.  

In a way, it helps with the pain to know part of her loves me, but it also makes no contact challenging at times. I hope, as hurtful as it felt, that you can now truly be at peace with your decision of being no contact with a biological mother who didn't loved you the way you should have been.

Anyway... Not sure where I am going with this, but wanted to finish with : I am very happy and grateful that you feel wholesome, and found your self. I hope you like your new position ! It was good to read you today.