My adult bpd son’s distorted childhood memories are hard to understand

[wannabeamomma]

My 27 y/o son recently texted me to tell me he does not want any contact because he has nothing good to say. His text was full of supposed events that literally never happened. I believe he was beyond upset because my husband and I had to move away recently due to circumstances beyond our control. I believe he feels abandoned although our interactions before we moved consisted largely of him raging at me.

Among other things, he said that when he was a kid and would tell me something was wrong and he was upset, I would pull the “oh I’m a bad mom card” and cry about it till he told he me he was fine. He said I made a 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 y/o (and beyond) kid ignore ignore their emotions and feelings just so I could feel better and said I was disgusting. Nothing even remotely like this ever happened. I always treated him kindly when he was upset and was even told I coddled him too much.

He said “my parents beat my ass so much even when I would be crying and begging for them to stop. Being bruised and beaten so badly I had to sleep on my stomach because my ass hurt too bad to even lay down on my back. At 4 years old. I see 4 and 5yo kids now and I could not dream of raising a hand against them. Yet I would receive the most brutal of punishments.”  I left his father in part because he once did spank him badly enough to bruise him badly but I don’t know of any other time it happened.  My son knew this and how upset I was when I found out about it because that was the only time I cried in front of him when he was upset. (I also cried about it each time we spoke of it when we were still on good terms.)  I never spanked him.

My son said I change the narrative of stories to make myself feel good about myself and I’m a manipulator just like his father because I have ignored his complaints. I have no idea what he is even talking about but believe it is rooted in his insistence that he wants therapy even though he has made no attempt to actually find and go to one. My husband and I supported him after he came home to get therapy but finally set boundaries after all he did was smoke pot and play video games for over a year and put us through hell by continually raging at us. He’s been mad because we finally made him find a job and move out. Even then we supported him for another 6 months to help him get on his feet.

Has anyone else felt the wrath of a bpd child due to their distorted memories of their childhood? How on earth can I communicate with him going forward? It’s breaking my heart.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[CC43]

Hi, I'm understand where you're coming from.  I have a stepdaughter with BPD who is close in age to your son, and who also has delusional memories of childhood.  Though nobody's childhood is perfect, her descriptions of childhood "trauma" have gotten more outlandish and less believable as the years with diagnosed BPD drag on.  Recently she's gone so far as to imply there was sexual abuse by her father, which is totally untrue.  She claims that she has been bullied by almost everyone around her.  To her, just offering her help would constitute "bullying," because in her eyes, an offer of help is demeaning and suggests that she's incompetent.  In summary, it seems she is trying to recast past slights into trauma, and use the trauma as an excuse to hurl insults and unrepressed rage at her family members.  In reality, she's the bully, and her interpretation of events is pure emotion, and not based on fact--sometimes there might be a kernel of truth, but she warps and reinterprets events to such a degree that she's delusional.  Rather than face reality, she'll lie.  Having said that, sometimes she doesn't even bother with lying, but instead she'll withdraw and avoid life completely.

I can't help but try to see through her rage.  Her furious outbursts tend to coincide with current disappointments--when she can't handle the day-to-day stresses of a job or studies, and she quits suddenly, or whenever things don't go her way.  I know I'm judgmental, but when she experiences disappointments, she will not act like an adult, take responsibility or take things in stride; rather, she blames others for her predicaments.  As her BPD has dragged on, increasingly she blames her parents and siblings for a traumatic childhood.  In her mind, the past trauma is the reason she is failing to function in an adult world.  I guess this is easier for her than facing the truth:  she's the only reason she's dysfunctional.  She resents being so dependent on her family for everything, but she can't step up and act like an adult and take some responsibility.  So she's stuck in the past, replaying and reinterpreting upsetting memories, blaming her distant childhood for all her current problems.  Though this view of the world has tired her out (with years spent ruminating about the distant past), she can't seem to give it up and look forward.  She doesn't want to accept things as they are and move on.  It's very frustrating for her whole family.

It's hard to know what to do, because the experts say that we're supposed to validate her feelings.  But if feelings are based on a delusion, validating the delusion seems counterproductive.  There's no arguing with rage.  Yet the rage seems to increase in intensity as the years go on.  The way I see it, the rage has increased as her ability to function as an adult has deteriorated.  Her peers have grown up, and yet she hasn't, and she's feeling FOMO and shame, and she's coping by blaming her predicament on a bad childhood.

[kells76]

Hi wannabeamomma,

First of all, 

Coping with children with distorted impressions of the past is incredibly difficult, and can be so painful.

I think this is an important insight you had:

My 27 y/o son recently texted me to tell me he does not want any contact because he has nothing good to say. His text was full of supposed events that literally never happened. I believe he was beyond upset because my husband and I had to move away recently due to circumstances beyond our control. I believe he feels abandoned although our interactions before we moved consisted largely of him raging at me.

So he may be saying things to craft some events that, had they happened, would match the intense feelings he's having inside.

In a weird way, it makes sense. Having overwhelming feelings that seem unconnected to reality would be so disorienting and frightening. Yet he "manages" by trying to create a past containing events that would match those feelings... instead of examining those feelings or working with those feelings in therapy. You're right, it's heartbreaking.

When he said he doesn't want any contact, where are you leaning in terms of doing/not doing that?

How on earth can I communicate with him going forward?

CC43 raises a good issue here:

It's hard to know what to do, because the experts say that we're supposed to validate her feelings.  But if feelings are based on a delusion, validating the delusion seems counterproductive.

and it's an important distinction to make.

Nobody is helped when we "validate the invalid". It doesn't bring anyone down from intense emotions, and it leaves us with a bad taste in our mouth. There's no healthy way (as far as I can tell), when someone says "the aliens put a probe in me", to validate that content -- it isn't valid. And maybe that's the distinction -- often, the content really has no basis in reality, yet there can be feelings behind the content that "just are". It's up to us to work on the skills of:

declining to validate the invalid (often, the content of a delusion), and

finding the feelings to validate behind the content

The National Education Alliance for Borderline Personality Disorder has a helpful set of family guidelines to check out. The part that stood out to me as connected with this issue (how/what do we validate when a family member is saying delusional/untrue things) was section 8:

8. Listen. People need to have their negative feelings heard. Don’t say, “It isn’t so.” Don’t try to make the feelings go away. Using words to express fear, loneliness, inadequacy, anger, or needs is good. It’s better to use words than to act out on feelings.

When feelings are expressed openly, they can be painful to hear. A daughter may tell her parents that she feels abandoned or unloved by them. A parent may tell his child that he’s at the end of his rope with frustration. Listening is the best way to help an emotional person to cool off. People appreciate being heard and having their feelings acknowledged. This does not mean that you have to agree. Let’s look at the methods for listening. One method is to remain silent while looking interested and concerned. You may ask some questions to convey your interest. For example, one may ask, “How long have you felt this way?” or “What happened that triggered your feelings?” Notice that these gestures and questions imply interest but not agreement. Another method of listening is to make statements expressing what you believe you’ve heard. With these statements, you prove that you are actually hearing what the other person is saying. For example, if your daughter tells you she feels like you don’t love her, you can say, even as you are contemplating how ridiculous that belief is, “You feel like I don’t love you?!?” When a child is telling her parents that she feels as if she has been treated unfairly by them, parents may respond, “You feel cheated, huh?” Notice once again, these empathic statements do not imply agreement.

Do not rush to argue with your family member about her feelings or talk her out of her feelings. As we said above, such arguing can be fruitless and frustrating to the person who wants to be heard. Remember, even when it may feel difficult to acknowledge feelings that you believe have no basis in reality, it pays to reward such expression. It is good for people, especially individuals with BPD, to put their feelings into words, no matter how much those feelings are based on distortions. If people find the verbal expression of their feelings to be rewarding, they are less likely to act out on feelings in destructive ways.

.

It's quite the needle to thread -- to find ways to acknowledge the feelings without agreeing with the content.

Has this been something you've tried in the past?

[Leaf56]

So several really good points in these reponses from CC43 and kells.

First CC43:

"In summary, it seems she is trying to recast past slights into trauma, and use the trauma as an excuse to hurl insults and unrepressed rage at her family members.  In reality, she's the bully, and her interpretation of events is pure emotion, and not based on fact--sometimes there might be a kernel of truth, but she warps and reinterprets events to such a degree that she's delusional."

I think this is the psychotic part of borderline. In my son, the blame shifts between his false childhood memories of his upbringing and various ethnic groups or government conspiracy theories. It's much easier to see it when he starts to rant about the latter. The former had me thrown for a loop for the first couple years.
 
Now this next bit by CC is the crucial part. It's the reason they're doing this in a nutshell and is very well articulated here:
"In her mind, the past trauma is the reason she is failing to function in an adult world.  I guess this is easier for her than facing the truth:  she's the only reason she's dysfunctional.  She resents being so dependent on her family for everything, but she can't step up and act like an adult and take some responsibility.  So she's stuck in the past, replaying and reinterpreting upsetting memories, blaming her distant childhood for all her current problems.  Though this view of the world has tired her out (with years spent ruminating about the distant past), she can't seem to give it up and look forward.  She doesn't want to accept things as they are and move on."

So the why of why they're doing this is 1) intense fear of growing up and owning agency in their lives/having to take responsibility for themselves and 2) what kells says so insightfully here:

"So he may be saying things to craft some events that, had they happened, would match the intense feelings he's having inside.... Having overwhelming feelings that seem unconnected to reality would be so disorienting and frightening. Yet he 'manages' by trying to create a past containing events that would match those feelings."

Bulls-eye!

Then CC says this:

"It's hard to know what to do, because the experts say that we're supposed to validate her feelings.  But if feelings are based on a delusion, validating the delusion seems counterproductive.  There's no arguing with rage.  Yet the rage seems to increase in intensity as the years go on.  The way I see it, the rage has increased as her ability to function as an adult has deteriorated.  Her peers have grown up, and yet she hasn't, and she's feeling FOMO and shame, and she's coping by blaming her predicament on a bad childhood."

Ok, so the rage and shenanigans are increasing because mom and dad didn't do what they needed to do when it started, which was to stop validating and stop putting up with any of the nonsense, as pook so oftens so clearly advises. No blame cast on mom and dad because doing that is the hardest thing to do in the world. I know, I've done it.

So what did I do? I unequivocally rejected every single misremembered thing. I have an amazing memory, which might help, but every time he "goes there" I shut it down instantly and completely. I give it no air, and I back it up with a litany of facts. He will immediately pivot to something like "well then it's because the [fill in the ethnic group] kids bullied me" or "the Roman Catholic church controls our society" or the "Illuminati want us to be their slaves" or "maybe the aliens abducted me"--anything to explain the intensity of the feelings because he believes (and this is one of my quibbles with the mental health profession) that they could not have come from inside him without exposure to some form of childhood trauma, which he absolutely did not experience.

And of course I was nothing but supportive and understanding, probably too much so, throughout his childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. I think he might have made the mistake of thinking I'd just do that forever, jump when he said "suicide." In his worst moments early on when this started when he was 23, and honestly thank goodness he did this otherwise I might have kept supporting him, he tipped his hand and said, "Why can't you just pay for me to do drugs, have sex, and never work?" Lightbulb! Shortly after that, the jig was up.

I can't imagine how frustrating it would be to see this clearly and be married to someone who doesn't and who continues to jump. I don't think my husband would stay with me if I continued to cater to a Peter Pan man-boy who refuses to grow up and wants to blame his current state on me/society/aliens/whatever. My biggest fear is that he will commit an act of violence before it's all done.

[Sancho]

Hi wa nnabeamomma
You ask 'Has anyone else . . . ' and the answer is definitely 'yes'. I'm not sure if this makes sense, but what you are describing is what the symptoms of BPD look like. There is quite a range of symptoms of course - and various intensity - but there are so many core elements in your description.

Abandonment: this is near the heart of BPD ie intense feelings of abandonment (to the point where life is not worth living when one is so alone). Even though your move was necessary, this logical element doesn't stop the abandonment surfacing. In fact it can be triggered by much, much smaller events.

Target of blame: someone - often the one they have relied on the most - is blamed for everything that is wrong, difficult or just a challenge. It is just amazing how this pops up in everyday things.

False or greatly twisted relating of events: this is so difficult to handle. My dd has told so many people so many stories about me that are absolutely wrong. The 'Borderline' part of BPD describes how people with this serious mental health problem can be on the border of reality and psychosis and easily build a false memory. My dd has incorporated events that she has heard on the news and they have become her reality - and she tells everyone about it.

Understanding that these are the elements of the illness are helpful I think. We don't have to struggle to try to get the other to know the facts - they might come to that over time, but now when other things are causing heightened responses eg intense abandonment emotions.

As we become more aware of what BPD looks like, the next thing is how to deal with it. Once again there are many options here depending on the nature of the symptoms and how they are affecting you and other.

DS deciding he is not going to contact is heart breaking for you and you are locked into a corner with no clear way to step out and move forward. At this point in time it could be good to try to put your distress aside for a moment and look at what your options are and how you could respond in different circumstances.

The first question is do you think ds will act on his word not to have contact? If this is the case, you then need to think about how you respond.

You could make some form of contact yourself to see if he responds. Sometimes after a short while a bpd person will find a way to respond because they really need to have you in their life.

You could not initiate contact: sometimes this is a real jolt because a bpd person often likes to be the one calling the shots especially in relation to the target of blame.

If ds does make contact how do you respond - especially to all the fantasy story. Someone above mentioned 'to find ways to acknowledge the feelings without agreeing with the content'. It has taken me a long time to get this sort of right - or it seems to work for me.

It's important not to get into an argument - listen without comment as much as possible; when you do need to comment, make it short and acknowledge feelings (even when the facts are so wrong).

You know ds better than anyone and you know what he is saying/believing/presenting you with. Can you think about how best to respond to the various options that might present themselves?

Keep in mind it is the serious condition talking - not a rational conversation that you can respond rationally to.

All that said, there is still the heart break of it all. I truly believe that parents of a child with BPD have the most challenging task. You are not alone in the world in dealing with this. You love ds and have been through so much. There are no easy solutions and every situation is different. DS has pushed the 'pause' button, so I hope you can take this moment to nurture yourself, reflect on where things are atm, learn some more about BPD and work on finding your best responses as you move forward.

 

[Tanager]

I appreciate this post and the insightful responses. My daughter has accused my husband of exposing himself to her when she was in preschool.  She and her dad were close growing up. It's like one day they were building a tree house together in junior high school and then in high school she became utterly hostile towards him. She was unhappy in high school, socially awkward and just didn't fit in.   He was the main target of her anger, though I was also.

I have gone through a decade of pain trying to figure out why she would make such accusations and questioning my own sanity. After all a mother should believe and protect her own child.  She accuses me of choosing her father over her.  Yet I know that this event and various versions just didn't happen. Her older sister was devastated by these accusations and wants nothing to do with her.

My husband and I have tried for a decade to deal with this, with the hope that she would realize the truth. We have apologized for our parenting mistakes. We have tried to engage in family counseling. Her therapists accept my daughter's reality without family input, which reinforces her beliefs. At one point she told me that if she is wrong about the abuse it would mean she is crazy.

We continue to support our daughter emotionally and financially.  She turns to us to help her out in difficult situations.  It seems such a paradox that she turns to her dad for advice, engaging in friendly coversations, yet the next moment she is hurling these accusations.  A few times she has said her early childhood memories are vague and might not be true, but for the most part she sticks to her story.

I have finally decided I won't discuss these false accusations with my daughter any longer.  We are nearing 70 and my husband has serious health problems. My own mental health has suffered. And my older daughter needs support - her younger sister has gotten the lion's share of our attention. We will continue to offer love and support for our younger daughter. 
How sad - she is missing out on so much love by pushing us away.

[Sasha77]

Hello,
I just wanted to say that some parts of your situation are so similar to mine it was startling...makes me feel like it really is this awful illness speaking. My daughter has told me that I was emotionally needy when she was growing up, and that it ruined her. (Her father moved away when she was little and it affected her quite a bit.)
For the longest time I was wracking my brain and believing that I must have been done things that I don't remember. However, the more I read about this illness, it does appear that some memory dysregulation occurs in those with bpd.
You mentioned your child's father....I have to wonder if both of our children have some misplaced anger that landed on us.
I don't remember if you said you had read Overcoming Borderline Personality by Valerie Porr, but if you haven't I recommend it! It explains the memory dysregulation very well.
Hugs to you! You are not alone!

[wannabeamomma]

Thank you all for your kind and insightful responses. Being reassured that my son’s delusions are not at all unusual and providing me with the reasons he is lashing out has helped me cope more than I can express.

I did respond to his text and tried to use the SET principles that I have read about but it was difficult as Kells76 pointed out to “thread that needle”.  I was sure he would reach out again if he needed something and he did just that via text. He wanted to know if he could still use our online subscriptions (one for a large online platform) and one for a streaming service. Acted like it was just another day, another text. After I told him he could, he actually thanked me and said he loves me. Shortly after, we had another text exchange about him needing to switch over his auto pay for his car insurance to his own card. He joked about what a pain it was and that is why he had dragged it out. And then again told me he loved me.  Maybe he really feels that way or maybe he is keeping the lines of communication open in case he needs something in the future.

Maybe he lashed out during an especially difficult time for him and, as Kells76 suggested (and noted by Leaf56), he copes by exaggerating his past to match his immense feelings of pain, shame, and abandonment caused by the bpd.  That insight helped me to understand why he may have made all the crazy accusations.

I will take Sancho’s advice and wait for my son to reach out to me. It will be hard with the holidays approaching. If any of you wise folks have some advice on how to deal with the holiday situation please let me know!