Re: Just finished Understanding the Borderline Mother

[Guest guest]

, I just read a fantastic book that has really helped me make

major moves toward healing and self-acceptance. The book is called

Surviving a Borderline Parent, and I ordered it through Amazon.

The book is primarily focused on you, the adult child of someone with

BPD, instead of spending too much time describing the BPD person's

behaviour.

It uses dialectical behavioural therapy techniques through journaling

and question-and-answer exercises to help you deal with your

experiences and perceptions.

The thing I loved the most about this book is the validation, hope

and reassurance it offered me. It also avoids fostering the victim

mentality, stating outright that now it's your job to be the parent

to yourself that you never had.

That's the key lesson our borderline parents could never teach us:

that we are responsible for seeking our own happiness.

And while it doesn't call them " fleas " outright, the book features

chapters on anger and guilt that help you reflect on the learned

traits you might have picked up from your BPD role model.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. I tore through it in two

days and I occasionally re-read it for comfort and inspiration.

Since we've spent our lives focused on someone else's behaviour, this

book re-directs our attention to the most important player in our BPD

drama: ourselves.

Wishing you the best on your healing journey.

Rhonda

> Well, I finally got all the way through UBM. I feel like I was run

over by a truck. I can't tell if my allergies are just really bad or

if my body is just recalling the waves of panic and fear. I did get

anxious, but I didn't feel particualry threatened. I'm so tired.

All of the references to the Wizard of Oz are strange to me, too. (I

never watched the movie beyond the point when the Maxwell House witch

sends those evil, flying monkeys out to get Dorothy and friends until

I had been married for about a year. I watched the Trilogy of Terror

with no problems but couldn't tolerate the Wizard.) I wonder how

much of my fatigue is emotional, especially since it took me an

unusually long time to read it through.

>

> I had to laugh: I thought Jana's references to her

father " Fisherman " meant that her dad liked to fish (My dad's

favorite escape). It was also freaky to read the stuff about

concentration camps; esp. since it was a topic here the other day.

The idea that (at least in a camp, you're not expected to love the

soldiers) just made me shudder.

>

> At this point on my journey to wholeness, the book left me with two

major questions:

>

> 1. Can anyone recommend a preferred book for reinventing or

rediscovering your authentic self? This is a primary struggle for me.

>

> 2. Is anyone concerned about having BP traits? I'm completely

disgusted by the concept, but I tend to be much like the waif. Has

anyone gained any personal benefit from reading books geared to BPs

and their recovery issues? The splitting/black-white thinking,

permissiveness and underestimation of my own abilities are areas that

cause me to struggle. ARRGGH! It's just replusive to admit with

brutal honesty that I tend to be the stinging butterfly. Does anyone

else expereince anything similar?

>

> Thanks,

> k

>

>

> __________________________________________________

>

[Guest guest]

> Well, I finally got all the way through UBM. I feel like I was run

over by a truck. <<<snip>>>

Yeah, I know what you mean. I had a pretty " visceral " reaction

myself, the first time.

> 1. Can anyone recommend a preferred book for reinventing or

rediscovering your authentic self? This is a primary struggle for me.

Maybe you'd like " Women Who Run With the Wolves " by Clarissa Pinkhola

Estes. It's all about feminine archetypes and " story as medicine " .

I found it more helpful than any other single book in retrieving and

re-weaving the torn and scattered threads of my own story. There's a

fair bit of stuff in the book about the cultural repression of the

Feminine, but also lots there for trauma survivors.

BTW " The Inner World of Trauma " is an excellent book on trauma

survival and recovery, especially the annihilation and recovery of

personal identify I heard Kalsched speak at a Jung Society

meeting -- he's a Jungian analyst, as is Clarissa Estes -- and he

made a big impression on me. Not that I think the Jungian approach

is necessarily best; just that these are the books I can think of

right now, and they're both excellent books in their own right.

> 2. Is anyone concerned about having BP traits?

All the time. But less so than I used to be. But having BP traits

as " fleas " ; i.e. learned ways of behaving is profoundly different

from BEING a BP. Most BPs that I have direct experience with have

extreme trouble with awareness of how their own behaviour looks from

the outside, and also they don't learn from consequences. On the

crisis line, I find it helps to apply a puppy-training rule to BP

clients: don't expect them to make causal connections between events

that happen more than a few seconds apart. So, I am not sure how

much you (clearly a Non -- I have read enough from you to be

confident about that!) would be helped by stuff that's " for the BP " .

BTW, there's lots of amazing stuff in our list's archives about

dealing with fleas.

When my fleas are itching me, I try to keep in mind that " real " BPs

never worry about being BPs...because they know in their hearts that

are the only sane people in the universe ;->

Hugs,

[Guest guest]

> Well, I finally got all the way through UBM. I feel like I was

run over by a truck.

UBM is so validating, something we KO's didn't have, and so we tend

to read and read, nodding our heads and saying " Yes! yes! finally,

here it is in black and white for all to see! " See Nada! I wasn't

making this up! " And then I think after we put the book down it hits

us " Wow, this is really how my mother treated me, this is really how

things were. " Its validating and yet disturbing. It is one thing to

believe things were abusive, it is another to absorb it and feel it.

It is just like the grieving process. In the beginning there seems

to be a lot of anger, sadness, pain all swirling around, but it gets

better. It is just so intense in the beginning. Years of suppressed

pain and anger are surfacing. I think it is necessary in order to

heal. It is better, imo, than carrying around nada's baggage for

her.

> 1. Can anyone recommend a preferred book for reinventing or

rediscovering your authentic self? This is a primary struggle for

me.

Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child by

Bradshaw is excellent and also Soul Retrieval by Ingerman.

The latter is pretty new age and maybe not for everyone, but I liked

it.

>

> 2. Is anyone concerned about having BP traits?

That is one reason I feel people stop reading UBM. They become

terrified they have bpd. BPD and all personality disorders, imo, are

people with common reactions/behaviors taken to the extreme and so

when reading the criteria for bpd, it is easy to say, I feel like

that sometimes, but it is the degree one feels it and the impact it

has on others. One thing I realized in recovery was that I didn't

have to split nada and bpd ALL BAD and myself ALL GOOD. I have some

tendencies that nada had, but I don't torment the people in my life

with them. I know I learned them through daily contact with nada,

afterall she was my role model (scary thought) and I am aware of

them and I am choosing to learn a better way. I think we can make

the mistake of reading a bp trait and think, " I'm bp!! " and I think

that oversensitivity comes from the deep desire to NEVER be like

her! but we don't have to see things so black and white. I know one

thing for sure: We can't fix things we don't acknowledge and so if

there is something we see in ourselves that is like nada then we can

choose to learn a better, healthier way and the fact that we see it

and want to change it DOES set us apart from a bp. The inability to

be honest with oneself prevents the bp from ever changing and is the

first step in change for the rest of us. Take care,