Re: Siblings -- people with similar experience out there? -- Part 4

November 17, 2004

So. Here we are in the year 2004. Dad is living in the northwest

with his lovely wife, and Mom is living in Oklahoma with her passive

but apparently decent husband. I've barely spoken with Mom in the

past 15 years, other than fending off the occasional suicide FOG. I

see Dad & his sweetie often, and talk with them oftener.

In the past couple of decades I have sort of adopted Dad's second

wife, if not exactly as a mother (I was, after all, 16 and in no mood

to trust female adults when we met) then as a kind of much-loved

honorary aunt. She sends me recipies, and advises me on what kind of

earrings to wear to job interviews. I go visit them and we sit

around in the evening drinking tea and we all tell each other lots of

useful information (the sign of love in nerdy families). No one

screams or says anything mean. They've been married for eighteen

years and frankly, I don't think he's over being startled by

happiness. He still seems mildly stunned. Everyone in this little

constellation is very quiet and undemonstrative, and quite content

with that.

Since moving to Europe my sister has more or less dropped out of the

family, as far as we are concerned. She has also completely ignored

the grandparents, aunts, and uncles. The only person she

communicates with, as far as I am aware, is our mother. And as far

as I can tell (which may not be very far, you understand-- after all,

I haven't seen her much in the past twenty years) they talk on the

phone every week or so. As far as I can tell, she simply accepts

everything my mother tells her as the gospel truth. So she's not

getting much actual information as to what's up with the rest of us.

When my mother and I had our last big confrontation, it was over a

suicide threat that she sent duplicates of -- and yes, I do mean

actual Xerox copies -- to me and to my sister. And I, as I said

before, basically gave her both barrels in response. I don't know

exactly how my sister reacted, either to the threat itself or to the

both-barrels response, because we didn't discuss the matter. The

only thing I actually know is that a short time afterward, Mom called

me up and explained, in tones of some self-righteousness, that she

had sent a copy of my response to my sister, THE THERAPIST, and they

had talked it over and agreed that the conflict was happening

because...

....

....(Can anyone guess? Huh? Huh?)

....

....I have a lot of emotional problems and ought to be in treatment.

Now, just to be clear: I don't know whether this actually happened.

I only know that my mother said it happened. I also know that after

that little gesture at having the last word, she went away and left

me alone. Usually she would not do that, so her doing it kind of

makes me think my sister did not make any such diagnosis. But I do

not know. And after that situation my sister dropped even more

completely off everyone's radar. (Enough so that, for example, a

college friend of hers emailed me to try and get a mailing address to

invite my sister to his wedding, and I had to tell him we didn't know

what town she was living in.)

While all this loopiness has been going on with me, sister, and Mom,

sister and Dad have had their own drama. This consists basically of

sister disappearing for months or years at a time, only to reappear

and make a sort of theatrical -- and usually tearful -- announcement

that she loves him very much and can't stand that they never talk and

she really wants to work everything out in their relationship if he

will only just try to understand how terribly he hurt her when she

was young and helpless and he yelled at her for not being able to

write...

(this is of course ABSOLUTELY TRUE)

.... and if he will just have a big emotional scene with her...

(big emotional scenes being the thing he hates most on earth)

....it will all be resolved and they can live happily ever after.

On which he, generally, consents to having the big emotional scene,

and probably does feel very moved and even perhaps sheds a tear

dicreetly into his handkercheif (there is always a neatly folded

handkerchief in his left hip pocket). And maybe he says that he

wants her to understand that he loves her. And more often than not

he sends her a semster's tuition. After which she disappears for a

year and a half, and the whole thing starts over.

Through all this she has maintained a very clear conviction that she

wants a kind of relationship with my father where she can feel safe

and loved. And she will feel safe and loved only if she feels really

connected. And she will feel really connected only if he has long,

intense, passionate conversations with her about his feelings --

something he simply is not going to do, or not directly. And she

isn't going to meet him halfway by trying to understand the

information-as-love code: she's going to take her feelings of

rejection ( " He just keeps distancing me by talking about botany! " )

and cope with them by expressing negative judgments on his mental

health. She has a certain idea of how people express love, defined

around the way she would most like to receive it, and if he doesn't

do that, she's going to diagnose & label him as " unable to express

his feelings " . (Sort of like me going to Beijing and complaining

that the Chinese can't speak correctly. Evidence: I don't understand

them.)

And now, in addition to all the belief in her own authority over the

world of feeling that she picked up as a split-good, feeling child,

she has a graduate degree to back her up. So she sets up a situation

where he is only allowed to show love by doing something that

basically makes him feel raped, and then passes judgment on him for

not being grateful that she's willing to take on the work of fixing

his head. It's a horrible situation.

I should say, here, that I don't completely disagree with the idea

that Dad is unable to express his feelings, or with the idea that he

is emotionally damaged to some extent. I think he is -- or rather, I

think he has an unusually, and unfortunately, limited range of ways

that he can express himself. He is, to put it briefly, a painfully

shy man. This is a misfortune. It's also probably worse than it

might have been because ... he lived for 23 years with our mother

screaming at him from morning til night that he had no feelings, or

his feelings were wrong, and anyway he should just lose control so

she could feel powerful, and then he would be a real (=feeling)

person. I don't doubt that if he went into therapy, say with someone

who was experienced & skilled & NOT HIS DAUGHTER, the therapist would

say, " We need to help this man loosen up a little. "

But being damaged under the circumstances is not surprising, and

being shy is in any case not a moral failing. And he has very freely

and generously acknowledged the mistakes he made when she was a

child, and apologized for them. More than once. So it's hard for me

to look at the pain she causes him and say, " She's the child in the

relationship, right? It's his job to come to her. " Because it seems

like what she's demanding is the caring & consideration that go with

being the child AND the power & authority that go with being the

parent. And that simply isn't right.

So that's what's been going on for the last decade or so, and that's

my judgment about it. And around a year ago, Dad got another one of

her Oh-I-can't-stand-that-we-never-talk letters, and he called me up

and said, I got this letter. What do you think I should do? (He

asks me this. It's not my favorite role, me as the parent to some

extent. But when he does ask, he listens respectfully to the answer,

which makes a world of difference.) He sounded like he was about out

of patience, and I was about out of patience, and I said-- Dad, I

can't advise you. I just can't help you with this any more. I've

run out of energy on it, and it just makes me so angry that she's

still doing this to you. Fine, you messed up, fine, you couldn't be

the perfect father and the perfect mother at the same time while

keeping us in bread and beans and protecting us from Mom's

craziness. And if you were God, you could have done that. But she's

coming up on 40 and she's way past the due date on forgiving your

father for not being God. Everybody goes through a period of being

angry about that: it's called adolescence. After that, you learn a

little bit about real hardship, and you start being grateful that at

least one of your parents is a decent human being. The way I see it,

if she wants to commit her life to being tortured by this, neither of

us can stop her. So I don't know what you should do. "

Dad thought about this and wrote her a letter. I think the letter

actually said something very much like the above. She responded

without the usual theater. She called on the phone. He didn't send

money. She called on the phone again anyway. She scheduled herself

to come and visit. Things appear to actually be changing. Appear.

I don't know.

She did come and visit. It happened, through chance or serendipity

or divine intervention or whatever, that, after she had bought her

plane tickets, his doctor discovered that he had a heart problem

requiring immediate surgery. So while she was here, he went into the

hospital. I think this was really good timing. I mean, I think it

made her directly aware for the first time that he is not this huge

invulnerable person, but a real human who you have to give some care

to. (Also, the surgery went very well and he is now just fine.)

So. All that was eight months ago. In the meantime we've had one

little episode where she basically wrote him a letter suggesting that

he should be worried about my mental state because I was reacting

negatively to her attempts to explain my feelings to me. Dad may not

be all that comfortable articulating his feelings, but he is a

professional and familiar with codes of professional ethics, and he

is not a stupid man. I pointed out to him that

1) there is not a branch of psychology in the world that would

consider it ethical for her to try to treat me

2) she knows this

3) it being 'unhealthy' for me to know this doesn't seem very logical.

And as far as I can tell, that more or less put a stop to that. Or

maybe it just inspired her to do something sneakier that I don't know

about.

It's quite a puzzling situation: she's spent most of her life

simultaneously reviling this man and demanding his love. She's never

expressed jealousy of my relationship with him --- just amazement

that I can get along with such an awful person. I don't think she

has some long-standing wish to sabotage my relationship with him, or

not much of one. But as far as I can tell, the only way she really

knows to feel powerful and safe from rejection is to get into the

role of a therapist, where it's her JOB to break through other

people's defenses-- that is, where if the person you're dealing with

sets up a boundary, you get to define it as " resistance " and treat

its existence as a pathology. So it's almost as though she can't

feel close to him unless she's either treating him, or collaborating

with him on treating someone else. Without a patient, there can be

no relationship.

I think there are a lot of therapists who are great people who do

terrific work -- just like there are a lot of policemen who are

really in the job because they care about peace and justice. I also

think there are policemen who are in the job because they want to

beat people and lock them in cages. And I think there are people who

become therapists because they want the chance to violate the

boundaries of patients who are emotionally defenceless. The idea that

my sister has grown up to be one of them has occurred to me more than

once, and, needless to say, it's pretty unattractive.

My best guess -- and it's very much a guess -- is that she has

started to do that, and realized what was happening, and she's trying

to find another way to be. But going into " therapist " gear when it

isn't appropriate is one of her fleas. A great honking flea. A

tick. And she does it when something frightens her, and people she

loves frighten her.

Having grown up the way I did, I find any claim -- by anybody -- to

understand me very alarming. This has made it quite difficult

(though not impossible) for me to find a therapist I could work

with. Coming from her, it's definitely a trigger. So I need to be

careful how I react.

I also have to remember, of course, that it's quite possible -- in

fact, quite common -- for a person to be both a really good therapist

to his/her actual patients, and loopy as hell in personal

relationships. Her actual professional competence, in situations

where her professional competence comes into play, is not the issue.

The issue is this weird blurring of work and family she seems to be

doing, and how ai should deal with it.

So that, ultimately, is my question: does anybody have experience

with a situation at all like this? Experience with high-functioning

BPs becoming therapists? With KOs becoming therapists? Doing well?

Doing badly? Any ideas on this?

Thanks for your patience with this long tale.

Ivy

November 18, 2004

Hi Ivy,

Can relate to so much of what you wrote. Don't think my brother is

high-functioning BPD though, more of a know it all gifted

underachiever! But to talk to him, he knows more than the lawyers,

accountants, doctors but his life is so messed up. I don't know how

he rationalizes this. Actually, I'm hoping he's not high-functioning

because than I think he would be more dangerous.

But the dynamics of our relationships are so similar. Why can't they

just appreciate the moments spent together? If it's not some heavy,

intense, dramatic, emotionally draining encounter, they think there

was no connection or something? Do you think that's what makes them

feel abandoned?

Also, love the God analogy because that's exactly the expectation.

Nothing is good enough, perfect enough and it never will be cause

gosh darn it your only human. Sorry I can't answer any of your

questions though but I really enjoyed reading this!!!

cntbreathe

>

> So. Here we are in the year 2004. Dad is living in the northwest

> with his lovely wife, and Mom is living in Oklahoma with her

passive

> but apparently decent husband. I've barely spoken with Mom in the

> past 15 years, other than fending off the occasional suicide FOG.

I

> see Dad & his sweetie often, and talk with them oftener.

>

> In the past couple of decades I have sort of adopted Dad's second

> wife, if not exactly as a mother (I was, after all, 16 and in no

mood

> to trust female adults when we met) then as a kind of much-loved

> honorary aunt. She sends me recipies, and advises me on what kind

of

> earrings to wear to job interviews. I go visit them and we sit

> around in the evening drinking tea and we all tell each other lots

of

> useful information (the sign of love in nerdy families). No one

> screams or says anything mean. They've been married for eighteen

> years and frankly, I don't think he's over being startled by

> happiness. He still seems mildly stunned. Everyone in this little

> constellation is very quiet and undemonstrative, and quite content

> with that.

>

> Since moving to Europe my sister has more or less dropped out of

the

> family, as far as we are concerned. She has also completely

ignored

> the grandparents, aunts, and uncles. The only person she

> communicates with, as far as I am aware, is our mother. And as far

> as I can tell (which may not be very far, you understand-- after

all,

> I haven't seen her much in the past twenty years) they talk on the

> phone every week or so. As far as I can tell, she simply accepts

> everything my mother tells her as the gospel truth. So she's not

> getting much actual information as to what's up with the rest of us.

>

> When my mother and I had our last big confrontation, it was over a

> suicide threat that she sent duplicates of -- and yes, I do mean

> actual Xerox copies -- to me and to my sister. And I, as I said

> before, basically gave her both barrels in response. I don't know

> exactly how my sister reacted, either to the threat itself or to

the

> both-barrels response, because we didn't discuss the matter. The

> only thing I actually know is that a short time afterward, Mom

called

> me up and explained, in tones of some self-righteousness, that she

> had sent a copy of my response to my sister, THE THERAPIST, and

they

> had talked it over and agreed that the conflict was happening

> because...

> ...

> ...(Can anyone guess? Huh? Huh?)

> ...

> ...I have a lot of emotional problems and ought to be in treatment.

>

> Now, just to be clear: I don't know whether this actually

happened.

> I only know that my mother said it happened. I also know that

after

> that little gesture at having the last word, she went away and left

> me alone. Usually she would not do that, so her doing it kind of

> makes me think my sister did not make any such diagnosis. But I do

> not know. And after that situation my sister dropped even more

> completely off everyone's radar. (Enough so that, for example, a

> college friend of hers emailed me to try and get a mailing address

to

> invite my sister to his wedding, and I had to tell him we didn't

know

> what town she was living in.)

>

> While all this loopiness has been going on with me, sister, and

Mom,

> sister and Dad have had their own drama. This consists basically

of

> sister disappearing for months or years at a time, only to reappear

> and make a sort of theatrical -- and usually tearful --

announcement

> that she loves him very much and can't stand that they never talk

and

> she really wants to work everything out in their relationship if he

> will only just try to understand how terribly he hurt her when she

> was young and helpless and he yelled at her for not being able to

> write...

>

> (this is of course ABSOLUTELY TRUE)

>

> ... and if he will just have a big emotional scene with her...

>

> (big emotional scenes being the thing he hates most on earth)

>

> ...it will all be resolved and they can live happily ever after.

>

> On which he, generally, consents to having the big emotional scene,

> and probably does feel very moved and even perhaps sheds a tear

> dicreetly into his handkercheif (there is always a neatly folded

> handkerchief in his left hip pocket). And maybe he says that he

> wants her to understand that he loves her. And more often than not

> he sends her a semster's tuition. After which she disappears for a

> year and a half, and the whole thing starts over.

>

> Through all this she has maintained a very clear conviction that

she

> wants a kind of relationship with my father where she can feel safe

> and loved. And she will feel safe and loved only if she feels

really

> connected. And she will feel really connected only if he has long,

> intense, passionate conversations with her about his feelings --

> something he simply is not going to do, or not directly. And she

> isn't going to meet him halfway by trying to understand the

> information-as-love code: she's going to take her feelings of

> rejection ( " He just keeps distancing me by talking about botany! " )

> and cope with them by expressing negative judgments on his mental

> health. She has a certain idea of how people express love, defined

> around the way she would most like to receive it, and if he doesn't

> do that, she's going to diagnose & label him as " unable to express

> his feelings " . (Sort of like me going to Beijing and complaining

> that the Chinese can't speak correctly. Evidence: I don't

understand

> them.)

>

> And now, in addition to all the belief in her own authority over

the

> world of feeling that she picked up as a split-good, feeling child,

> she has a graduate degree to back her up. So she sets up a

situation

> where he is only allowed to show love by doing something that

> basically makes him feel raped, and then passes judgment on him for

> not being grateful that she's willing to take on the work of fixing

> his head. It's a horrible situation.

>

> I should say, here, that I don't completely disagree with the idea

> that Dad is unable to express his feelings, or with the idea that

he

> is emotionally damaged to some extent. I think he is -- or rather,

I

> think he has an unusually, and unfortunately, limited range of ways

> that he can express himself. He is, to put it briefly, a painfully

> shy man. This is a misfortune. It's also probably worse than it

> might have been because ... he lived for 23 years with our mother

> screaming at him from morning til night that he had no feelings, or

> his feelings were wrong, and anyway he should just lose control so

> she could feel powerful, and then he would be a real (=feeling)

> person. I don't doubt that if he went into therapy, say with

someone

> who was experienced & skilled & NOT HIS DAUGHTER, the therapist

would

> say, " We need to help this man loosen up a little. "

>

> But being damaged under the circumstances is not surprising, and

> being shy is in any case not a moral failing. And he has very

freely

> and generously acknowledged the mistakes he made when she was a

> child, and apologized for them. More than once. So it's hard for

me

> to look at the pain she causes him and say, " She's the child in the

> relationship, right? It's his job to come to her. " Because it

seems

> like what she's demanding is the caring & consideration that go

with

> being the child AND the power & authority that go with being the

> parent. And that simply isn't right.

>

> So that's what's been going on for the last decade or so, and

that's

> my judgment about it. And around a year ago, Dad got another one

of

> her Oh-I-can't-stand-that-we-never-talk letters, and he called me

up

> and said, I got this letter. What do you think I should do? (He

> asks me this. It's not my favorite role, me as the parent to some

> extent. But when he does ask, he listens respectfully to the

answer,

> which makes a world of difference.) He sounded like he was about

out

> of patience, and I was about out of patience, and I said-- Dad, I

> can't advise you. I just can't help you with this any more. I've

> run out of energy on it, and it just makes me so angry that she's

> still doing this to you. Fine, you messed up, fine, you couldn't

be

> the perfect father and the perfect mother at the same time while

> keeping us in bread and beans and protecting us from Mom's

> craziness. And if you were God, you could have done that. But

she's

> coming up on 40 and she's way past the due date on forgiving your

> father for not being God. Everybody goes through a period of being

> angry about that: it's called adolescence. After that, you learn a

> little bit about real hardship, and you start being grateful that

at

> least one of your parents is a decent human being. The way I see

it,

> if she wants to commit her life to being tortured by this, neither

of

> us can stop her. So I don't know what you should do. "

>

> Dad thought about this and wrote her a letter. I think the letter

> actually said something very much like the above. She responded

> without the usual theater. She called on the phone. He didn't

send

> money. She called on the phone again anyway. She scheduled

herself

> to come and visit. Things appear to actually be changing.

Appear.

> I don't know.

>

> She did come and visit. It happened, through chance or serendipity

> or divine intervention or whatever, that, after she had bought her

> plane tickets, his doctor discovered that he had a heart problem

> requiring immediate surgery. So while she was here, he went into

the

> hospital. I think this was really good timing. I mean, I think it

> made her directly aware for the first time that he is not this huge

> invulnerable person, but a real human who you have to give some

care

> to. (Also, the surgery went very well and he is now just fine.)

>

> So. All that was eight months ago. In the meantime we've had one

> little episode where she basically wrote him a letter suggesting

that

> he should be worried about my mental state because I was reacting

> negatively to her attempts to explain my feelings to me. Dad may

not

> be all that comfortable articulating his feelings, but he is a

> professional and familiar with codes of professional ethics, and he

> is not a stupid man. I pointed out to him that

>

> 1) there is not a branch of psychology in the world that would

> consider it ethical for her to try to treat me

>

> 2) she knows this

>

> 3) it being 'unhealthy' for me to know this doesn't seem very

logical.

>

> And as far as I can tell, that more or less put a stop to that. Or

> maybe it just inspired her to do something sneakier that I don't

know

> about.

>

> It's quite a puzzling situation: she's spent most of her life

> simultaneously reviling this man and demanding his love. She's

never

> expressed jealousy of my relationship with him --- just amazement

> that I can get along with such an awful person. I don't think she

> has some long-standing wish to sabotage my relationship with him,

or

> not much of one. But as far as I can tell, the only way she really

> knows to feel powerful and safe from rejection is to get into the

> role of a therapist, where it's her JOB to break through other

> people's defenses-- that is, where if the person you're dealing

with

> sets up a boundary, you get to define it as " resistance " and treat

> its existence as a pathology. So it's almost as though she can't

> feel close to him unless she's either treating him, or

collaborating

> with him on treating someone else. Without a patient, there can be

> no relationship.

>

> I think there are a lot of therapists who are great people who do

> terrific work -- just like there are a lot of policemen who are

> really in the job because they care about peace and justice. I

also

> think there are policemen who are in the job because they want to

> beat people and lock them in cages. And I think there are people

who

> become therapists because they want the chance to violate the

> boundaries of patients who are emotionally defenceless. The idea

that

> my sister has grown up to be one of them has occurred to me more

than

> once, and, needless to say, it's pretty unattractive.

>

> My best guess -- and it's very much a guess -- is that she has

> started to do that, and realized what was happening, and she's

trying

> to find another way to be. But going into " therapist " gear when it

> isn't appropriate is one of her fleas. A great honking flea. A

> tick. And she does it when something frightens her, and people she

> loves frighten her.

>

> Having grown up the way I did, I find any claim -- by anybody -- to

> understand me very alarming. This has made it quite difficult

> (though not impossible) for me to find a therapist I could work

> with. Coming from her, it's definitely a trigger. So I need to be

> careful how I react.

>

> I also have to remember, of course, that it's quite possible -- in

> fact, quite common -- for a person to be both a really good

therapist

> to his/her actual patients, and loopy as hell in personal

> relationships. Her actual professional competence, in situations

> where her professional competence comes into play, is not the

issue.

> The issue is this weird blurring of work and family she seems to be

> doing, and how ai should deal with it.

>

> So that, ultimately, is my question: does anybody have experience

> with a situation at all like this? Experience with high-

functioning

> BPs becoming therapists? With KOs becoming therapists? Doing

well?

> Doing badly? Any ideas on this?

>

> Thanks for your patience with this long tale.

>

> Ivy

November 18, 2004

Heya Ivy,

wow, what can I say... Thank you so much for sharing this story! I've

really enjoyed reading it, and could relate to some parts of it too.

Mainly, though, I admire your courage, and inner strength to have

lived your life well, and to tell other people about it. It's been a

hell of ride for you...

> So that, ultimately, is my question: does anybody have experience

> with a situation at all like this? Experience with high-functioning

> BPs becoming therapists? With KOs becoming therapists? Doing well?

> Doing badly? Any ideas on this?

My nada was a therapist there for a while. She started off as a child

psychologist and speech pathologist and worked very well and very

successfully in the latter area for 5-6 years after the university.

Then, by the time I was 10, she became more and more interested in

adult psychology, went into an intensive therapy herself (heh... it

cooled her down for all of 2 months afterwards! It's the only time I

remember of feeling safe around her). Then she trained as a therapist,

in a more traditional sense - Jungian school, I think - and ran some

group therapy and individual sessions for a couple of years.

The main trend with here was that she couldn't stick to any profession

in her life, so I don't think she could've possibly continued to

practice as a therapist for a long time. My nada is a bit of a thrill

seeker like that, a child who needs new things to entertain her.

However, I know that she was very good as a child psychologist, just

from my memories of all the gifts that grateful parents brought her,

big bouquets of flowers in the house and so on. Even if she

exaggerated her abilities somewhat, I remember the physical evidence.

As an adult therapist, I suspect that she was pretty good, possibly

even talented. She was always able to pick up on peoples emotions and

motives, to see under their skin. I don't know whether she respected

their boundaries, or whether she subtly manipulated the clients into

making her feel good about herself. I suspect that she could have

become frighteningly good as a therapist, and possibly even would have

got enough 'boost' from seeing the gratitude of the clients to keep

her own insecurities out of the relationship. However, the money in

out family became tight, and she changed jobs. (This was in the USSR

in the last years before the collapse. Therapy simply didn't pay).

Possibly she was also realising that, although protected by the

therapists mantle, she was skirting the edge of exposure as a ...

well, 'bad person'. (and we all know what that means for a BP!)

For me, it was an unpleasant experience. Took me years to start

trusting psychology and therapists after her experiments. She tried to

analyse me quite a few times, told me who and what I was, gave me a

pseudo-psychological reasons for my behaviour. It all sounded so very

true (she was good at noticing things, though crap at seeing the

reality), and scared me sh**less. She had the full backing of being a

mother ('god-demon' as my recent shrink called it), and a

psychologist... all I had was my own experience and a deep sense of

waht was *really true*, of what was real for me. It created massive

amounts of guilt, to contradict her like that, and pain from the

conflict between trusting her and trusting myself. Thankfully, the

deep sense of personal integrity pulled me through, but when I moved

out of home it took me literally *years* of massive pain to weed out

her interpretations of my life, to start trusting myself... and to

mourn for the fact that I simply could *not* trust her. This last one

really, really hurt.

Sorry, got carried away there a bit.

D

November 18, 2004