(No subject)

[Guest guest]

There have some really good posts the last two days. I have sat here

for what seems like hours debating whether or not to respond,

especially to the question of NC with grandchildren, dealing with

PTSD and remembering. It is very helpful to know one isn't, or

hasn't been, alone all these years. But I'm devoting as much time to

this site as I once did to her, and I really need to get back to my

friends, genealogy and sewing, etc.

Before I go, for those young mothers who wonder what to do, Flea

Bitten has pretty much said it. Some more history (which I want to

get away from)--Because nada had experience as a midwife in the

farming community I came from , we took her along when we went to the

hospital 45 minutes away. My son was born a " blue baby " after a

difficult labor and as an adult has unexplained chest pains. He has

been to Mayo, etc., nothing. The doctor later told me that the night

my son was born he did not get to attend to me and the baby because

he had to try to calm nada down who was in hysterics up and down the

hospital hallways. She could not let her grandson have the attention

he needed. My husband and I voted for circumcison. When I came home

from the hospital she had moved all my furniture and the kitchen was

piled high with dirty dishes. My son still had some bleeding from

the circumcison. Everytime I changed his diaper she again went into

hysterics and said I was killing him. I went into paralysis and

could not change his diaper. She took over. That lasted about two

days. I then called the minister about it, he came over and settled

things down and we got her out of the house.

When my children were three and four my husband and I went into

therapy. We were told our marriage was a garbage can and that there

was no help for nada and we needed to move away. We did and a year

later were divorced. I had baby sitters who locked the children out,

who drank, etc., so during the summers they often stayed for periods

of time at nada's on the farm. One of my goals as a parent was to

raise them without a lot of hang ups, to have minds that were free

and clear. They were aware of my problems with nada but assumed they

were my problems, not theirs. I had also taught them to speak up.

One area I was not aware of was the damage that could be done with

the little remark here, the little remark there that changes a person

and what they believe.

So the years went with my brothers and dealing with a continuous set

of horror stories. The first I read about borderline was in a

psychology book at church in 1986. It did not fit totally but I was

so relieved to find a diagnosis that I did nothing more than just

know there was a diagnosis. When I did therapy I would get a

diagnosis of OC, which I don't really have, it was sort of a catch-

all diagnosis for PTSD, another area not much was known about.

When my third and youngest was in college she came home with a

description of how Aids work. This may or may not be correct. She

described the properties of a cell and how it maintains itself and

keeps itself healthy, then described aids as a cell which contains a

sticky sweet substance which it uses to gain entrance to the normal

cell. The normal cell knows this new cell will destroy it but is

helpless against the sticky substance and lets it in.

To me, this describes a KO. Is BPD a chemical problem or a

mutation? If it is a mutation, there should be no guilt about not

letting it in.

nada is nearing the century mark and is weakening, although the

mental machinations are still strong. She has spent a hundred years

in misery. She will just barely outlive her children who have the

DNA but are too beat up physically and mentally from the lives

they've lived with her. We take turns getting away from her while

two stay and take first visit to the therapist this time, he asked

what the hook is. We haven't talked about it yet, but in our case,

my brothers and I, it was wanting to be loved by her. When my parents

were physically fighting and she did so much screaming we thought she

was getting hurt and were very loyal to her. When she used objects

to hit him with we thought she was justified. We were adolescents

before we realized she wasn't getting hit, that his fighting was to

block her blows. It took a long time to admit she did not love us,

some more time to know she was incapable, more time to realize the

extent of her narcissism (total). We were brought up with a strong

feeling of family and made it out alive due to the help of the

extended family, but it also meant we are staying with her to the

end. That's in our fashion, not with the love and care she probably

needed but also would not allow. We are keeping her out of a nursing

home for two reasons. She won't go and we don't want to destroy the

nursing home residents and nurses.

I often think about how life would have been different if I had moved

away when young and I bitterly regret not moving away when my

children were little. In my need for a mother, I may have done

things, I'm not clear on this, to make my daughter into my mother.

When she was 17, 18, and narcissism is normal, she hooked into nada

for money to help her get through college and has retained the

narcissism and hysterics and some of my flea bitten ways. She did

not have an extended family. Other than that, my children are doing

well. They have some damage from her and from my fleas, but no more

than most. Their minds are still clear, they are remarkedly free of

hang ups, and they have a strong sense of self and defend it while

still being compassionate. However, I We have just gone through a

time, unbeknowst to me, where she was lying to them over a period of

time about my behavior, that I thought the men in the apartment

complex I was living in were running around naked while they watched

me, etc., etc. I moved away from there and nearer to my children so

that they could see these things weren't true. It has taken me six

months to dissolve this damage. What my children get most irritated

with about me is when the fleas come out: they want me to have a

stronger sense of self. I can for them but not for me.

I don't think there is a cure for being a KO. At this point all I

can do is accept being a KO and do everything I can to not pass any

more fleas along. I spent my life being angry and hating and regret

that I am a KO and all those memories, wishing I could cut it out of

myself (I am not a cutter, those are accurate words for an

intangible) and be who I was meant to be. I have to accept that

being a KO IS who I am. I guess I chose it, but I would not choose

it again.

If I have anything to say, it would be to write a book not on how to

deal with the borderline mother but on how the KO can hear their own

voice, not that of the nada, such as the difference between a hunch,

an inner knowing and the flea message and how to operate on the inner

knowing. I think that would take a book.