To: Sylvia

[Guest guest]

Thanks for your post. Pehaps being a parent isn't in me anymore,

but maybe I just think that, because I don't know what it takes to

be a parent. I feel like I had to mother my nada. She never could or

would stand on her own two feet, not even on one foot. I feel like I

try to raise a child already, when I should have been the child. I

was very much the adult child. what if all that energy I need to

raise a child was eaten up by having to raise nada? Which as we all

know that never worked on any BPD. I didn't know for the longest

time what was wrong with her. I keep trying and trying. I didn't

know what it was till close to her death. It was to late at that

point. I think if I would have had that info years ago I would have

realized I needed theropy and there was no helping her or having a

good relationship with her.

I had SO much responsiblity laid on my door step since I was about

10.

My nada liked to collect animals so that she could make us stay

around as an excuse to care for those animals, when what she wanted

was for us not to leave her and tend to her every whim. Looking back

those animals saved my sanity and kept me going. I couldn't bear the

thoughts of them not being cared for and loved. MY EVIL NADA KNEW

THAT. So, she used my sympathy and love for them against me to feed

her own sick needs. I took the best care of them I could, never let

anyone harm them including her, but once again they were alot of

resposibilty. I took care of the house, the bills, the animals and

had to wait on her hand and foot or I paid BIG time. Enough was

never enough for that woman. I was just an apendage to her, born to

serve her. never aloud out of her sight growing up. No friends, no

boyfriends, no alone time. i didn't have my first boyfriend till

after highschool. I paid for that too. I struggle with why I stayed

so long. I think the need for a mother was so strong, I also know I

couldn't leave those animals, and there were way too many to pack up

and get an apartment, and that life was all I knew, my way of

surviving. All I did was survive-exist.