Guest guest Posted September 4, 2007 Report Share Posted September 4, 2007 Hi 'Winged', You are stronger than you have been taught to believe. There will be a time when you realize that you are your own healer...your own source of strength. You do know that a 'broken' bone is stronger than prior to the break. Scars are tough stuff...they protect us from future injury. Nothing hurts more than 'knowing' that our mother's used us. They made us their 'excuse' for underachieving, caused us to take responsibility for her own laziness/failure to simply 'do the work' to be the person she envisions herself to be. So, they suck all the life out of our achievements, claim them as their own...because they own us, in their world. There is one simple fact about 'mothering'; a mother rabbit will eat her own young if her own life is threatened by thirst. Our nadas have the idea that WE threaten them; they thirst for attention, thus: we are expendable. Harsh to know, but like a cold shower, this knowledge wakes us up. I am more 'awake' than I have ever been, knowing that my MOTHER is willing to condemn me rather than accept me. Carol In a message dated 9/4/2007 6:43:02 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, brokenwinged_bird@... writes: Hello everyone. I've been reading the messages here with a mixture of sadness and relief. Sadness that there are so many of us who have BPD parents and relief to find I'm no longer alone. I've been looking for answers as long as I can remember and have only just come across BPD. It fits my mother like a glove. I've never really known where my mother ends and I begin. I've been conscious since I was tiny that I'd caused her pain, since her traumatic labour and birth with me to all the sacrifices she made to bring my brother and I up. The guilt has been unbearable. My mother used to tell me I should have been drowned at birth and for a long time I believed her. My mother has many phobias and rituals, but agoraphobia has kept her firmly at the heart of the family like a spider in the web. She has needed to manipulate her family to survive and she is skilled enough to draw friends and strangers in too. All my life I have felt that I had to look after her needs. The rest of the family complies because her hold on us is so strong and we are scared of her. I'm married now and have children of my own, but still she hangs on to me, phoning, texting and emailing from 7 in the morning till late at night. At the moment I'm only speaking to her twice a week, which is a great help, but still too much. I know when I've upset my mother because she goes silent and then pointedly speaks to other people around me and tells them how wrong I am, how controlling, how unkind. She can go on like this by the hour, till it goes dark outside and inside I feel lower than low. She then divides me from the rest of the family and tells them terrible things about me so that they will put pressure on me. She has called the police when I haven't contacted her for a few days and she also calls local businesses, any neighbours she can find etc and tells them stories to make them check up on me and pressure me to call my poor mother who is out of her mind with worry. Then she starts twisting my reality again. I thought my reality was wrong and that I really must be a vicious control freak, until I saw what my mother was attempting to do to my children. She writes to them every week and tells them subtle things that undermine me and mock me. They already know by heart the catechism she taught me as a child: her terrible life and the saga of her victimhood. She has no respect for their privacy or personal boundaries and I remember now or maybe I see more clearly now, that she was the same with me. And yet when she is kind, it's like standing in warm sunshine. I struggled to write this down because everything I ever wrote when I lived at home was read and covered in written comments about how ungrateful I was or how wrong. I still have that nagging feeling that somehow my mother will find what I've written here, though I know it's not true. I'm reading Surviving a Borderline Parent and I can only read a little at a time because it hits me like a brick. This has been a long post and I apologise because it's all old news to fellow survivors. Most of all I want to say thank you for sharing your own experiences, because it matters so much to know there are others who understand. ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 5, 2007 Report Share Posted September 5, 2007 Dear Brokenwing, Your post took so much strengh and courage and touched me deeply. I can relate to your fear of not wanting nada knowing what you have written. I have only started to work on my fears related to my nada (long road ahead) It is great that you are reading books and finding support here. You are moving in the right direction. Trina > > Hello everyone. I've been reading the messages here with a mixture > of sadness and relief. Sadness that there are so many of us who have > BPD parents and relief to find I'm no longer alone. I've been > looking for answers as long as I can remember and have only just come > across BPD. It fits my mother like a glove. > > I've never really known where my mother ends and I begin. I've been > conscious since I was tiny that I'd caused her pain, since her > traumatic labour and birth with me to all the sacrifices she made to > bring my brother and I up. The guilt has been unbearable. My mother > used to tell me I should have been drowned at birth and for a long > time I believed her. > > My mother has many phobias and rituals, but agoraphobia has kept her > firmly at the heart of the family like a spider in the web. She has > needed to manipulate her family to survive and she is skilled enough > to draw friends and strangers in too. All my life I have felt that I > had to look after her needs. The rest of the family complies because > her hold on us is so strong and we are scared of her. I'm married > now and have children of my own, but still she hangs on to me, > phoning, texting and emailing from 7 in the morning till late at > night. At the moment I'm only speaking to her twice a week, which is > a great help, but still too much. > > I know when I've upset my mother because she goes silent and then > pointedly speaks to other people around me and tells them how wrong I > am, how controlling, how unkind. She can go on like this by the > hour, till it goes dark outside and inside I feel lower than low. > She then divides me from the rest of the family and tells them > terrible things about me so that they will put pressure on me. She > has called the police when I haven't contacted her for a few days and > she also calls local businesses, any neighbours she can find etc and > tells them stories to make them check up on me and pressure me to > call my poor mother who is out of her mind with worry. Then she > starts twisting my reality again. > > I thought my reality was wrong and that I really must be a vicious > control freak, until I saw what my mother was attempting to do to my > children. She writes to them every week and tells them subtle things > that undermine me and mock me. They already know by heart the > catechism she taught me as a child: her terrible life and the saga > of her victimhood. She has no respect for their privacy or personal > boundaries and I remember now or maybe I see more clearly now, that > she was the same with me. And yet when she is kind, it's like > standing in warm sunshine. > > I struggled to write this down because everything I ever wrote when I > lived at home was read and covered in written comments about how > ungrateful I was or how wrong. I still have that nagging feeling > that somehow my mother will find what I've written here, though I > know it's not true. I'm reading Surviving a Borderline Parent and I > can only read a little at a time because it hits me like a brick. > > This has been a long post and I apologise because it's all old news > to fellow survivors. Most of all I want to say thank you for sharing > your own experiences, because it matters so much to know there are > others who understand. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 5, 2007 Report Share Posted September 5, 2007 Thank you so much for your moving replies, Liz, Trina, Sylvia, Phoenix and Carol. It has touched me very much to be heard and understood. I feel at the moment like it's winter and that I know that spring will come but it can't come soon enough. Getting your emails was like those winter days when you see a shoot coming up through the snow. I understand that there are many grey, cold days ahead, but at some point there will be sunshine. Using Sylvia's analogy of a journey, I've started to walk towards the sun. Thank you for walking a little way with me today. ___________________________________________________________ Want ideas for reducing your carbon footprint? Visit Yahoo! For Good http://uk.promotions.yahoo.com/forgood/environment.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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