Guest guest Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 That's so hysterical and very very true, my mother had the same problem!!!! Hugs Ray. Edith's " PIES " otwoma wrote: > I was also told by my mother that I was good until I was six. I figure that's when I got too old to be her mental equal. Edith here... OK, KOs. Pull up a chair. I've got some stuff to share with you. It goes like this... In growing up, children normally proceed through various developmental stages. If all goes well, the child grows and develops normally. The glitch in our nada's development, however, occurred in the EMOTIONAL realm. One has to make the distinction between the following areas of development when thinking about our nadas. I refer to these as my PIES: Physical (age/size), Intellectual (cognitive/understanding), Emotional (mood/feelings), and Social (interactions with others) And, one has to keep in mind that the problems for us KOs began when *our* EMOTIONAL development began to exceed our nada's EMOTIONAL development. For example, my nada: P / physical - grew to normal adult size and stature I / intellectual - knew lots of stuff E / emotional - was stunted emotionally at the 2 yo level S / social - it was always just about HER (like a 2 yo kid) My nada was forever stuck at the EMOTIONAL level of a 2 yo child, and that's when my problems with her began. In dealing with us kids on a minute-to-minute, day-to-day basis she fought tooth-and-nail whenever it SEEMED TO HER that, because of our EMOTIONAL growth, she was losing CONTROL over us. Thus, she blocked our normal emotional growth/development and forced us to wear a mask of who she wanted us to be. When we wore that mask, she got her way and we were split all-good. If not, we were split all-bad. There was no way we kids could carry on a conversation and talk about this stuff because her ego (self) defenses (eg, projection, denial, rationalization, splitting) got in the way. Those defenses operated *automatically* at an unconscious level. She needed to always see herSelf as all-good. If/when she ever saw her tiny and/or fragmented self as all-bad, then she self-injured. My emotional 2 yo nada had no way of putting what was happening into words -- so, she used actions. Her child-like solution to this problem was to use verbal abuse (raging) and fear (via beating us) in order to maintain her feeling of having and being IN CONTROL of us and everything else (including our dish-rag dad) in Nada's World. And, besides my emotional 2 yo nada not understanding her problem, she lacked EMPATHY and thus had no way of understanding the emotional damage that she was doing to us kids. Like a 2 yo child, in order to maintain CONTROL, besides the violence, she used: splitting (into all good vs all bad) projection (blaming/shaming " Its all your fault " stuff denial (saying " It didn't happen that way " ), and rationalization (told lies and rewrote history willy-nilly) And, having no one to validate us, and no " normal " as a basis for comparison of her behavior, the older we got, the more we kids felt we were the ones who were going crazy. So, when one's nada states that the KO was " good until you were 6 yo " , she's actually telling you her upper age of EMOTIONAL development. My nada, being an EMOTIONAL 2 yo, was non-verbal. She raged, dissociated, and used physical force. Two-year-old children do NOT play together or share their toys. They hit, bite, and scream to get their way. A nada who had obtained the EMOTIONAL age of a 6 yo may do things like play games, make cookies, and/or play with dolls. The hitch was when her (KO) dolls showed signs of growing beyond her emotionally, she then felt that she could no longer CONTROL them. So, your nada actually gave you a very important piece of information -- the missing piece of the puzzle -- about her *emotional* development. She had no other way of telling you about the problem. You gotta love those child-like nadas. <eyes rolled up> OK, times up. And, you can drop a quarter in the cup as you leave. *clink* - Edith Send questions and/or concerns to ModOasis-owner " Stop Walking on Eggshells, " a primer for non-BPs, can be ordered via 1-888-35-SHELL () and for the table of contents, go to: http://www.BPDCentral.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 > > So, when one's nada states that the KO was " good until you were 6 yo " , > she's actually telling you her upper age of EMOTIONAL development. > Well I was an awful baby according to my mom, cried all the time and would only calm if she would hold me (my dad doesn't remember it *quite* that way), so my mom must be stuck in infancy. I actually in a way believe it-- she had a psychiatrist tell her she has an attachment disorder linking back to the failure of her and her mother to bond when she was a baby (she actually freaked and thought he was insulting her-- as if it's an INFANT'S fault when there is no bond). Do you think KOs, with this type of example, are able to fully emotionally develop when growing up? If so, HOW? I sometimes feel that I knew more, was more confident, had more things figured out, when I was 14, than I do now. Maybe that's just me, I'm just curious what everyone else thinks... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 > Her psychiatrist didn't want to tell her that she has BPD (or > maybe this was before BPD appeared in the DSM (1980)) so he > phrased it as an " attachment disorder " perhaps thinking that > she'd BLAME/shame her mother rather than herself. But, like you > said, she " freaked " and felt " insulted " and it sounds like she > split her tiny and/or fragmented self into all-bad anyway. This was actually the psychiatrist who also gave her the first borderline personality diagnosis... at the time my mom had just had a nervous breakdown due to finally being permanently split bad by her own mother (who I believe is BPD at best, at worst evil incarnate). So I think the doctor was probably also trying to validate my mom in regards to why she might have developed BPD. Either way, it didn't work. She accepted the BPD but not the attachment disorder- go figure. It was too bad that this first psychiatrist was a nut (he had her on something like 15 meds), because I think of all she's had he knew what he was talking about. And the truth be told, when on the 15 meds she was more tolerable than ever. Those included anti- psychotics, anti-anxiety, and sleep aids, on tops of the antidepressant quick-fix my mom expected. So when she realized the antidepressants didn't 'cure' her, she would take one of the others and would sleep. Anyway... she now rejects the BPD diagnosis and only cops to PTSD, because I guess she doesn't realize that her BPD probably was a direct result of the same issues that caused the BPD. She also doesn't want to believe that a pill won't make her better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 2, 2004 Report Share Posted February 2, 2004 > And, one has to keep in mind that the problems for us KOs began when > *our* EMOTIONAL development began to exceed our nada's EMOTIONAL > development. > - Edith I was thinking about this and it occured to me that maybe this has something to do with why I don't ever remember *feeling* like a kid. I remember feeling like I was a grownup and could take care of myself (and my sister) as far back as I can remember (which is about 2.5 yrs old, when my sister was born). Anyway.. Since my nada was/is pretty much an emotional 2 year old (hitting, tantrums etc.. and she LOVES babies--until they are about 2 yrs old) it's no wonder I felt like such an adult all my life. I'd outgrown her! I think I get stuck at about a teenager emotionally, sometimes that is. I've already " grown out " of a lot of it but sometimes I find more of that stuff to work on. Something else.. I was talking to my b/f and his mom (prob nada) says out loud her age when she gets upset about something. Like " I'm 65 years old, I should be able to do what I want.. blah, blah, blah " I remember my nada saying stuff like that too--and I say that sometimes too to my b/f, I tell him I'm not a little kid. But I think maybe people who don't feel like they are really a grown up emotionally say it out loud (or rationalize it in some way) that they are. I don't know if that makes sense, but if I just all the time felt and knew that I was an adult, then it would be silly for me to " remind " someone else of it. That would be like saying " I'm not a boy. " Well.. duh.. Maybe I squashed a flea, or at least found one to squash when I catch it. Just some thoughts on this emotional age thing. Interesting stuff to think about, thanks Edith (clink, clink) haha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 3, 2004 Report Share Posted February 3, 2004 This makes a lot of sense to me. I guess my nada was about 4. But what am I? About 6, I think. - Dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.