Newbie Intro

[Guest guest]

Hi Everyone,

I've been lurking for a few weeks now, but I think it's time to " come

out " because even just reading a few dozen digests has made a

tremendous difference for me, and I need to tell all of you that!

Even though I consider myself fairly far along in recovery from the

abuse I suffered, the comfort to be found in validation from people

who understand the unique kind of craziness that I experienced is

amazing. Reading UBM was a major turning-point for me, and it's so

helpful to discover a group of people who " get " why :-)

I am the only child of a (deceased since 1999) BP nada (never sought

therapy, but had all 9 DSM criteria to an extreme degree her whole

adult life) and a father who was probably bipolar, but spent the last

20 or so years of his life (he died about a year ago) in a mostly

depressive statge, no doubt due in some degree to having been " beaten

down " by his wife. My nada was also an alcoholic, and in enormous

denial about it. For many years I thought that her addiction was the

central issue, and only came to " diagnose " her through working with

BPD callers on a crisis line where I have volunteered for the past 10

years. Fortunately, the flashbacks weren't debilitating, but they

were an unmistakable signal that this was something I really needed

to pay attention to.

My nada was a very high-functioning Queen in the outer world, despite

her alcoholism, and even my father was mostly bamboozled by " Nada-

Jekyll " . It seemed that " Nada-Hyde " only came out for me. This

was especially painful because my mother was a teacher, and it looked

like she gave her best self to her students, then came home and

tortured me. She carried on an expert campaign of " doublethink "

(BTW, does anybody else suspect that 1984 might be more about

Orwell's family than 1940's politics?) and I spent most of my young

adulthood trying desperately, but mostly unconsciously, to please

her, because deep in my heart of hearts I believed that pleasing her

was the sole purpose of my existence. I had this deep-rooted fear

that if she got angry enough with me, she could just snap her fingers

and I'd wink out of existence. I was " her creature " , after all.

I got myself into a high-prestige doctoral program in science, and I

had myself convinced that it was what *I* wanted, but in fact all I

wanted was to find some way to impress nada, or at least get her off

my back. I struggled with it for 8 years, but I just couldn't bring

myself to finish the degree. Finally, in therapy, I realised that it

was a betrayal of myself to be doing something that was really only

about pleasing nada (who, of course, wouldn't have been pleased

anyway, which I realised even though this was years before I knew

there was such a thing as BPD). I quit, after I'd done all the

course work and the candidacy exams and research work,and my

dissertation was 3/4 done. I have never regretted quitting -- but

boy have I have regretted starting!

My nada's response was pitying contempt for my " failure " , expressed

sweetly, but unmistakably. That and her will -- she left her entire

estate (about $2 millon Canadian) which she always talked to me,

right up until just before she died, about along the lines

of " someday all of this will be yours " , to fund the Ph.D. program

that I had dropped out of. She did this long after I had dropped out

when I had made it clear that there was no question of my going

back.

It's been quite a while since I've felt much pain about this,

although I'd be lying if I said I don't still get twinges. But

the " forgiveness thread " on the list has reminded me of it. I found

myself admiring the wisdom of the financial metaphor in the recent

discussions on the list regarding forgiveness, as when we " forgive a

debt " . We do not think or say that the debt is not owed, we just say

that we choose to stop soliciting or expecting payment. And in the

emotional realm, as well as in the outer-world financial realm, if

the person who owes us is bankrupt, it actually costs us less in the

long run if we stop trying to collect.

This is already way longer than I planned -- thanks for staying with

me, if you're still reading -- but I want to end on a positive note.

Although I have hard times, and many ordinary things are way harder

for me that they " ought " to be, I have a life filled with a lot of

love and joy. In particular, despite watching my parents shred

each other's souls on a daily basis, I somehow found a guy who stuck

with me through years of fear and doubt about relationships, and

finally talked me into getting married. That was 13 years ago, and I

still think I have the best husband on the planet. (Of course this

does not mean that I don't want to strangle him every other day or

so!) I have wonderful friends, and my " found family " seems to grow

ever year. We had 8 people at Christmas dinner this year, none

related to me by blood, but all truly Family.

Of course, Nada still comes back to haunt me (not literally, at least

I don't think so!), but all of you and your compassion and wisdom are

a big help to me in banishing her " ghost " , especially during my

" dark nights of the soul " . So, Thank You. All of you.

Best,

p.s. The " SQLWitch " in my email address, btw, is nothing to do with

witches in the UBM sense; it's more in the sense of " witch " in the

Harry Potter books as feminine of wizard. And SQL is a database

programming language that is one of my favourite technologies to work

with.