compassion?

[Guest guest]

Hello,

I would like to share my feelings on this topic of compassion. I am

new to the group, just finding out that my mother is BP. For the

first time everything makes sense. I now understand why my childhood

was so traumatic. I have never had compassion for my mother, I hated

her! But I continued to maintain a realtionship with her becuase she

was my " MOTHER " , I continued to allow her to abuse me and affect me

and hold me hostage.

Until 7 days ago when I went to a therapy session with my sister and

we started discussing our NADA, during the session the therapist

asked us if we knew what BPD was? We answered no. The therapist then

opened her medical book and read the description of BPD, my sister

and I both looked at each other and we knew at that moment that we

were adult children of a BP. Our lives finally made sense.

When I returned home I spent hours researching and reading about this

new found information. When I took a break I felt compassion for the

first time, I let go, I forgave, I no longer felt hate or anger.

Part of this healing for me is to have compassion for the individuals

that suffer and will never be able to truly be alive. For the first

time in my life I feel alive!

For all of you that are still living with your loved ones that have

this disorder, for all of you that are still in hostage with your

loved ones I ask you to consider compassion and letting go. We do not

have to suffer any longer. We owe it to ourselves to release

ourselves from all the pain. Now that we have awareness and tools and

support groups we can understand this disorder and help make changes

for the better, break the cycles!

love and light,

kali

[Guest guest]

Hi kali,

Your goal is noble, I believe; it *is* good to have compassion for

others as long as the feelings of compassion don't over-ride common sense.

I am attempting to attain a state of " compassionate detachment " with

my nada. This means that I want to be able to treat her humanely: as

kindly as I would treat any other fellow human being, but without

allowing her to be able to hurt me.

I am not there yet. It requires emotional detachment. I still have a

lot of anger (quite a lot) and she is still working the guilt levers

and buttons in me. Its going to take time, but I think I will

eventually get there.

I have to get past the fact that she IS my mother and that she can

sometimes be (or appear to be) loving and kind, which tends to pull me

back in, and instead see her with adult eyes for what she truly is: a

mentally ill person who plays other people like pianos.

Yes, I know that NIHM does not classify personality disorders as

mental illness, but I disagree. So, I'll think of BPD as " insanity

lite " , then.

When I allow myself to trust my nada, she just hurts me again.

Plus, I will no longer stand by passively and allow her to hurt my

Sister or her (now adult) son. Sister and I are united in this

aspect: we are setting the hardest and firmest boundary we've ever set

with nada before, and nada is now engaged in all-out war:

she is evoking total, abject, helpless, abandoned, pitiful,

frail-little-old-lady mode to elicit sympathy from friends and family,

to make us look like the villians.

We are holding firm. At least nada is continuing in therapy, but

Sister and I are afraid that she is using her charms to convince the

therapist that we are the bad guys, the scum who are abandoning their

aged mother on the hillside to be eaten by coyotes. That is not true,

we intend to see that nada has the necessities of life: a place to

live, food, medical attention, etc. But whether we will have an

actual relationship with nada remains to be seen. All we want is for

nada to acknowledge the abuse she has committed against us (she " can't

remember " any of it) make a sincere apology, and stop doing that.

Stop the emotional abuse.

We'll just have to see how it goes.

But I do admire your desire to be compassionate to your abusive nada.

Just don't let feelings of compassion allow her to abuse you anymore,

or allow her to abuse others. That's not compassion, that's just

weakness.

-Annie

>

> Hello,

> I would like to share my feelings on this topic of compassion. I am

> new to the group, just finding out that my mother is BP. For the

> first time everything makes sense. I now understand why my childhood

> was so traumatic. I have never had compassion for my mother, I hated

> her! But I continued to maintain a realtionship with her becuase she

> was my " MOTHER " , I continued to allow her to abuse me and affect me

> and hold me hostage.

>

> Until 7 days ago when I went to a therapy session with my sister and

> we started discussing our NADA, during the session the therapist

> asked us if we knew what BPD was? We answered no. The therapist then

> opened her medical book and read the description of BPD, my sister

> and I both looked at each other and we knew at that moment that we

> were adult children of a BP. Our lives finally made sense.

>

> When I returned home I spent hours researching and reading about this

> new found information. When I took a break I felt compassion for the

> first time, I let go, I forgave, I no longer felt hate or anger.

>

> Part of this healing for me is to have compassion for the individuals

> that suffer and will never be able to truly be alive. For the first

> time in my life I feel alive!

>

> For all of you that are still living with your loved ones that have

> this disorder, for all of you that are still in hostage with your

> loved ones I ask you to consider compassion and letting go. We do not

> have to suffer any longer. We owe it to ourselves to release

> ourselves from all the pain. Now that we have awareness and tools and

> support groups we can understand this disorder and help make changes

> for the better, break the cycles!

>

> love and light,

> kali

>