No Contact

[Guest guest]

I'm a new member to this group. I think my mother has borderline personality

disorder. I cut off contact with her about a year and a half ago, when I got

married. I hoped to shield my husband and my marriage from her, but it doesn't

seem to be working. I sort of feel like I'm falling apart all on my own.

My sister, who has bipolar disorder and has an ongoing relationship with our

mother, told me six months ago about this thing called borderline personality

disorder and told me that she thinks our mother has it. I didn't start reading

about it until a month ago and I've been an increasing wreck since then. I'm

horrified that this twisted routine of exploitation and abandonment was my

childhood. I'm horrified that I was raised by a mother who was emotionally and

physically abusive and it WAS that bad, it really was. This is why I've felt so

crippled my whole life. I kept wanting to think it wasn't.

My husband is concerned and supportive, but is incapable of giving me the

listening ear and sympathy I need. He tries to say things to make me feel better

or he looks for action items ( " Honey, what do you want to DO? " ) but when he does

that he makes me feel ashamed, like I need to be fixed immediately, like it's

not okay to just be in pain. I don't think he understands that we are just at

the beginning here and this will take the rest of my life to work through.

My therapist is great, but I don't understand why she didn't identify this

disorder for me sooner. I've been seeing her for 16 years. She's being very

supportive of my current education about borderline personality disorder, but I

guess she just never connected the dots about my mother's problem before. I feel

so stupid and slow. I'm 43 and I'm just now figuring this out. I WISH I had had

this information YEARS ago. No wonder I couldn't get married until a year and a

half ago.

I don't have any friends I can talk to about this. I feel very alone.

G