Re: always sad

[Guest guest]

Hi justice, welcome to the Group.

Sounds like you have a hermit-type of borderline pd mom. They have emotional

dysregulation (the hallmark trait of bpd) plus avoidant personality disorder

traits as well. Their key issue is fearfulness; paralyzing fearfulness. And to

me, it sounds like your mother is also depressed. But she uses her fear of

everything and her depression to bind you to her, to make you feel responsible

for her, but its an inappropriate and misplaced feeling of responsibility.

I recommend that you start reading some of the excellent books available on bpd

and how a mother with bpd negatively impacts her children's normal emotional

development.

There are many good books out there now, but I personally recommend

" Understanding The Borderline Mother " , " Surviving the Borderline Parent " and

Randi Kreger's books. I also recommend checking out books about your right to

set boundaries (and how to do that) and books about co-dependency and how to

overcome it. Codependency is basically feeling responsible for other people's

feelings and well-being in an inappropriate way.

My bpd mom ( " nada " , for " not-a-mom " ) would treat me similarly to what you've

described your mother doing, when I was growing up.

My nada would frequently put herself down and dwell on her physical

imperfections. She wasn't pretty enough, she wasn't thin enough, her ears were

too big, her hair was too thin and fine, her eyes were too small, etc., etc.,

etc. Ad nauseum. Her criticisms were harsh and ugly, and then she'd look at

me and say something like, " ...and you're just like me. " Well, guess what?

That means that she'd just spent an hour insulting *me*, denigrating me,

humiliating and shaming me, and over things I had no control over (the texture

of my hair, the size of my eyes, etc.)

That is emotional abuse, dear.

Your mother was being very emotionally abusive to you, just in an indirect way.

That's called " passive aggressive " or " covert " abuse, when its indirect.

Anyway, welcome to the Group. We totally get the various bpd permutations of

negative behaviors. (we tend to refer to the subtypes of bpd described in

" Understanding The Borderline Mother " : The Waif, The Hermit, The Queen, and The

Witch) Its all bad, because even the self-loathing, indirect emotional abuse is

damaging to their children.

-Annie

>

> Hi -- I've recently joined this group and have been inspired by your honesty

and courage.

>

> At age 51, I'm dealing with the sensation of having wasted/lost/sacrificed

most of my life to the bottomless well of my BPD mother's sorrow. Unlike some of

the sadistic nadas described so horrifyingly here, my mother engaged in rages

and name-calling, of which I was often the object, but the chief subject of her

rages and loathing was and is herself. As an only child, with no insights

offered by my father, who was not a dishrag but distanced himself from all of

this, I saw my mother as a godly authority. And she was always sad. Always

always always always horrifically sad. She loathed herself. It's not just

clinical depression (about which I also did not know, as a child). It's active,

raging self-loathing.

>

> When your godly authority and only role model is wholly consumed with

self-loathing, it's catching. That's what you model yourself upon. She called

herself fat and ugly and stupid and did not call me those things, but if that's

your mother, and you come from your parents, then how (in a child's imaginings)

can you NOT be what she is: thus fat, ugly, and stupid. (She DID call me a slob

and a pig, even a " f***ing slob " and " f***ing pig, " but in those rages she would

wail that I was a f***ing slob and pig because SHE TOO was a f***ing slob and

pig and I took after her.

>

> The main thing she gave me was fear. She was afraid of everything and

everyplace and everyone. Sinister forces lurked in every possibility. Think

you're having fun? Think again (she would have said). Your partner might be

cheating on you, or you might have cancer.

>

> The point is that she manifested and continues to manifest the key BPD

behaviors to an amazing degree. Sadly, a therapist mentioned this to me over

twenty years ago, upon hearing my descriptions, but as my therapist was unable

to define BPD clearly for me and as the Internet did not yet exist to teach me

more, my youngish self did not pursue the subject. Bummer, because I suffered

all the BPD-kid stuff for another twenty-plus years until " rediscovering " the

term BPD this summer ... reading the books ... finding this site ... and feeling

like OMG, this explains EVERYTHING.

>

> But now what? I feel sorry for myself, but I feel sorry for her too. Some of

her suffering is her choice -- refusing to consider seeing a therapist, eating

decent food, seeing the bright side of anything ... but I know she can't help

it. She has BPD.

>

> I still feel so sorry for her. We talk on the phone once a week or so, and I

tell myself that she is where she is partly by choice. And I listen as she

recounts her misery. I always have. I try to remember that nothing I do could

alleviate her pain. She even tells me this -- that there is nothing I can do,

that she wishes she was dead and that nothing I can do or say would change this.

I realize that I'm still new at this role of BPD adult child, and don't want to

sacrifice more of my life on fear, self-loathing and sorrow ... and I know that

sympathy for her is another bottomless well. But I'm having trouble drawing

boundaries between safety and sympathy.

>