A Piece of Her

My mother’s recipe book sits on top of the frig. I don’t use it much; the pages are stained and the book is very close to falling apart. When I flip thru the pages I can see mom’s check mark next to a particularly good recipe. Mom was very picky so the checks are few and far between.
It’s difficult not to cry even as I write this because of the emotions that book holds. I knew I had to have it when dad was getting rid of it yet I only open it occasionally. My mother took such pride in her cooking. It wasn’t just the making of a meal to her. I understand now that it was one of the few tangible ways that she showed she cared. While I may not have cared if she made fancy food or not, to her a difficult recipe that she mastered then shared with us was an offering. It was a statement about her that she would put in the time for dishes most mothers would never touch. I truly believe at this point that to her that effort was meant to convey the effort she thought she had put into loving us.
I always cringed when she took me grocery shopping for a special occasion meal. It was not unusual to have a $400 grocery bill of things we would only use once. Certain Sherries or vinegars, a particular kind of Caesar dressing for her broccoli salad. It all came together when mom took charge. I admit I resented, and still do, the way I was made to be her scullery maid. I don’t have fond memories of cooking with her. In fact, I dreaded the whole miserable experience. While the smell of sauteing onion and celery can make my mouth water with thoughts of foods I will never have again, that same smell triggers noxious fumes of anxiety that have the power to transport me back to my childhood.
Mom’s perfectionism came from her need to control an internal self that was in chaos. I know that now. Back then I only knew that special occasion dinners meant tears, threats, mom and dad fighting (again) about the way mom spent money, and an utter exhaustion that took a few days for my psyche to work thru. I’ve never known anyone since that cooks with the concentration yet artistry that mom does. I know it’s normal for kids to love their parents cooking but…….take my word on this-the woman is an artist. Her food wasn’t just good; you could taste her talent and her soul with every bite you took. She put her all into food not realizing that while the gesture was innocent on the surface beneath it her children were starving for a kind of food we would never get.
Eventually I got to be ok cooking with mom. After so many years I was used to the tenseness of the house as the day approached. Perfect, it had to be perfect. I knew the bombs would go off at some point and trying to prepare for it was just stupid. They always came from nowhere. The best you could do was admit that yes, you never listened, yes, you realized this was important and that you were screwing it all up for EVERYONE, and no, I didn’t think the world revolved around me. Sharp words said in an even sharper tone. Honestly, many times I wished she would just hit me and get it over with. But no, she would never be abusive like her father.
The look on mom’s face when it all came together almost made the tears she produced thru my eyes worth it all. Her smile of contentment, of satisfaction, was seen so rarely we tried to capture it so it would stay a bit longer. It always slipped thru our net and returned infrequently, like a butterfly that only comes out just before the rain. You can stay outside in the rain and try to catch it while getting drenched in the process or make your best effort then hightail it inside to wait for another chance.
More and more family members are asking me for mom’s special way of doing things-the special ingredient, the little known technique and so forth. They ask me. Me. I resisted it at first, lying and saying I didn’t know. Gradually I realized that while mom terrorized me on those occasions she also gave me such a gift. I admit to one thing tho-the techniques I keep just for me. I will make rosettes or other things but I will not share the recipe or how I get them to turn out just so. That is my gift from her that I choose to keep for myself. These small things are a piece of her that I had thought didn’t exist. Yes, she was abusive. Yes, she was an emotional terrorist yet she taught me thru the only means she had to take a chance (she thrived on new recipes, the more difficult the better), to not skimp on important things (spend the extra $$ to get the good cheese), to put your best foot forward (making her tried and true dishes when having people over for the first time), and that anything can be salvaged if you are willing to try (like a fallen dessert soufflé served under ice cream-my own creation!).
The book continues to sit on the frig, collecting dust. I continue on with a life of my own making, keeping in mind to make sure the gestures of love I extend are gestures that are understood and are appropriate for the person/occasion. For the most part I embrace the new recipes of life, although a few have not turned out. They have, however, forced me to creatively salvage them resulting in creations I never dreamed possible in my life.

Daddy's Girl

There are those who tell me that I idolize/idealize my father. To a certain extent that’s true. I acknowledge that my dad made some major mistakes, contributed to the abuse I and my sibs suffered, and was generally an ostrich-like doormat for many years.

The honest truth is that my dad is the thread I refuse to pull. Even for an emotional excavator like me that is one emotional gamble I can not and will not take. My dad, in all his peace making mess, was all I had for a long, long time. I could depend on dad to turn his back when my mom was at her worst. He would explain away her nastiness and encourage me to try to get along.

As much as he tuned out he subconsciously knew the score. I don’t know when I realized that he had given up and was just biding his time. Maybe it was when I was a little girl and would kiss him 4, 5, or 6 times before he left for work. I would hug him tight and try not to cry as he drove away. The thought that my dad might one day not come back terrified me. I could sense weariness in him that hadn’t been there before. His eyes were heavy lidded with stress and exhaustion in every form. If I as a child could dream of nothing more than leaving, then what about my dad, who had the real means to leave?

Or maybe it was when I was hospitalized as a child and he would minimize the harshness of my mother’s parenting. I was falling apart and he gave in again and again to her declarations of my inherent wrongness. I saw relief on his face when I stopped fighting the shrinks and social workers. I accepted the ruling of Judge Luna C and was adjudicated with no chance for appeal, no settlement, and made to pay damages in the form of accepting the mark of being the "bad child."

For all this, I love my dad far more than I can tell you. He screwed up, yes. People ask me why I cut my mom out of my life when my dad is also responsible for what I suffered. Believe me, we’ve had it out. Screaming, crying, and nasty words have all been said by me. He’s had some not so kind words for me, too. But you know what? He took that….he took the anger, the rage I had at being the scapegoat for so long. He started doing this when he and my mom divorced. It was almost like he came out of a fog. Things that he had previously not noticed he now questioned. Abuse my sister suffered. Physical altercations between mom and I. Things that we knew not to tell him because he would look the other way.

My mom can give you a very eloquent verbal apology. She can even act the part with tears at the right moment. She’ll spin you and weave you in a tapestry of all the words you want to hear. What she can’t do is follow through with actions. As sorry as mom might be at that exact moment, and she will tell she is, she can’t comprehend why you are angry with her when she turns around and does the exact same things hurtful things again and again, hurting you in the same manner she just apologized for. To her, an apology means a free pass. It never happened, the slate is clean. She can say the words; it’s the meaning that forever eludes her.

My dad sucks at words. He has a hard time just saying “I’m sorry.” He gives reasons for what he did; partially, I think, to make himself feel better for having screwed up and also to try and show that he understands why you are angry. More than the words though, my dad backs it up. He will go out of his way for his kids so we know that he hears us after burying his head for so long.

Someone reading this who hasn’t dealt with BPD may wonder I am so in awe of my dad making sure that I know he is sorry for what happened. It’s something you have to live thru to fully comprehend. The Land of Oz (where children of Borderlines reside) is the land of smoke and mirrors where illusion is reality and reality is illusion. A child such as myself and my siblings straddle the worlds of illusion and reality. We know we live in the illusion. We know we exist outside of reality, too. But what can a kid do except go with the flow and live the illusion, hoping to some day live in the land of reality?

My dad gives me that reality. Faults and all, he is a part of my reality. He gave me that reality when he took my calls in the middle of night when I wasn’t sure I could do this whole life thing any longer. He’s there for a ride when my car breaks down. He tells me to shut the hell up when my ego gets the best of me, and he puts me back on track I am scared that I won’t be able to handle the wonderful opportunities life is now throwing at me. He’s there for me in all the glory of his faults and the shadow of the abuse that hangs over our family. He’s the knot that held me together when I couldn’t see the yarn for the rug. I don’t like how he did it yet he did it when no one else would, and for that I will always be grateful.

The Stages

Stage 1

Rescue-the stage most of start at/are born into. When born into the rescue mode a shadow child is taught early that if they are just more of this, less of that, than their mi parent will finally stop the madness. We are put into the role of God, actually. Talk about a heavy burden! Some of us are slowly indoctrinated into the role after a parent’s divorce or the death of their spouse. We spend inordinate amounts of time trying to rescue our parent after their repeated suicide attempts, being fired, another relationship breaking up, etc. We fully believe that THIS time will be the end, THIS time our parent will get help and stick with it, and that THIS time they will see the lengths we will go to in order to prove how much we love them.

Stage 2

Anger-After repeated crazy making many of us get good and angry. We are angry that our own lives have been put on hold while we attempt to help our parent put their life back together again…..and again……and again. The anger starts slowly, simmering like a stew until it is hot and thick. It’s able to coat everything, even the parts of our lives that have nothing to do with our ill parent. Our anger can’t be shown to our parent. The capacity to put themselves in our shoes just isn’t there, especially if your parent has a personality disorder. So we boil over and make a mess of everything else.

Stage 3

Indifference-At this stage we decide what will be will be. Our tanks are empty, the lady at Target thinks we have some sort of Kleenex fetish, and we just don’t care. Let them die, let them be committed. We wash our hands of it.

Stage 4

Guilt-I struggled with this one for a long time. It was more than trying to rescue mom. I felt bad as a human being when I walked away from someone that was obviously in great pain and turmoil. I constantly asked myself how I could live with myself if mom actually did kill herself. Eventually the guilt becomes overwhelming and we start back at Stage 1.

Stage 5

Knowledge-Some of us never learn that our parent is mi. For those of us that are fortunate to learn this, knowledge becomes the turning point. We begin to realize our parent is ill, that we really aren’t the cause of their unhappiness nor are we responsible for making it go away. Knowledge is the key. Knowledge teaches us boundaries, it teaches us to forgive ourselves, and it opens our eyes to what we missed out on.

Stage 6

Grief-The knowledge of what we missed as children usually hits a person like a ton of bricks. The fact is, because most if not all of us spent so much time pretending (but not believing) that everything was OK, the initial unveiling of what we went thru is extremely traumatic. When the blinders are finally off the feelings of grief can be overwhelming. We are forced to see things for what they really are-screwy, often times abusive, and tragic. It’s a Lifetime movie and it’s our life.

Stage 7

Rebuilding-Rebuilding was and is to me the most exhilarating yet terrifying experience. Suddenly I had the knowledge that I was OK and that I had the brains to pick out something as simple as a bedspread. I had never done that before and it took me a year to find “the right one” but I did it. I felt a thrill when I bought a pink lipstick and completely bypassed the brown shades I had been told were the only shades for me. I cried when my husband and I bought our first grown up piece of furniture a month ago. I’ve gone back to school, I’ve repaired my relationship with friends I let go, and I’ve gotten rid of the right friends I believed I had to have.

Rebuilding is a heady experience. In some ways we go thru the stages of childhood at warp speed. Suddenly intoxicated with being able to have things our way, we can be a bit insufferable. The teenage years most kids use to find who they are arrive on our doorstep when most of us are in our mid 20’s and on up. We may look immature to those who don’t know us and in a lot of ways we are. Trying to go thru the stage of defining yourself at the point most people settle down is a bit of a juggle yet it can be done. It has to be done.

Stage 8

Acceptance-This doesn’t mean we accept our parent’s continued abuse or manipulations, It means we accept they are ill. We accept that we can’t save them. We accept that to want help is one thing but that to accept is quite another. For many of us we accept that our parent may quite possibly never be well. It’s acceptance and a little bit of self forgiveness when we can detach from the tantrums and tears without rushing in to “help.”

Stage 9

Happiness-Arriving at happiness doesn’t mean Glenda waved her wand and all our problems are solved. Our happiness comes from the fact that we know we are survivors. That simple fact, that we survived and are not the cause of our parent’s misery, is priceless. Bad days will happen, hard times never go away but…..we have the knowledge that we can go on. We have gone on. We will go on. Come what may it’s all up to us and we know we can handle it. Our life is our own. We can walk away from the chaos without guilt or anger and finally put our happiness first after a lifetime of making it ride backseat to our parent.

Myths & Facts About Children of the Mentally Ill

I learned of a new group advocating for the mentally ill. It is called "What a difference." I visited the website and I have to say I like how they humanize mental illness. So many people believe that mental illness is either hopeless or a character flaw. Why, I don't know. We don't punish people with diabetes or cancer yet we punish the mentally ill? But, that is another entry.

What struck me as I read the website was that nothing really exists on how friends can help a child (adult or a minor) cope with a mentally ill parent. I have great friends that have a parent with BPD, schizophrenia, and depression. They are invaluable to me. Our shared experiences let me know that I am not alone, and that they too have moments of being angry. Angry at the abuse we go thru, angry at society's expectation that simply giving birth to a child means a mentally ill parent has some right to abuse me, and that I have no rights to not accept abuse.

The most important friendship I have is with a friend who does not have a mentally ill parent. She can't always say "I know what you are feeling/talking about," etc. She often disagrees with me. I treasure the simple words she says to me: "You don't deserve that." "Tell me more about that" "I believe in you"

It is so important that the children of the mentally ill are not forgotten. While this new ad campaign gives me hope that some day soon more attention will be paid to the children of the mentally ill progress is not being made fast enough. Too many of us are caught in a web of guilt, self recrimination, and despair. Too many of us, like myself, turn to drugs or booze or other self destructive behaviors because we don't have a support network of friends.

I believe a lot of that has to do with some commonly held, yet erroneous beliefs, about children of the mentally ill. Belief are a few situations I have encountered, and some words to think about.

Myth: All children of the mentally ill are mentally ill themselves.
Fact: Not even close to being true. Some of us develop a mental illness. Some don't. Simply having a mentally ill parent doesn't mean it's ok to write my feelings or emotions off. It frustrates me to no end when people who know my mom is mentally ill write my bad days off because "you know her mom is mentally ill and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." We are all crabby at times. All of us have times of wanting to just stay home and have alone time. Yet, when I am crabby or just want to stay home I am being "difficult like my mother" or "trying to isolate like my mother."

Myth: A mentally ill parent needs their children in order to recover
Fact: Recovery from mental illness happens when the person suffering wants to recover. I hate it when I read about people commenting on Brittany Spears and how she "needs her children." When did it become OK for an unstable adult to put a child thru trauma simply because they "need" their child? What about what the child needs-stability, predictability, safety. Again, we are sacrificing the child's well being in order to placate the ill parent. I don't know Ms. Spears and I don't mean to mock her, honestly. What I want people to understand is that a child is not a therapeutic tool or a carrot to hold in front of mi parent in order to get them into recovery or to make them behave.

Myth: It is the duty of anyone with a mentally ill parent to take care of their parent.
Fact: Nope. Not even close. In the same way that Al Anon advocates taking care of you first, children of the mentally ill must do the same. This may mean not being available for every crisis. It may mean a parent has to find an alternate means of transportation to appointments. It doesn't mean we love our mi parent any less. It means that I didn't cause my parents mental illness, I can't cure it, and I can't control it. It means that in order to recover, a mi parent must take their recovery into their own hands. It means that asking a child of a mi parent to sacrifice their own life is asking too much.

Parental Alienation II/Rebuttal to Anonymous

I have obviously hit a nerve with my blog entry about Parental Alienation and my mother with BPD. I received the below comment today and would like to respond. For the full comment plz read the entry entitled "The Words for the Day Are......Parental Alienation." Here are some highlights:

What's unnerving about reading this is that it reminds me of a friend who was eventually Dx'd with Borderline Personality Disorder herself, but before that point, she'd often described her own mother and upbringing in similar terms (e.g. "Mommy Hitler") to what the author describes here. Please consider that if she had it, you may have it too, so get yourself evaluated if you haven't already.

How much of what my friend -- and perhaps this article's author -- "remember" of their mothers' abusive behavior may actually be their own BPD-influenced exaggeration of the fact, perhaps amplifying behaviour that was already warped in actuality by the mother's own BPD to begin with? The circle gets ever more vicious when BPD runs in the family...

July 9, 2008 6:39 PM

Yep, the circle gets very vicious when BPD runs in the family. The circle stays round when people like the above poster sink to the lowest common denominator and rather than engaging in meaningful conversation or debate they would rather dismiss a persons pain because of a bad experience in their own life. Sorry, honey but I’m not your friend. To paint everyone with the BPD paintbrush because of your own issues is perilously close to black and white thinking-a hall mark of BPD.

Do I have issues? You bet. Do I have BPD? No, I don’t. Take my word or not, I don’t care. Mayo Clinic says I’m cool and they don’t screw around. This blog didn’t get any attention until I wrote about PA. Now it’s getting comments left and right. People don’t like hearing about PA. It goes against every more our society teaches us; that parents don’t abuse; parents always put their children’s interests above their own, etc. Who wants to believe that a parent would willfully and willingly ruin the relationship their child has with the other parent? It’s better to shoot the messenger, right?

When you add BPD and PA together you have a powder keg. Some people try to defuse the powder keg by getting involved in awareness efforts for PA and BPD. Others like to sit back and point fingers, call names, and generally muddy the waters because of their own insecurities and/or issues. Hey, the worlds big enough for both of us.

I have to ask the poster a few questions tho-why go straight to flinging accusations? What’s with the insinuations? Ask any me any question you want but I have to say your comments read like a school girl whose crush didn’t give her a Valentine. You got burned and can’t get a resolution so you come here to stir up trouble.

And what the hell is with this “anonymous” crap? I don’t use my real name, true but come on-anonymous? Are you that high on your horse that you can’t think of a handle?

.........but I was a beautiful baby!!!!

A few years ago I asked my mom if she & my dad had actually wanted me or was I an accident. It was an honest question, I feel. She made it clear from the time I was a kid that I was not at all the dtr she had expected to get. You know those long return lines all the stores have after Christmas? If that had existed for me she would have waited for however long it took. Take a number to return your infant of disappoint and we’ll call you as soon as we can………. After all, I wasn’t a robot, I told her “no” which is still my favorite word, and I was fat and insecure. I definitely was not the trophy dtr she wanted.

I asked her this in an e mail-“Was I wanted?” and she writes back that yes, of course she and dad wanted and planned me. Ok, that’s great. I feel better. Thanks, mom, for doing one decent thing for me.

But no…..the e mail continued on about how when I was born all the nurses showed me off to the other moms and told them how beautiful I was. Evidently they also told people to go see the Jones baby in Room 101; you’ll never see a more beautiful little girl. On and on she went, about how beautiful I was. She said nothing else about me. It was all about how beautiful I was and how the nurses showed me off.

My mother values beauty almost as much as she values money. It’s as if she really did think that if she presented 3 beautifully dressed, good looking kids it would mean she was beautiful and good looking. If her children were deemed OK and accepted by society it meant she was OK, right? Right?! It’s sad if you think about it. My mom was so miserable about herself and felt so out of control that she manipulated her children into being representations of what she wanted to be.

So yes, some days I struggle with self worth. I grew up thinking that any time I stepped out of the house I had to have my hair and make up done to mom’s version of perfection. Shirt tucked in and accessorized with a belt, match the shoes to the belt, etc. She was so angry when I started to rebel. I laughed. I was an adult and if I wanted to sleep another 30 mins and not do my make up and put my hair in a pony so frakking what? WHO CARES? For a long time I went in the complete opposite direction of how I was raised. No make up, T shirts and jeans, etc. I had to get that distance in order to find what I liked, what I preferred, how I wanted to present myself to the world.

I like bright colors and look damn good in them. I hate brown lipstick. I get my eyebrows waxed and am very picky about who does them & how. I won’t let anyone new near them in order to save a few bucks. I have 4 pairs of black boots and no heels. My earrings are sometimes big and dangly, at times a little slutty but all in good taste.

I refuse to buy coordinating pieces just because the mannequin looks good in them. I don’t care what the trend is, I wear what I look good in. I like low cut tops (so does my husband!). I look like a 21 year old college student who is nowhere near 30, not the 60 year old real estate agent she tried to dress me as.

I may have been a beautiful baby then but I’m a beautiful babe now!

My Dad, My Hero

I could always see when mom was going off the rails. Most kids can even before the other parent notices. Mom’s eyes would become vacant and stare back at me. There was no depth there, everything was reflected back. Anything set her off. After this stage came the sleeping stage. I have never figured out why my dad let mom stay in bed for weeks at a time and think that he could make it better.

HELLO! Your wife and kids mother hasn’t left the bedroom in days. She isn’t getting better! Your middle dtr skips school to stay home and take care of her toddler sister. But hey, your wife is just depressed. It will pass. Be quiet for mom and let her rest.

Oh daddy…..I know you tried to do the right thing.

I love my dad a lot, as previous posts show. When I ask he can’t tell me why he didn’t act sooner. My dad isn’t responsible for my mother’s actions, I know. I have forgiven my dad for not knowing what to do because you know what? He was hurt, too. From my own experience the spouse of someone with a pd goes through hell along with their ill spouse. Some describe it as being a frog in a pot. Slowly the temp is turned up until it’s too late and you’re about to be cooked. That can mean different things for different people.

It meant divorce for my parents, thank you God! Almost 30 years of madness is quite enough. Those 30 years took a lot out of my dad. He trusted the docs to give him sound advice about how to support his wife and my mother. The advice they gave him was to be more supportive, help out more, etc. No one paid attention to the toll it was taking on my dad. I don’t understand how these professionals can honestly think a marriage is so one sided. My mom complained, and I saw this with my own eyes on more than one occasion in family T, and the therapist jumped to attention. How could we as a family help mom? What are some better ways to show mom we respect her? Oh please, that woman didn’t want respect she wanted blind, total, robotic obedience. What could we do to show her that we love her? No thought was given as to what part mom had to play in any situation..

I would ride home from those sessions wondering how the hell mom snowed these people. I mean seriously look at the odds. My mother had 100% odds that she would never have to take responsibility for her actions. Too bad she wasn’t a horse, eh?

In the midst of that was my dad. Trying so hard to be everything to everyone almost wore him out. My dad, the guy who took off halfway across the US as a 20something. He built silos, did welding, etc. My dad, who has dyslexia, yet got his pilots license after hard work. This is the guy who worked almost 100 hours a week when I was kid. He hated his job. He did it for us. He believed and believes in the Midwest credo-work hard, always give 100% and you can’t go wrong. My dad gave up so much for me and my siblings.

Sometimes when I see the little he is left with, I see red. I want to give him those 30 years back. My dad was ripped off by the mental health professionals he trusted so much. He was ripped off my a system that teaches its students how to not face the consequences of their actions. I don’t care about $$$ or things like that, if I had 3 wishes one of them would be to send dad back in time with the knowledge to stay away from his ex wife. I’d stay and watch for a while, trying to see the man I only hear about once in a while. I’d watch him to see if he always had tired eyes. Was his forehead always that lined? What did he do for fun?

So I tell you this-if you think the only casualties of BPD are the children you are dead wrong. The spouse of a personality disordered individual shoulders a heavy burden. It’s a burden they hide and hide well but it’s there. It’s time the mental health community started sharing part of this burden rather than creating a heavier load.

The Words for Today are.......Parental Alienation

Had my parents divorced when I was a kid I honestly couldn’t you tell who I would have preferred to live with. More than likely some “educated” judge well versed in domestic violence propaganda, oops I mean literature, would have awarded mom custody. I hate to say it but I wouldn’t have fought it.

My dad was, is and always will be the only parent I have. I know that now. I have one parent and one prison camp director that raised me. As much as I loved my dad, as a child I wanted the prison director to love me, too. Mom made it clear that she had no time for any of her children if we dared to refuse or refute her nasty comments about her husband, her children’s father. Mom was subtle with her parent alienation. She didn’t come right out and say she thought dad was an idiot. I have now learned as an adult that my mom encouraged my dad to take a job with evening hours. It was a promotion and she told dad that he deserved it so he should take it. She then turned around to lament to her children how awful it was that our dad refused to get day hours so he could spend more time with us. She would say that dad “just didn’t think about his kids.” She also hated any attention dad paid to his dtrs. A hug or a compliment from dad was termed “sick. According to her, normal fathers don’t hug their dtrs and this was a message she pounded home daily. She taught me that hugs from my father were bad and shameful so I started to refuse them.

The way my mother used to talk about my father upset me quite a bit. I know now that what she was engaging in is called Parental Alienation. What I and my sibs went thru is nothing compared to what other kids go thru, I know. However, it’s unsettling nonetheless. I see so many kids living with a Borderline parent that engages in Parental Alienation. These kids are caught in a dangerous spot. They must side with their alienating parent or face utter annihilation. To show any love or affection to the other parent means punishment.

Unfortunately, as kids we don’t have the words to tell the other parent “I’m doing what I have to do in order to survive.” Eventually we get to the point where we repeat the lies from the alienating parent. We are worn down. As we repeat the lies we begin to believe them. Reality is dictated by a child’s parent, and when that reality is a custodial parent telling us what an SOB the other parent is we start to believe it. Honestly, I know it’s hard for other dads to hear but we have no choice. As I stated above, we do what we have to do so we can survive.

I was secure in the love my daddy had for me. I knew that my dad would never leave me. My mother, however, made it known that her love for me was conditional. Sad to say, I sided with mom time and again, and most often in matters I had no business knowing. I felt I had to show my allegiance to my mother in order to keep the peace which lead to what I thought was her love for me. I was a dog begging for emotional scraps. In the same way you train a dog with treats, an alienating parent trains their child with the most potent of “treats”-praise, affection, and some insane charade that they tell us is love. As a kid, and even as an adult for the short time she declared all out war on dad, I just wanted her acceptance. I wanted peace. I wanted her to shut the hell up. The easiest way was to nod and play along. At that point in time fighting back risked too much for me. I didn’t want to lose whatever scraps mom threw my way.

Even today I see the affects of mom’s distortion campaign. I try to take over whatever it is dad is doing because he doesn’t know how to do anything (according to mom). I dismiss any thought or emotion he has-“your father just can’t communicate” said mom. “He’s cold and uncaring.”

Well, actually he isn’t. I’ve worked very hard on the above bad habits. Dad and I are now closer than ever and he now has no fear in telling me to shut the hell up or to quit taking over whatever it is I am taking over. He says these things with love and with firmness. He says them as a dad. Dad kept quiet for so long; afraid of what would happen should he point out the obvious-that his kids were being brainwashed by a seriously mentally ill mother. My dad deserves a medal. I don’t know how he kept going all these years, taking the undeserved crap his kids dished out. He never gave up on us; he was always there, no matter what. Mom walked out when her kids refused to continue being her robots.

I don’t know how he withstood it for so long or how he knew when the time was right to point out the flaws in the logic I parroted from my mother. I can’t fathom how he lasted so long being married to someone who tried to turn his kids against him. What I do know is that I will always and forever take my dad’s real, quiet, constant unconditional love over my mother’s grandiose, self absorbed version of love.

Top 10

It’s an interesting way to live when your parent has a personality disorder. You really are living on the border; the border between being a kid and an adult, between loving and despising your parent, between wanting them to just finish the job and commit suicide and being ready to give anything for their recovery. I understand that people mean well and try to support us yet below are a few of things that I (and my unchosen friends) find the most offensive.

1. “Your parent loved you the best they could.” If the way my mother loved me was the best she could do and that’s cool with you, I feel bad for your kids.

2. “You’ll regret it if you go No Contact with them.” Actually, no I don’t & no I won’t. I regret that it took me so long and that I had to humiliate myself in so many ways before I understood that contrary to what mom said, she had no desire to get better.

3. “It’s time to forgive and forget, your mom/dad has said they are sorry, what more do you want?” I want an honest apology, actually. I want an apology where she doesn’t look at her damn audience to see if she has them believing her theatrics. I want an apology that doesn’t focus on how she feels about abusing me.

4. “It’s time to grow up and realize your mom/dad needs your support.” And while we do this, who, pray tell, will support us thru dozens of trips to the ER, calls to psychiatrists in the middle of the night, hold our hand or hold us when we see our parent close to death in ICU? What, not you? You’re too busy? Go figure.

5. “That’s just the way s/he is.” Ok, so s/he gets the freedom to be who s/he wants to be and I don’t? I have no freedom to be me and say enough is enough? Well guess what- wanting my own life and an end to the insanity is just me being me. Deal with it.

6. “S/he doesn’t know what s/he is doing.” Oh s/he knows. That right there is bullsh*t. I know my mother has periods of disassociating that leave her memory wiped yet she always had/has the foresight to have a back up story. She may not remember the details but she remembers enough to know she needs/needed to cover her a$$.

7. “Why can’t you just get along with your mom/dad?” Because it’s impossible to get along with a tiger when all they see in you is dinner.

8. “It’s an illness.” Yes, I know. When I’m ill I go to the doctor, follow instructions, and take any meds as prescribed. My borderline parent, on the other hand, goes to doctor after doctor, looking for the one that tells her she can blame someone else for her illness.

9. “You’re so angry sometimes.” Gee, ya think? Really, does it show that much?

10. “Can’t you let it go?” Allow me to translate this from coward into the English language. Anyone who says the above is really saying “can’t you turn a blind eye like me so I don’t feel uncomfortable?”

Do You Dream of Me?

One of my fav songs by Michael W. Smith is “Do you Dream of Me.” One of the lines is “you know you hold my heart and always will.” As I count down the days to turning 30 I find myself missing my mom more and more. Not the sadistic, abusive mom I had for so many years. I miss the mom I had for a few short months, the mom I successfully went shopping with. She didn’t criticize, she didn’t throw clothes over the door with an order to try it on, it will look different when you have it on. No more drill sergeant! I loved it. She let me be me. She patiently listened to the convoluted plot lines of my fav Farscape episodes, she laughed at my attempts to decorate, and we talked for hours on the phone. It was nothing terribly important that we talked about, but to have the ability to do what so many of my girlfriends could do was and is a treasured memory.

She was so much fun for the short time I had her. We would watch the Independent Movie channel; she let me watch The Apprentice every Thursday night at her place. We switched off who bought dinner and when it was her turn, and I KNEW she really didn’t have the $$$ she still wouldn’t let me pay.

Sometimes I wish I had never had those few months. It’s a cruel twist of fate that right before the awful end I had to have the best of times with her. I didn’t want to see it when she started to crack again. I tried to hold on to her for as long as I could. I made excuses like it was the new meds (of which the woman had many), the divorce from my dad was taking a toll on her, etc.

God and I have had many yelling matches about the screwy final months I had with mom. A bit of advice here-it’s really not a good idea to yell at the sky, even if you are in a state park. The Rangers tend to rush you off because of fake bear sightings and adults tell their kids not to go near the crazy lady at Whitewater Beach. I trust His plan but don’t always agree with it. I have told the Big Guy that this better play out later in life, I had better understand why this had to happen the way it did or He and I would be having the Big Talk when I got to His place.

In the 2 years that I have been no contact with mom so many good things, so many blessings, have come into my life. The sad fact is a lot of those things would not have happened, or I wouldn’t know they were there, if I had continued contact with her. We both lost so much.

I wonder if she knows-

* that going NC was the worst and best thing I have ever done

*that I did it as much for her as for me

*as I walked away I had to fight not to look back. I could hear her sobbing so hard we honestly thought she was going into a massive panic attack or was going to give herself a heart attack

*the sick feeling I had when we drove away, knowing that she now had no
one in her life that knew her whole history. She had no informed advocate
and for a while she would be at the mercy of a system that itself was dysfunctional.

To quote some more from the MWS song“Give It Away:”

…. love isn't love
'Til you give it away
You gotta give it away

As we live
Moving side by side
May we learn to give
Learn to sacrifice

I gave the love I could and I gave it freely. My mother gave what she had to give and we both sacrificed for it. Someday, somehow I hope it is enough.

The hardest part of love is letting go/but there’s a greater love that holds us/pray for me……and I know that one day love will bring us back around.

Yes, the above is from MWS; it’s “Pray for Me.”

And this guy helps to run the country!!!!

I can't seem to get a link on here, so if you care at all about abused kids, go to youTube and look up "James Fagan." Watch his diatribe about "ripping apart" survivors of child sexual abuse.

Then tell me with a straight face that our country is run by people who are educated and compassionate.

Why I hate "To Catch a Predator"

I really, really dislike Dateline's segment To Catch a Predator. First of all, it's bullsh*t. People go to sleep all happy after watching the show, secure in the knowledge that the bad guys have been caught. Well, actually they aren't. The truth is, most survivors of childhood sexual assault were abused by someone they know. It was either a relative, family friend, etc-not a stranger as Dateline portrays.
As a survivor myself I find it frustrating to watch this show. Everything is wrapped up nice and neat in an hour or so. Dateline never explores the real issues surrounding the aftermath of child sex abuse. They won't do a segment on the survivor community because they know what they would show, our drug addictions, our failed marriages, the way we abuse ourselves, would not make for good TV. I have had more than one person me "It's all about ratings baby. Don't take it personally!!!" Arseholes........I can tell you what to do with the Nielsen ratings if you lean in real close, OK? C'mere........
I see this a lot in volunteer work I do. Many parents still, in 2008, will not get help for their child that has been abused. The parent themselves are ashamed/embarrassed/horrified at their inability to protect their child. So they lock it away. They pretend as if it didn't happen, as if their child wasn't hurt, as if their child will forget what happened.

We never forget.

As we watch our parent shut down and refuse to discuss the topic it reinforces what our abuser did to us. If our parent won't talk about it, then we must have done something wrong, right? When we watch tv and see Dell the decoy being rescued it plays a # on us. Why are these children helped? Did we do something wrong, is that why we are left alone as a child to deal with this? I honestly thought that, btw. I really did think that without knowing it I had done something so awful no one wanted to help me. Talk about re victimization!! Since our abuser was family or a friend, does that make it OK? If it's OK then why won't our parent talk about? But it's not OK, we are taught that in school. We do the right thing, tell our parents about "bad touch" and.................nothing happens. What did we do wrong? These are some of the questions we ask ourselves.
To Catch a Predator also gives a false sense of security. When the majority of what you see on TV shows stranger rape/sexual abuse society starts to believe it. I truly believe that is why the plague of child sex abuse is exploding across the world right now. Our culture has refused to acknowledge child sex abuse for too long and now we are paying the price.
My own extended, maternal family will not talk about my cousin the abuser. They know he did it and yet I am the one they turn their anger on. Why can't I just forgive and forget? Why do I make an issue out of it, the incident(s) were so long ago? The child as a scapegoat is disgusting to me. Not one of these people has EVER reached out to me. When I found out a year ago my mother had told these people a few years earlier about the abuse, I had a hard time. I still to this day do not understand how you can learn that someone you loved or professed to love was abused and not reach out to them. My dad tells me that these people are probably uncomfortable and while this is probably true, their inability to see past themselves destroyed any respect I had for them.
So much can be healed with being open and acknowledging a person's abuse. You may not always know what to say, but believe me when I tell you that a smile, a hug, or a "let me know what I can do to help" does more than you will ever know.

The call of cocaine

The first time I tried cocaine I found heaven. All the noise in my head, the words I heard from my mom about how stupid and worthless I was, the reprimands from teachers who told me to get with the program yet wouldn’t listen when I tried to tell them the hell I lived in, all that went away. The hole in my heart and soul was filled. I felt beautiful, smart, and capable. These are the things the abusers in my life took away.

Man, I had found my Atlantis and I grabbed onto it for all I was worth. I spent so many weekends higher than a damn kite. Can you blame me? To me this was a magic elixir. To this day, especially as I am writing this, I remember what that first rush of doing a line was like. All my circuits lit up. My brain was on fire; I loved it! And then….when it first hits your muscles and you sink into the chair, letting all the tension you didn’t even know was there seep out onto the floor. I used to imagine all that crap, the hurt and anger, the feelings of being a constant outsider, as a dark sludge that formed a puddle on the floor.

When the effect wore off the sludge would slowly creep back into me. That pissed me off. I wanted all that crap gone! I didn’t want it back, what the hell-get gone and stay gone, I wanted to tell it. Yeah, I wanted to talk to imaginary emotional sludge. I look back now and it’s so tragicomical to me-a pissed off coke head coming down, which makes you edgy anyway. I was an anger cocktail looking for someone to drink me. I would look for a target to direct my rage at, because I noticed real quick I had to ration out the snow. Even then my body wanted more and more. It was never satisfied with a few lines at a party or before going out. Oh no, my brain chemistry was already so corroded at that point I needed 2-3 times what my friends were doing. I realized that I went thru a bag twice as fast as the others. I can’t say that scared me…..it annoyed me more than anything. That stuff is expensive and I didn’t have a lot of money. That was my annoyance-that it cost so much. Not that I was on the edge of falling into the hardcore abyss of addiction or was cruising for an assault charge if I kept my use up. Nah, I was more angry at the thought of being cash strapped.

What began as a fun weekend treat started to creep into the work week. A rigid rule of using only on Friday and Saturday nights went out the window. I started using on Thursdays as soon as I could get my hands on the stuff. Then it was doing a few lines in the morning before going to work. I was using more and more to get the high I loved while I was coming down quicker and harder. I was the junkie that I had made fun only a few years ago. I had sworn I would never be that way. The kids in school told me I was a freak show, my mom made it clear I was nothing to her, and dad buried his head in work. Teachers wrote me off as a psychological loser. But hell no, I would not give them the satisfaction of being a user. Yet I did……..

Not one person ever looked at me, at the totality of my life, and put 2 and 2 together. They knew I had been sexually abused at the ages 4 and 9, that my mom was “off” and had been hospitalized more in a psych ward more than once when I was in elementary school. So many of them saw her in action and either thought she’d never act that way at home or figured if she did act that way at home they didn’t want to get involved. No telling what she’d do to them.

So they turned away because it was too hard for them, as adults, to deal with my mother. No one thought to ask what it did to me or my siblings. Where a mentally ill parent is concerned, the motto other adults live by is “don’t get involved.”

If they don’t ask they don’t have to tell, do they?

I’m not quite sure what gave me the idea it was a good idea to drink a fifth of raspberry flavored vodka AND to put a whole bag of cocaine (that normally lasted me a week) up my nose in one afternoon. I thought I was going to die…………on the one hand I was drunk and laughing my ass off, on the other hand my heart was pounding as if it was Barbaro crossing the finishing line. I was fucked up and fucked up good. I started to cry when I realized I could die.

I couldn’t sit still. The room was spinning. I was sweating all over the place, and kept repeating to myself that this would wear off, it had to wear off, dammit when would THIS WEAR OFF? I either passed out or fell asleep, I am not sure which. I fought sleep for hours, thinking I would die and not wake up. I said my prayers, “now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

God had better take my soul if I die before I wake, was a thought in my head before I blanked out. He owed me. I had withstood His plan for me in the best way I knew how and if it wasn’t good enough, if I hadn’t looked for help hard enough or in the right places, then that was His fault. A blind man can’t cross a street without help. Neither can a child raised with the insanity of a Borderline parent navigate life without some sort of guide dog/therapist or hell, even a friend.

I woke up and looked for the last of my bag. I am not proud of this but…..I cut it open and licked the last of the snow out. I knew I couldn’t keep using and had to quit. I wanted to get every last high I could while I able. Months later I found the mirror I had used for cutting and briefly entertained the idea of licking my finger and running it across the surface so I could pick up whatever was left. I windexed it instead, then threw it after that.

I still crave my fix every now and then. I try to fill the hole in my heart/soul with other things. I really work hard at that, yet every once in a while the urge comes back. I can see what I was, the street junkie trajectory I was on, and I won’t do that. Somewhere, somehow, I was able to get it thru my head that I AM worth more than that.

Some days that knowledge is all I have to hold onto. Maybe I am delusional, I don’t know. But I do know I would rather be delusional than to ever go back to that place I was in where I realized I was punishing myself for what I had no control over. I was abusing myself for what my abusers did to me. How ass backwards is that? I will keep my delusions, thanks.

That Old Time Validation

I watched a DVD on Friday ( big surprise for those that know me) that was made for the express purpose of educating the public about BPD and what the sufferer goes thru. I’m all for educating the public about what BPD is and isn’t. I love it that more treatments are becoming available; that someday, somehow this awful disorder will be treatable like diabetes.

What bothers me the most about these videos and the big name books, like Stop Walking on Eggshells or the DBT workbook, is how the non, in my case a child of a Borderline parent, is expected to validate their Borderline parents verbal abuse. We’re told in books that we need to validate what a person with BPD is feeling. They grew up lacking that validation and they need it, the experts say. Find something to validate, anything, that lets them know they are being heard. Validate validate validate! Say it like you mean it, dammit.

Sure, I’ll get right on that. Listen more to mom, lock away all the hurts she has inflicted on me. Must….validate……mom’s rages…………..check……must….lose myself……CHECK!

How’s this? “Oh mom I can see you are having a really hard time right now. It must be so frustrating to have a dtr that would do anything for you and yet I never get it right. I’m really proud of you for letting me know how you feel.” What the hell kind of treatment is that? Somehow the worse my mom treats me, the better she gets? Huh? People pay $$$ for this?

I won’t validate my mother when she is telling me what a bastard my father is (he isn’t, btw). I won’t validate her feelings as she verbally rips me to shreds. I won’t validate a person makes me stand at attention while she screams in my face. I won’t validate that. Why is it that I am expected to make nice about that?

What the hell kind of sense does it make to validate abuse? It makes no sense whatsoever for professionals to encourage a child (adult or minor) to validate that crap. That isn’t treatment, it’s promoting child abuse. For some reason it has become accepted that the children of Borderlines are no more than collateral damage. We’ve become expendable. It isn’t enough that we are taught from birth how we aren’t really a separate person from our parent but just tangible extensions of their emotions. No, the professionals themselves have now given us that added reinforcement of feeling less than human.

Why are the children of Borderline parents expected to be both their parent’s child and therapist? It’s not like we get bonus pay or extra TV privileges for doing both. We do learn how to delegate and how to become crackerjack hostage negotiators but last time I looked hostage negotiators aren’t in big demand. Especially is you are under 10. The HR people tend to get a little weird about someone under 18. Child labor laws and all that.

People who can delegate are in demand tho!. After a lifetime of managing a borderline parent I can delegate/manage so well that I have few friends yet a lot of human projects, if you catch my drift. Friends? Who needs friends! I’m my mothers bestest friend!

Say that on a playground when you’re 8 or 9 (or pay a kid to do it for you-I’ve found $20 works) and then watch what happens. Yep, you’re now the recess entertainment. Live action and all, baby. Just remember to duck.

So I say screw you to the people who tell me to validate my mother. In no way shape or form will I say it’s OK for her to verbally bash me. It’s not OK that I and other kids are taught to put our parents abusive needs before our own. Validation isn’t treatment, not at all. It might work in a therapeutic setting, sure, but otherwise it’s misguided at best and dangerous at worst to encourage people to abuse. How about we go back to the drawing board and get the priorities straight for once?

Children first and foremost. Treatments that take the responsibility out of a child’s hands and put it where it belongs-in the hands of the person with BPD.

I watched a DVD on Friday ( big surprise for those that know me) that was made for the express purpose of educating the public about BPD and what the sufferer goes thru. I’m all for educating the public about what BPD is and isn’t. I love it that more treatments are becoming available; that someday, somehow this awful disorder will be treatable like diabetes.

What bothers me the most about these videos and the big name books, like Stop Walking on Eggshells or the DBT workbook, is how the non, in my case a child of a Borderline parent, is expected to validate their Borderline parents verbal abuse. We’re told in books that we need to validate what a person with BPD is feeling. They grew up lacking that validation and they need it, the experts say. Find something to validate, anything, that lets them know they are being heard. Validate validate validate! Say it like you mean it, dammit.

Sure, I’ll get right on that. Listen more to mom, lock away all the hurts she has inflicted on me. Must….validate……mom’s rages…………..check……must….lose myself……CHECK!

How’s this? “Oh mom I can see you are having a really hard time right now. It must be so frustrating to have a dtr that would do anything for you and yet I never get it right. I’m really proud of you for letting me know how you feel.” What the hell kind of treatment is that? Somehow the worse my mom treats me, the better she gets? Huh? People pay $$$ for this?

I won’t validate my mother when she is telling me what a bastard my father is (he isn’t, btw). I won’t validate her feelings as she verbally rips me to shreds. I won’t validate a person makes me stand at attention while she screams in my face. I won’t validate that. Why is it that I am expected to make nice about that?

What the hell kind of sense does it make to validate abuse? It makes no sense whatsoever for professionals to encourage a child (adult or minor) to validate that crap. That isn’t treatment, it’s promoting child abuse. For some reason it has become accepted that the children of Borderlines are no more than collateral damage. We’ve become expendable. It isn’t enough that we are taught from birth how we aren’t really a separate person from our parent but just tangible extensions of their emotions. No, the professionals themselves have now given us that added reinforcement of feeling less than human.

Why are the children of Borderline parents expected to be both their parent’s child and therapist? It’s not like we get bonus pay or extra TV privileges for doing both. We do learn how to delegate and how to become crackerjack hostage negotiators but last time I looked hostage negotiators aren’t in big demand. Especially is you are under 10. The HR people tend to get a little weird about someone under 18. Child labor laws and all that.

People who can delegate are in demand tho!. After a lifetime of managing a borderline parent I can delegate/manage so well that I have few friends yet a lot of human projects, if you catch my drift. Friends? Who needs friends! I’m my mothers bestest friend!

Say that on a playground when you’re 8 or 9 (or pay a kid to do it for you-I’ve found $20 works) and then watch what happens. Yep, you’re now the recess entertainment. Live action and all, baby. Just remember to duck.

So I say screw you to the people who tell me to validate my mother. In no way shape or form will I say it’s OK for her to verbally bash me. It’s not OK that I and other kids are taught to put our parents abusive needs before our own. Validation isn’t treatment, not at all. It might work in a therapeutic setting, sure, but otherwise it’s misguided at best and dangerous at worst to encourage people to abuse. How about we go back to the drawing board and get the priorities straight for once?

Children first and foremost. Treatments that take the responsibility out of a child’s hands and put it where it belongs-in the hands of the person with BPD.

2 year anniversary

2 years ago today I told you, mom, that I could no longer have you in my life. You cried so hard I thought you were going to hyperventilate. Your 3 kids told you that we couldn’t take it anymore-the rages, the playing favorites or outright ignoring your dtrs when your son was around, the revolving door admissions to the psych unit.

How does that song go? Something about wanting a person to stay gone……I’m better when you’re gone, mom. I’m sorry to say that yet it’s true. I can’t be a dtr and your friend/appt maker/prescription picker upper/rescuer that calls 911 when you try to kill yourself. It isn’t even so much that I can’t do it mom but that I won’t anymore. You have a use for me when there’s a crisis because you taught me well that I was the one that needed to save you. If I could just keep saving you then surely one of those times you’d know how much I loved you. I just had to prove it! How much I wanted to know without any doubts or conditions that you loved me. Each time I picked up the pieces for you I prayed that this would be the time it all changed, that this time you really would stick with DBT and recover. That this time I would finally have a mother. That this time I had proven myself worthy of you.

I will never forget walking into your house to find you passed out on the bed and your suicide note on the kitchen counter. You put me in the position of playing God. I had the option to not call 911 and to be honest mom, I hesitated to call. My first thought was how I could get out of the house and leave no trace I had been there. I wanted to let you die. It wasn’t just for my sake-I still wonder today if it wouldn’t have been better for you.

I’m sorry you are so miserable, mom. I know you are. I saw it growing up, how you bought more and more clothes as if those expensive pieces of fabric somehow made you a better person. I saw it when you tried to tell me my father, your husband, was worthless. It was all transparent, mom. What you accused dad of were things you yourself had done. YOU had the affair, YOU hid $$$ while bills went unpaid, YOU gave all your attention to work instead of to your children. YOU were the bottomless pit that would never be filled, not me.

So much projection, mom. While I know a lot of it has to do with having BPD that doesn’t give you a free pass. The very things you hate about/bitch about in others are present in you. You passed on your own allegedly miserable childhood to your children. Treatment was repeatedly turned down by you. It was easier to make me the scapegoat, wasn’t it? I see that now. Unable to face and/or take responsibility for the pain you felt and afflicted on others, you tried to use your own child to absolve yourself. It’s as if you somehow thought if you could make me crazier than you, then it justified your treatment of me.

I don’t think you will ever know the full extent of your abusive parenting. What you did was a systematic annihilation of me. I liked a green blazer? You bought a red one for me because it looked better. This was constant as I grew up. It didn't matter what I liked or disliked, everything was decided by you. The unspoken message was that I wasn’t even capable of making minor decisions. I wanted to go to a performing arts high school? It was a lot of work, you said, and did I really think I had some sort of talent? I didn’t send in the application and when you found out I hadn't sent it in I was given a stern lecture about shaping up and following thru on things. When I lost 40 lbs and dad told me I looked great you fled the room in tears. No one could console you as you sobbed over and over that no one paid attention to you. Well GOD FORBID the attention not focus on you every second of every day.

I gained my weight back after that. I thought I had done something wrong, showed you up or something. That was your hold on me-the constant belittling, the whispered criticisms, all that crap from you destroyed any sense of self I had. I thought I owed you something. I thought you would love me if I showed you that realized I was an inferior person to you. Somehow I had come to relate my captor. I saw myself as you did, well actually
I saw myself as you saw yourself.

I never really existed for you, did I? I know that now. I was a convenient target for you. Even now, as you try to turn relatives and family friends against your kids, I can see that it isn’t your children you miss. It’s the things you thought we were. You miss an easy target on which to blame your own crappy life. You want back your golden child because that child’s accomplishments mean that YOU are worth something. Not one thought was ever given to my brother, it was all about what he can do for you, how good he can make you look.

You worked so hard to keep us apart. He was the good one, I was the bad one, little sister was the spare target whenever bro or I wasn’t around. And that, mom, is what I give you on our 2^nd anniversary. I give you the gift of knowledge that your children have grown wiser and closer in these past 2 years. We have discovered the lies you told about us to the other. We have each refuted the lies you told and we now treat the other with only honesty, trust and respect.

I’m glad you’re gone. Please stay that way.

For all the trolls out there taking my posts from here and posting it at other sites WITHOUT MY PERMISSION/WITHOUT CREDIT listen up-I will have every one of my posts that I do not authorize to appear anywhere but here taken down by the sites admin. If you want to use it ask. If you don't all bets are off and you're fair game for whatever I can legally do to you.
You've been warned.

Stubs

My mother is horribly abusive. It took me until I was 25 years old to admit this, and even then I felt like a traitor. I grew up in an environment where abuse was considered affection. When I was 6 my mother ripped the sheets off my bed, threw them at me (nearly knocking me over with the weight of a heavey bedspread) and had me make the bed over and over, until I got it the way she wanted, because she loved me-so she said. I had to learn to do things “right.” Therapists and my father told me that my mother pushed me so hard/stomped on my soul because she loved me……because I was such a forgetful child……because I was a messy child……because I was so disorganized…….because I was me. I was punished for being me. The essential parts of being a child, of being carefree and more interested about worms in the dirt than how mom got the dirt out of my clothes, were seen as deliberate affronts to mom.

I can't tell you how or whenI knew I had to lock away a part of myself far, far away from the reality of what I lived. My mother annihilated what was left of my soul. Whne I try to describe to others what was like to have a mother with BPD, some people think I am a whiny, bratty drama queen when I tell them of the things my mother has done to me. I wish I could impress upon these same people that what they se as minor annoyances or basic teeanage rebellion were actually the bricks of the wall mom built around me. The constant displays of her disgust with me wore my spirit down and built her wall even faster. What they saw as something normal between a mother and a child was so much more…..taken as an isolated incident they are trivial; when the puzzle is put together it’s astounding what my mother got away with. Her hatred for herself, for the knowledge of her own madness, took form by my mom shoving me down the well of her own despair and self hatred. The well had no bottom. I rubbed my fingers raw in that well as I slowly climbed out. My fingertips and nails are gone. The remaining stubs are raw from climbing out of that well. I use those stubs, what is left after a childhood with a Borderline mother, to navigate my life. .

One stub used to hold me back from setting goals. I have slowly healed that over and marvel at the new pink flesh. It’s tender flesh and cuts easily but it’s there. I’m a 1/3 done with my college degree and am a High Honors student. Right now I want to quit because I am quite sure at some point in the near future I will screw this up yet I press on. Another stub still smarts daily. I know that stub will not heal completely for a long time just as my trust in the mental health community will take a long time to form.

Professionals who put an abusive person’s well being before that person’s children have a lot to answer for.

Other stubs are no longer pink but blend into my skin tone. The only give away is the shininess of the new skin. I give myself away when I try too hard with a new friend. The newness of friendship is so obvious to others that I am quite sure some people think I am off my rocker. My shiny earnestness can be uncomfortable for those who don’t know the reason for it yet I am finding that the same shininess attracts others like me. The unspoken understanding I share with these people is beyond description…..to belong in a world and a place where I hid in plain view for so long is uncomfortable. The skin of that stub, the need to belong somewhere, is the furthest along. It itches and feels tight but I know scratching it will only open the wound. So I leave it alone, gritting my teeth as it heals, grinning and bearing it in life when the only thing I want to do is run back to the well where it is dark and cold yet familiar.

What do you think of when I say the words mental illnes? Do you picture a homeless person that wanders the streets, talking to themselves or imaginary people? Or maybe you think of the cat ladies that have been in the press recently. You know the ones-they have over 20 or so cats that they can’t care for, their house if overun and close to being (or already is) condemned.

Where do you think their children are? Did you think of that? Many people don’t. In fact, almost no one does. The children of the mentally ill are an invisible community. We are expected to somehow take in our homeless parent and make them whole. Society turns away from us when we can’t do our supposed duty of making sure our mother doesn’t have more pets than she can take care of. The parent that raised us in chaos and heartache is put above our own life.

I’m not just throwing this out for the hell of it, I’ve been through it. My mother handed me over to the family child molester when I was 4 because she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be in the center of a family drama. I forever after that heard about her pain of having one her children abused yet if I said one word about the pain I went thru I was immediately told I just couldn’t understand what she was going thru.She forced me to stay in my bedroom for a day at a time, leaving food by the door and requiring that I ask permission to use the bathroom just down the hall. It didn’t matter that she fell asleep on the couch and didn’t hear me, I either asked permission or I paid for my transgressions against her.

One particular instance of this stands out. It was a Sunday and as I stayed in my room, I could hear the laughter of Sunday dinner downstairs. I heard my mother’s unspoken message loud and clear-I was expendable from the family. After this I tried frantically to show my worth to her but it never worked. The harder I proved myself the higher the hurdles were placed.

Growing up with a mother that has BPD is like being a living, breathing war zone. When I see pictures of bombed homes in Bosnia or Iraq I see my heart. I had no way to defend myself against her. She used covert tactics. My mother is extremely proficient at psychological black ops. The neighbors couldn’t put their finger on it……teachers were pulled in by her masterful BS, and my siblings and I launched whatever insurgent attacks we could.

So much of what I endured was visible. People saw her berate me in public. They knew I was hospitalized (twice) for wanting to kill myself when I was the tender age of 12. Even that wasn’t enough for professionals to realize that something was drastically wrong with my home life. Yelling , insulting, and generally using your children like cattle evidently just isn’t sexy enough for the pros to give a damn. Show them bruises or broken bones and they are all over it. A broken heart and a bruised soul don’t matter.

Time and again my other would charm these professionals. I would sit in therapy amazed at the way mom was able to blame a child for causing their own depression. I was even more amazed when these same people would listen and believe her, despite what I and my sibs told them. A mother knows best, right? Mothers don’t abuse. To acknowledge that would shatter all they knew, all the money they spent on their expensive educations. Better to ignore the children and buy the lady’s BS rather than take the time to help her kids.

The US has a skewed view of domestic violence. Domestic violence in the US is seen as a woman abused by her husband or boyfriend, leaving in the middle of night to seek help at a women’s shelter. There this woman will get safety, support, help, and so many other things to put her life back together. No excuses are made for a man that abuses his wife or kids.

But……if a woman is abusive, her children can’t leave. Very few places will take a man and his children fleeing an abusive wife/mother. Excuses are repeatedly made for a mom that abuses….she’s mentally ill (ya think?), she needs help (wow, that’s a brilliant deduction!) and on and on……..

When you are an adult that breaks free from a mentally ill, abusive parent, in my case my mother, you are reviled by society. How dare I think that my own well being matter more than making sure mom hasn’t tried to kill herself again. I am selfish for wanting to put an end to her tearful phones telling me how awful my father is (he isn’t, btw).

What was I thinking, to treat my mother as an adult that needs take responsibility for her illness and subsequent treatment? How dare I treat an adult as an adult!

What is this blog about?

This blog is about unchosen, children of the mentally ill/Personality Disordered. I myself am an unchosen. After years of chaos, tears, and wondering what exactly was wrong with my mother and by extension myself (since according to her all the worlds problems are my fault), I learned that she has Borderline Personality Disorder. Wiki gives a good overview of what this is. You can find it here-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder

My mom didn't choose to be mentally ill. My siblings and I didn't choose to be abused. However......I do believe that my mother (and yes, father) has the ultimate responsibility for bringing the 3 of us into the world and exposing us to what they did.
One truth about unchosen is that the deck is stacked against us. Once someone, anyone, knows that your parent has a pd or mi you're screwed. Game over and do not pass go, no $200. Very few people can see past a mi whether a kid has it or the parent has it. They make the assumption that by default a child of mi parent is also mi. So let's say you're a kid, with a mi parent, and you have a typical kid meltdown.
You are now diagnosed as having antisocial personality disorder......or schizophrenia.....or something, anything but what it is really is-a child having a meltdown. Parents don't want you around their kids, teachers are wary of you and the whole time what adults don't realize is that they are contributing to the problem. Children of the mi are alienated/isolated by the very people who are supposed to help. Many unchosen are set up to continue a viscous cycle of self hate, low achievement, being underemployed, etc. We don't get the nurturing we need at home. Stability is a joke when your mother is in the psych ward for months at a time. All the life skills that we need to be taught aren't taught to us. Well OK-learning how to dodge bill collectors or when to check and see if mom was still breathing was useful to some extent but the application of those skills in the real world is a bit dicey.

The above is a short blurb about what this blog will be about-the life of an unchosen and the truth of our lives. How we are isolated, ignored, and abused. How people are shocked when we tell our stories. How they say "didn't you tell someone?" and how we answer "yes we did but you looked away."