Lovely Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is just around the corner. With it comes the dread & anxiety so many unchosens associate with the holidays. It may seem like you have nothing to be thankful for, but you do. You are alive. You are a survivor. If that’s not something to be thankful for, then I don’t know what is.
It seems so many of us get caught up in our own unrealistic expectations of the holidays. We so badly want a nice, loving family day that we almost kill ourselves trying to make it happen. Well here’s a news flash-we can’t control our BPD parent. We can’t control their behavior, their rages when they don’t have their way or their hurtful comments when the turkey isn’t done the way think it should be. Below are some hard lessons I have learned over the years.

1.It’s ok to skip thanksgiving. Really, it is. Take your day off from work and have a me day. If you have your own family, go to a restaurant, volunteer, or make a new tradition of sleeping late and making brunch instead of the traditional huge meal. Less stress for everyone involved. If your parent is angry that you don’t stop by or participate like other years, that’s their problem to deal with-not yours.
2. In one ear, out the other. Repeat after me-in one ear, out the other. Let all negativity from your parent (anyone, really) go in one ear and out the other. It is not your job to “fix” people or holidays to your parents liking.
3. Set ground rules, and follow thru. This one only works when the festivities are at your own home. Mom likes to name call? Dad pitches an annual rage before the turkey is carved? Let your parent know ahead of time that these behaviors will not be tolerated. They will probably accuse you of treating them like a child, which emotionally your parent is, but that’s just too damn bad. Your house, your rules. If your parent can’t abide by your rules, calmly pull them aside and ask them to leave. Be a broken record. Repeat as often as necessary these words “I’d like you to leave now.” Don’t negotiate with the emotional terrorist. Don’t allow them the power to ruin another family dinner. If they claim they forgot the house rules, too bad. They’ll “remember” next time, I promise.
4. Plan your escape. I always felt trapped when I was at someone else’s house and my mom would freak out on everyone. I was a kid who wanted to just get away. As soon as I bought my first car, that changed. I drove separately so I could leave when I wanted. Of course, you want to be gracious and polite but if your parent is raging or otherwise flying the BPD flag and the urge to flee strikes, go with it.
5. Scale down expectations. Is the whole day of festivities just too much? Scale it back. Meet for the annual touch football game and then tailgate or do your own thing. Offer to host coffee and dessert in the late afternoon/early evening. If you are hosting the big dinner, make it a simple menu and/or ask others to contribute a specific dish. Buy the meal if you want. No one cares how much time you spent making turkeys out of almond paste. Keep it simple, silly.
6. Enforce your boundaries (goes with #4). Does your Borderline parent take holidays as an excuse to list all your shortcomings? Tell you how great everyone else’s kids are while you are dirt? Or maybe like me, it’s just hard to watch your parent praise your other siblings while ignoring you or treating you like a scullery maid. You don’t have to take the crap nor should you. However, calling your parent on this stuff will just result in an even bigger spectacle. Walk away if your parent insults you. If you are being used as the maid, you have 2 options-grit your teeth and bare it or ask a sibling, aunt or cousin, whatever, to help. Chances are they see what’s going on but don’t want to rock the boat. If it’s all too much, it’s OK to leave.
It may seem like I advocate leaving quite a bit, and I do. I admit it. I have never seen a holiday turn out well where someone stays in a situation where they are verbally abused/emotionally manipulated. Yes, it’s only one day. If you can make it thru the day and not drive home in tears, then stay. I can’t do that. I have gotten to the point where after 30 years I couldn’t take her crap anymore and would not subject myself to it. So I decided to leave when I was at my limit, rather than being the good girl I was trained to be, the girl who took mom’s name calling and barked commands with a smile, all the while knowing that to her I was nothing more than a free maid. I leave gracefully, politely, never in a huff and never with a slammed door. Some of my best Thanksgivings have been frozen pizza at home, thankful for the home my husband and I have, and for the sense of security and stability we have built there.
All too often unchosens think that this is the year it will happen. This is the year that the family will finally have a normal Thanksgiving. No fighting, no tears, no slammed doors or silent dinners where everyone is afraid to speak because the tension is thicker than the mashed potatoes. Unchosen are a pretty optimistic bunch. Most people after a lifetime of crap holidays would give up but not us. We will have the Currier & Ives Thanksgiving, dammit, if it kills us.
So we let it slowly kill us. Year after year we hope, we plan, we try to control it all so our parent is happy. It gets to the point where we hate the holidays. Don’t let that happen. So what if you don’t want to invite your parent and they will be all alone? You aren’t their social director. And we all know there’s a good reason our BP parents wind up alone. It’s an accumulation of their years of manipulation, abuse, and mind games. They made their bed and it ain’t your job to get them out of it. Your job is to enjoy your life, your Thanksgiving, on your terms, not your parents.

Nifty Little Article Says It All

I saw this article today and I have to say, the author really captured what it is like to live with a parent that is narcissistic/borderline. Take a look, it's some good (but hard) reading about what unchosen go thru. A big thanks to the author, Chris, for putting it all into words so succintly.

Characteristics of Narcissistic Mothers

Life without BPD

I took a very long break, as you can all see. I had to find out if life really does exist outside of the sphere of BPD. You know what? It really does. I spent the last few months just enjoying life; watching good movies, reading good books, and connecting with friends new and old. But...this seems to be my life, advocating for children of the mentally and/or children of the personality disordered.
It's hard not to cry as I write this, because I have tried so damn hard for so long to get just one organization to hear the voices of us. I've sent letters and an editorial type biography to New York Presbyterian, detailing what life is like when your parent has BPD. They were all gung ho until they realized that I have No Contact with my mom. I was told that my article or whatever was not "in the spirit of helping people with BPD recover."
So basically, they didn't want their patients to experience reality. And you know what? Incresingly, that is the reality. More and more people with BPD parents are saying enough is enough, get out of my life. Many more are moving to extreme low contact because of the drama, the stress of suicide attempts, and the unhelpful mental health professionals who continually press us to be our parents caretaker. Personally, I think they do this in order to lighten their case loads and because they know that for some of us, our parent won't ever get help. These professionals are washing their hands of our parents and trying to make us responsible for them.

I've written to the NEA-BPD. 3 times. I have never gotten a response. They will gladly take your money for their overpriced coferences, yes, but as for telling you how to get involved? Nope. It seems to be some sort of mental health profesisonal fraternity or something. I don't even want to know the hazing initiations there!

I recently contacted NAMI again-we'll see how that goes.
I sent a letter to MindFreedom yesterday. I asked some questions about their mission and such.

It shouldn't be this hard to get involved. It's ridiculous that some major groups are so judgemental about children of the mentally ill. I would like them to walk in my shoes or the shoes of my friends. I *dare* a representative of eitherNY Presbyterian or NEA BPD to contact me and have an actual conversation with me. Not something in e mail, but a sit down, look me in the eye type of coversation. I doubt they will. If they do, I will be sure to tell you about it.

So that's where I have been. I guess it was a sabbatical of sorts, regrouping my thoughts and strength to keep fighting. Someday, somehow no matter what it takes, I will get out voices heard. It won't be a sugary sweet movie or book where all of a sudden I realize she really doesn't mean it, she's so ill, and gee mom let's just let bygones be bygones. It would probably be more on the lines of a book or miniseries that runs the disclaimer "Mature content. Viewer discretion advised."

Dr, Drew, Nadya Suleman, and BPD

I watched an interesting interview today with the anchor of Showbiz tonight and Dr. Drew Pinksy. Nadya Suleman isn't addicted to fame, she's addicted to herself!
Here ya go-



I admit to being a little stunned that someone is finally saying the words that Dr. Phil was too chicken to say. It still shocks me when BPD is mentioned in the media. What doesn't shock me is that Ms. Suleman is finally being called out for her narcissism. I don't know if she has BPD but I can say she certainly has some traits of that and/or Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
First, has anyone else noticed the ages of her 6 other kids? The kids are ages 7, 6, 5, 3 and twin 2 year olds. Anyone else notice a pattern here? She had another baby each time the previous one started showing the natural inclination of becoming independent and separating from mom. People with NPD or BPD don't see their children as separate human beings. These parents are not able to separate their child from their own selves. While most moms with a PD don't go on to have 14 kids, a lot of moms with a PD do go on to have more children than they can care for (financially, emotionally, etc.) in order to get their own needs met. As soon as one child becomes independent they have/adopt another.
I think that's a big part of Nadya's problem. She has spoken about the feelings of loneliness she experienced as a child. She's using these kids to fill a decades old void. It's as if she thinks these kids can go back in time and heal her hurts. A lot of people do this altho not everyone that has kids in order to heal a hurt is mentally ill or has a PD. However, red flags start popping up with people like Ms. Suleman.
She has no job, and says she lives on student loans. She says she doesn't get welfare, but then admits she gets food stamps and assistance from the state because 2 of her kids have special needs. Yeah, Nadya-that's called welfare. When you can't financially take care of any aspect of your children's care and instead have to rely totally on the government, you're on welfare, baby.
That's the other thing that gets me. It's the sense of entitlement she has. That entitlement issue is a hallmark of PD behaviors. This woman feels entitled to collect children as if they were beanie babies! She takes entitlement to a whole new level when she has 8 children at once, knowing they would need special care. And yes, that's a given. The human body was not meant to give birth to litters. Did she think of that? Did she wonder how she would be able to love 14 children, and bond with 8 preemies? Nope. She just wanted the kids, got a good deal at the fertility clinic and figured what the hell, it's a 2 for 1 special.
This woman and my mother are so similiar it's spooky. Mom craves a attention, just like Nadya does. Mom preens for any camera, and Nadya alyways looks put together. No frazzled hair, no towels over the shouldrt, no bags under the eyes like every other mother of small children and newborns would look. What mother of 14 kids has time to prep like?! Oh wait...a mother who has other people caring for her kids.
Mom also has no impulse control whatsoever. It's pretty obvious how this lack of control manifested in Nady'a life.
Mom had and HAS no concept of money. Neither does Nadya. Nadya has already paraded them her children television and her video blog via radaronline.com. While I get it that she needs to make a living, that rationale is like saying the dynamite was there, so I had to blow up the building. This woman HAD a choice. She is continually choosing to sell her kids, plain and simple.
The saddest way mom and this are similiar is that neither should have had any kids at all. These children are here to serve their mom's emtional needs, as my sibling and I were. She can't possible bond with precious babies. That parental bond, whether mother or father, is so important. Unfortuantely for them their lives and independent selves do not count in Nadya's eyes. They have a role to play and Nadya will make sure they do no matter what the cost. This burden of being a parents ethereal dream is a heavy, heavy burden to bear. They are being set up to experience incredible amounts of chaos. Children who live in chaos CONTINUE TO CREATE CHAOS AS ADULTS. They also grow up parentified, angry, and at a high risk for drug and alcohol use. I pretty much went thru all of what I just typed so don't think I pulled that out of nowhere. I am speaking from experienc
Nadya is like a little girl trapped between the ages of 12-14. Little girls can't raise children! They can baby-sit but even then it's for short perioods of time. Many people with a PD are emotionally "stuck" at what was for them a traumatic age. Nadya likes the cute babies, seems reasonably responsible on the surface but...spend some time observing her and you realize her reasoning is flawed. It's the reasoning of a young girl, someone who doesn't have the ability see beyond tomorrow. As someone who was a young girl not so long ago, I can say that my reasoning at 12-14 was pretty much awful. I was like a butterfly, flitting to every new thing but never really finishing anything, not able to commit to a life changing event.
I feel for these kids. They are in for a nightmare and need all the prayes, hugs, and good thoughts we can send them.

Anatomy of An Unchosen's Vent, Part 1 of 7

Before I start this entry, I'd like to give the defintion of a vent, taken from an online dictionary:
vent
v. vent·ed, vent·ing, vents
v.tr.
1. To express (one's thoughts or feelings, for example), especially forcefully.
2. To release or discharge (steam, for example) through an opening.
3. To provide with a vent.
v.intr.
1. To vent one's feelings or opinions.
2. To be released or discharged through an opening.

Children of Borderline parents are not allowed to express any emotion the parent deems unacceptable. Expressing anger or embarassment about a parents behavior is strictly verboten. Attemtpting to talk to the non-parent is often a fruitless endeavor. The non-parent is often so consumed by the Borderline parent that little is left in the way of parenting.
Effective communication, getting along with others, etc. are all skills children learn through a parents example. When you are parented by a Borderline, you learn-
* Might makes right
* Whoever yells the loudest wins
* It's more important to "win" than to resolve a conflict
* Hurting, insulting, or generally cutting a person down is OK
* No other point of view is to be accepted over one's own. All other points of
view are to be ridiculed
Vents from an Unchosen are usually the result of our feeling stifled, ignored, etc by our Borderline parent. In contrast, and in my own experience, my Borderline Mother's vents always stemmed from 2 things-1)her huge sense of entitlement (she'd "vent" that people weren't listening when in fact they were listening just not giving her whatever it was she wanted), or 2)she'd use it as a tool when she felt someone had abandoned her (usually a friend who got wise to mom's ways). Honestly, I have never seen my mom "vent" for any other reason.
When you are exposed to and taught the above behavior, it's no wonder Unchosens tend to engage in what I call "epic vents." I will give the definition of an epic vent in a later post but for a quick defintion an epic vent is when you keep going...and going...and going, not realizing your friend on the other line of the phone has fallen asleep!
So, if these vents aren't helpful in the grand scheme of things why do Unchosens do them? First, it's what we know. That is not an excuse for poor behavior, it is a reason. And yes, I know the reason still doesn't make it right. Secondly, by the time we have had enough and have started to vent, we typically have lost all control over our emotions.

We wind up behaving like the parent who hurt us.

A HUGE difference exists between an Unchosen's vent and a vent from someone who has Borderline Personality Disorder. Unchosen's feel remorse and regret for the people they hurt. Borderlines are remorseful and regretful only that someone caught on to them and stopped the con. Unchosen's don't feel justified in hurting someone, whereas the Borderline operates almost solely within the "get them before they get me" mentality.
For a lost of us, myself included, the feelings of embarassment are the catalyst for deciding to change. Eventually we realize, with a sickening clarity, that our behavior matches that of our sick parent. We start to lose friends, jobs, and spouses. It's an awful feeling to realize that you are hurting others in the same way your parent so annihilated you.
Learning how to undo the Borderline parent's influence is difficult but can be done. What I and other unchosen must learn is to communicate as we live and as things happen, not to store things up until the pressure is too great. This just starts the whole circle again.
The 1st step is realizing what our venting style is. I will post more on the styles of venting on Friday the 13th. It should be interesting!

The Vent Factor, 1 of 1 "Spinning Our Wheels"

Lots of people like to talk about needing to vent. Let's be honest, "venting" is a nice term for whining, bitching, and complaining. Venting, IMO, is a tool used for unrecognized anger.It has it's place, don't get me wrong. But I see SO MANY unchosen using the term "I need to vent" as a way to spin their collective wheels. The cycle of venting when you have a parent with a personality disorder is never ending. Seriously, the verbal attacks and phsychological assaults will never stop with an unrecovered parent.
So we turn to this thing called venting. We blow off our steam and clean out our filled to bursting psyches. We feel refreshed, lighter somehow. It's a heady feeling to get all that junk out in the open. Venting is almost always done with some sort of audience, be it a friend, a blog or a forum. Somehow this thing called venting just doesn't work as a single activity.
I have seen this again and again in real life-an unchosen vents over and over. It feels so good we just keep going....and going... and going. We beat the proverbial horse to death with ultimately the same topics. Sooner rather than later we realize that the same people who encouraged us to vent no longer return our calls or e mails. But hell, we don't care. In a way that almost mirrors our PD parent we just look for new people to listen to us.
What happens more often than not is that we end up chasing our tails. It's a vicious cycle, this venting. It's addicting, really. We get a high off of the release of our words.
But we get stuck. A lot of unchosen's can't seem to get out of "vent" mode and into talk mode. By talk mode, I mean having a "venting" session where we can hear the feedback of the person we talk to. So often, any feedback at all is considered to be worthless because the person we vent to has no idea what we are going thru (or so we seem to think). Because of the anger associated with venting, many unchosen (including myself at times) get extremely defensive when the person we vent to expresses anything but complete agreement with our thoughts.
I so wish I could just show my life as a movie. I want to alternately shake and hug the unchosens I see who spin their wheels with this venting. I want to scream "all it does is keep the cycle of crap going." I wish people could see how many people I have lost because of my need to "vent."
It doesn't have to be that way, and I promise that by Sunday I will have part 2 of venting.

Sarah Palin Has a Point

I recently attached my first name to my blog. Sorry, you aren't getting the last name. It's distinctive enough that I can be easily found, and that creeps me out. Call me a chicken or whatever you like, I don't need some of the more unhinged posters that resond to this blog showing up at my door.
That being said, I do owe it to a lot of people to put at least my first name out there. Sarah Palin recently spoke about anonymous bloggers hiding behind their blogs to verbally attack her. This isn't a political opinion peice, however; I'd like to point out that she is right. Anonymity gives a person greater freedom. Anonymity also has its place, such as forums and the like. When you're sharing your most private thoughts on a message board, hoping to find help for yourself, that anonymity is necessary.
Anonymity, hiding behind an avatar or screen name, has a responsibility with it. I am embarassed to say there was a time that I used that responsibility in ways to hurt other people. Not on this blog but on a forum I treasure to this day. I needed that anonymity in order to separate myself from the RL life me and the me that was hurting and searching for answers. That anonymity offered me the chance to share in ways that I wouldn't have if I had to use my real info.
That was then and this is now. Now, my goal is not so much to heal and put the pieces together so much as it is to help others heal and to raise awareness of what children of Borderlines go through. I can't do that hiding behind a screen name. It's disingenuous. I can't ask for someone to take me seriously if I can't take myself and my activism seriously enough to expose myself.
If my words are words that I would never say to another person, yet they are words that I want others to take to heart and learn from, then I owe it to whoever reads this to at least give you my first name. I admit to being afraid of being found by some of the more nasty elements out there, but what I really fear is my mom.
So you'll get my first name but not much else. At least not right now. I saw mom the other day at a store, and my first reaction (which was completely involuntary, btw) was to have tears spring to my eyes and look for the closest exit. The woman still scares the hell out of me. If she ever knew I wrote this and had exposed the topics that I have, she would make me pay. I have successfully extricated myself from her merry go round of anger once, but frankly I don't know how I could survive another round right now. My freedom, my wellness, is still too fragile 3 years into to No Contact to risk it. I hope everyone understands that and respects it.
I am going to start posting some new topics in the next few days. I'll be doing it in a serialization format. I have decided to try that because the sheer volume of some things wouldn't work well for a blog. They are simply too long. So I decided to serialize. It also has the benefit of allowing me to get things posted in a more in depth, concrete way and I can also post things on a more regular basis. I tend to be a perfectionist about this and stress myself out to the point that I don't post at all. Yes, I am working on that flea.
Thanks for understanding everyone, and I will post to you soon.

Thank you, Bill Gates

I recently attended the NEA BPD conference in MN. I was excited to meet some of the experts in the field and put a face to names I have read about for so long. A lot of the focus of the conference was on scientific research regarding the ins and out of BPD. How was it caused, what's the best treatment, etc.
What I didn't hear a lot of was separate children of Borderline's stories. It's something I am starting to notice a lot. I don't know-are people afraid of us or something? So much emphasis is put on the family aspect that too many professionals, IMO, arent' able to see the big picture. Children of the mentally ill are treated as if we are software, the Access application just standing by to run a query or form a report about our parent (thanks, Bill Gates). It offends me. We are more than that. We are more than collateral patients or collateral caregivers.
Yes, we are the ones who see what happens when meds aren't taken. We see our parent wishing to die, telling us how they want to die, and then 5 mins later telling us that no, they never said that. I know that my mom can't be trusted to give accurate info. I know that. I also know that in order to help her, the docs have to have the most accurate info they can get.
So here is what I propose-
1.Ask us if we are OK giving info, don't demand it because frankly, we don't owe you a thing.
2. Beyond emergency situations where drug allergies need to be known or something like that, give us the option of letting us either give the info to you then and there or maybe let us bring back a summary the next day because you know what? If we brought them in, chances are we've been dealing with their latest crisis for quite a while and would welcome a break.
3. If we refuse to give info you must respect that. So many of use have been interrogated by doctors and/or other mental health professionals who infer that somehow the latest crisis was our fault. An exmaple is a doc I once dealt with who was livid that I didn't monitor my mothers meds. I couldn't tell him when she had taken her last dose of Seroquel and he just lost it, sneering me and saying "how can I help her if you won't help me?" See what mean? From then on I couldn't do it anymore. I am not going to be put on the hook for my mom's own reckless actions.
4. When you find out mom has 12 different scripts from 7 different docs, plz don't take it out on me. I am as much in the dark as you are about her doctor shopping. I can't control her and if I could don't you think I would have by now?
5. Don't punish us for our parents behaviors. My mom may not always know what she is doing but that doesn't give anyone the right to blame me or my sibs. She may feel suicidal because the 3 of us chose NC, but she can also choose to call a crisis line or any other on call psych service she knows. If she doesn't call or ask for help then that is her choice and responsibility (or lack of it). When so called professionals take the options of getting better out of her hands, which means facing the reality she helped create rather than allowing her to blame others, and put them into mine; it keeps her ill.

What I am asking in a nutshell is this-don't assume I have the answers because if I did I would have fixed my parent a long time ago.

.........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.

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.