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

Even Pedophiles Have a Facebook Page

FB is dangerous for people like me. I grew up surrounded by secrets and omissions, so as an adult I have a dogged determination to know things. Most things I want to know are things people don’t want to talk about, such as why my dad married my mom, just how in the hell does my mother afford her swanky new pad and brand new car on her supposed “paltry” income of bogus SSI and undeserved alimony, and what kind of life does the pedophile who abused me lead? For the latter, I guess I don’t have a really good explanation. Who wants to know this stuff? I do. And I guess the reason is, is that Creature (as I call him) devastated my world and set in motion over 20 years of my parents being in denial and backstabbing their daughter. I needed to see what I could of the type of person he is how.
Is he still the same effeminate mama’s boy that we all know should have been a girl? Can he still spin his BS in a masterful tapestry that one only learns at the knee of a narcissistic mother as he had? Does he still refuse to take any responsibility for any of his actions, instead preferring to blame and wax rhapsodic about pop psychology all in an effort to get you to forget the real topic of the convo? I needed to know this, so I looked him up on FB.
And there he was, in all his fat faced, washed out nelly glory. As soon as his face popped up I felt my eyes glaze over a bit. I had to breathe thru my mouth so the tears stayed behind my eyes. I wanted to see this pathetic excuse for a human being. I didn’t want any tears blinding me; I’ve shed enough of those. I don’t have time for them anymore. They get me nowhere and keep me trapped in a survivor’s limbo I want no part of. Well…I tell myself I want no part of it. The truth is, I was forced to suck it up and deal for so long that at least in this part of my life, I can’t cry. I'm just done with the tears. Sometimes I think that means something is wrong with me. I wonder if I have a dead zone inside of myself, a robot or something. Because when I see his face, after the initial shock, all I could think was “someday, asshole, you will get yours. And I *will* be there to watch you cry in all your pathetic loserness, wailing when you realizing that mommy and daddy can’t get you out of this.” I felt an anger so cold it burned, and a determined patience unlike anything I have ever felt. I felt like an assassin, just waiting for the right time to go in for the kill. And NO, I do not mean that literally, so don’t freak out and report me for saying I wanted to physically harm the freak. I believe in the justice system and the universal laws of nature, i.e. what you do comes back to you magnified.
I do dream about seeing his face when he realizes how many people know what he is and what he’s done. My mom and her sister, Creature’s mother, have told people for many years that I was making a mountain out of a molehill. That all that happened was 2 kids playing doctor. Nice try but no. 13 years old do not play doctor with 4 year olds and if they do, it's called ABUSE. My dad played along. Not maliciously, I don’t think. He just didn’t know what to do and hated confrontation anyway, so what the hell…there’s no harm in selling your kid down the river, is there?
So I’m reading his page, ‘cuz the moron (or maybe narcissist?) has it open for the entire world to see. I see him mention a family reunion, and that’s the kick in the gut. When all the shit came down about NC, when I found out the reason mom shut me up for years was because she had already spun the abuse story to her advantage, when all that happened, that side of the family chose a pedophile over his victim. That’s just asinine. I wish I had stronger words but it is what it is. They are so afraid of image, of rocking the boat, that they would rather believe the lies of a mentally ill woman and a pedophile than the truth from the persons (my bro, sis, and I-we all survived it. I may have been the one physically/sexually abused but the abuse affected all three of us) who lived it.
It’s been made clear to me many times that I will be welcomed back into the fold if I only repent and “forgive” these people. I can’t do that. I won’t do that. And yet…they are still my family and I had some good times with them. To see this freak being able to participate in their lives while I am shut out is the cruelest twist of fate. The truth should matter, dammit. But it doesn’t. People believe what they want and create their perceptions accordingly.
I don’t what this whole experience of looking Creature up means. Does it mean I am stronger? Or that I am still a stupid little girl, looking for someone to give a shit? I don’t know. But I do know that someday, somehow, that report I made to the police will be connected with another police report and another. The dominoes will fall into place and I can look into the eyes of this twisted freak and say “When I was 18 I told you that I’d make you pay. It took me a while, but don’t worry; the party is just getting started.”

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.

Sometimes I Wonder

Sometimes I wonder if my parents understand what they put the 3 of us thru. I know I said I was going to do a some stuff on venting, but this issue is more pressing to me right now. Does it even register to Borderline parents that the chaos they inflict stays with their child well thru adulthood? Does the non parent realize that their fear of being alone or divorced is teaching their child to stay in an abusive relationship? Both of you, Borderline and non parent, are teaching your child to live a miserable life! Why would you want that for your child?
I don't know if it's a generational gap or what. You know, my parents came from the whole generation of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, sticking with a commitment even if kills you, and generally shunning any form of happiness. Not that mine is much better-we pop a pill to control our moods, many of us move in with our parents because it's "too hard" to live in a a crappy apartment when we're young and just starting out, and in general feel entitled to the good life without having to work for it.
I just...I see a lack of understanding even in my own life. I don't think my dad gets it. He continued to stay married to a woman who handed their dtr over to a pedophile. He stayed married to her knowing that her treatment of his children wasn't just bad, it was abusive. He knew that, and he ignored it. He looked away because it was too painful for him to deal with. He let his children become the adults and he the child.
I struggle with that yet today. I don't know how to just relax and...act my age, I guess. I am 30 and I act like I am 60, so I am told. So responsible. So serious. What do I do for fun, people ask. Huh...not much. I never really considered fun was something I could have. That's something I am trying to change, albeit slowly and painfully. After living in fear of being laughed at or humiliated, I am finally ready to just get out and live life. But it's scary, and sometimes like tonight I am angry that I got so ripped off. I can't change it, I know, but I feel like my own parents ripped off my chilhood so they could continue their dance of denial. The video I am attaching is what I wish I my parents, or even just my dad, would say/acknowledge/admit-

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.

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.

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."