Is anger the only emotion that I will feel for a while?

[Guest guest]

Dee,

I made the mistake of going to help my father deal with my NADA last

night. Mom fell after she took a shower. Dad was struggling to get

her dressed and into a chair. Remember that Mom's got MS and is

pretty vegetative (physically) at this point. She was completely

naked on the floor with tons of blankets and pillows around her when

I arrived.

I got sucked into driving an hour to help him. I can't stand to see

him suffer like this. Why do I still feel a sense of obligation to

rescue him? I don't have any sympathy for NADA. She's made her

choices at this point. We have talked when she is lucid and she

still refuses to see that there is a problem...HER! I could hear her

cackling in the backgroud so I knew she was disassociating, but still

I made a choice to enter their domain.

I typically come in as the caregiver/nurturer to provide help in time

of trauma. I tried to keep the peace and make light of the situation

at hand. No matter what I tried she (NADA) was combative and aloof.

She flipped between the two forms of disassociation. She's

completely ticked off at her body that is shutting down on her, but

she was even more perturbed with my father's expectations that she

get dressed and move onto the couch. She get's off on his anger.

She loves to piss us off!

Needless to say, we did not have the strength to move her 280# body

onto the couch, against her wishes. We put some underwear on her and

gave her some pajamas, but that's all we got out of 5 hours of work.

Mom was so out of it. She was in " the looking glass " as we like to

call it. She blabbered and rhymed and verbally attacked us. She

dropped names of all of her political cronies. She quoted the

Sagamore of the Wabash award that she saw posted on the wall above

her. The house is a flipping shrine to this woman! She thinks she

is a saint. Matter of fact, most of the community believes she is a

saint. She went into her holier than thou routine and it just caused

me to snap. I was fed up with her HOURS of self-proclomation and

accusations!

I held up my defenses for five hours and then I snapped. I cracked

under pressure and RAGE filled ever ounce of my body. I was so

enraged with her self-absorption/pride/egotistical issues. She just

doesn't care about anyone but herself. She threw candy and cookies

all over the living room and kitchen. She destroyed precious

Christmas decorations that we had made as children. She just sat

there calling my father and I idiots. She screamed at us and

belittled us. Her verbal abuse broke through my walls and I was

beyond angry. She made sure to let me know that I was killing her.

She asked me if I liked watching her die. She just kept going and

going and going. She screamed over my father who was yelling at her

for acting like a child. She just kept screaming and screaming.

Dad (of course) cleaned up the living room and kitchen because that

was something that he could do. I helped and tried, as best as

possible, to ignore the whench of a woman that remained on the floor

defiant like a two year old.

It was a ridiculous scene that I am completely tired of being

involved with. There is absolutely no reason why that woman should

be living in a house where she cannot bathe, clothe herself, maintain

her own health and is a risk to my father and herself. NO REASON!

She's a menace to herself, let alone to society.

Here's my question... Is rage and anger the emotion that surfaces

most easily for other non-BP's? I find it is the one that keeps

popping it's wicked head up. I shelf my emotions like it is my job.

I hate to cry. I pretend that other people don't hurt me. I don't

deal with my emotions for fear that I will be just like her and then

crap like this happens and I erupt. I can't ignore rage and anger

like I can all of the other emotions.

I want to be able to have emotions and feel safe with people, but

experiences like this cause me to retreat even further. Is there

nothing else I can do but go NC? I want to have a relationship with

my father, but I am DONE with the psychotic whench who says she gave

birth to me. I honestly, wish she hadn't. It would have saved a LOT

of people grief!

Will I ever feel other emotions? Could I honestly have children and

not have them turn out like her? I'd much rather NEVER run the

risk.

I am so angry. I am so frustrated. I am hurt, but I can't let her

know that. I am NOT a victim. I made the choice to go there last

night. She did not victimize me. I victimized myself by going

there. I allowed myself to be hurt because I value my father and his

bealth (perhaps more than even he does). Why is it that I have

resorted to a mere 45+ minutes with my father over Steak -n- Shake as

a relationship with him? Why do we always have to talk about her

insanity? When will this end?

There's just so much going on inside my head that I can't get my

bearings. I'm reading four books about this AWFUL disease, right

now. I want to stop this from happening anymore. I get it when you

say that hiding from emotions is like hiding from an earthquake, but

how do you let go of such a tidal wave of emotions without some

catastrophe occuring????? I don't like these feelings. I don't want

to see what happens when my real thoughts start leaking out. I hate

HER! I hate what she's doing to my father! I hate that she is so

ignorant!

AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Dolly

_________________________

> Don't give up on getting out those repressed emotions. Staying in

> denial about your innermost feelings is like hiding from an

> earthquake. You may not like looking at the truth, but failing to

do

> so is even more damaging. Suppressed anger and hurts come out in

> physical illness, depression, and really make life less than it

could

> be.

>

> I found out about BPD about three years before my mother's passing.

> It was a gradual, slow process of discovering who I was inside and

> rearranging my perceptions of reality. I had to let myself off the

> hook. You see, I think, like my mother I had bought into the idea

> that somehow I was not only responsible, but capable of changing

> things for other people. ( How vain is that).. I also had adopted

> her victim status in regard to her. I was enabling her making me a

> victim. I was choosing to grovel in misery and anxiety over things

> over which I had no control (like making her happy!!!!! what a joke)

>

> I remember reading a wise quote at the time (can't remember where)

> that said in essence that unacknowledged emotions just continue to

> grow and destroy you. You cannot change negative emotions like

anger

> without first accepting them and recognizing them for what they

are.

> Much anger is justified, but that doesn't mean you want to continue

to

> live in anger. The only way you will rid yourself of it is to

> understand it, embrace it, feel it and then work on a more positive

> way for you to be. You can't change how you were raised or the way

> your mother is. You can only decide how you will view all this.

> Believe me, accepting the victim role is not a happy way to live.

And

> other people close to you will get tired of hearing about how

> unfortunate your life was.

>

> I don't mean to say that this stuff has to be expressed somewhere

and

> this board is a good place to get the validation you need. But we

all

> hope someday to move on past these things and live in the present

> instead of the past. Sometimes that means having to keep the

present

> free of a nada (going NC) if you can't free yourself by how you

react

> to and view her.

>

> Actually it was my oldest son (Age 40) who pointed out to me that I

> was doing just exactly the same thing my complaining, pitiful mother

> was. I was bemoaning my fate at having her to deal with and wearing

> myself out going in circles in my mind all the time. I just about

> stressed myself into oblivion. When he said this to me, it was

like a

> whole new concept that I was completely blind to. Kind of hard to

> take when you realize that YOU have much to do with your own state

of

> misery. But it was one of the things that helped me get better. I

> faced myself and created a new mantra for myself that said " I WILL

NOT

> be a VICTIM " I said it over and over to myself. I even set a limit

> on how much time I spent thinking about the problems with mom. I

set

> 20 minutes each day at the same time of day to grovel in the dirt.

> After the time was up, if I caught myself thinking negatively and

> feeling sorry for me, I would make myself get busy doing something

> else. Preferrably something I could enjoy. Over time, it worked.

>

> Of course, this was only one of the steps along the way to becoming

> much happier. I learned so much about enjoying my life more that I

> almost ( I say ALMOST) was grateful to have faced this particular

> challenge. Without it, I never would have learned what I now do.

>

> Don't give up on the spiritual strength available through prayer and

> scripture study. Well meaning people may try to over simplify the

> help you can receive. If they didn't have a BP mother, there is no

> way that they can realize that it takes much more than a desire to

> 'let it go'... or one simple prayer. But for me, my faith and

> knowledge that there is one above who DOES fully understand was

> comforting to me. Humans are just that....human. That doesn't make

> their interpretation of God correct, nor does it change the nature

of

> God who loves us and cares about each one of us personally.

>

> Trust in yourself, you will progress and arrive at a better place

> where you will find the peace you seek. Dee

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