Invalidation and the Mental Health Community

[Guest guest]

I've been doing a lot of reading (Understanding the Borderline Mother,

Surviving a Borderline Mother, etc) and one of the key elements that

keeps coming up is that children of BP parents have their thoughts,

emotions, feelings, goals invalidated by the parent--which was

certainly the case in my family. It occurred to me, though, that by

refusing to honestly diagnose BPD or refusing to share that diagnosis

with victimized family members, the mental health community colludes

in this invalidation, allowing the victims to believe they are

overreacting or misinterpreting " normal " behavior. I suspect that my

mother and sister were diagnosed or at least suspected of having BPD

many, many years ago. The rest of the family, even those of us who

were active participants in her therapy, were kept in the dark. I

figured out what was wrong myself and had my suspicions indirectly

verified when an extended family member who happens to be a therapist

asked me if I was familiar with BPD after one of my mother's episodes.

I am feeling a little angry over the institutional dishonesty

surrounding the diagnosis of BPD. I know there is a hesitancy to

" label " people, but it seems to be selective. I don't know too many

therapists who would hesitate to use the label " depression " if it

would help the patient and those close to the patient to get the

proper help. Having a name and an explanation for what was going on

in our house would have been very helfpul, I think, at least to me and

my sibs.

I realize that this anger is probably related to where I'm at with

dealing with the BPD in my family, but I am curious if others have had

the same frustration with the mental health system?