you cannot tell me what I can and can't say to you

[Guest guest]

I just read mom is nut's (I feel weird calling someone that, ha ha) post

where she quoted her mother saying " you cannot tell me what I can and can't

say to you. " These words are echoing in my head - so familiar. Nada must

have said that to me every time I stood up for myself, even when I was an

adult.

It occured to me, after reading those words that nada must have seen me as a

possession. After all, the fact that we CAN decide not to allow someone to

treat us a certain way, and choosing to treat others with respect seem to me

to be the essence of humanity.

It seems to be an extension of one of the core myths that my parents raised

me with - " you owe me your life. " Everything in my world revolved around

that concept - that I owed her my life and it belonged to her. As she often

said " I gave you life and I can take it away again. " I always thought she

was just talking " smack " when she would say that but now, with more pieces

of the puzzle I believe that was something she held true.

Thinking even more about this, BPDs see objects in a very weird way, as

evidenced by the way they use gifts to manipulate and also buy gifts that

make no sense. My nada was not able to take care of her possessions, and

would ruin expensive items all the time. She also would take other people's

possessions and give them away. For example, she once took my dad's glasses

(the ones he was using at the time) and gave them to one of those drives to

send old, used glasses to the children in Africa. That still makes me laugh!

He must have been asleep because otherwise he always wears his glasses!

My point here is that if the nadas see us as possessions, but have strange

beliefs about possessions, that could explain part of the mistreatment.

Anyone else feel that they were seen as a posession? I know we have talked

about " dolls " but for me this goes even a little deeper than that.