Re: Intro

[Guest guest]

I had that happen with the gluopagh. I couldn't keep anything in me. I

couldn't even take my bp meds (taken on empty stomach) just with water. Good

luck.

[Guest guest]

Oh gosh, not even your bp meds? Thanks!

Dawn

GLENDA2669@... wrote:

I had that happen with the gluopagh. I couldn't keep anything in me. I

couldn't even take my bp meds (taken on empty stomach) just with water. Good

luck.

" One good thing about music, when it hits, you feel no pain. "

~ Bob Marley

" One good thing about music, when it hits, you feel no pain. "

~ Bob Marley

[Guest guest]

At 26 you are more with it than I am now at 46. Good for you. Your post displays

wisdom and common sense beyond your years.

Be strong

Intro

Hi all,

I found this group a few months ago, but never got around to posting.

So let me remedy that and introduce myself.

I'm 23, and I work as a computer programmer. It's been about a year

since I graduated from college and escaped from my family and my

hometown.

I believe my father has BPD or something similar. I've known for a

very long time that there was something wrong with him - that he was

never really a parent, and my family was never really a family, but

rather a rotting shack behind the facade of a somewhat normal-looking

house.

The manner in which he related to me was at *best* weird and creepy.

He tried to make me into whatever he needed at the moment: someone to

agree with his opinions, someone to affirm that he, or someone

associated with him, was *good* and others were *bad*, someone who

would take his side instead of my mom's...

And someone to do his work for him. He started making me do work on

the rental house he owned when I was six, and I think he started

making me give him back massages before that (I *had* to do it because

he was in *so* much *pain*, you see...). When I was seven or eight, he

started making me enter piles and piles of stock data into the

computer for him (because I was good with computers and he wasn't, you

see) and mark his tests (because he was *so busy*).

And someone to show off. I was a very precocious child, and he got a

charge out of showing me off to his colleagues, or his friends, or the

owner of the Chinese restaurant, or strangers in the supermarket. .. He

had me in all kinds of lessons, like foreign languages and music, and

made me demonstrate those skills to anyone who would watch. He tells

me he was doing this when I was still in diapers (demonstrating my

reading ability to customers at his friend's bar).

He constantly projected things onto me. He told me what I thought or

felt all the time and refused to listen when I said that wasn't true

(like, he would come back from the store and say, " Look, I got this

yogurt because you like it, " and I'd tell him that I *didn't* like it,

and three days later this exact thing would be repeated).

And the splitting... oh man, the splitting. Most of the time I was

*good* because I was smart (or at least, *better* than everyone else

because I was *smarter*; in his world all value is comparative) , but

if I got on his bad side he would *rage* at me. He'd have me up

against the wall, and tower over me, and scream that I was such a

rotten kid and he was never going to let me see my friends or go to

any activities again..

He never followed through on any of these threats, which made me feel

guilty because I thought I wasn't getting what I deserved.. And he only

physically punished me once or twice, but he always implied that he

only refrained from doing so because my *mom* so unreasonably

forbade it.

And on occasion he would fluctuate from one extreme to the other, from

black to white and back again, so fast it scared me. I'm talking about

a time span of minutes.

And he could not tolerate any criticism; he'd always make himself

untouchable by saying he was in physical pain, or saying (in a tone of

voice that still terrifies me to this day) " Oh, *right*. I can't do

*anything* right. Everything I do is *wrong*. " (And he did the " Well,

why don't I just move *out* " thing to my mom. He did move out, twice,

for a couple of weeks.)

He was never really emotionally present for anyone. He and my mother

never really had a marriage; he never expressed any sort of affection

for her. And he hardly ever expressed any affection for me or my

brother (and it creeped me out when he did). He held himself separate,

sometimes not even coming when we went somewhere for Thanksgiving or

Christmas, and then whined about not being included and complained

about how my mom's side of the family hated him.

When I was in ninth grade (and my brother, who's 8 years younger than

me, had started really going to school, and my mom had a real

full-time job for the first time) he had a complete breakdown. He

acted like he was seriously physically ill and couldn't get out of

bed; he spent all his time either lying in bed moaning and groaning or

looking up diseases on the internet. He stopped going to work.

And he made me be his personal assistant - I had to make his food, act

as his chiropractor, walk with him (while he used a cane and pretended

to be really weak), get him food from the store, and listen for hours

on end as he whined and complained and cried. (I have *a lot* of

stories from that time period... I'll spare you them. Suffice it to

say all his behavior patterns were seriously intensified. )

(I know his illness was fake because he complained of logically

inconsistent symptoms that fluctuated depending on what he'd read on

the internet that day, and the " symptoms " that were visible, like

muscle twitches and nystagmus, he could consciously produce to

demonstrate. .. and he was *so* *very* *defensive* about his illness

and reacted with *such* rage when anyone challenged him on it.)

I went to college 500 miles away, but he still called me to whine, and

things were just the same when I was home.  My mom finally kicked him

out my sophomore year (after he had spent tens of thousands of dollars

on quack treatments), but she still insisted I had to see him because

it was my familial duty, and he treated me just the same.

Then, the next year, the divorce was finalized, and he somehow became

sane enough to go back to work (he's still crazy, and he still

continues in these same behavior patterns, and he still acts like

*something's* physically wrong with him and takes a bunch of quack

supplements, and he has started manifesting some *new* crazinesses;

but he can do his job, and he can carry on a conversation without

mentioning his " illness " or quack treatments).

..... And now I'm independent and free. I haven't spoken to him in

months. I've ignored his phone calls and his emails, and I haven't

gone home. (I know I'm going to have to see him the next time I go

home, and I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with his response. It'll

either be anger or the pathetic whining that's almost worse.)

And the thing I'm *really* concerned about is that I'm afraid I'm just

like him. Over the past year, I've gained a lot of awareness of the

ways in which my behavior resembles his:

I can't deal with criticism, at all. I'm incapable of accepting it and

correcting my behavior; I argue it, and when I can't argue anymore,

I'll say something like, " All right, I know I'm a horrible person. "

I try to find excuses so that I can be let off the hook. I try very

hard not to, and try to force myself to go to work no matter how sick

I am, etc., but when someone tells me that I need to take time off, I

*seize* that opportunity. I actually yearn for an excuse so that I

don't have to deal with the responsibility of life any more. I don't

think I would ever fake an illness and force others to take care of

me, but I can feel that force pulling me.

I manufacture all kinds of misery in my own life. I complain endlessly

about problems and reject any fix that people suggest. I sequester

myself from people and then complain about not having a social life.

I've gotten my friends ensnared by projective identifications a bunch

of times..

I am (as I just recently admitted to myself) manipulative. Very much

so. I very often set it up so that other people will argue with me,

and they'll argue what I want to hear, and I'll get to wallow in

self-indulgent depressive misery. ( " Fishing for compliments " is a

subset of this.) I manipulate people into giving me reassurance and

mercy and support; I manipulate them into pronouncing me innocent,

which is what I want to hear but will never believe.

I've picked up his habit of splitting, and I can't get rid of it. I

can only see good or bad. If I squint hard enough, I can make myself

think I see shades of gray, but when I stop concentrating it all goes

back to black and white.

There are a lot more patterns like this.

And when I think about all these things, my first reaction is to want

to make a big confession to my friends, of the form " I'm such a stupid

idiot. I'm such a horrible person, " which is basically " Let me be down

on myself so you'll take me back. "

It's like these patterns have a hold on me and cannot let me go, like

they're written into me. And every action falls into them - *even

trying to stop doing them*.

And I'm afraid my destiny is to turn into him, even though that is the

one thing I swore I would never do.

If anyone has advice on how to avoid that, and how to break these

patterns, I'd like to hear it.

Wow, sorry for the long post..

[Guest guest]

>

>

> This is a difficult point. My advice to you is to remind yourself

that you know who you are. You are not your problems, you are not

your trauma, you are not a sum of your past. Remind yourself that you

know who you are because then you have choices. Once you acknowledge

something you can choose to heal and overcome it.

>

Recovery-

That is possibly the most profound thing I have ever read in my 42

years of life. Janesoul is right...you are wise beyond your years.

With everything I have personally dealt with in the past week and a

half plus in addition to my life experience dealing with a BPD-Mom, I

needed to read that. In as much as I have come to terms with the

situation with my Mom, the crisis with my husband has churned up so

many things for me...never mind my Ex-husband interjecting

his " concern " (read gloating over my misfortunes) over recent events.

One of my friends said to me on Monday night that she and her husband

had a saying that they always used... " This is the hardest thing we

have ever done. " Although I truly hope that ends up being the case

and I don't ever have to re-visit that phrase, it was something that

is helpful in a way.

There is a saying that God never gives you more than he thinks you

can handle. All I know is that I wish he didn't have so much faith

in me...I haven't felt like I could really handle all of this and yet

here I am. Amazingly though, I think God put the right cast of

characters in my life to help me through a really tough week or

so...while things are far from over or resolved, the immediate crisis

has passed and I can move on from here.

...I understand your fear of not wanting to become your

father...I feel the same way about not wanting to become my mother.

As a parent of a 13 year old and a 10 year old, I often feel so ill-

equipped to know the " right " thing to do. The one thing that has

helped is simple awareness. Knowing where I came from and putting it

into perspective. I was already largely the opposite (or maybe anti-

Nada as some like to say) kind of parent. I have picked up minor

things that I have always been accutely aware of...but I have never

been affraid of admitting my mistakes and making a sincere

apology...something a BPD doesn't " get. "

Hang in there!

JJFan

[Guest guest]

I do not believe thatmedication is the answer.**** Neither do we!!! Welcome to the group, we're glad you've found us.Best Wishesx