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[Guest guest]

I currently live in the house of the BPD person (I'm 25 years old). My father

can go from extremely happy to hell-bent on destroying anyone he thinks is

" bad " . You are either good or bad in his eyes. I've learned what triggers him

to think certain things, and I managed to protect my mother for a while and try

to keep him calm. But one day, he blew up and went crazy. He went to the

" courthouse " to get divorce papers, took them home and told my mother he filed

them, packed his suitcase and ran off to a casino for the weekend. She emailed

me crying and frustrated. Once I looked at the papers I realized he never even

filed them. There was no case number, and different information about my mother

was missing. I came home and dedicated myself to listening to my mother. Then

he called me that night and told me the most horrible messed up things about

her. Including fake physically abusive stories about how she punched him and so

forth, and how he should have left her alone as a single mother with me. You

see, he trained me my entire life to be against my mother and told me horrible

stories about her. But that night on the phone I realized everything he tells

me are ALL lies. He " filed " those papers to scare her.

The oddest thing happened the next day... He showed up extraordinarily happy as

if nothing happened. To him, he was off on a weekend getaway.

That in a nutshell is my father. He has raised me to be an adult from a very

early age who would grow up and take care of him. He's purposely sabotaged good

things in my life just to make sure I had to be close to him, only to satisfy

his psychotic neediness. The stories are endless. So many times when he would

go on a horrible verbal rampage until he had beaten me down to utter humiliation

with his words, or went on a violent rampage breaking everything in my room.

Without fail the next day he would be extraordinarily happy. My best friend of

8 years (whom is about to go onto graduate school for psychology) observed that

to her it seems like he gets a lot of pleasure out of terrifying my mom and me.

He's a master manipulator. He does this thing when he thinks you are bad where

he pushes all your buttons at once until you flip out on him, then he stands

there laughing and making fun of you, and trying to make you feel or look like

you're the crazy one.

Do these stories sound familiar for anyone? I feel so guilty all the time like

I should be protecting my mother. Lately, he's in happy mode so he's been okay.

I have so much anxiety now that one day I'm going to get that email or phone

call that my dad is at it again. He might not now that I am working out of the

house permanently (I work virtually for a company in MN). Although, that could

also mean he won't be able to hide it and I'll see how he screams at her when

I'm not here. I don't like him in that mode. He's really really scary.

How do you deal with the guilt? Wanting to protect but being too tired to do

it? I can barely look at him some days. I like to pretend like he's normally

when he's in extremely happy mode but I know it won't last and he'll crack

again. I'm moving out in a couple of months so luckily I won't be around to see

it, but then I fear for my mother. With him retired, bored, no one to boss

around and frustration with his own life he might take it out on her.