To tell the family or not to tell the family?

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone --

I was on here a few years ago and it changed my life. In fact, it changed it so

much I'm writing a book about it called Over The Borderline: How I Recovered

from Having a Mother with Borderline Personality Disorder.

OK, here's the current dilemma: a lot of people are 'named' in the book, meaning

conversations I had with them about my Mom are in there. This includes people

like my family friends, great-aunt, my cousin, my stepmother, etc. As I start

informing my networks about the book, eventually it's going to get back to them,

and I'm wondering what I should do about telling them.

Let's take my cousin Marisa to start with. Now, I could just change her name and

be done with it - the family will likely know who I'm talking about, but I don't

think anyone else will. Should I tell her that that she's in it before it comes

out? She has always been good to me and listened, even though she's been one of

the ones who I don't think ever really believed my Mom had BP. To put this in

context, here's the section with her in it:

_________

I’m 27, and it’s not long after having another unproductive and frustrating

talk with Ruth about how I need to just get over myself, that my cousin Marisa

calls.

“We should go out to dinner and catch up!†she says, and I agree

enthusiastically. She is one of the most compassionate people I know, and for

living in the same city, we rarely get together.

We meet at a soup and salad place on the Upper West Side, and not long into our

dinner, the topic of my mother comes up. I try to tell her about Borderline and

she listens empathetically, but I don’t think she really believes me that

it’s bad enough to call it a personality disorder. It does seem a little

extreme to give someone a label, and I can tell that no one in my family really

thinks it was that bad. It is almost my universal experience that they think I

am overreacting.

Still, Marisa is a very validating person, and listens closely when I tell her

about a few specific incidents to illustrate my point that my mom’s behavior

crosses a line. Then she (like Ruth and Pudgy) talks about the need for

compromise, and for allowing our mothers the ability to have their say in terms

of our lives. I agree, disheartened, because then I know that she thinks that my

mother is just like any other mother. And it’s not as though she’s a

monster, but I don’t know how to describe the pervasive emotional engulfment

I’m talking about … I can never find a good way to talk about it, so I

usually just end up feeling sad and frustrated. At some point I mention the fact

that I do know that I’m no longer willing to tolerate her outbursts †" that

my plan, should I ever see her again and she has one, is simply to walk away.

“But perhaps when you walk away, mention that you will see her again, or that

it’s not that you’re leaving forever … I mean if someone had abandonment

issues, that could be difficult for them.â€

She gets it, I think. My mom definitely does have abandonment issues. And at

the same time, it’s a point I hadn’t really come to yet. I hadn’t

considered that plan of walking away past the point of actually walking away,

because I’d never done it before. Until Christmas when I was 25 and finally

found the emotional strength to say No, I’d always just taken it. I’d always

fed the empty place, the overwhelming pressure to say whatever it was she needed

to her to be OK. Marisa makes a good point, that in walking away it would also

be important to let the person know that you’re not walking away forever,

since that is one of their greatest fears.

But sitting in the food court area, gripping the plastic tray beneath food I no

longer have the desire to eat, I suddenly feel tired. I’ve been trying to fill

that hole inside my mom, make up for the feelings of abandonment and empty

aching sadness within her, for over two decades. I can barely manage my own

emotions and try to get over the issues that I’ve picked up from everything

that happened, and I try so hard. I make valiant efforts every day. Every day I

cry, I process, I get triggered, I feel rejected, I journal, I do it over again.

Every day I try to get a grip on myself, to manage my own anxiety, my own hurt,

my own feelings. Why is it that I have to manage hers on top of mine? Why does

everyone feel that it’s my obligation to do that, but don’t seem to question

whether anyone is there to help me?

I feel a sense of loss, of grief, and a deep sense of loneliness. Yes, I feel

sad for my mother. Yes, I feel awful that she has that empty aching pit of need

inside her. Yes, I know she has the right to be taken care of, to have anyone

that walks away from her ensure that she knows that it’s not forever. Yes, I

want her to get better †" but I don’t know how to do that. That’s the

point. I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO IT. I keep screaming it silently, when people

talk to me about it, but I might as well be mute when I say it, because they

never seem to hear me. I’m not equipped to do this. I don’t know how to do

it. She needs someone smarter, wiser, more knowledgeable, more experienced, more

prepared to deal with her needs. Her issues, her emptiness, her self-esteem, all

of those things go beyond my capacity †" way beyond it, and I don’t know how

to express that to people like Marisa. I don’t know how to say that every time

I think I have a handle on it, I realize that I don’t know what to do. I never

knew what to do, and the fact that I walked away was actually a remarkable

choice. It was finally laying down the mantle and saying, Enough. I don’t know

how to help you, and while I stay, we’re both drowning.

I choose to get out of the water now, to save my own life. And if that’s a

selfish choice, so be it.

_________________

You can see that it's not like I come out and say Marisa was wrong - and maybe

the section isn't so bad - so do you think I should just tell her about it? I

think if I were her I'd like to know.

However, this brings up another point: once I tell someone like Marisa, she'll

probably tell her mom, and eventually it will likely get to everyone, and my

family will know. Now, I'm in a very good place. I don't care whether my mother

finds out. I don't care whether she emails me and tells me I'm a terrible person

for exposing all our family secrets. Screw her - this is an important story that

needs to be out there in the world and I don't care. She made some of this mess

and she can deal with it being read. I will change her name and probably

everyone's names, but I'm not going to go back on my plan to publish. I just

want to know too whether it's worth it for me to enter the land of them all

knowing, or just avoid all of that and publish it without them knowing, which

seems a little weird and sneaky, or underhanded or something.

So I'm just wondering what people think in terms of alerting those other family

members, the ones that weren't awful to me but shared some relatively private

things that are now going to be public. Do I tell them about the book and that

they'll be in it, or not?

Thanks!

C.