Re: the first time I have really discussed my BPD mother.

[Guest guest]

You guys are great - its so nice to finally communicate with people who

understand what it was like!!! My family doesnt talk about it really, everyone

is too busy trying to forget.

Mum would tell us that she didnt love her older kids, that they werent really

family, even making us call them to say that we didnt like them, etc etc, but

whenever she could she would brag about being the parent of two sets of twins.

For her, kids were simply an achievement to show people how great she was. There

was never any real caring there - I dont ever remember hugs or kisses other than

the oligatory ones you give when you visit. One of the biggest crimes you could

do as a small child was cry in public - we knew as soon as we were out of

earshot of people we would be beaten for embarressing her.

Its funny that mentioning all this for the first time is helping me remember

stuff that, til now, I hadnt really recognised as crazy behaviour - I guess over

time you just file it away in your head as something that was unpleasant,

without thinking " that is incredibly NUTS and shouldnt have happened " . Bah.

Im glad you have a happy life now! So do I, and I guard it jealously - she will

never be a big part of my life again.

> >

> > Trying to put together a concise, clear description of what it was like for

me to grow up with a mother like mine is incredibly hard. So many things, its so

hard to know where to start – or even more difficult – to know where to stop. I

feel like I could write forever about it all.

> > Ive never really gone into a lot of detail about my mother to people. When I

do, people kinda freak out and I stop. I feel that they are going to think that

because she was mentally ill, I will be too. Particularly partners. I get the

feeling that once they know about her, they will watch to see if I have the same

characteristics – I know I would! I believe my mother is BPD with a very liberal

dose of paranoid delusions.

> >

> > When it comes to children she is violent, abusive, manipulative and she has

an obsession with thinking everyone is guilty of sexual abuse (despite never

having been abused herself).

> >

> > Growing up it was a constant battle to know when she would go off the deep

end, trying to " be good " all the time. Strangers used to tell her that she had

raised such perfectly mannered children, which I think vindicated her behaviour

in her eyes. We were terrified of making her mad. She was an artist at

physically assaulting you without leaving a mark. If you got a bruise from

playing outside she would fly into rages – paranoid that people would find out

that she beat us. We got raged at for not getting good enough marks, not getting

marks the same as eachother, enjoying anything we did get good marks at, having

different friends, having any friends, getting sick, etc.

> >

> > Imagine being 5 years old, having an enraged woman pulling you close by the

neck of your shirt, eyes flickering back and forth, spitting as she ferociously

told you exactly what a rapist would do to you if he got you alone in a public

toilet, in graphic detail. She made sure that we thought EVERYONE was a child

molester or rapist, even our own stepdad. We were terrified to be alone with him

at times.

> > If you ever argued back she would threaten to leave us at an orphanage, or

put us into foster care, where, you guessed it, someone would rape us. She gave

us boys haricuts but would dress us up in ridiculous frilly outfits. It was

bizarre.

> >

> > She got a bit better as we got older and began to fight back somewhat. She

only ever really went to town on small defenceless kids – the reason I try to

tell my siblings to never leave their children alone with her. Not to say she

wasn't totally irrational when we were older, but she knows that adults talk,

children can be scared into silence. Looking at my school records, for the first

few years we were absent from school for at least 1/3 of the year – no doubt she

didn't like the fact that we enjoyed it and were away from her.

> >

> > The delusions would get worse every now and then. Once she told me that the

devil had sent her to rule the world. She went through a period when I was in

primary school, where she was convinced that my sister wasn't able to walk (and

convinced my sister, who was rather suggestible). She paraded her around in a

wheelchair, and when doctors told her that there was nothing wrong with her, she

became convinced that the government was out to get her, took us kids out of

school and we had to go into hiding. My sister " miraculously " recovered when my

mother decided the cause was that she had too many teeth, and had 4 removed. As

my sister apparently recovered after this, she went on TV to say that she had

discovered the cure to almost everything. She had 8 of my teeth removed (for no

reason), and I recall being in the dentist chair, holding my breath as the

dentist and Mum argued over me about taking all my teeth out. She insisted that

I could eat through a straw and get false teeth when I was an adult. I was 13.

He refused, and Mum went on to buy her own dental pliers, and planned to take

out our teeth herself. Thankfully she never got around to it.

> >

> > She still thinks that teeth (as well as olive oil) are the cause of

everything wrong with a person. All us siblings tell new partners who meet mum

for the first time " don't mention teeth or olive oil.. actually, just talk about

the weather " . Otherwise she will get into a fervour and lecture you, and as soon

as you look like you don't believe her, a rage. Once she decides she doesnt like

your partner, she makes life hell trying to break you up.

> >

> > More to come later...

> >

>

[Guest guest]

No worries there, the good thing about this group is reading the stories. On one

hand its a releif to know that I wasn't the crazy one or the broken (?) one,

because there are so many stories here that are simular to mine. BUt at the same

time, I'm realizing that my story is one of the more severe examples, just like

yours. For most of my life, when I'd start talking about the abuse, or just the

" strangeness " people would seriously doubt me. People with normal, loving

families simply cannot grasp the deapth of the illness, cannot understand how a

parent would try to kill their child, cannot " go there " mentally. Most even

beleived that I was the problem. But for me it was the norm. Even my husband

thought that I was exaggerating until he saw her in action and he had a bit part

in one of her delusions. It was really something innocent too, not one of her

darker delusions. If my own husband felt that way, what do other people think?

I was an only child as well, which I think compounds things. My father left me

with her when I was 4 (after she tried to kill him) and wasn't in my life unless

it made him look good. I have a very very small extended family, one aunt (her

sister) is much like my mother on a lesser scale (she's more of a narcisist with

BPD tendancies- she would do things like go hitchhiking with my 6yo cousin, the

daughter of my other aunt and wonder why my aunt would freak out). My only other

aunt who is relatively normal distanced herself from the family early on, which

is likely what saved her. I was very isolated growing up. My reality became my

mothers reality, which is the norm for children of mentally ill parents. They

shape our reality. This means that I've been in therapy for a long time, undoing

a lot of damage.