Re: Re: Bpd grandnada traumatizes grandkids

[Guest guest]

Annie, that is horrible, but unfortunately, I can relate all too well. My

mother was very similar where my father was concerned. She had to be #1 and no

one else. If I had a friend, she wanted to go have her own relationship with

them. She turned my father against me...telling him how bad I was and that he

didn't 'get it' because he was at work. When he did get home, she filled his

ears with crap I supposedly did and he took her side, yelling at me. If I

climbed in his lap or tried to spend time with him she'd tell me to stop being a

weirdo and call me a stalker and a the creep who stares at people all the time.

She would get me out earshot of my father and tell me that he had come to her

and didn't want me around him and that I was annoying him, etc...all kinds of

stuff he claims now he never said.

Re: Bpd grandnada traumatizes grandkids

If you imagine that exact mealtime scenario happening to a little child nearly

every day, at nearly every meal, that was my life growing up.

My nada's ego was totally wrapped up in being perfect and preparing foods

perfectly, and she was very likely to go ballistic if I didn't care for a

particular food she'd prepared and didn't want to eat it. We're talking

red-faced, screaming tantrums, and literally physically forcing me to eat foods

I didn't want to eat.

Any meal could turn into a torture session. I was a very nervous, anxious,

jittery and somewhat underweight child who dreaded mealtimes.

I had to sit right next to nada, catty-cornered, so she was like, looming over

me and staring at me and my plate the whole time. I was physically afraid of

her; she could suddenly slap my face hard at any moment for any reason. Very

nerve-wracking.

Being underweight added to nada's determination to get me to eat more (it was a

bad reflection on her) and that just made the whole thing more " all about nada. "

Even as an older child, I wasn't allowed to prepare my own foods. Nada didn't

want me in the kitchen with her to teach me how to cook (she said I " made her

nervous " ) and I wasn't to go in there and eat between meals unless she made the

snack for me.

It was the classic vicious cycle: her oppressive, relentless need to force me to

eat the foods she made just made me more anxious and stressed, and the fear of

being forced to choke down some weird new food or some food I knew I hated, and

fear of being physically struck if I didn't, killed my appetite. It became a

battle of wills, except that I knew already that I couldn't win.

I believe all this is a significant factor in my continuing battle with obesity.

Once I became an adult and could eat whenever and whatever I wanted to in peace

and freedom, I did. I have yo-yoed up and down over the years, my entire adult

life.

But the point I'm wanting to make is that some nadas are just way, way too

dysfunctional to be raising children, and too dysfunctional to even babysit

small children.

I think its the ones with too many narcissistic pd and antisocial pd traits that

you have to be the most aware of and vigilant about: they lack empathy, they

lack patience, they lack basic parenting skills, they lack emotional regulation,

and when they feel disrespected or rejected, resentment can trigger a terrifying

rage... over nothing more than the *normal* behaviors of a little child.

And this type of nada feels both justified and entitled to punish the little

child for not being simply an obedient, mute object with no needs or feelings or

thoughts of her own, or his own.

Its dangerous to leave a child with someone who can't relate to him or her as a

fellow human being, who punishes the child for not being an inanimate object.

Oh, and I learned early on to not cry for my daddy, not show that I missed him

and wished that he was home; that would trigger a rage in nada too. Except for

one memorable incident, when she was screaming at me and slapping me around, I

asked between sobs if daddy was coming home soon, and nada's face just went

blank and she turned and walked away from me, leaving me shaking and wondering

what had happened. It was like a light switch: the rage turned off instantly.

Weird.

-Annie

>

> This is a big trigger: since the birth of my kids, I've been extra careful in

letting nada around them only when I was present. I've been limiting contacts on

purpose because I didn't want to subject my kids to the endless manipulation,

meanness, psychological torture I went through growing up with her.

>

> Even in my presence, nada managed to throw some infuriating tantrums: one day,

my then three-year-old was being difficult with his food (like any

three-year-old). Nada went into a mini-rage, accusing the toddler, strapped in

his highchair, of not wanting to eat that food, because it was the food that SHE

prepared, HER food! And she got made at ME because i was not educating my son

well and I was not teaching him to appreciate the food and meals prepared by

other people. It was Nuts, I was fuming. After two more episodes like that I

ended up putting her on a plane back home.

>

> Only once, I let the kids stay with her AND my sister for about a week, during

a period of extreme workload for me where I really needed somebody to watch the

kids. And I regretted it later. My then 5-year-old daughter had a typical

melt-down and started to cry one night before bed because she was 'missing

mommy'. Such an insult for a BPD, right? I was told later by my son - who at

that point was 8 - that grandma started raging for hours yelling " why are you

crying, you little spoiled brat? Why do you want your mom??? AM I NOT ENOUGH??? "

and on and on.

>

> It happened in 2003 and I still cringe when I think about it.

>

> So, even with the best of intentions, I do not recommend leaving the kids with

a BPD grandma.

>