My Mom has BPD. Now what?

March 15, 2012

My Mom is 62 years old and she was unwillingly put in a psych ward for 2 weeks

(she was threatening to hurt herself and others in the emergency room) and they

told me her diagnoses last week. She has BPD, NPD and Histronic personality

disorders along with bi-polar type2. Everything is starting to make sense now

that I am doing research on this disorder. I was physically and emotionally

abused by her my whole childhood. I feel like I have tried everything to get

along with her. All I ever wanted was to have a Mom that was compassionate and

unconditional to me and my little sister. I am the mother of twins now and I

will do everything in my power not to let her corrupt them as she corrupted me.

I need help knowing what to do. She just went completely off her meds she was

prescribed(Seroquil and Depakote) And she is back to her abusive dramatic cycle.

If I ax her out of my life- I feel guilt and I worry, or she is in my life, and

she stresses me out so much that I fear I am going to have a heart attack by age

40.

I had a re occuring daydream when I was a kid that my real Mom would come

walking up the steps knock on the door and ask for me. I would jump in her arms

and she would take me away from my evil mom. The thing is, she looked just like

my evil mom. I just wanted her to be nice and normal. Not just to me, but to

everybody around me.

I always thought it would take me years to explain my Mom to a counselor or

therapist, so I never tried. It seemed like too much work. Now, I can say BPD

and that would describe her to the T.

I would love any advice from a child of a mom with BPD. I finally have some

answers, but now how do I handle her. I can't tell you how much better I feel

knowing there are others here that have had similar childhoods. I thought I was

all alone for so long.

March 16, 2012

Hi , welcome to the Group.

It never ceases to amaze me that even though experiencing really extensive,

severe, chronic emotional and physical abuse from our mothers for our whole

lives, we adult children of mentally ill parents can still feel this bone-deep

need to bond with them.

To me, that is a testament to the human capacity for love, and a testament to

how strong our unconscious and probably genetically-hardwired imperative for

familial attachment is.

I hope you will take some comfort in realizing that you are not the only one,

that others here have experienced similar abusive parenting as you did, and most

importantly I hope you will come to understand that (1) you did not cause your

mother to have a personality disorder, (2) you can't cure her, (3) you have

done nothing to feel guilty about, (4) you did not deserve to be mistreated as a

child or as an adult by your own mother, (5) you are not responsible for how

your mother feels about anything: her feelings are hers to manage, and (6) you

were not put on this earth to be your mother's mother or her punching bag.

Its OK to love your mother, still, but from a safe distance; its OK to establish

firm boundaries or rules to protect you and your children, and enforce

consequences for boundary violation. And its also OK if instead you feel the

need to cut all emotional ties with your mother and withdraw totally. You are

not obligated to put yourself or your children in harm's way just because she is

your mother. In fact, its now up to you to protect your children from the kind

of abuse and mistreatment that you endured at her hands.

This is a lot to absorb, all at once.

I hope that if you haven't already, you will seek out and read some of the

excellent books that are available now about borderline pd and how to manage

having a relationship with a parent with bpd, how to establish and enforce

reasonable boundaries to protect yourself, etc.

Bottom line: I hope you can take away from this Group the understanding that

you have NOTHING TO FEEL GUILTY ABOUT. No guilt. The guilt you feel is

misplaced and inappropriate, and placed on your shoulders by your mother when

you were too little to even understand what was being done to you.

I hope that helps.

-Annie

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> My Mom is 62 years old and she was unwillingly put in a psych ward for 2 weeks