Empathy for nadas (was: Re: My personal favorite Nada one liners.)

[Guest guest]

I'm not at all convinced that people with BPD were usually

abused as children. I think many of them feel like they were

abused but that doesn't mean they really were abused. BPD makes

people feel like every little slight, disagreement, or failure

to get what they want is an attack. That can translate being

told " no " or any form of normal discipline into abuse in their

minds. Some of them really were abused though and my guess is

that it happens at a higher percentage than normal because BPD

seems to have a genetic component which would mean there's a

higher than normal chance they were raised by a parent with BPD.

Abused or not, there's no excuse for abusing their own children.

Numerous people have bad childhoods with some kind of abuse at

some point and they don't all do what our parents have done to

us. That's a choice that they make. If you don't feel empathy

for your nada, I see nothing wrong with that. I don't think that

feeling empathy for someone who has mistreated you is something

that anyone can reasonably require of you. If you can feel

empathy, that's fine too. I think it must be horrible to be a

nada. They aren't happy people for the most part.

Sometimes it takes a while for the rage and hate to work their

way out. It took years for them to build up, so they aren't

likely to go away quickly either. As the causes for them get a

bit more distant, hopefully you'll be more succcessful at

channeling them into more constructive emotions.

At 08:26 AM 04/18/2012 SR wrote:

>I totally get where you are coming from Annie, and believe me I

>have a hard time turning on the empathy for abusive people,

>especially waify ones. But using the same logic, the BPDs are

>usually grown up abused children themselves, no?

>

> I am struggling with this myself. Having empathy for my now

> deceased (cue her favorite song, Amazing Grace) NADA. I can

> only feel empathy if I imagine her as a little girl. If I

> imagine her as an adult all I get is those black eyes and

> borderline rage face (which to be fair I haven't experienced

> in a number of years prior to her death, she had moved on to

> more stealth activities).

>

>Boy I really hate PD Moms. And I really want to transform this

>hate into something more constructive like rebuilding my own

>life. But it's like my rage synapses are so strong, if you

>understand what I mean.

>

>SR

--

Katrina