Re: New Member. Not sure where to post this or what happens from here

[Guest guest]

Hi,

Welcome! I feel for your situation. Are you in India? I am interested in

what the atmosphere is there regarding psychiatric problems. I would read

everything I can on the subject if I were you. I think knowledge helps us

realize it's not us it's them.

> **

>

>

> Hello Universe!

>

> It took me a long time to reach out to something or someone regarding

> this. I have always known my Mother has BPD but for the longest time I

> would feel guilty that I can think of my own mother as someone who has a

> disorder. I come from South Asia and psychological conditions are

> considered a taboo. I have lived 27 years with a BPD mother and today I am

> coming to you for support or guidance of some sort about where to start to

> deal with a parent with BPD. She is 55, and there is no way I can get her

> into therapy, therefore I NEED therapy to deal with this. Please tell me

> where to start.

>

> Thank you,

> Divya

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Hi Divya, and welcome --

> **

>

>

> Hello Universe!

>

> It took me a long time to reach out to something or someone regarding

> this. I have always known my Mother has BPD but for the longest time I

> would feel guilty that I can think of my own mother as someone who has a

> disorder. I come from South Asia and psychological conditions are

> considered a taboo. I have lived 27 years with a BPD mother and today I am

> coming to you for support or guidance of some sort about where to start to

> deal with a parent with BPD. She is 55, and there is no way I can get her

> into therapy, therefore I NEED therapy to deal with this. Please tell me

> where to start.

>

> Thank you,

> Divya

>

> _

>

Okay, this is a tall order, but there are a lot of resources out there.

I'm going to point you at a couple of starting places and then you'll need

to look around and keep digging to find the answers that will work for you.

Don't expect to find any instant solutions because they don't exist, but

don't give up either, okay?

Since you have decided you could benefit from therapy (and with a BPD

parent you probably could), I would start at this link:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freudian-sip/201102/how-find-the-best-therap\

ist-you

Once you've absorbed the info there, follow the link to the Therapy Finder,

or you can also go to the American Psychological Association's website as I

think they have a searchable database.

A couple of tips just for the Adult Child of a BPD: Look for a therapist

with some background in domestic abuse issues, particularly one who has

worked with abused children or children of alcoholic parents. I would

suggest avoiding " family " therapists, because they tend (in my experience)

to have a bias toward " do anything to keep the family together " instead of

being oriented toward helping you figure out what's the best path for YOU,

instead of what the best path is for " your mother and you " as some kind of

unit. I would also avoid therapists who want you to explore your

" unconscious " feelings toward your mother (psychodynamic therapists, AKA

" What the Freudians turned into when Freud fell out of favor " ) because with

a BPD mother your feelings are probably very much conscious!

While you're looking for the right therapist to help you, I would suggest

reading some books on the topic of BPD. " Surviving the Borderline Parent "

is good and not too long; " Understanding the Borderline Mother " is very

good but hard to find -- I would suggest requesting it from your local

library using inter-library loan to find a copy. " Toxic Parents " isn't

bad, although it's for abusive parents of all stripes, not just

borderlines, and Forward is a big fan of confronting the abusive

parent, which is not usually a great idea with a BPD parent. For general

information on BPD and how to try to cope with its symptoms in someone you

care about, our own Randi Kreger's " Stop Walking On Eggshells " is an

excellent resource.

You can also rummage around on the Internet for information, but of course

with the usual " at least half of what you find on the Internet will be

garbage " disclaimer. For a non-garbage Internet resource, try

www.BPDfamily.com, which has a ton of info and a pretty good anonymous

message board you can post on to ask advice and share stories and just

generally vent. (You can do all that here too of course!)

The first practical skills you might want to try to develop are setting

boundaries (knowing what areas of your life you are willing to let your

mother influence you in, and what areas are off-limits to her input, and

how to make her aware of them), and setting limits (knowing what behavior

you will tolerate from your mother, and what you won't, and how to clearly

express to her what those limits are -- and how to enforce them when she

ignores them, which almost all BPDs do, since " ignoring other people's

boundaries and limits " is a pretty key part of what it means to be a

borderline, either because they just don't see what those boundaries and

limits are or should be, or they think that other people, particularly

their children, aren't " allowed " to have boundaries or set limits. There

are tips on these techniques in every book on BPDs and I would focus on

those to start with -- they'll take some thought and work to develop, and a

good therapist will help you with the process.

If you feel in need of face-to-face support, you might get lucky and find

an " Adult Children of Alcoholics " group you can visit in your area to see

if that's for you. They use a " twelve step " approach similar to AA and

Al-Anon, but they welcome any adult who had unreliable/unpredictable/messed

up parents. You may or may not like the twelve-step program but you might

find having some face-to-face support helpful anyway. (ACoA also has online

and telephone meetings I think, though I haven't tried any of those

personally.) You could also potentially seek out an Al-Anon group for the

families of alcoholics as they are more common than ACoA groups, but be

warned that you might find that some folks simply won't " get " your issues

with your mother and may say some pretty invalidating things -- in my area,

most attendees of Al-Anon are spouses or parents of substance abusers and

there aren't many folks with parents who are messed up, so I face a certain

amount of lack of comprehension. There are some good people in that program

though, and I've found them worth putting up with the oblivious ones since

the nearest ACoA meeting to me is sixty miles away. Oh, also, all 12-step

groups are independent, so they vary a lot and you may have to shop around

to find a group you " fit " with if you decide to make use of those groups as

a supportive resource.

Well, I think that's more than enough for one post. Don't be afraid to ask

any questions you want here -- I can almost guarantee there will be someone

else on the list who's had experience with whatever your BPD mom throws at

you.

Welcome again, and good luck.

-- Jen H.

[Guest guest]

Hi Divya,

Welcome to the Group.

I'm sorry that you're having to deal with the issue of having a mother with bpd,

particularly in a society where psychological issues are considered a taboo

subject.

How terribly stressful that must be for you. I hope you will be able to take

comfort in knowing that you are not alone, that the members here understand what

its like to have a mentally ill, abusive, negligent or exploitative parent /

parents. There is hope for us; its not all bleak.

My recommendation for getting started is to read as many of the excellent books

about bpd as you can. I personally recommend " Understanding the Borderline

Mother " by C. Lawson, and I've heard that " Surviving A Borderline Parent " by K.

Roth is good also. " The Essential Family Guide to BPD " by R. Kreger is good if

you are committed to remaining in contact with your bpd loved one.

There are basically two main options for us adult kids of bpd parents:

(1) we can choose to remain in contact by (a) establishing firm personal

boundaries to protect ourselves and enforcing our boundaries, and (usually) by

( limiting contact with our bpd parent to a frequency and duration we find

tolerable.

Or,

(2) we can choose to go No Contact with our bpd parent, either temporarily or

permanently.

The choice of whether to remain in contact or to cease contact is VERY personal.

It has to do with just how severely abusive your bpd parent is toward you, your

own resilience, and other factors. If your parents are an actual danger to you

(they are threatening to call child protective services on you, making false

reports to the police about you mistreating them (elder abuse), or they are

spreading false, defamatory information about you to your place of business,

your other relatives or your neighbors in order to ruin your good reputation, or

they are committing identity theft on you, stealing your mail, actively

stalking you, vandalizing your property, threatening you with violence, etc.)

then you may want to choose to go No Contact. If your bpd parents are more

functional, rational and non-threatening, then Limited Contact with Boundaries

may work OK for you. (Me personally, in my own situation, I just had no

resilience left and couldn't take the continuing personal attacks/the emotional

abuse any longer; it was starting to make me physically ill. I chose permanent

No Contact.)

In my own opinion, the greatest hurdle for the adult children of abusive,

personality-disordered parents is to overcome the misplaced and inappropriate

fear, obligation and guilt (or FOG) that we feel toward our parents. FOG can

prevent us from protecting ourselves from further abuse and can prevent us from

acting in our own best interests.

The books about bpd and books about setting and maintaining personal boundaries

can help the adult child of personality-disordered parents overcome some of the

inappropriate guilt and misplaced feelings of responsibility for managing our

personality-disordered parent's feelings for her, as though she is a small

child.

You did not cause your mother to be mentally ill, you can't change her, and you

can't cure her. Any changing or improvement on your mother's part has to come

from her own desire to change her behaviors. Without her desire to change, her

behaviors will continue as is. If you aren't willing or able to change the way

you relate to your bpd mother, its not likely that she's going to just

spontaneously stop being abusive to you.

Your challenge will be to create, maintain and enforce personal boundaries for

yourself (if you wish to remain in contact with your bpd mother.)

Boundaries are simply deciding what behaviors you will or will not tolerate from

your mother. Its important to understand that boundaries are for YOU.

Boundaries are NOT about telling your mother what to say or do, not telling her

how she should be, not telling her that she's wrong or bad or evil; boundaries

are simply saying to yourself AND executing: " If my mother does or says " X " to

me, I will do or say " Y " . " Example: " If my mother phones me and starts in on

criticizing/denigrating my husband to me, I will interrupt her and tell her that

I'm not going to listen to her talk badly about my husband. And if there is

nothing else she wishes to speak to me about, then I need to be doing other

things. "

So, there is no need to scream, cry, accuse, or call your mother bad names when

you have boundaries; you just calmly and assertively enforce your boundary if

your mother violates it.

All each of us has is the power to change our own behaviors: we can change our

own habitual ways of relating to or reacting to our abusive parent. We have the

power of choice.

My own personal opinion is that children are not born to become human-shaped

punching bags for abusive, negligent, un-empathetic, mentally ill or

substance-abusing parents. Children are not born to be chained to abusive

parents for life as their servants or slaves, nor are children born to become

substitute spouses or lovers to their mentally-ill parents. Its not the child's

job to be her mentally ill, abusive mother's best or only friend, or to be her

mother's rescuer and care-giver or " mommy. " A parent's job is to prepare their

child for independent, responsible adulthood: its your birthright to grow up and

create your own, independent, joyful, self-actualized adult existence. You have

the right to seek your bliss, as ph puts it; we each have our own

" hero's journey " to make. Abusive parents who do not prepare their child well

for adulthood, but instead neglect, batter or exploit their child for their own

selfish purposes are committing a deep, primal betrayal, seems to me.

So, in service of that goal I suggest that your first step is to read about the

borderline parent/non-borderline child relationship dynamic (in its various

forms). And there is more reading material suggested at the home site of this

group: BPDCentral; the members here will very likely recommend their own

favorite books that have helped them along their journey toward healing and

peace.

Again, welcome to the Group. I hope you will find it as healing as I have.

-Annie

>

> Hello Universe!

>

> It took me a long time to reach out to something or someone regarding this. I

have always known my Mother has BPD but for the longest time I would feel guilty

that I can think of my own mother as someone who has a disorder. I come from

South Asia and psychological conditions are considered a taboo. I have lived 27

years with a BPD mother and today I am coming to you for support or guidance of

some sort about where to start to deal with a parent with BPD. She is 55, and

there is no way I can get her into therapy, therefore I NEED therapy to deal

with this. Please tell me where to start.

>

> Thank you,

> Divya

>

[Guest guest]

Hi Divya,

I just wanted to welcome you. Reading up does help.

In terms of where to start, that might depend on where you are. If you are

looking for a therapist, I have some contacts with the South Asian mental health

community in Bombay and California that could help get you started. You can

contact me off-list if you want to.

I am not South Asian, but many of my friends are.

Take care,

Ashana

[Guest guest]

> The books about bpd and books about setting and maintaining personal

boundaries can help the adult child of personality-disordered parents overcome

some of the inappropriate guilt and misplaced feelings of responsibility for

managing our personality-disordered parent's feelings for her, as though she is

a small child.

**That is exactly what my mother can be like--a small child. She will swing

from that to accusing anyone she asked for help of pushing her around with any

suggestion they gave her.**

> Boundaries are simply deciding what behaviors you will or will not tolerate

from your mother. Its important to understand that boundaries are for YOU.

Boundaries are NOT about telling your mother what to say or do, not telling her

how she should be, not telling her that she's wrong or bad or evil; boundaries

are simply saying to yourself AND executing: " If my mother does or says " X " to

me, I will do or say " Y " . " Example: " If my mother phones me and starts in on

criticizing/denigrating my husband to me, I will interrupt her and tell her that

I'm not going to listen to her talk badly about my husband. And if there is

nothing else she wishes to speak to me about, then I need to be doing other

things. "

**So do you communicate these boundaries to your mother? I guess what I'm

asking is, how would you set a boundary regarding over-calling (for example) if

you didn't let her know you were making that boundary?**

> My own personal opinion is that children are not born to become human-shaped

punching bags for abusive, negligent, un-empathetic, mentally ill or

substance-abusing parents. Children are not born to be chained to abusive

parents for life as their servants or slaves, nor are children born to become

substitute spouses or lovers to their mentally-ill parents. Its not the child's

job to be her mentally ill, abusive mother's best or only friend, or to be her

mother's rescuer and care-giver or " mommy. " A parent's job is to prepare their

child for independent, responsible adulthood: its your birthright to grow up and

create your own, independent, joyful, self-actualized adult existence. You have

the right to seek your bliss, as ph puts it; we each have our own

" hero's journey " to make. Abusive parents who do not prepare their child well

for adulthood, but instead neglect, batter or exploit their child for their own

selfish purposes are committing a deep, primal betrayal, seems to me.

**Perfectly and eloquently written. So much truth in this one paragraph.

**

[Guest guest]

Hi dk,

You asked:

**So do you communicate these boundaries to your mother? I guess what I'm

asking is, how would you set a boundary regarding over-calling (for example) if

you didn't let her know you were making that boundary?**

I personally think that in the case of a nada over-calling, its best (and

kinder) to state your new boundary up front, otherwise nada would go into

hysterics thinking something awful had happened to you when she calls but you

don't pick up. (When I decided to go No Contact, I wrote my nada a brief

letter telling her that I would not be in contact with her for a while, and I'd

send her a letter letting her know that I was ready to be in touch again.)

You'd tell your nada that from now on, you are only going to be returning her

calls once a day (or once a week, or whatever frequency feels tolerable to you.)

You have to be willing to accept that your nada will NOT be happy with you for

limiting your contact with her, and that she will probably try to load you up

with FOG (Fear, Obligation, Guilt) in order to maintain frequent contact with

you. She might even escalate her contact attempts; that's called an " extinction

burst. "

If you are ready to accept that your nada be very upset with you, if you are

prepared and able to withstand FOG, and let go of the notion that you are

somehow responsible for managing your nada's feelings for her, then you can set

and maintain this boundary.

My Sister's rule was that it was OK for our nada to call anytime if nada was

experiencing a real, physical emergency, but nada was to call 911 first. If

nada was having a genuine emergency, Sister's house was a good 45 minutes away

and the hospital was 8 minutes away.

I hope that helps.

-Annie

[Guest guest]

One thing that has helped me, although I still struggle with it and have to

remind myself frequently of it, is: I cannot change my mother. The more I try

to change her behavior, the more I just make the situation worse.

Loving your mother doesn't mean you have to have a close relationship with her.

If she is not open to a healthy relationship, then you cannot have an intimate

relationship with her, and loving her can take the form of distancing yourself

from her. Sometimes distancing yourself is the best way to love her because

then she is forced to realize her own poverty. By remaining close when she is

behaving badly only reinforces her bad behavior.

You can get help and therapy for yourself, but you cannot get it for her. You

can learn to control your behaviors and attitudes towards others, but you cannot

change hers.

Also, you can help " teach " her how to have a good relationship by setting up

boundaries. When she is interacting with you in a healthy, positive way, you

can stay in contact. If she starts to get manipulative or angry over the phone,

then you can gently tell her that the conversation is over for today.

I commend you for wanting to get therapy. I think anyone who has a parent like

ours should get therapy. I also recommend a book called Boundaries: by Drs.

Cloud and Townsend

Cheers,

Fauntine

>

> Hello Universe!

>

> It took me a long time to reach out to something or someone regarding this. I

have always known my Mother has BPD but for the longest time I would feel guilty

that I can think of my own mother as someone who has a disorder. I come from

South Asia and psychological conditions are considered a taboo. I have lived 27

years with a BPD mother and today I am coming to you for support or guidance of

some sort about where to start to deal with a parent with BPD. She is 55, and

there is no way I can get her into therapy, therefore I NEED therapy to deal

with this. Please tell me where to start.

>

> Thank you,

> Divya

>