Re: Re: Difficulty accepting non-BPD parentÂ’s complicity

[Guest guest]

Thank you very much for that book recommendation. I have been wondering the last

few months after reading " surviving a borderline parent " why my father a non BPD

decided to have children with my mum after several suicide attempts long before

she got pregnant. More and more I am thinking of the partners of BPD's. I,

myself was in a relationship with a BPD for 5 years and it was very hard for me

to get out of the relationship....what kind of persons are attracted to BPD, or

is it a dynamic only very few can resist and managed not to get suck into. I

have no answers for these questions yet but the book sounds as so it could offer

some insight into that matter. Thanks again.

Sent from my iPad

> you might want to check into UTBM- Lawsons book, Understanding the

Borderline Mother. It talks about the types of BPD mothers and the types of men

they partner with and how over and over the child is sacrificed emotionally and

physically to the demands of the BPD mother. To address at least part of what

you said, YES your father is complicite in your abuse. He allowed it and did

little to nothing to protect you and yes, you have EVERY right to be angry at

him as well.

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> C

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> > I'm the adult daughter of a mother who I believe has BPD. For years, it

seemed like she was normal and sweet and compassionate maybe 90% of the time.

But her rages made me feel emotionally unsafe, and contributed to generalized

anxiety that I still deal with at work and in intimate relationships. (Since it

was impossible to predict what would trigger my mother's anger, I became and

remain hypervigilant and constantly worried about letting down supervisors,

screwing up projects, etc. In most areas of my life, I realize I believe on a

gut level that if I maan honest mistake, I will have emotional hell to pay.)

> >

> > During my mother's rages, she alternates between being aggressively mean and

loud, and giving the silent treatment. These episodes can last for several days.

She says hateful things that she doesn't apologize for; she becomes vindictive;

she makes a very focused effort to punish the target of her anger. She reverts

to a victim/martyr mentality.

> >

> > It was only recently I suspected she might have BPD, and reading `Surviving

the Borderline Parent' has been extremely helpful.

> > But while I process this, I find myself resenting my father's role in all of

this. My parents are still married, and growing up, my father was around just as

much as my mother was. I know that my mother's anger responses have always been

this way, so for several years before I was born, my father was dealing with

these horrific episodes. I was subjected to this kind of cruel treatment at a

very young age – I remember it happening when I was three or four, and

continuing all through my childhood.

> >

> > My father himself had a very fearful childhood and grew up in an abusive

home. He believes he developed PTSD from watching his father beat the other

kids. As a result, my father vowed he would be a loving, compassionate father

– and he is. He's accessible. But I never remember him interceding when my

mother was emotionally abusive to me.

> > I remember feeling like an awful child, getting yelled at for tiny

infractions, and sobbing alone in my room. Sometimes I would become physically

ill when my mother yelled at me. I truly believed that this was how all children

had it. My father (perhaps not wanting to be the target of my mother's wrath)

would act as a sort of go-between, but wasn't terribly sympathetic – he'd

often seem cold, too. Sometimes he would even say " You screwed up. "

> >

> > It wasn't until I was about 12 that my father explained to me a bit more

about how my mother was – how she lost control of herself when she was angry

and said things she didn't mean. How I couldn't take it too personally. How I

was a good kid.

> >

> > I resent him for not saying this to me much, much earlier. I resent him for

not protecting me more from my mother's damaging behavior.

> > Due to financial issues, I've temporarily moved in with my parents again. My

mother's BPD (as I believe it to be) seems worse. My father and I have been

going through hell – she expects us to fulfill all her social needs, so it's

easy to let her down.

> >

> > I work hard and am planning to move out soon, so I've been distancing myself

from this awful situation. I avoid seeing my mother when she's " having an

episode. " But I'll often get emails from my father giving me advice about how to

" handle " my mother – emails that basically instruct me to appease her

manipulative behavior. When she attempts to punish me for some imagined wrong,

he'll tell me to give in to it. Because she feels abandoned, he thinks I should

make an effort to be home more. I've explained to him how it still takes a toll

on my physical health to be in this constant state of tension when she's like

this; he argues that I can't " resolve " things with my mother if I'm not around.

> >

> > It's amazing to me that he thinks this way. He knows exactly what it's like

to be on the receiving end of this kind of treatment, and he knows her responses

are never rational.

> >

> > I believe that at some point, he made the decision to stay with her and

because of that, acts in survival mode. That means not standing up for himself

or me, and I know he will never tell her to seek professional help.

> >

> > He and I have had a few emotional conversations about this situation in the

past couple weeks. I've been able to tell him honestly how my mother's behavior

has made me a fearful adult. What I haven't been able to say is how disappointed

I am that he didn't do more to help me, or at least comfort me, when I was too

young to know what was going on.

> >

> > Even now, it's not that I need him to protect me – I just want to know

that my sense of self-worth, and my dignity, is worth something to him.

> >

> > I feel like my father's reality and my own are diverging: I can see my

mother's mental illness and would like for her to get help but, short of that, I

would like me and my father to stand up for ourselves and stop appeasing this

destructive behavior. My father, however, sees this as his lot. He doesn't think

she'll ever change.

> > As I prepare to leave home again, I am seriously considering the more

stringent boundaries I'll have to establish with my mother. I don't think my

father realizes how much I need to distance myself from our little family.

> >

> > So I have a couple of questions:

> >

> > 1) How do you deal with a complicit (even enabling) parent?

> >

> > 2) Should I tell my father what I believe, that my mother likely suffers

from BPD?

> > Thank you.

> >

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