shoulds, coudas, wouldas....

[Guest guest]

As I read more and more I question Nada's BPD status but it but the problem

being more about " SHOULDS "

This woman soooo hung up on her personal ideology of what should and

shouldn't be.. It wreaks havoc in all family.

Can a bad case of shoulds be separated from BPD or NPD?

They look a look an awful lot alike.

,_._,___

[Guest guest]

Hi --

On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 8:59 PM, Manning michelle@...>wrote:

> **

>

>

> As I read more and more I question Nada's BPD status but it but the problem

> being more about " SHOULDS "

>

> This woman soooo hung up on her personal ideology of what should and

> shouldn't be.. It wreaks havoc in all family.

>

> Can a bad case of shoulds be separated from BPD or NPD?

>

> They look a look an awful lot alike.

>

>

>

I read a book recently you might want to take a look at. It's called

" Controlling People " , by . (The title is about " People who

are controlling " , not " How to control people. " )

says that in her work with abusive controllers she's discovered that

the source of a lot of their bad behavior seems to be that they have a

" fantasy version " of the person they are dealing with (spouse, child,

whatever) which is an idealized and compliant version of the real person.

They basically invest the real person with this fantasy persona.

calls it " Teddy " , because she uses the example of a kid who pretends that

his teddy bear is alive and his best friend -- since Teddy is a creation of

the child's own mind, Teddy never does anything unexpected or truly

unwanted by the child. Teddy is an extension of the child's mind.

Because the controller has this image of the " ideal " person they WISH to

see locked firmly in their head, they can get very upset, anxious, and

enraged whenever the real person who is truly there acts in an unexpected

or unwelcome way, because it presents a sort of threat against " Teddy " , the

ideal. This causes the controller to try to make the real person fall in

line with how " Teddy " should be, at whatever cost. After all, who wouldn't

be freaked out if a stuffed toy suddenly came to life and started acting as

if it had free will? (That's a horror movie right there.)

This results in a huge case of the " shoulds " , as you put it. " Good children

SHOULD behave like this, " " Someone who really loves me SHOULD behave like

that, " and so on. Now, I'm not saying people should have no standards

whatsoever -- I'm perfectly capable of saying " Good parents should not

scream and rage at and hit their children, " and feeling like I'm on solid

ground with my " shoulds. " A controlling person, however, takes this to

ridiculous extremes, and might say something like " A good wife should

ALWAYS have dinner on the table when I get home! " even though this is not

actually a reasonable expectation in this day and age. Or " A spouse who

really loved me SHOULD NEVER forget our anniversary! " even if the spouse is

working an eighty-hour week and is seriously sleep-deprived. If you break

the " should " , you break the fantasy in a major way -- you're not a human

who makes errors, you're a freaky Teddy Bear that just sprang to

independent life! AIYEEE!

Anyway, I thought it was a pretty good book. Your local library should be

able to dig up a copy for you to look at if you're interested.

-- Jen H.

[Guest guest]

Thanks Jen. It is an interesting concept about " Teddy " . I think my nada's

version of me that she hold to from when I was 10 or 12. She buys me things

that I would have liked back then, she refers to my life and how I should

appreciate all I had when I was that age. Whenever I get upset she thinks

I'm holding on to something from 25 years ago. It was always a joke that my

nada had a reset button because it didn't matter how rational she was when I

would tell her something or we worked through an issue the next day it was

like that conversation never happened. She reset to when I was 12 and

nothing about foods, clothing, interests were updated to today's date. She

has an imaginary daughter that did everything to please her mother at that

age (most likely out of fear of punishment) and I have not been living up to

that image for 25 years and got to hear about it constantly that I was not

treating her right.

Sad. . .

[Guest guest]

Yup -- been there, done that, bought the freaking T-shirt! My Nada tends

to " reset " to when I was around 13 or so. She'll say things like " This

reminds me of Elfquest! " (which was a gooey fantasy comic I enjoyed at age

13, but haven't looked at in 30+ years!)

In what is probably NOT a coincidence, 13 was the age I was the first time

I grabbed her hand when she went to hit me and told her I wasn't going to

let her do that any more. I was standing in the living room with her

screaming at and flailing at me, and I grabbed her wrist and told her " NO.

Stop that! " She about had a stroke on the spot. It didn't stop her from

continuing to try to hit me, but from that point on I knew it was okay to

block or dodge or run, not just stand there and take it. I suspect she

views the days when I had no choice but to stand there and take it as some

kind of Golden Era of Nada Control (ARGH!).

In another not-coincidence, age 10-13 is the age where children start to

take their first steps toward psychological separation from the parents

(leading to the rebellious limit-testing tween and teen years, and eventual

emotional adulthood.) One book I read said that up until age 10 or 11 or

so, if you ask a kid who knows best what they want, the kid will say

" Mom/Dad knows, " meaning they think that their parents know more about what

their real desires and needs are than the kid does herself. Once they hit

age 10 or 11, they start to realize that they themselves know more about

what they actually want than Mom and Dad do, and they start to have the

desire to do things their own way.

For example, a six year will notice that Mom says " I know you need to go to

the bathroom before the long car trip. Go inside and go, " and if the kid

doesn't do it, the kid is startled to find that ten minutes later he DOES

need to go to the bathroom. This looks like a kind of magic from the kid's

point of view -- they don't understand that it's born of simple experience

and the better long-term thinking capabilities of the adult brain. They

think Mom and/or Dad have " Magic Eyes " or something. ( " Mom always seems to

know in advance when I'm getting ready to do something I shouldn't! " )

But a twelve year old is more likely to actually understand why going to

the bathroom before a car trip is a good idea and to do it themselves if

they actually need it -- they have enough experience to know that this

often happens. So if, at age 12, the kid says " I don't need to go to the

bathroom, " and the parent keeps going " Yes you do! " , the parent is probably

wrong this time, and kids start to notice that Mom and Dad aren't

omniscient and omnipowerful after all. This normal healthy change from

" Parents are magic " to " Parents are human and fallible " seems to freak out

a lot of BPD parents. I would guess that some of them really love and

cherish the idea that their kids think they are superheroes who are always

right, instead of ordinary flawed human beings, and when their kids lose

that mental veil the BPDs see it as some kind of major rejection rather

than normal development.

-- Jen H.

On Sat, Dec 1, 2012 at 12:51 AM, Renslow jwjrenslow@...>wrote:

> **

>

>

>

>

> Thanks Jen. It is an interesting concept about " Teddy " . I think my nada's

> version of me that she hold to from when I was 10 or 12. She buys me things

> that I would have liked back then, she refers to my life and how I should

> appreciate all I had when I was that age. Whenever I get upset she thinks

> I'm holding on to something from 25 years ago. It was always a joke that my

> nada had a reset button because it didn't matter how rational she was when

> I

> would tell her something or we worked through an issue the next day it was

> like that conversation never happened. She reset to when I was 12 and

> nothing about foods, clothing, interests were updated to today's date. She

> has an imaginary daughter that did everything to please her mother at that

> age (most likely out of fear of punishment) and I have not been living up

> to

> that image for 25 years and got to hear about it constantly that I was not

> treating her right.

>

> Sad. . .

>

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Wow,

I sent the 'teddy' idea to my gf who has a NPD ex-spouse. We both laughed so

hard as we discussed how TRUE this is. She wants her exwife-teddy to turn its

head and just yell 'blah!' I like the comparison so much. My nada does this too,

my spouse and I call it 'the play book.' And when people (family, phone customer

service agent, gardner, contractor, bank teller, grocery checker, etc) do things

out of character/role from 'the play book' it sets her off. I have a role in the

play book too, often times it's how I'm supposed to act when I was 16. My mom

seems to be stuck at the point in time where I developed independant decisions

making skills and wore a size junior medium. (yea she still buys me this

size…huuuulllooo!) and she is especially still hung up at me having my first

serious boyfriend. She raged at my spouse a few months about how all the

'relationship problems between' nada and I began when he came in the picture.

(which was over 20 years ago, when I was 16!!) It's really just that I was

making my own choices and thus 'abandoned' her. I too moved out of state 2 yrs

later and didn't come home during the holidays nor during summer nor after

graduating. Only after reading others' posts here have I really put all of this

together. It's so enlightening as to the journey I've taken and the person I am.

I've entered a new stage, being a mom and nada as a grandma. It's this new stage

that has started all her BPD behaviors up again…I'm so glad I have this forum

and I'm not navigating the circus alone anymore. Thanks and warm wishes of

mochas!