So
what is your diagnosis? It is impossible for you to have been raised by and
been witness to such disorder and not be affected yourself. Have you been
honest and written an article about your diagnosis and treatment, or do you
consider yourself not disordered in any way and somehow just rattled by it all
and not ill yourself? What is your cluster and are you honest about it?
That
excerpt was from an email that I received. I don’t know if the nature of the
email was sincere or confrontational; however, I thought covering the topic
provides value for those attempting to climb out of the trenches of their own
personal war. As I have stated before, adult children of BPDs are *war veterans*
in every sense of the word, and your psychic landscape no doubt looks something
like what's left after a bombing attack.
Through
the last 5 years of writing this blog, I have covered the effects of my
upbringing and parental relationships. I always searched for my part in the
relationship's challenges-- as every relationship takes two. I would analyze
and dig deeply to assess my accountability in the estrangements. And time and
time again, I was never angry or resentful or even bitter-- always sad that
broken relationships surrounded my family. I also wished that our family could
be a happy family that shared in successes and supported during failures. But
most importantly, I always accepted that these were the cards that I was dealt,
and I would manage them to the best of my abilities.
Parents
are the people we look to nurture us and keep us safe. When a parent abuses a
child, the impact is life-long. My childhood was very confusing, very destructive,
and very tormenting. My childhood left my brother and me treated carelessly,
with conditions on love, and orphaned. And I think dealing with the emotions,
feelings, and memories is crucial to being a healthy, happy, and productive
adult. I thoroughly believe that our choices are guided by our internal
subconscious shaped by our past experiences. And that internal subconscious can
be a positive or negative force depending on the presence, amount, and
condition of the scars.
Before
we delve into the effects of the relationship with my BPD mother on me, the following
are the four BDP mother categories and effects on their child(ren):
The Witch
- Children live in terror of BPD Witches' capricious moods; they are the "collateral damage" of a secret war they did not start, do not understand, and cannot control.
- Attacks are random, intense, and cruel. Children automatically think they're at fault and can become shamed, depressed, insecure, dissociative, and hypervigilant.
- As adults they may have multiple difficulties with self, relationships, physical illness, and even post traumatic stress disorder.
The Queen
- To the BPD Queen, children are a built-in audience expected to give love, attention and support when the BPD Queen needs it. Children feel confused and betrayed when their normal behavior is sometimes punished (according to the BPD Queen's needs of the moment).
- As kids grow, conflict with the BPD Queen increases. Underneath, these kids long for approval, recognition, consistency, and to be loved unconditionally for who they are, not what they achieve.
The Waif
- They feel angry, afraid and alone.
- Children may feel like failures for not making the BPD happy, or they may keep trying and trying until the mother's death. This enmeshment (inability to separate) may hinder grown child's relationships, which may be fraught with dependency.
- The child may become cynical, angry, and feel manipulated or turn into over-responsible nursemaids seeking elusive approval.
- The message to children is that life is something to be endured until you die.
- The BPD shelters children to such an extent they find autonomy disconcerting.
The Hermit
- During adulthood, they suffer from many maladies stemming from trapped feelings such as panic attacks or phobias.
- Children not encouraged to explore and learn can become anxious when faced with new situations. They may not learn appropriate coping skills, give up control too easily, have a hard time trusting, and be less capable of naturally moving away from the parent.
My
mother is the "Borderline Queen Witch" who married the
"Narcissistic King". Borderline mothers are make-believe mothers
living in darkness needing the rescuer husband. In particular, my borderline
mother is characterized as the Queen, and the 'darkness' that lies within the
borderline Queen is 'emptiness'. "Her inner experience is deprivation
and her behavior evokes compliance. She is demanding and flamboyant and may
intimidate others. The Queen feels entitled to exploit others and can be
vindictive and greedy. The Queen's emotional message to her children is: Life
is 'all about me'" p 38 Lawson. The Witch hides within my mother as a
"temporary ego-state", and makes appearances at times quite
frequently but can hide for periods of time. The Witch's darkness is
annihilating rage with the message to her children: 'life is war'.
I
have worked very hard over the decades to be a healthy and happy individual, at
peace with life, as well as productive and prosperous. Through an open mind and
an open heart, I have been successful. I have seen psychiatrists from childhood
onward, and I have never received a diagnosis of a psychological disorder (a
psychological disorder, also known as a mental disorder, is a pattern of
behavioral or psychological symptoms that impact multiple life areas and/or
create distress for the person experiencing these symptoms). Although I have not had a formal diagnosis of a disorder, I have had issues to work-out and resolve.
I
am very thankful for the wonderful friends that I have had through the decades
who would listen for hours on end about MANY whys and questions. They are
partly responsible for keeping me grounded and focused. Besides
finding answers through my friends, I have read books like crazy. And when the
Internet became more and more of a comprehensive tool, I have used it to
connect with others like me and to research even further. Then, I started to
blog, which allowed me to take all of this information out of my head and put
it somewhere else... AND most importantly, help others like me to sort out all
of the jumbled mess that happened in the past and create an understanding of it
all. Ultimately, no-contact was the healthiest alternative for not only myself but
my child and husband too.
Part
of my being at peace and being able to overcome the effects of a BPD mother is
due to the research that I conducted about personality disorders, communicating
with others who have experienced mirror situations, support from friends /
family, writing down all my history with accompanying analysis, and more. I
count on myself for my happiness, peace of mind, and understanding of this
world.
The
following are the effects of the BPD / NPD dysfunctional toxicity on me, which some are
still present (hyperawareness for example) but some have been overcome
(insomnia for example):
Hyperawareness
With the survivors of trauma and
abuse, this hyperawareness is a defense mechanism. "A nearly universal
characteristic of survivors is excessive emotional hypersensitivity...
hyperawareness of body language, moods, and 'the meanings behind the words' is
a highly functional defense mechanism" p 166 Evans / Sullivan. In regard
to the BPD parent:
- One must be on defense for the next attack, so keeping a vigilant eye on her behavior is vital: She has that look in her eye again; I need to stay away. Her body language is saying she's in a 'witch' mood, I better hide. She is becoming more and more aggressive with her language today; she is probably going to verbally attack me today.
- Trying to sort-out the confusing and twisted behavior creates a need to collect as much information as possible to try to figure out her behavior (past, present, future). Seemingly, every action or word spoken is another piece of the puzzle.
With these observations of body
language, eye contact, verbal communication, many times the child of the BPD
questions their own perception of that is transpiring. Is the BPD really that
bad? Perhaps the meaning behind the actions / words is being misread? Maybe the
BPD doesn't really mean to act or say those things, and maybe I am the one who
has the problem? "Children of borderlines may spend their entire lives
trying to understand their mother and themselves. They are preoccupied with
sorting out the meanings of interactions, studying their own perceptions, and
questioning the intentions of others" Lawson p 302
To read more: http://thequeenandking.blogspot.com/2012/03/hyperawareness-defense-mechanism-then.html
Fight or Flight
I am generally a calm, cool, and
collected person BUT whenever I have a potential confrontation, actual
confrontation, or cause of concern related to my parents, my body immediately
reacts. I get shaky, I feel sick to my stomach, I get out-of-breath, and my
mind runs a million miles an hour. After decades of ...
- wondering when the next blow-up is going to happen or
- what I am going to be falsely accused of next or
- what is being fabricated about me now or
- having my parent(s) confront me with the next "we have to sit down an talk" scenario
... my body is sent into a tail-spin when my parents are
discussed relative to me. This 'tail-spin' is fight-or-flight which is defined
as the set of processes that occur in the body when it is confronted with some
form of physical or mental stress. The nervous system signals for adrenaline
and other hormones to be released into the blood which prepare the body either
to confront or flee (thus, “fight or flight”). Changes in the body include
increased heart rate, dilated pupils of the eye (to improve vision), and
increased supply of blood to the muscles (to prepare the body for action).
Insomnia
Growing up in an environment with a
borderline personality mother and a malignantly narcissistic Dad compounded by
a period of simultaneous major-life-stessors (moving, death of grandmother,
death of grandfather, parental divorce, parents remarrying), I developed
several symptoms of stress. Insomnia was one of the resulting symptoms, which
when your sense of safety and trust are shattered, having difficulty falling
asleep is a normal reaction to abnormal events.
I
can remember the EXACT night that the insomnia started in 1977 when I was 9
years old. Most anxious children do not have a specific event that
triggered their anxiety, but some do. Certainly some situations can be anxiety
producing, especially those that disrupt the child's sense of structure and
order in their world (parental divorce, deaths in the family, trauma, moves)
WorryWiseKids.org
Mental Scars
A
seminal 1992 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) report defines childhood
abuse as "a repeated pattern of damaging interactions between parent(s)
[or, presumably, other significant adults] and child that becomes typical of
the relationship." In addition to physical, sexual and verbal abuse, this
can include anything that causes the child to feel worthless, unlovable,
insecure, and even endangered, or as if his only value lies in meeting someone
else's needs.
I
wasn't left unscarred from my childhood trauma. I have battled insomnia during
peak times of childhood trauma. I have battled anxiety throughout my life,
waiting for the next bomb to explode in my family. I have sought acceptance and
attention from my parents that I will never achieve in receiving. I have
searched, researched, dug, and sought understanding of my past, with which my
parents have never assisted (my mother is irrational when speaking of the past,
and my Dad 'doesn't remember' because he 'doesn't want to', which neither helps
when trying to gain peace with the past).
Toxic Guilt and Anxiety
Guilt
trips are a very powerful tool, and I had a challenge with guilt trips and
toxic guilt from my parents for many decades. In addition to the guilt, I
started to have symptoms of anxiety starting in the mid-late 1990's. I believe
the anxiety is a result from the long-term guilt I was experiencing compounded
by the post traumatic stress that I experienced from the Parental
Alienation Syndrome (PAS) and emotional abuse from my parents' personality
disorders.
When
you're brought up in an environment where you have been unfairly blamed for the
wrongs of others, emotionally abused, or pitted against one parent by the
other, the adult child may not have the ability to stop feeling guilty-- this
is toxic guilt. Absorbing feelings of guilt, accepting blame, and being passive
contribute to the guilty feelings. This early pattern of accepting other's
guilt creates difficulty with stopping feelings of guilt about the past.
Loneliness
Through
the years I have felt like something is missing. I felt like I have been
searching for something from my mother and Dad-- some sort of answer. And
recently I had an epiphany: I don't feel like I belong to a family. I feel like
I am an adult orphan. Prior to my parent's separation (You
Dropped a Bomb on Me), I felt like I belonged to a family: my Dad, mother,
brother, and me. Additionally, I had a deep relationship with my maternal
grandparents, which both passed away (1977, 1977). Shortly after the
announcement of my parent's separation (1979), that feeling of belonging
started to erode away. I haven't been able to put my finger on the feeling
until just the other day when I was looking at my daughter and feeling such
pure love and joy looking in her eyes-- I belong with her & my husband, she
& my husband belong with me, I have family across the country is very
loving & supportive- we are a family, and I belong. I haven't had that
since I was 11 years old.
Shame
As
an adult child of two parents with personality disorders, I knew when the abuse
was actually going on that some after-effects would be experienced later in
life. Although I was able to endure the abuse, I knew I deep-sixed some of the feelings. I
remember thanking God for giving me a head on my shoulders to know that the
abuse was my parents doing-- that what I was going through was a product of
their manufacturing. Even so, I knew that somewhere down the line, feelings or
results could emerge. Both my BPD mother and NPD father
wielded shame well with their emotional abuse, and I exhibit residual effects
from the abuse I endure from my BPD mother and NPD father.
If you
are an adult child of a BPD mother, what are some of the effects you have
experienced? What have done to over-come these effects?
