No contact since my daughter was a fetus, basically. I've periodically told her that no, my mom isn't dead (just my dad), and occasionally said my mom and I don't talk or see each other, but I've got Nana (my mother-in-law) (which has led to a hilarious young child conversation wherein I've had to clarify I'm not married to my brother).

Full disclosure: it comes up less than it might because I'm parenting in a polyamorous throuple, so it's often difficult to notice any missing grandparents. Helps that we've got a variety of grandparent configs.

Trying to keep it age approps--kiddo is 6--but she's having more questions. I'm sensing anxiety beneath it, for the implications that moms can go away. Also, I'm willing to reduce complication, but it's tricky to not veer into fabrication.

Anyone else find a successful script for this? I'd be so grateful if you could share!

She does this all the time. I usually just don't answer bc I know she's looking for a response and then it turns into a whole text battle. I'm in school on hospital rotations so I work 55+ hours a week and am exhausted and fighting for my life lol and so busy. But she doesn't realize that. We are not at the point that I can go no contact. She also is a former alcoholic and may be drinking again bc she's been guilt tripping a lot this week. She also loves to throw my boyfriend’s mother into the mix but has only met her like twice lol. What would you do?

My mother would sometimes tell me (f) and my three brothers that she was in love with us. I remember being confused, but now I just shudder. Did anyone else's parent say this to them?

Anyone else experience this? My pwBPD has been making everything a competition lately and I think she thinks she’s winning, which is why she’s been so “nice.” I’ve been sick lately and growing up, I never really got cared for during that time and still get this kind of “ew, gross, stay away from me” reaction from her, so it’s been pretty quiet (of course, until she found out my bf’s mom has been sending me little sweets and things; then all of a sudden, it was lots of calls, texts, wanting to visit, etc).

But lately I think she sees me as “following in her footsteps,” so she’s feeling satisfied and like she doesn’t have to grip on as tightly. A lot of things about my life are similar right now to how her life was at this age, and she’s become obsessed with which one of us has a healthier lifestyle. She’s always bragging about how she’s doing all the same things I’ve said I wanted to do to clean up my health/eating/exercise, then interrogates me about exactly what I’m doing, then seems to get this sense of satisfaction that she’s doing “more” than me - even though I’ve had two bouts of pneumonia in the past month (on the mend now), so that sort of thing hasn’t really been my priority and you’d think she’d pick up on that lol. During times where I was doing “better” than her by her standards, she was always very snippy, demeaning, and trying to compete constantly (she’s also been obsessed lately with us seeing all the same service people, like eye docs, hairdressers, etc, to the point that when I switch, it’s suddenly an urgent that the whole family switch to this same person too). Am I on the right track here? Anyone else experience this?

I’m becoming a more frequent poster now (can you tell I’m anxious 😅)

So long story short I helped my mom move out last weekend using my partner’s truck and we did the majority of moving. There’s a few more furniture pieces and probably some boxes left that need to be moved but I genuinely do not want to have another day off eaten up by the stress of being around her and praying the other shoe doesn’t drop for hours. Last weekend I came home and had plans so I went out and then broke down crying at the end of the night after the stress caught up to me. Nothing even really happened that was dramatic but I’ve just been so close to my wits end as of lately.

Where I need help is that I got a text from my younger brother asking if I could bring the truck again this weekend for a few more loads. It probably wouldn’t be as long of a day but I feel so much dread. I feel selfish for wanting to say no since I know they’re trying to depend on me, but at the same time that’s part of why I want to say no.

Also to add, my partner does not interact with my mom at all so he has to begrudgingly lend me his truck while I go alone. And I do not blame him for not coming, but it means that I would be by myself to do this (some other family/friends came beforehand which took the focus off of any potential blow ups). It’s just NOT how I want to spend my day off considering last weekend my anxiety ate me alive for 2 whole days.

My enabling uBPD sister (who I thought I blocked everywhere) found me on instagram and made sure to send me this screenshot of my dBPD mom’s Facebook post. I went no contact with both of them 6 months ago.

Honestly I just laughed at this “poem.” All I see is a whiny pity party and not a single ounce of accountability. She really thought she was Edgar Allen Poe or something but it’s giving 5th grade poetry assignment. 😂

I am new here, and here is my cute cat picture. I also do not have any other accounts.

Working from home and living with my uBPD mom has been bad—her constant comments about me being home all day, and now I am looking forward to going back to work. The long days, traffic, and hanging out after work like I used to do 5 years ago will help me escape. She was so happy and celebrated that I had to return to work because my unhappiness made her feel better about herself. If she can't have something, neither can I. Once I reminded her that my office was one hour away and that I would be moving out to be closer to work, the celebration turned to fear and anxiety because the fear of abandonment kicked in. 1-hour drive with a 10 hr a day work week doesn't leave much time for her. She hates driving far and has been acting like she can't drive for 5 years since surgery. I take my return to work as the motivation to move away. I will have the last laugh, but I regret telling her about the plan🤣. I just wanted to give a positive outlook for anyone in the same boat as me having to return to work and living with or dealing with a BPD parent. That time away at the office gives an escape. ❤️

Is anyone else’s parent obsessed with spending time alone? My uBPD waif/hermit mother is CONSTANTLY trying to get me alone. She wants to FaceTime “in private”. Go on “mother/daughter” trips with just the two of us. She says if there’s other people present (my husband, her husband/my father) it’s just “how’s the weather talk” to her. It’s like she doesn’t count it when others are there. She says she’s “craving connection” but wants “deep emotional connection”. To me, this translates to Me having to do a deep dive with her about why she’s so lonely and miserable and help her figure out life. For the billionth time. So she can change absolutely nothing and then we can do it again next time we speak. It also just creates such a divide for me between my real life and any time spent with my mother because she wants a very tailored situation, not to be a part of my day to day. Is this typical BPD behavior or wtf? Cat tax attached

Sorry for the double post today but the subjects are different so…

My edad says he “doesn’t remember” when my BPDmudder holed herself up in her bedroom for over a year (during my teens). She literally never left her bedroom. He slept in a separate damn room! We were haunted by her presence to the point that my brother and I learned the creaks in the staircase so we wouldn’t wake her or alert her to our comings and goings. If she did notice us, she’d crack her bedroom door open - at the top of the stairs - and dress us down in various soil-crushing ways (“You’re going to see friends?! They’re trash. You’re trash too - just look at how you’re dressed.” Crap like that.). We thought she was going to off herself but my dad - her husband and the person who brought her meals and snacks and whatever else she needed - says he doesn’t remember. “I was really busy!” The f*ck?!

It’s stuff like this that makes me question my own sanity and memory sometimes. No wonder I struggle with a sense of self. I can’t trust my own HEAVILY formative memories?!

I know the sh*t happened. Still…how can he not remember? And even today, forty plus years later, after having cared for her hand, foot, and buttchecks (yep - he wiped those for four years prior to her winding up in the nursing home), he’s “shocked” she has no motivation to do what’s necessary (exercise) to make her way back home.

She hasn’t left the bed in two months. She didn’t leave her recliner except to go to the bathroom for about ten years prior to this. She barely left her house for twenty years prior to that. Etc etc.

How can he not remember when he was the person who literally enabled all of it?!

Ive posted on here before, and it was so helpful to not feel crazy.

I live with my mom, and thank god i have a plan to move in a couple weeks. My mom is in a downward spiral right now and has cussed out every family member over the last couple weeks. Of course starting with me. Shes always had cycles of this in the past, but with the stress of her sickness right now shes getting worse. The people closest to her, are the ones she explodes on the worst. I’ve sacrificed the last 5 years of my life to live with her, be her point of contact, and support her through this, since she has no partner, everyone assumes that role goes to me. It would be tough even if she were loving and consistent, but shes anything but.

She recently escalated things by cussing me out in front of my boyfriend. Calling me a piece of shit, everything under the sun. All because i was out from 10am-2pm and when i came back to take her to the store, that was “too late” for her now, even though that was the plan. Its like walking around trying not the step on a landmine. Never knowing what will set her off. And all our relationship is now is me helping her, or not doing enough. God forbid i go to breakfast with my friend and not RUSH home to take her to the store. So now its been weeks of tension in my home, but im standing firm this time that embarrassing me in front of my boyfriend was the last straw for me.

So i’ve been grey rocking her for the last 3 weeks, only hellos and goodbyes. She tried temperature checking multiple times, “i made dinner” “do you need this box to pack” etc. Its been tough for me to hold onto my boundary and not feel bad about not engaging. Her progressing illness makes it harder on all of us, because we just want to be close to her. But shes forcing me to place so many boundaries up to not get hurt.

This morning, she told me i was disrespectful because i came home last night and “acted like she didnt exist.” I said hello as i have been, but i told her “i dont know how to communicate with you, so im reducing casualties.” She said “i dont want to hear your drama.” As i was leaving she said “you say you’re afraid that i’ll explode, but its YOUR actions that make me react that way. You never offer to bring me dinner, do anything for me, cook for me, nothing.” I said “i did do those things, before you called me a piece of shit in front of my boyfriend. I refuse to be called out of my name by my mother. So until i get an apology my boundaries will stay the same.” She then screamed “IM SORRY I CALLED YOU OUT OF YOUR NAME.” I said “thank you, and that cant happen again.” She said “you’re always the victim. You never take accountability.” I said “you can be upset without being disrespectful.” She said “get out.”

Luckily i was going to work already but wow was that a lot. Thank you if you’ve read this far. Im wondering if anyone else feels like having a relationship with their BPD parent has left them feeling like all the sacrificing has lead to nothing. Im 29 yrs old and ive lived my whole life trying to prove that i love my mom, and I feel like im just now waking up, like i have to love ME. Im getting lost in all of this. Unfortunately shes telling herself that her family doesnt care about her, and shes all alone. Even though we’re all offering to help her and take care of her. She wants us to beg, as she abuses us. Am i a terrible daughter if I feel less and less empathy for her as this cycle continues?

I’m paraphrasing, but here’s a thought I’ll have every now and then: No matter what happens, I must be wary of my mother because the Witch lays in wait. I have seen it in her face and movements at times when she can just barely restrain it. If the Witch does not strike today, she will strike one day. That is the only truth.

Isn’t that fucking crazy? And you know what’s even more bonkers? The fact that this knowledge is, like, my first memory. I don’t know how to explain it, but I’ve always known. Like, in the haziest of my childhood memories, there is the knowledge that my mother was not safe. Not completely anyway. So as a little kid, I split her in my mind into two different entities. Good Mommy and Bad Mommy, which cannot exist at the same time. I’m stopping again to say, isn’t that fucking crazy? Fuck grasping at straws, my little kid brain created Schrodinger’s Mommy to make sense of things. Why on Earth was it that bad?

That brings me to our present relationship, which is dead. Even if we resumed contact, that relationship is dead. Now I know for a fact that she is always dangerous and untrustworthy. She doesn’t have the self-control (or other skills) to not act on her worse impulses, let alone to consistently show up as a parent. Any vulnerability (real or imagined) she gets on a good day will be weaponized on the bad day. That’s just how it’s always been, and with everyone I’ve seen her in close contact with.

But again, isn’t that crazy? What do you mean other people had lives that made sense, meanwhile I was living in some bizarro dystopian/monster/psychological horror movie? Then I have to believe it because it really is true even if I feel like, based on experience, no one else ever could*?

*I don’t know what it is, there’s just this deeply ingrained feeling that nobody will ever, I guess validate my experiences. They may empathize, but they’ll never respond appropriately in a way that says “I believe you, it is that bad.” I’m here because I know otherwise, but this is just a feeling.

Nurse: “She won’t get out of bed. No matter what we do she fights us. Can you talk to her?”

Me: “She’s been like this on and off since 1991. Remember when I told you she didn’t leave her room for a couple of years?”

Nurse: “Oh yeah. God. I just feel so bad about it. She’s a good person. She’s still a human. It’s such a waste.”

Me: “You’re preaching to the choir. I’ve spent more than half of my life trying to fix her. This is endgame. Thank you for caring about her but this is just the tragedy of who she is.”

Nurse: “You’re right. I’m so sorry. You’re a good daughter.”

Small, fluffy, and pink Playful mornings, sleepy nights Resting in the sun

Hi guys,

For background, I'm LC (maybe VLC?) with my uBPD mom. About 8 years ago when i left for college, she and my dad stopped contacting me, so i only see them on holidays and the occasional phone call when they're feeling guilty.

I only realized that my mom is likely BPD this past November, so it's very fresh. My mom texted me this morning and wants to schedule a phone call. Whenever she does this I get a horrible gut feeling that it's going to be terrible and make me feel awful.

I really really don't want to talk to her, but I don't know how to get around it. I'm not comfortable outright telling her I don't want to talk, she doesn't even know I suspect any childhood abuse from her. She thinks we dont talk because I hate her and it's my fault (waif/hermit type)

What have you guys done in these situations? Is there a way out of it or do I need to suck it up?

Thanks

Was texting with my BPD mom about my grandmother’s health and somehow it turned into her ranting about my brother and their argument over soap in the bathtub 🫢🤣 I didn’t even respond because honestly girl what??

before this is read i’m not asking for a diagnosis or anything, simply some tips on how to survive in this household 😭😭 my mom aligns with a lot of the symptoms of bpd but is undiagnosed i (f14) am constantly walking on eggshells around my mom and she is constantly love bombing me and it’s genuinely so awful and whenever i say anything i get called crazy for listening to outsider opinions and such, i simply just need some tips on how to keep her sane enough to where i can live without being scared of coming out of my room 🙏🙏 sorry if im not allowed to participate in this subreddit but i genuinely just need some tips guys

https://www.womansday.com/life/g32979681/cute-cat-photos/

^^ link to cute kitty pics, lol this made me giggle a bit.💗

I went NC with my BPD mom and E-dad a few years ago. At the time, my son, who was a teen, attempted to keep his relationship going for a few months, then went NC, as well.

My parents still send him Christmas and bday cards. They don’t send them to me. I was always the scapegoat to my brother’s…..I wouldn’t even call it “golden child…” more like “lost child…?” if that’s even a thing in a 2-child household. My son, as soon as he was born was 100% the golden child.

Every now and then—including earlier this week—I get these HUGE waves of longing for my mother. Sometimes, I miss her over the top “crying with joy just to see you,” responses. I want to hug her, talk to her, feel like she loves me and is happy to hear from me. I miss having a mother.

And sometimes, I think about reaching out. Because I want a mother. I want what other people just have from birth. I don’t want to “seek out a mother figure.” I don’t want to “let down your walls enough to allow your MIL to be your mother-figure.” I just want what it used to feel like before she really turned on me. And then I think about it….how she’s acted since I went NC. She had a little tantrum at first, but then she just zeroed in on my kid. It’s been years since either of us have spoken to her, and he keeps getting birthday and Christmas cards. I don’t…and I wouldn’t want them. When they came, they were awful. But just knowing she doesn’t GAF anymore is hard. I want her to GAF. I want her to miss me and realize how she was wrong.

And then I’m just crushed all over again with the only reason my mom (not even e-dad…he just immediately sort of gave up after NC) ever attempted to contact me after NC (but even when I wasn’t NC….even when it was just “ugh, my mom wants us to come for XYZ holiday/bday….”) is so she can get to my son. Anytime I’ve heard from flying monkeys, it was about my son and how she misses HIM. She used to text my husband, until he figured out how to block her, asking about our son…saying she’s been trying to reach our son, and sometimes me, but mostly our son….

And because she’s MY mother, and not my son’s mother, he has a much easier time staying NC, while I waver, feel bad, and miss her. And it just feels like such a gut punch that I “miss” someone who only seemed to associate with me because I was the link between her and her new “golden child,” my son.

Wondering if anyone’s BPD parent has ever actually seen a true positive change from treatment and your relationship turned around and became “normal”.

Older story, but I thought y'all might want some positivity: This took place on my mother's birthday. As those stories go, everything began great at first. A nice movie, good food -we even met a cat that looked EXACTLY like my mothers old cat that passed away. When we came home, everything seemed survived. Well. That was, until I was ordered to open my room's window: An old bastard with a crooked frame, that often was completely jammed. At one point, my mother yelled something from the other room. What exactly? I don't remember. Because the moment I replied back, I could feel my head hitting the wall. Over. And over. And over again.

Yeah, so turns out: My mother took deep offense in me *checks notes * replying with my back turned. So much offense, her entire mood changed 180°. Like a banshee, she began screaming. Destroying my room, toppling shelfs -and of course, more beatings for me. So much, I was only seeing colours, when the phone rang & she finally dropped me. "Ok. So that's very depressing, but where is the positive part?" Well. 10min later, my mother came back...crying. As it turns out, the person who called was an old friend. Of course, being, well, herself, she immediately began "venting" about me. How I was horrible. How I ruined her birthday. Not including the beatings & destruction of my room, but y'know.

At first, said friend was very understanding with her. Supporting her. Listening to her. But at one point, he made a mistake

"Y'know, Ann. Don't be insulted, but...I kinda feel sorry for your kid. I mean. Ha ha, I know you. You're such a powerhouse, even I get scared sometimes. Are you sure, you didn't misunderstand anything?"

It's a very easy sentence. But I swear: My mother completely folded. So much, she came back crying to ME! Wanting to be comforted from HIM, because "how could he do this on my birthday. I mean. Even you know it's all your fault, right?"

It's probably a very low bar, but I like this memory. For one, I can use it as perfect example how clinically insane my mother is (makes every "but she loves you-" stfu in a second). But two, also because of how someone finally gave my mother a BIT of pushback & protected me instead. Really shows how fragile she really is

TW: violence, alcohol stuff

I had an incident with a friend last week wherein we got into a serious argument whilst drinking and he ended up hitting me pretty bad. I was shocked enough to not fight back and unfortunately for him the police happened to be nearby and got involved to break it up and he spent the night in the station. We’re young, and both men, and he’s not visibly stronger/bigger than me so I didn’t feel very threatened or in danger in the moment or immediately following it. It’s not really the incident that’s troubling me so much as my response to it.

Now I’ve had time to process everything, I’ve recognised so much of my response to this as a well-trodden path of forgiveness learned from interactions with my mother, who has been diagnosed with BPD since I was a young child.

The pattern with my mother throughout particularly my teenage years was this: we argue about something that is totally reasonable for a parent and teenager to argue about, something as mundane as me not washing my dishes. She has a completely disproportionate reaction which leads to a full-on rage on her part and, depending on how able I am feeling to calm myself down, perhaps I attempt to argue back in this time. She will resort to intimidation and I will find her very scary and unpredictable in these moments, though it’s rare that she becomes violent towards me. I’ve always told people my mother is the only person or thing that can make me cry… there will be many tears during this exchange. I’m sure this explanation is coming across almost patronising to many of you who know exactly the type of interaction I mean.

The forgiveness arc after this is always the same. I don’t feel the need to apologise for the initial wrongdoing which may very well be my fault, for example, not washing the dishes, because I now perceive her reaction to warrant an apology far more than my initial wrongdoing. My mother, wracked with guilt, comes softly knocking on my door a few hours to a few days later and she does say sorry. There is no promise that it won’t happen again. We both know it will. In this moment, my love for my mother as her child overcomes me and I experience a strong guilt and fear at the prospect of not giving her my forgiveness. I forgive her. We go back to normal and it’s as if nothing ever happened, until the next time. She is entitled to my forgiveness and I have convinced myself that I owe it to her. At this point, I apologise for not washing the dishes, completely convinced by now that this was all my fault to begin with, despite her apology. If I express any lingering resentment to the people around me, they remind me - she’s sick, she can’t help it, she doesn’t mean the things she says when she’s like that, she’s your mother.

This situation with my friend triggered the exact same response in me. I was overcome with anger to begin with and immediately resolved to never speak to him again. Unfortunately, we are flatmates, so I knew I had to face him, but I also have experience of myself and my mother avoiding each other like the other doesn’t exist whilst living together. However, as soon as I heard him say sorry every single totally justified feeling of anger, betrayal and disappointment completely disappeared and I forgave him instantly and began to blame myself for provoking him to that in the first place. This friend is one of the most important people in the world to me and I can’t imagine life without him. People around me began to tell me many familiar things - he has anger issues, that was completely out of character for him, he was drinking and he didn’t mean it. I’ve also protected him in the same way I would my mother, not telling most people the reality of the situation: that it wasn’t a ‘fight’ as they assumed - he hit me and I never hit him back.

Some of these things I love about myself - my compassion and empathy for the people I care about is a quality I want to keep. But I’m also disgusted by it. Why would I let people do these things to me just because I understand them on a deeper level? Why do I feel like I owe it to them to forgive them just because I understand why they are the way they are? I want to be strong enough to confidently say that some behaviour is unacceptable no matter how much I love someone. I’m starting to wish that it didn’t come so naturally to me to feel for the person who has wronged me and to want to protect them from their own guilt. I don’t want to forgive so easily, at least.

Attached is a pic of a lovely cat I met recently :)

Hi everyone,

I am a 31 (F) and my therapist mentioned she thinks my mom might have undiagnosed BPD and encouraged me to read about it more. My mom has been diagnosed with depression, anxiety and PTSD but has never been diagnosed with BPD.

After reading about BPD, I do see a lot of these characteristics in my mom.

Some things that have happened:

-My mom self-isolates. She does not have any friends and she is terrified of rejection and abandonment. She lives alone with her dad and has been divorced twice. She always talks about how alone she is and she’ll always be alone. I have tried to get her to meet my husband’s family, but there is always an excuse as to why she can’t do something.

-My mom has missed out on 2 major events in my life. She did not come to my wedding or baby shower. Her reasoning for not coming was that she was worried she would have a panic attack or get really angry and start a fight with my dad and his side of the family.

-Everything is a competition between her and my dad. She hates that I have a relationship with him and will not hold back from bashing him and constantly tells me she doesn’t understand why I have a relationship with him.

-My mom is in a constant state of anger, it’s like her comfort zone. Everything angers her. Everything on the news/TV upsets her, if someone looks at her in the store the “wrong way” that angers her, if someone disagrees with her that angers her. She is just always angry about something and constantly venting to me about it.

-She refuses to go to therapy. I have tried to talk her into seeking a therapist to talk to and her response is always that therapy does not work and she’s tried it. She sees a psychiatrist who prescribes her antidepressants and antianxiety meds, but I think the psychiatrist is more so enabling her behavior and validating why she’s acting the way she is, instead of trying to help her work through that (I know that’s not a psychiatrist’s job, but I think that could be a reason she won’t go to therapy)

-She overuses her antidepressants and antianxiety medication.

-She constantly has a victim mindset. Everything in the world is out to get her. She says she has not been dealt a good hand in life.

-I have listened to her say that she doesn’t want to live anymore and she has nothing to live for. As her only child, this hurts me so much, especially now since I am pregnant with her only grandchild.

I don’t know what I’m expecting to get out of this thread, just want to get my thoughts out there and see if anyone has any similar experiences with this. I am terrified of this energy being around my son. I will protect him as much as possible and set boundaries where needed, but I don’t want him getting hurt by her like I have experienced.

I have felt an immense amount of pressure from pretty much every direction in my life for almost as far back as I can remember. I have zero friends and no family. Although I think I started isolating myself as a defense mechanism, I have no idea how to fix it at this point because it's gone on for so long. I just got out of the hospital for unrelated health issues and I can't believe I'm saying this but I don't think I have ever felt more alone.

How odes one even begin to deal with this? I am starting therapy again in February but I'm beginning to think it won't help much.

[Trigger Warning: Attempted Suicide

DISCLAIMER: I want to share the story of how my parents have changed with people who would really understand what this means for me. However, I am NOT at all trying to convey that everyone is capable of changing, and those reading should attempt to establish/reestablish boundaries/contact with their abusers in hopes of a good outcome.]

TLDR at the bottom :)

Hi everyone, I haven't posted here much and I mostly lurk, but your stories hit and resonate with me so hard and it's everything. Thank you for sharing on this sub and making me feel not so alone.

When it comes to the strong details of my more painful stories, I'm most comfortable with them in my journals or the hands of my friends, but I feel like sharing the overview:

I was verbally, emotionally, financially, and heavily physically abused as a kid. It began as far back as I can remember, and secondhand accounts from extended family members say that the physical abuse began sooner (from when I was less than a year old). I was left alone in my room for hours to cry, isolated from friends for weeks, seated in a chair with nothing to do except stay silent for hours, got my things broken, was threatened with getting kicked out since 12yrs/o, pushed into walls, throttled, pinned down, thrown down the stairs by the hair, or had things thrown at me.

On top of all of this, I'm neurodivergent (ADHD)--but I wasn't diagnosed until adulthood despite being seen by many professionals throughout childhood (blame the 90s psychologists that only did research on white boys and didn't think women and minorities presented disorders differently).

Because of everything I endured, I had terrible self-esteem and didn't even realize it. I took after my mother and was extremely petulant, tried to bulldoze over my friends' boundaries, and I never said sorry for anything. I didn't realize it was because I was afraid to take accountability or trust them to have control over how I interacted with them because of my parents' treatment...

By the time I entered college at 18, I wasn't prepared socially or academically. I failed the first semester and knew my parents would tear me apart. I figured instead of facing them, I'd rather carry out "justice" myself. So I try to take my life, because I couldn't face them, and because I figured that I wasn't good for much if I couldn't at least do one semester of college (not very logical, I know, but I think this sub will understand the "illogistics" more than any other group). After a terrible and long recovery, my parents made all these grand promises. Looking back I really should have predicted it, but I'm sure you all understand this feeling:

I believed them.

They didn't follow through.

After cycling through another bout of serious depression, I decided I had to separate my self-image from their image of me, and on top of that being terrifying, I never knew it was a problem for so long. On paper, my parents encouraged it. But I guess they didn't realize that meant I would pull away from their opinion of me. They pushed back, tried to pry me open, and it was so, so painful.

It all came to a head on a night that, in a moment of weakness, I cursed out my mom. She responded by throttling me, and for the first time in my life, I kicked her off of me and physically defended myself.

After that one kick, I looked at my dad and said word-for-word, "That was self-defense," but he vehemently disagreed and pinned me to the floor, and my mom joined in. But I was in fight-or-flight mode and I lashed out until I escaped. I was 20 years old. I ran to my boyfriend's at the time and his parents implored me to do something I'd also never done before:

...call the cops.

After some deliberating, and deep breaths, I did it. But here's the thing about my mother: she is extremely intelligent.

She managed to convince the cops that I was crazy because I'm prescribed stimulants (for ADHD) and they were making me "violent"--all because I made the mistake of telling my mom once that forgetting to take my meds can make me "irritable." It worked, no charges were pressed, and of course I didn't push the issue (I was scared).

They have not laid a hand on me since.

Since their usual methods of controlling me were no longer effective, things got worse in other areas for a long time, but I became immune! The financial abuse was hard to avoid, but everything else was met with a firm but cordial boundary. The better I got at regulating my emotions and reactions, the less control they had over me!

I started to really, really like myself, and I discovered that I'm a kind and loving person and always have been deep down. I learned how to respect my friends boundaries, and after a while, I started raising my parents in the sense that I was "emotionally disciplining" them. It was a strange position to be in after a childhood of subjugation.

I think the turning point is when I told them, straight-up: "I didn't try to kill myself because I failed college. I did it because I was too afraid to tell you that I failed. Be lucky I am still here for you to yell at." Next to my "breakthrough moment" (which is a story in itself) I was the strongest I had ever been.

And then something amazing started to happen: the cycles were breaking!

If they happened, I was able to put an end to them whenever I tried. Nothing terrible had to happen for them to be nice to me again. Then they became so faint I stopped registering them. My mom started to go to therapy, my parents gradually learned how to communicate, and they finally started respecting my boundaries.

I still live with them, and I never thought I'd relish that fact. But they are actually doing it! They're taking that step towards a betterment in their fucking fifties and I'm so happy for them and for me. I can tell just in the way they speak that they already see themselves in a new light, although I don't think they'll ever really admit it anytime soon. But... When they say "I love you," I believe them. (I really just teared up writing that).

As for my brother, he's petulant to this day. My parents still fight with him, but lately I've noticed them taking the step towards patience and it's rubbing off. It's still challenging at times to navigate our relationship. We spent our childhood pinned against each other, and I hope one day he can truly heal from what we went through.

But we function. We are functional.

Fantasies for my childhood are coming true, the ones where I just have a mom and dad that don't turn into people I don't know anymore. They don't call me names, they don't scream at me, they back down when I ask, they say how they feel instead of listing every mistake I make, and they don't bitch about the lock I got for my room (after that last incident) at all!

I really wanted to share this with you guys because you would understand just how huge this is. Most people wouldn't understand the feeling of yearning for something that they should have already had from the get-go. But now I have it.

As for the financial abuse... It's still rocky at times, and they only seem to remember the phone bill is due whenever I upset them, but I'd rather pay JUST the phone bill for years than the absurd amount of rent they tried to charge me at 19.

For the first time in my life I get to say this: I'm lucky to live with my parents. Thank you so much for reading.

Oh! And I'm in college again, doing great now! I decided to study psychology after my mental health journey and it's been an awesome ride.

TLDR: After failing college, I attempted suicide at 18 to get away from my parents' emotional, physical, and financial abuse. Following recovery, I learned how to get away from them in life, break away from the relationship habits they taught me, and learn to love myself and my friends the right way. My parents finally stopped physically abusing me at 20 years old after an incident involving the police. Two years later, they gradually realized that having a deep, truly loving relationship with me means changing how they get what they need from me... along with changing how they see me and themselves. And they actually did it! I'm now happily living with them even though I never thought that was possible, and I'm proud to have them as my parents despite having never thought that before.

My dad left me alone at 13 to be abused by my mother for years. He remarried to a woman who talks to him like he’s a piece of sh*t. I believe she may have a personality disorder. He clearly has a type. She’s also said inappropriate comments to me. When I’ve confronted my dad about it he constantly says “she means well”, “she has a heart of gold,” etc. My dad is a “good” guy, he’s quiet, “kind”, works hard. But it seems like he has zero backbone I don’t understand.

Just as we have understanding of BPD psychology, can anyone explain why enablers do what they do??

Is this a thing in your family? My uBPD mom and dad have been married for 50+ years. I’m sorry- I honestly dgaf about their anniversary.

To me, an anniversary is about you and your partner. And I don’t even care about it with myself and my own partner and we are normal and happy. I understand celebrating milestones - but we just aren’t the type of people to put emphasis on a specific date. If one of us wants to celebrate it - it just happens, and it’s a nice loving surprise. No one gets mad the other forgot. The other 364 days are lovely.

Ubpd and dad’s anniversary is coming up next weekend and god knows she will act like it’s Christmas and I’m supposed to be SO GRATEFUL and celebrate they got married and had me and my sibling.

I have to pretend like we all don’t hate each other and she’s not a massive bitch. I honestly believe life would’ve been better if her and my enabling father got divorced (as they should have) when I was young. They fought constantly.

She acts (every year) like it’s my responsibility to celebrate and plan their stupid anniversary. Idagf. Period. And now that my dad is terminally ill - you can imagine the uptick in this intensity. The best part is my partner’s birthday is the same day - and she refuses to acknowledge my partners very existence - until she needs his help. Then she bitchily acknowledges him (“well there’s the two of youV - xx can do ‘xyz chore’).

Celebrate your own anniversary, asshole. Your kids weren’t even fucking born when you got married. Yet somehow you make them responsible for this too - on top of the myriad of shit you put on us.

Why do they “own” so many days!!! Birthdays, the holidays, mothers/fathers day. Enough is enough!

I feel like my mother doesn’t have a real interest in me, beyond what she can take credit for.

As a kid she used to love dressing me up and “showing me off”. But she doesn’t really know who I am, what I care about.

Even if I try to call her, she says she has to go because she is “about to watch a show,” “about to cook dinner,” or my stepfather is “about to come home…”

It’s like they’re not capable of genuine interest in us, unless it’s something they can tell other people about and take credit for or they receive indirect admiration for.

Last summer she literally wanted me to come to an event so that she could “show off her little family” (her words). I said no, and she became very angry. Saying “people know you have a mother.”

You’d think, well, it’s over now.  He’s dead and gone and you don’t need this sub anymore.  Nope.  Going through his home of 40 years, packed with 84 years of his hoard and his “revisionist history” has been challenging mentally for me and for my adult kids who are helping.  I knew to throw most of his personal stuff away without reading it, but sometimes I have to sift enough to know what I’m tossing.  I just want to vent to folks who get it, and feel not so weirded out. . .

Just  a few scenes from the BPDverse:  (Names changed and TW, some of these may freak you out…)

Aside from every paperclip or twist tie or rubber band, etc,, he ever touched, aside from cleaning the disgusting carpet and toilets, there’s:

• Mom’s yearbook in his desk with DAD’s crazy handwriting and comments over other people’s photos. (They went to high school together.)  He’d use his name in the third-person, and some made up memory.  Like if it was the quarterback, he’d write “Quarterback Joe knocked Al over in game; why not? Joe weighed 100 lbs more than AL Smith.”  (He never played football as far as I know.)  Or  a picture of some girl  “Jenny flirted with AL in science.”  But worse, Mom’s eyes had been erased from her graduation picture.  WTF?  Did he do this?  Her yearbook was not like this when I was a kid.
• Like in the yearbook, many photos where he labeled himself by full name and what he was doing in the third person.  My son said, it’s like the man was creating some sort of record for future archivists, not himself or his family. 
• SO MANY index cards with self directions on “Do this now” telling himself how to behave better as a husband… or eat healthier, but then sometimes in other-colored ink defenses of why he cannot do that.  Like…  “Ask  about her day:  How can I, when she comes home so late.”
• Directions on how to raise my youngest son.  I cannot tell if he was going to do these,  tell me to do so, tell his father to do so.  Things like “Do homework with him. Read him a bedtime story.”  Dad had this inaccurate phobia that my youngest wasn’t being parented.  Mom was telling me what a good mother I was, while Dad was freaking out that I had an unequal (by one) number of photos of one son over the other in my den.  Very strange…
• Cabinets full of his medical obsessions…notes copied over and over like he was perfecting each memory of every illness or procedure…I’ve filled a 30 foot dumpster about half full so far with trash.  40 percent=medical notes. . .
• Last year he became  fixated on how his cardiologist wanted to treat him for anxiety (because of this obsession);  Dad then made sarcastic, defensive comments every chance.  “What’s that thing Doctor Death said I had?  Anxious people shake and moan.  I don’t shake.”  BUT I found a damning letter he wrote in 2007 to his PC (who apparently had diagnosed him with anxiety) demanding he’d take legal action if it said so in his file.  BPDs definitely live in some universe of denial.
• written by hand, LONG directions on how to do xyz.  Why take meticulous notes when you obviously have the original directions somewhere to copy from and a photocopier in house?  Was he studying for a final on how to use PageMaker (or whatever?)?
• copies of his holiday letters to family, you know the sort where our life looks enviable.  But he’d twist things and add whiffs of negatives about Mom, using third-person again about himself.  Or weird phrasing like he was writing an old Hollywood commercial: Trouble in Paradise!!!  (niece) Pam is leaving her husband—she’s struggling with drugs this time.”  It’s bad enough to reveal that in a triangle, but the “Trouble in Paradise” remark is just weird.  I found tons of those sorts of editorials.
• even MORE reams of transcription of his phone conversations with little editorials in the margins, things like “LIAR!”   or “Fact Check this!”  or “Stubborn and demanding!” 
• copies of letters to various companies threatening lawsuits.  (He once got a piece of ceramic in his Delta flight meal, or his seatbelt was too tight whenever he stopped short and couldn’t loosen it again…just a few.)
• A single list of every woman he knows that my brother ever slept with, plus physical descriptions if he knew them.  (He was weirdly proud that my brother as a teenager had an affair with a green beret’s wife.)
• Partial printouts of maps and the rest drawn out in exquisite detail 60% of whatever place he was mapping, like either he was checking his memory, or he couldn’t print the rest.
• lists of the last decades going back to the 1960s of Playboy Playmates and what they are doing now, like he’s going to publish their biographies, or maybe stalk them.  (Their most current addresses?)  And of course, boxes full of saved magazine tear outs of his favorite naked pictures.) 
• An inch thick folder with long notes and directions on how to solve sudoku puzzles like he was going to publish a book…

Essentially what I’m seeing is a man who was filled with irrational fear and obsessions, a man who wanted to shape how history would see him, how he wanted to make himself look like he actually had a history (sort of a like a 7^(th) grader who has not been kissed lies to her diary about how Johnny kissed her), and a man who processed life on the outside of his brain—you know, every thought could not be contained but had to be written to be processed…

My son is sure Dad was most likely on the Autism spectrum…Geez, he certainly was dBPD and he understood sarcasm and irony and subtle facial expressions, so I don’t know…All I know is that I’m  witnessing  the  interior of a man who was not a normal Dad, and how his mentality will impact me forever. 

My uBPD mother will be dying within the next 5 years, if not sooner. She did it to herself. I've been NC almost a year. I just want her to not be able to hurt my feelings anymore. But I do feel sadness that she's going to die fairly young, confused and afraid, not understanding why I won't just "love" (worship) her. It's like watching an animal die, watching the fear and confusion does tug at me inside. But I've grown more impassive about it, almost like a hunter killing a deer. Her mom was just as bad and died the same way.

There's always that glimmer of hope while they're alive that they'll get a bonk on the head and completely change like in the cartoons. I try to bury it, but I'm human. I want to believe that in the end she'll say the right things and apologize sincerely and profusely, that she'll treat me like a person and not an object. But I just don't think they're mentally capable of that kind of maturity. They just don't have the hardware, and it's just another part of the sadness. It could never have been different than it is.

Haiku: Whiskers brush the void,
Silent paws on shadowed trails—
Nine lives for one soul.