Hi foreverdeadinside, welcome to Psych Central!
Would it be OK if we thought of you as "temporarilydeadinside" instead? What if we didn't tell you when we were actually thinking that?
Quote:
Originally Posted by foreverdeadinside
But is this a normal thought process in bpd? Is it common is this disorder to treat your partner like a parent?
|
Does it matter that much how common it is? If it's so for you, I recommend starting from there.
I've known at least three people who had apparently been abused by parents in one way or another. It could very well be that I've known dozens more who were also abused by their parents but never told me about it. Right now, though, I'm only talking about these three. What all three had in common was that at times they seemed to be saying or doing things to me that I thought might really have been their way of getting back at their parents, or demanding things from me that they wished their parents had given them. It did seem to get in the way of communication, especially when the going was already difficult. It usually felt like an uphill struggle to me, trying to get them to hear
me instead of whoever they were seeing me as.
One gf used to wake me up when I'd be taking a nap. From my point of view, I was trying to take care of myself so I could be there for her; from hers, if I considered sleeping more important than her, I must not love her enough. I expected that if I gave in to her and got up before I felt ready, I'd be more likely to carelessly say (or neglect to say) something that she could then pounce on as proof that I was, too, just like her father.
*
Btw, I've never been diagnosed as borderline myself and I don't know if any of those other people ever were.
----------------------------
*It just occurred to me that that's another way of describing the experience called "walking on eggshells" around somebody.