I have a history of stressed out, hysterical, disastrous holidays, and this is one trait that I feel is BPD.

In my defense, it was never me on the offense. It was my husband and my mother mostly who were controlling or resistant. The essence of what the holidays I’m talking about consisted of were me cooking a festive meal for around ten people to eat in our dining room. It shouldn’t have been that big a deal. It was pleasurable for me to plan, shop, cook, set.

The problem was mostly my husband didn’t want to do it because it means there was some work for him and he didn’t enjoy dealing with my controlling mother. My mother wanted to contribute a lot, came in and started taking over, basically locking heads with my husband.

The BPD reaction I felt I had was I would lose it and start crying and the whole thing would become a scene. (Although, I was able to compose myself by the time the dinner started and all looked fine. The photos were always beautiful!)