[bumpy_road]

My mother,growing up in the 50's, having a really bad childhood,and no diagnosis until 15 years ago, must have been very hard on her, her whole life. I don't blame her for the life my sister and I, plus my Father had to go through while I was growing Up, at least not after we understood more. It wasn't until my Father passed away from cancer in 1985. It was then that I was brought to psychiatrist after psychiatrist to find out why I was such a good for nothing, lazy, stupid, selfish, greedy, wimpy, coward who was just like my father,a f#$king a$#hole, like she said I was, that started making me wonder if it wasn't all my fault that things were the way they were. Every doctor tried to explain to her that her actions, and verbal abuse were a problem, and had to change. My sister still can't talk to her, for almost 20yrs now I've been the go-between trying to smooth things out. My Mother is still in denial about having any problem other than a little depression once in a while. That's when we got her on medication, and It worked wonders. I realized that my whole childhood was based on her perception of reality, which was almost the total opposite from the truth. While I'm told that I don't have BPD, I do know that I can show the traits every now and then. With other issues that I have,physically and mentally, coping every day is very difficult. I still see my Mother at least once a week, and talk to her everyday to make sure she's ok. I think she phones me also for the same reason. Just living day to day.

[Miss Jade]

I'm sorry your childhood was bad. You didn't deserve to be verbally abused. But I'm gonna break it to ya. It's a big fat horrible myth that every person with BPD is abusive. In fact many many people with this, are the ones that are abused. The victims. Just like not every abuser has BPD. Your mother just happened to be an abuser, AND have BPD. Being in denial is also a classic trait of an abuser. They don't admit to it. So I think you should treat the two things seperately. She has BPD - that's one thing. And then there's the abusive personality.

Is there something specific you want advice with/to talk about? :-)

[bumpy_road]

Hi Miss Jade, Thank you for responding.
You're right about the myth, sorry if it came across that that's what I think, It's not. My mother has delusions of what people are thinking, she reflects onto others, what she herself is feeling or thinking.
The only person I know who has BPD is my Mother. I guess I'd like to know if there are different levels of having this, or is it that you have it or you don't? I'm not very used to these type of forums, typing, or writing paragraphs, please excuse my poor grammer and spelling.

[Miss Jade]

No problem. Hope I didn't come across as abrupt?

I'm not an expert (just have the disorder myself) But I do think there's different levels. As in some people have more extreme traits than others.

[Alley80]

Originally Posted by bumpy_road

My mother,growing up in the 50's, having a really bad childhood,and no diagnosis until 15 years ago, must have been very hard on her, her whole life. I don't blame her for the life my sister and I, plus my Father had to go through while I was growing Up, at least not after we understood more. It wasn't until my Father passed away from cancer in 1985. It was then that I was brought to psychiatrist after psychiatrist to find out why I was such a good for nothing, lazy, stupid, selfish, greedy, wimpy, coward who was just like my father,a f#$king a$#hole, like she said I was, that started making me wonder if it wasn't all my fault that things were the way they were. Every doctor tried to explain to her that her actions, and verbal abuse were a problem, and had to change. My sister still can't talk to her, for almost 20yrs now I've been the go-between trying to smooth things out. My Mother is still in denial about having any problem other than a little depression once in a while. That's when we got her on medication, and It worked wonders. I realized that my whole childhood was based on her perception of reality, which was almost the total opposite from the truth. While I'm told that I don't have BPD, I do know that I can show the traits every now and then. With other issues that I have,physically and mentally, coping every day is very difficult. I still see my Mother at least once a week, and talk to her everyday to make sure she's ok. I think she phones me also for the same reason. Just living day to day.

Don't be too hard on yourself. We can't pick our mothers. I think you should spend some time on you and some time away from your mother. Best of luck.

[ECHOES]

A book you might like to read is Understanding The Borderline Mother by Christianne Lawson. It helped me understand myself.

[kiki86]

i am in a group for patients with bpd and i can tell you for certain there are a lot of different levels of the illness and i read somewhere that there are 9 symptoms and 5 are required for diagnoses so 2 people can have the same diagnoses and share only 1 symptom!