Indifference Towards the Child During 0-3

Parents may say that they *loved* their BPD children but my theory is that this *love* might have been sympathy (feeling sorry for the child) or in more extreme instances - indifference to the child and her needs. So in fact, instead of building neurons that carried loving messages to the growing infant's brain, mixed signals were sent - love/hate, love/indifference, sympathy/indifference, sympathy/hate leading to a child who could never trust love (always waiting for the other shoe to drop - i.e. the pain) and an inability to form a loving relationship because all she was conditioned to know was sympathy and so it is sympathy, the closest thing to love that she knows is what she will illicit in hopes to fix the deficiency in her heart, mind and soul.

Sympathy is not love. Sympathy is not empathy. Sympathy comes from a stance of separation, where one looking down or at someone else sends the other the message - *I feel sorry for you, so I will feed you/clothe you/pick you up etc* This will always send the message of the child not being worthy of love and render that child incapable of feeling it as it was never experienced from birth or even prior during conception and gestation. Feelings of ambivalence or hostility toward the fetus are most likely to have occurred, this carrying over to the birth and throughout the child's life. Often you will here a mother say *But I gave her everything* *I loved her* - but this mother never experienced what love is so how could she give it to her child?

Does this resonate?

My parents have a lot of sympathy and my mother is always sending these signals of "I feel sorry for you". And it's so painful for me to feel that and I don't know why.
I feel guilty because I just wanna stay away from that. She has always had a lot of fear and anxiety so there hasn't been much safety coming from her and I feel I need to protect her, but that means I can never be myself. I can never be open because it hurts and there is a lot of shame feeling when I talk to her or my father . I have no idea where all that shame is coming from but it's making me sick.
So yeah, your sympathy theory makes sense in a way to me. I feel they can never understand me empathetically and that sympathy/ pity feeling is suffocating me.
But I also feel guilty because of all this...I don't know.

Seems like along with never receiving love because we're lovable, we also get the conditioning of codependency. Toxic shame is one of the byproducts of that. It's not that we did something wrong, we are that wrong thing and that brings on more downward spirals until we stay down. One of the keys, is that language is huge in healing and it's not just the words that are spoken - but by whom and HOW. Eye contact, tone, authenticity - they matter just as much as the words themselves.

My mom had an extremely abusive childhood and as a result, is very much like a broken child herself. She never got help for it. Growing up, this was very damaging to me. She definitely sent me mixed signals of love/hate.

Like what subtle lights said, my mom has a lot of fear and anxiety so role reversal started coming into play by the time I was 13. I was her personal therapist and/or mom.

It did show up in more mild instances throughout very early childhood though, like with needing reassurance from me about her own actions.

My mom is actually empathetic with me nowadays, but that's because after so many years of invalidating me she realized that she shares many of the same emotional struggles I do (thanks to her).

That empathy wasn't there growing up.

Parents who are hurt themselves really need to get help before having kids, in my opinion...

The codependency that was conditioned into me has to be one of the most damaging results of my childhood, honestly.

Childhood was... sub optimal

Imagine a glass and a pitcher. The glass is fragile and can only receive warm water. Too much cold or too much heat and it will break from the impact. Along the years people were not careful and would just pour a little too much heat or a little too much cold until the entire glass from bottom to top was fractured. All over - some huge fractures, some small ones. The only thing keeping the glass together was a thin film that covered the entire glass. Otherwise, without it - it would have entirely fallen to pieces from day one.

So it is with us. We NEED pure love to live, love and laugh. It is our energy. It is who we are. It is the way we were designed. Without PURE love we fracture. Our brains and bodies can't deal with altered energy in any other way but by breaking down. Too much hate, we collapse and withdraw, eventually this programming becomes self-hate. Too much coldness and we shut-down, we ignore our feelings until we're physically sick with *deficiencies*. Mixed signals send us into confusion where WE DO NOT KNOW WHO WE ARE. That is the end-result of MIXED signals.

We have to wake up to what happened on a physiological basis. What goes on in the brain as a result and that all the manifestations that are now going on - anxiety, depression, self-loathing, anger, lack of connection, lack of identity, feelings of hopelessness - are all the by-products of SIMPLY - not getting basic needs MET from 0-3. The CODE - binary, biological. It is like a mis-written code. Basically, there is no *messed up childhood* - there is a messed-up code that was given to us with all the pain that entails - we MUST look at this with courage for what it was and is - a time to re-write our own biology.

Of course. It is the worst part. The most painful part because you never know if you're coming or going - what is reality - who YOU are and WHY this is happening. It's the script of a horror story of the worst psychological type.

Empathy - imagine. Imagine a mother with empathy - she would have your back because you are a vital, important and most beloved child to her and the ENTIRE family. She gets it, she gets you. She understands you and comes from a place of knowing YOU. There is love in that understanding. There is a fierceness in that loving but tempered with gentleness. There is no guessing her love. There is no guessing at all. She knows you and allows you to know her without fear, without letting you down. She's got your welfare in her heart. The family is your shield. You are safe knowing all of this. You will be able to trust for life.

This is beautiful, thank you for the description It's something I'm dreaming of having in my next life...
I saw this mother and daughter in the bus, and the daughter had suddenly decided to lean her head on her mother's shoulder and I saw the letting go..feeling safe and cared for...The mother was there, gentle but sitting upright, with confidence...
Then the realisation hit me that this is something I'll never have and it made me cry.

In the same time, and this might sound odd, I somehow feel very guilty because my parents seem to want to give me everything I need, my mother seems to be obsessed with "taking care of me". But that safety feeling is nowhere near. I feel desperation.

There is this huge wall between us and I can't cross it. I constantly feel that it's my fault. Why don't I try harder...But there is something in our relationship I cannot put my fingers on. It's suffocating. It's like all fake and no substance, and no one else can see it. They are perfect...as everyone tells me...so I must be crazy
But am I making up this constant feeling of shame and self-repression when talking to them? The need to "be strong" and not show emotions and the feeling of being sucked into an emotionless black hole? It's just confusing..

Because we're complicated beings - we're dealing with so much on so many levels and as exquisitely sensitive, we feel everything to the 9th degree. It's a miracle we're breathing. Truly - it is.

What I understand is that it is unraveling, clearing out what doesn't serve our highest good, blessing what is and keeping on the straight and narrow with a Higher Power.

And a whole lot of Love with the capital L that doesn't want anything, only to give from the heart. Editing....like only a mother (was meant) to give.