Borderline Personality Disorder??

I'm reposting this question since it didn't get answered in someone else's thread.

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May I ask a couple questions? Any of you that have BPD, were you overly complaint as children and were you ever told that you were enmeshed with a parent?

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I can't help you on this one but I can give you a hug.

((((((((((((((((Tomi))))))))))))))))))

time0

{{{{{{{{{{{{Time0}}}}}}}}}}}}}} I'll take hugs from you ANY DAY!

HELLO! A simple "yes" or "no" answer would suffice! I know there's people here with this disorder.

"Enmeshed" means you can't tell were you end and your parent begins. Hope that made it clearer.

I don't have BPD so I can't answer your question.

Maybe instead of waiting for an answer you could research it. There are a lot of good resourses at this site and other places on the web. Im sure you could find out all you care to know.

Maybe people don't feel comfortable answering you.

http://psychcentral.com/disorders/sx10.htm

http://psychcentral.com/resources/Personality/

I have BPD, but I don't get your 2 questions.

Thanks, but I've already read the articles that you gave the links to. I've also read some on a Google I did. Nothing mentions "enmeshement" just abuse, and I know that didn't happen.

Try this article.

co-dependent enmeshment

Examples of some expectations that the core belief of "I am unlovable" may fuel and or support are; "you owe me", "it's not my fault", it's not my responsibility, it's up to you, "I can't meet my own needs", feeling like a victim, feeling helpless, not being in touch with one's excruciating pain of loss etc and instead being very quick to rage at the first sign of closeness, distancing behaviour, martyr behaviour, co-dependent enmeshment (Melody Beattie), expecting to be rescued by others, not taking personal responsibility.

Compliant - to submit to another as in:

1 a : to yield oneself to the authority or will of another : SURRENDER b : to permit oneself to be subjected to something <had to submit to surgery>
2 : to defer to or consent to abide by the opinion or authority of another; as a child to a parent

Overly : to an excessive degree

I've already explained "enmeshed." Don't know how else to make it simpler to understand.

I'm asking if there is anyone who was that way as a child and into adulthood.

We must have posted at the same time and that's why I missed your post, Petunia. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!

Ohh I get it now, but I forgot the question now... gotta scoll up now *scrolls* kk... No I don't think I was enmeshed or w/e and no I wasn't compliant either.

Hmm why you wanna no so bad sept....??

I'm trying to understand my daughter and why she feels like I "consumed" her.

I wouldn't think you were enmeshed with anyone. LOL

This article talks about Parental Alienation Syndrome. It only touches briefly on enmeshment,
but I still think you might find some useful info.

"One also has to look for factors in both the alienating and target parent to assess the potential for chronic alienation - the object of which is often to punish the parent perceived as responsible for the family demise by damaging his or her relationship with a child. Generally the parent who does not recover from hurt and anger over time will be already be vulnerable to narcissistic injury and predisposed to "externalising".or blaming. For the most part individuals who are thus predisposed will themselves have experienced significant deficits in their own parenting and/or have experienced significant previous losses that remain unresolved.

At times the enmeshment between the child and the parent derives in the parents sadness and distress and at others the parent's anger is too powerful a force for the child to resist"

Alienation Syndrome

Petunia

WOW Petunia! I had read a little bit on Parent Allienation Syndrome when my daughter first stopped talking to me. I mentioned it to my T and she refused to accept it as a "syndrome." There's quite a bit to absorb and think about. "Abuse" seems to be prevalent in both of the articles you've given me. It's always been my "opinion" that it was my ex that abused us all, but I have to admit that I expanded on some of his "discipline" given the fact that my mother was extremely strict with me. To me, it just seemed "right." When I divorced my ex, I realized that a lot of what he called "discipline" sure as hell wasn't! It was control through fear! Wonder just how much of that she still carries with her and blames me for... and rightly so.

One of our problems, though, is that she refuses to talk to me or communicate with me in any way, shape or form. Except for three times in the 8 years that she's felt this way, I haven't tried or even thought of crossing this "boundary" of hers. Well... don't know where I'm going with this.

Thanks so very much for the info you have given me. It's gonna take some time to read, re-read and digest.

Strange, though, when I Googled "complaint child and enmeshment" how I was sent to Borderline Personality Disorder sites. She definitely fits the criteria and there are other reasons that make me believe that's what she has. Her father, while I was married to him, seemed to have different personalities, heard "me" say things I would never say and blamed me for a lot of things that were foreign to me. One of the worst things was that it seemed he could read my mind. I had one experience like that with my daughter. She responded out loud to a THOUGHT I had, just like her dad would. (shiver!!)

Slightly off topic:

I do that 'responding to thoughts' thing with my husband and my mother. My husband insists that I read his mind, and apparently has rather heated disagreements with his therapist about it when she tries to tell him that I don't.

Fact is, though, that I don't read his mind. I just know him pretty well -- because I care about him, because I'm focussed on him, and because I have training in focusing on people close to me, for my own protection. I learned to watch the adults around me, because I was afraid of them, because I didn't know what I did wrong most of the time, because I was confused by the whole thing. Mind you, I'm not talking about being an abused child here. I'm just talking about the sort of collateral damage that is often done by parents whose own problems sometimes distract them from healthier parenting. Does that make sense?

I guess it's really the whole 'I'm afraid Mommy won't love me anymore if I'm bad' taken to a whole new level.

{shrug}

Whatever. End result is that I respond to my husband's thoughts, he thinks I read his mind, I know that it's part of my hypervigilance -- because despite the best evidence to teh contrary, I'm still afraid he won't love me anymore if I'm "bad."

Thank you, Gen. This statement: I guess it's really the whole 'I'm afraid Mommy won't love me anymore if I'm bad' taken to a whole new level. could very well be true of my daughter. IMO, it goes along with an overly compliant child's attitude.

Let me tell you the one time my daughter did this to me and see what you think. We were sitting in an outdoor restaurant. She was sitting facing the back and I across from her. A group of men took the table BEHIND her. I looked at one and THOUGHT "he's kind of cute." After a few minutes, she looked at me and said, "BTW, yeah he is cute." As far as I know, she hadn't even looked behind her, but she must have. She insisted that I had said it outloud, but I KNOW I DID NOT! Told her I hadn't said that out loud but she insisted that I had, so I just dropped it. It freaked me just as bad as when her dad did it to me.

When I told my T about how her dad would do this to me, she suggested that maybe he had a "familial spirit." That's all I know and all I want to know about that particular subject. I'm just ever so glad this man has been out of my life for 35 yrs!!

Tomi, have you read "The Emotional Incest Syndrome" by Patricia Love? It explained a lot for me. BTW, one of the things that I learned from that book is that parents probably aren't setting out to violate their children's boundaries. Sometimes it's more a matter of treating your child like a best friend rather than being more like a parent with them.

Let me see if I can remember your questions. BTW, I havent been diagnosed as borderline, but I think I am borderline and T is trying to save me the stigma. Anyway, I was an extremely compliant child. I'm not sure that I was enmeshed with either of my parents, but several of my siblings definitely were/are.

Rap

Wendy, now I haven't. I'm just beginning to get into this.

OMG! You have an uncanny way of finding the chink in my armor, you know that? I'm not blaming you in the least! It just seems that it never fails. LOL

Yes, my daughter told me once that what she had needed was a mother, not a best friend. We were friends but there were some things I didn't confide in her... Sex was tabboo because SHE set that boundary... and I honored it. All I ever discussed with her was the normal things you discuss with a normal 11 yr old. If it was ever brought up, it was because she brought it up.

Dang, Wendy! I don't want to read that book! I will, though, and I'm sure I'm going to find a lot of things in there about my mother, gmother and I, too. They knew NOTHING of boundaries! So the crap did roll downhill after all!

{{{{{{{{{Tomi}}}}}}}}}}

I can't promise you that it won't be hard for you to read, but I bet that that book will answer some of your questions and help you to understand a little better - not only about your children, but just as much about the way you were brought up. You'll let me know what you think of it, I hope? I'd love to discuss it.

I'm new to this site but I can relate to your daughter when she said the you "consume" her. My mother makes me feel this way too. At times I thought is was her emotional neediness, at others I wondered if she would ever get her own life, and then when I learned about what healthy boundaries between parent and child are, I realized that my mother did not even consider there was a boundary between where she ended and where I began. As a parent myself, I think unless you are emotionally distant, it is kind of easy to enmesh boundaries. And children who are overly compliant are in some way feeling threatened by the adults in their lives, and they are at the same time vigilante toward their enmeshed parent expectations of them. There are times I don't speak to my mom because I just don't know how to have a successful interaction with her and at the same time be myself without her feeling threatened by me. If I don't allow her to "consume" me, then she feels somehow rejected by me and then she becomes angry with me and vengeful--not to mention that she has a list of all the real and imagined "transgressions" that I have committed against her since I was a small child. It is hard to be a daughter sometimes, especially with a mother who is not realizing there is a boundary, a separation between mother and daughter and the daughter is her own person in her own right. My mother is confused by this, and she feels threatened by it so she fights back and demands that I give her what she wants--give in to her "consuming" me.

Babs, that sounds pretty familiar. You've perfectly described what enmeshment is like. It sounds like you also have a pretty good understanding of how to deal with it, and how to keep the same thing from happening with your children. The trick is how not to go too far the other way and be too distant, like I tend to do. It is so hard to find the right balance when you didn't grow up with it. I think sometimes any amount of closeness with anyone feels restrictive.

Rap

Septembermorn,

Finally a light to this subject!! YES- I feel completely enmeshed to my parents, so much so..that when I found a boyfriend I ended up in tears...my boyfriend will take me away from my parents- and I was thirty-two years old!! I couldn't stop crying- my parents- I need them to come first!! I often imagine what they will say about anything I do in my life- and it's usually negative. But I cannot help but crave their love and affection, I still feel like a child with them. I picture them and their reactions at all times. I long for the days when I belonged to them. I didn't know if anyone else felt this way? Thank you for talking about this.

I hardly ever see my mother. see her a couple of times a year now, but for a long time (maybe 5 years) i wouldn't see her and wouldn't give her my phone number etc.

'enmeshment'. i think i understand that one.

my mother has intense emotional responses. and because i'm sensitive... when she has an emotional response it is like i catch it. and she is in pain a lot. and so i catch her pain. and it hurts :-(

and when i didn't 'catch' her emotion... she would try and induce it in me. not consciously... but she would do that.

and regarding boundaries... she didn't seem to know where she ended and i began. i remember something that used to recurr when i was a child... 'you are cold go and put a sweater on'.
'i'm not cold' (and i wasn't - i was running around)
'you must be cold GO AND PUT A SWEATER ON'.
because... she was cold you see.

and so for me...

it was like life was about catching her emotional state
her inducing her emotional state in me
(or an opposite so if she felt like people were out to get her then she could read my thoughts and she just KNEW I was thinking bad things about her)

and so for me...

it was so very hard for me to learn something about whether i'm cold or i'm not cold. how i feel. that kind of thing. and that was so hard for me to learn. and i still struggle with that a lot at times.

and privacy...

i had none. she would walk into my room whenever she wanted. she would go through my things. i started keeping a diary once until she went off at me for saying stuff about her.

she didn't know how to do it differently.
i appreciate that now.
but as a kid...
i didn't understand. i didn't understand why i hurt so much and why i didn't understand how i felt the way i did like other people why i didn't know whether i was cold or hot like other people why i wasn't allowed to do anything why i didn't have any space why i hurt so much.

and i guess...

it takes time.

i still find it really very hard to see her. because it brings it all back. but what is hardest for me is that she hasn't progressed on any of this and she is still just the same. she KNOWS how other people feel respond think etc because she projects herself onto them. and through sheer force of personality / emotional state...

i would say...

to just work on yourself

and in time...

you might be able to have a relationship.

it is hard...
hurts all round.