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Warmest thanks to Crimson and Annie for your permission to share the
wisdom each of you has garnered from growing up with a mother with
borderline personality disorder. May your articulate descriptions of what
you have learned be a blessing to the many others who have faced and
continue to face similar challenging home situations.
Desire and Ability to Change
Submitted by Crimson
For a BPD to change they have to want change. Some don't see the
problem. The angry outbursts, hurling insults and making loved ones feel
bad sometimes get BPDs what they need. Even if they don't get what they
need the methodology may have proved successful enough in the past that
a BPD will find themselves in a Skinner Box, using proven old behaviors on
new people assuming they will be effective.
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Sure, BPDs push people away and alienate themselves but that also has a
twisted positive reward, it proves what they already assume, that life is
unfair and that they will be treated badly others.
I had an interesting experience last week. I had contracted a job that had a
series of 16 hour days in an extremely stressful environment with a bunch
of coworkers that were not up to the task and a set of bossy managers. In
order to perform well I had to maintain an even keel, keep my feelings to
myself and be extremely careful. At the end of the job I decided to keep to
myself for the day inside my house and I found myself wanting to be alone,
think about how much I disliked the situation and feel sorry for myself. My
blue mood only lasted for a few hours but I got some insight into the world
of the BPD: Sometimes isolation, melancholy and self-pity can feel pretty
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good. I snapped out of it quickly but I saw the value of the permanent
mindset of my mother.
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My mother is 80 years old, she was born in 1932. As soon as she was
able to stand and talk her father gave her a name which stuck: Misery. She
was miserable at three years of age just as she is now. You'd figure she'd
be happier because her life is pretty darned sweet. But she's quite
satisfied with the BPD lifestyle of anger, blame and outbursts toward her
dwindling family members.
The Attraction of Misery
Reply by Susan Heitler, Ph.D.
Yes. Misery has its benefits, as you say, "a twisted positive reward." Your
description both of your own experience and of your mom clarified
beautifully the phenomenon of "psychological reversal." You might want to
read my posting on that topic: Bad Luck or Psychological Reversal.
When people are psychologically reversed, they self sabotage because at
a subconscious level their experiences have taught them, for whatever
reason, that it's better to feel misrable than to feel happy. The corollary
may be attraction to making others feel misery instead of desiring to help
them feel happiness.
Warmest thanks to you Crimson for sharing so insightfuly your personal life
experiences and the wisdom about bpd you have derived from them.
Hormones: Are they a factor?
Submitted by Annie
I'd be interested in your opinion about borderline pd being hormone-based
or hormone-related?
I've been following scientific research studies/papers into the causes of
the Cluster B pds, borderline pd in particular, because my mother (now
deceased) had been diagnosed twice as having borderline pd, but I
personally felt she showed many traits of narcissistic pd, some antisocial
pd traits, and some traits of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder
thrown in there too.
I came across a study of borderline pd and hormone fluctuations:
http://web.missouri.edu/~gearyd/PNEC03.pdf
Discovering the causes of personality disorders deserves much more
intense and focused research, in my opinion. If the causes of pds can be
pinned down on an organic, mechanical, molecular or neurochemical level
then to me that means greater hope for prevention, better treatments, and
possibly cures.
In any case, other studies have shown that the children of borderline pd
and other personality disordered mothers are at high risk for receiving
repeated emotional trauma, psychological injuries and developing
personality disorders also (due to both genetic predisposition and the
invalidating, even dangerously abusive or negligent environment.)
I wish that our society/culture could make the prevention of cruelty to
children a top priority:
Possible Causes of Borderline Personality Disorder
Reply by Susan Heitler, Ph.D.
Heres a starter list of some of the hypothesized causes. One, several or
all could pertain in any given case.
1. Hormones or other biological factors.
2. Parental modeling.
3. Early trauma, such as sexual assault or abusive parenting.
4. Genetic predisposition. (see the book Evil Genes).
5. Congenital factors (lost sibling in utero, birth trauma).
Another totally unclear phenomeon is what is narcissism and what is
borderline personality disturbance. They often co-occur. Usually the main
difference is that men get labeled narcissists and women get labeled
borderline.
Gender and diagnosis, and diagnostic sub-types
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Submitted by Annie
I agree. I think that if it had been my father who had been engaging in the
behaviors that my mother exhibited, particularly her hair-trigger temper, her
inappropriate and extreme rage, her physical violence, her breaks with
reality under stress (she had long-term fixed delusions and paranoid beliefs
about Dad, Sister, me, and her family of origin), her controlling, demanding
behaviors, her perfectionism, her lack of affective empathy and lack of
compassion, her sense of entitlement... I think my father would have been
diagnosed with narcissistic pd or even antisocial pd.
If you have read "Understanding The Borderline Mother" by Christine
Lawson, you are familiar with the sub-types of bpd that she designated. My
mother was mostly a Queen (bpd+narcissistic pd) and a Witch
(npd+antisocial pd.) It was just jaw-droppingly uncanny to read that book
and read those descriptions and examples, and feel that my own life had
been observed and recorded.
Your three-part treatment approach sounds viable to me, but as you
pointed out any therapy only has a chance of working if a person actually
*wants* to change.
For those who are as severely affected by personality disorder as my
mother was, therapy was sadly rather pointless. My mother was living in a
very ego-syntonic state; her own feelings, thoughts and behaviors seemed
perfectly reasonable and justified to her. She felt entitled to say or do
whatever she wished, and she firmly believed that all, and I mean ALL her
problems originated outside her own self. She was never to blame for
anything; she was perfection in her own mind. Dad, Sister and I were
trained to defer to her and "walk on eggshells" around her to keep her from
exploding like a land-mine.
The only reason my mother went to see a therapist the first time was
because she wanted the therapist to "fix" dad, to "straighten him out about
a few things." After the first and only session, the therapist
(couple's/marriage therapy) suggested that my mother would benefit from
individual therapy for borderline pd, and mom went apeshit (according to
my Sister, who witnessed the aftermath of the session.) The second time
mother went into therapy was because Sister and I gave her an ultimatum
to do so. We were desperate and had gone No Contact with her. Our
mother complied (!!) but after a few months of weekly therapy mother had a
total melt-down rage-tantrum at Sister; mother screamed that there was
nothing wrong with her (with mother), that Sister and I had been lying about
her and were being hateful to her, she had always been the perfect mother
to us, that we were the ones who need therapy and she only went to learn
how to "deal with" us.
Her own regular doctor had put her on mood-stabilizing meds at one point a
few years before she died, but after taking them for a few weeks she
stopped, because she said they made her feel "weird." How sad that just
normal, more stable moods felt "weird" to her; she was used to her
extreme, rapid mood swings, I guess.
Borderline pd and the other Cluster B pds are serious mental illnesses, and
although they do occur in a range of severity, there are way too many who
can "skim under the radar" and appear normal and healthy outside the
home but do truly devastating, tragic damage to their closest family
members behind the privacy of closed doors. At the support groups I
belong to, the hundreds (if not thousands) of adult child survivors of pd
parents report that their bpd parent (95% have bpd mothers) was or still is
dominant and in control of the family of origin, and that their non-pd parent
is enmeshed with and subservient to his bpd spouse, and enabling of her
abusive behaviors. The children in such relationships are basically
screwed.
Im Still Terrified of Her
Submitted by Crimson
I have had almost the same experience as you but my mother would never
go to therapy. Three years ago I suggested to my mother that she take up
some volunteer work outside the home since she was so talented with her
teaching ability. I did this politely, but I didn't mention getting outside the
home a few hours a week might get her to meet new people, help with her
anger, dark moods and her obsession with spending her time finding new
ways to blame family members for all her imaginary problems. The
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