Hi, all. I'm a written/verbal person, so it's hard to keep this short. I'm trying! Endless gratitude to anyone who reads this novel.
I suspect my mother has BPD. She changed mental/physical illnesses with the seasons, flaunting each proudly. We were in a fundamental, exclusive, oppressive religious group, and the rest of the world was evil/scary. My siblings and I were homeschooled, but when Mom got "too sick" or we were "too much to handle," she'd put us in public school for a bit. However, "public schoolers were dumb and bad," and we were different//smarter/holier. We rotated through this cycle probably 10 times. We lived in a rural town, so were in isolation unless we were in school. My parents had no friends. I had a handful of short-lived friendships. I had no privacy--everything I did/said/thought was brought to the spotlight and shamed. Constant humiliation. Our house was rife with mom's chaos, but anything that made us human--emotions, imperfections, sexuality, friends--came with immense shame. My mom cycled in and out of psych wards & treatment facilities. And, of course, this all seemed normal to us. It didn't interfere with my functioning at the time. My father is a decent man, but detached. My only interactions with him were when I was being punished. My mother had a deep hatred of men...all they wanted from you was sex, and she instilled this in me. This made me kind of hate my father, which probably reinforced to him that he should be detached from me.
I was the youngest and the problem child. I was and am a highly emotional, perceptive, opinionated, stubborn person, and I've always hated this about myself. There were daily screaming matches... Why couldn't I just be a good person, more like my sister? Too manipulative/dramatic/satanic. I desperately wished I could just be a "good" person and that I'd wake up and not be the defective person that I was. This is where I struggle the most. Some days, I can say, "I was the scapegoat/truth-teller. My family ganged up on me because I was honest about the dysfunction, and this wasn't okay for them to do." But most of the time, I see myself as this evil child, spewing out harsh words to everyone, having uncontrollable emotions, etc. How could everyone be wrong about me? I honestly couldn't tell you which reality is the correct reality, which means I don't know which version of me is the correct one, either. As I'm typing this, I feel like I'm manipulating whomever is reading into feeling sorry for me. Every time I express an emotion or opinion, I'm not sure if I'm manipulating the people around me or if I'm truly feeling that. I can't trust myself.
My husband is supportive in all of this, if not a bit perplexed. He & his family are so normal it's weird
I tend to keep him at a distance since trust issues, etc. I make him out to be an insensitive robot who's incapable of understanding emotion. Have had some insight, though...*If* he is a caring, compassionate person, then he must be lying about loving me, because I'm obviously unworthy of love--duh. So if he's a robot, then I don't have to deal with the pain of being lied to or, worse, the pain of truly being loved unconditionally.
My mother isn't a bad person. She's incredibly troubled, has no self-esteem or sense of self, hates herself so much. I don't think she intentionally hurts people or finds pleasure in watching people suffer. I think she hurts people because that's her primary way of reacting to the world. She had a narcissistic, sexually abusive father. So maybe she's not BPD; maybe she's C-PTSD. In my mind, we cannot have the same disorder. We can't be the same person; that terrifies me. But I see so much of myself in her. Now that I'm an adult, she says I was always her favorite, we're "kindred spirits," etc. My whole family is a lot nicer to me now, which messes with my reality-confusion even more.
At the moment, she's "an alcoholic," and went to rehab on New Year's after attempting suicide because I enforced my boundaries with her. I haven't officially been blamed yet, but I anticipate it. Since then, I've been in shut-down mode, back to the ol' can't-leave-the-house routine yet again.
I've read through the threads about BPD vs C-PTSD so many times, and I honestly can't see much difference. And if there's not much difference, that means I *am* like my mother after all. How on earth could I wind up with C-PTSD if she doesn't have BPD? Can you develop C-PTSD by being raised by a person who also has it? This is all so confusing, but I desperately need to make rational sense of it and put all the puzzle pieces together. That's the only way I can handle/validate my emotions, honestly. I already have absolutely no idea who I am or how others perceive me, so to add in an existential crisis is a bit overwhelming, to say the least.
Does the time ever come when I don't deeply hate myself for existing? Anybody made it to that point?
I suspect my mother has BPD. She changed mental/physical illnesses with the seasons, flaunting each proudly. We were in a fundamental, exclusive, oppressive religious group, and the rest of the world was evil/scary. My siblings and I were homeschooled, but when Mom got "too sick" or we were "too much to handle," she'd put us in public school for a bit. However, "public schoolers were dumb and bad," and we were different//smarter/holier. We rotated through this cycle probably 10 times. We lived in a rural town, so were in isolation unless we were in school. My parents had no friends. I had a handful of short-lived friendships. I had no privacy--everything I did/said/thought was brought to the spotlight and shamed. Constant humiliation. Our house was rife with mom's chaos, but anything that made us human--emotions, imperfections, sexuality, friends--came with immense shame. My mom cycled in and out of psych wards & treatment facilities. And, of course, this all seemed normal to us. It didn't interfere with my functioning at the time. My father is a decent man, but detached. My only interactions with him were when I was being punished. My mother had a deep hatred of men...all they wanted from you was sex, and she instilled this in me. This made me kind of hate my father, which probably reinforced to him that he should be detached from me.
I was the youngest and the problem child. I was and am a highly emotional, perceptive, opinionated, stubborn person, and I've always hated this about myself. There were daily screaming matches... Why couldn't I just be a good person, more like my sister? Too manipulative/dramatic/satanic. I desperately wished I could just be a "good" person and that I'd wake up and not be the defective person that I was. This is where I struggle the most. Some days, I can say, "I was the scapegoat/truth-teller. My family ganged up on me because I was honest about the dysfunction, and this wasn't okay for them to do." But most of the time, I see myself as this evil child, spewing out harsh words to everyone, having uncontrollable emotions, etc. How could everyone be wrong about me? I honestly couldn't tell you which reality is the correct reality, which means I don't know which version of me is the correct one, either. As I'm typing this, I feel like I'm manipulating whomever is reading into feeling sorry for me. Every time I express an emotion or opinion, I'm not sure if I'm manipulating the people around me or if I'm truly feeling that. I can't trust myself.
My husband is supportive in all of this, if not a bit perplexed. He & his family are so normal it's weird
I tend to keep him at a distance since trust issues, etc. I make him out to be an insensitive robot who's incapable of understanding emotion. Have had some insight, though...*If* he is a caring, compassionate person, then he must be lying about loving me, because I'm obviously unworthy of love--duh. So if he's a robot, then I don't have to deal with the pain of being lied to or, worse, the pain of truly being loved unconditionally. My mother isn't a bad person. She's incredibly troubled, has no self-esteem or sense of self, hates herself so much. I don't think she intentionally hurts people or finds pleasure in watching people suffer. I think she hurts people because that's her primary way of reacting to the world. She had a narcissistic, sexually abusive father. So maybe she's not BPD; maybe she's C-PTSD. In my mind, we cannot have the same disorder. We can't be the same person; that terrifies me. But I see so much of myself in her. Now that I'm an adult, she says I was always her favorite, we're "kindred spirits," etc. My whole family is a lot nicer to me now, which messes with my reality-confusion even more.
At the moment, she's "an alcoholic," and went to rehab on New Year's after attempting suicide because I enforced my boundaries with her. I haven't officially been blamed yet, but I anticipate it. Since then, I've been in shut-down mode, back to the ol' can't-leave-the-house routine yet again.
I've read through the threads about BPD vs C-PTSD so many times, and I honestly can't see much difference. And if there's not much difference, that means I *am* like my mother after all. How on earth could I wind up with C-PTSD if she doesn't have BPD? Can you develop C-PTSD by being raised by a person who also has it? This is all so confusing, but I desperately need to make rational sense of it and put all the puzzle pieces together. That's the only way I can handle/validate my emotions, honestly. I already have absolutely no idea who I am or how others perceive me, so to add in an existential crisis is a bit overwhelming, to say the least.
Does the time ever come when I don't deeply hate myself for existing? Anybody made it to that point?