The Borderline Mother.

[gingerwoman]

It's still a good book to read apart from that one sentence although it's very triggering.

I felt very angry and like I wasn't even going to speak at my Mum's funeral one day.

But I did give a loving speech at my mother's funeral in the end.

[gingerwoman]

I have to say I felt a little weird when my second son was born. I felt a worry about betryaling my older son by loving him to much. This is because as my father always says "Until your sister was born the sun rose and set on you, then after your sister was born you mother just thought you were a nuissance coming between her and your sister.

My mother openly told everyone my sister was her favourite child and that she "didn't understand me"

I got a lot of beatings and verbal abuse.

[brassed2bits]

(((Ginger)))

No other thread gets to me more than one about mothers.

I feel for you Ginger.

[Stezzy]

I really relate to those stories of abuse out there. Sometimes I tell someone I had a bad childhood, and without knowing any details they just blow it off and say it couldn't have been as bad as theirs, though given the measure of their functioning and adjustment, I would beg to argue with them. For the most part I find it better to keep my childhood experience a secret because people just don't understand and then it results in hurting me. I don't understand how most people can be so callous. If someone else told me they had suffered, I would believe them. It just hurts to tell anyone but sometimes I just feel like I want to express myself.

arwen

Hugs to you - I've had similar experiences. My ex has told me that I shouldn't tell people I've had a bad childhood as they would just laugh at me, as it's nothing compared to what other people have been through. He was really cruel about it. I was emotionally abused and neglected and this is often seen as less painful than being physcially or sexually abused, as you can't "see" the pain. It was only when I saw a therapist who told me that all abuse is terrible and has a massive impact that I started to realise that I had nothing to be ashamed of for feeling like I do. But like you I've stopped telling people about my childhood for fear that it will be devalidated.

I haven't been diagnosed with BPD but strongly suspect that I have it, and I can relate to the guilt of being a parent with it. My child is severely autistic and has no awareness of emotions so in some ways I am "freer" but this is still very tough to deal with. All we can do is accept that being this way isn't our fault and just being aware of having this disorder is helpful. Kids need to learn that no one is perfect, not even their parents. All we can do is love them and try our very best with the cards we've been dealt. Hugs to all.

[Justine]

Wow this is such a powerful thread. I have read every single post and couldn't believe what I was reading. All of you without exception told a piece of my childhood, I was stunned to see that other people felt EXACTLY how I do and have. I thought my mum was the only one to do this, although in childhood I didn't know any different.

In 2001 I finally went to see a therapist about it and spent a year going to see her on a weekly basis, she helped me say things that I had never spoken out loud before. When I was two my mum had me for the weekend away from my foster mother, she took me and my sister to a local outdoor swimming pool for the day. I was 2 years old and couldn't control my bowels and my mum went mad right there in front of everyone, she then dragged me to the toilets that were close to the pool, shut me in and spoonfed me my own faeces.

Spending that time with the therapist helped me hugely because I am sure as hell that I couldn't cope with still having all that negative energy inside me, its bad enough with what I have now. I learned that it wasn't my fault, that I wasn't responsible for what my mother did, and that I wasn't a devil child/woman amongst other things.

I still have alot of issues now but I have been getting help for them and still am.

My heart goes out to all of you who have suffered like I have and to those who have suffered at all at the hands of others.

[julesm31]

just feeling the horrible empty aching pain of missing my borderline mother. Havent talked to her since April. Cant cope with the lies and chaos anymore. Obviously there were good times too or I wouldn't miss her so much

[Xanthrax]

I'm still trying to build a catalogue of all the major 'events' in my childhood, but it's becoming clear that there are long stretches of my childhood I can't remember. I think she did threaten to kill me at one point, but it was done in a subtle (but cold, calculating) way, so I can never really be 100% sure. One day after one of our fights we all (grandmother, mother and me) made up and of course put the kettle on for a nice cup of tea. Mother made the tea, and all seemed well until both my grandmother and I drained the bottom of our cups to find a couple of paracetamol tablets dissolving on the bottom (yeah, it did taste quite bitter in hindsight). See the thing is, my grandmother took the maximum dose of paracetamol all day long for arthritis pain, and an extra two tablets was a small overdose. It wasn't intended to kill her, obviously, but I think it was a threat; one of these days I'll kill you both if you don't do what I want you to do. Well that's how I interpreted it anyway. I got revenge by putting little pellets of rabbit shit in her bramble jam sandwiches, and wiping the bread on the door mat before buttering, so I guess we're quits . Actually, it was my grandmother I did that to, but that's another story *sigh*. There was always a rebellious part of that wouldn't be broken.

There were many other incidents of course. Once she stole her best friend's purse, probably for gambling money, and tried to blame it on me. I don't think the friend believed her for one minute because they never spoke again, but that didn't stop my mother scapegoating me in her own mind, and punishing me accordingly. At times I think she was just a challenged and harried human being like myself, at other times I think she was a monster. I have a photo of her and me at Christmas when I was small. It's the only thing I have that seems to show some of the hostility and detachment between us. I might post it some day if I get up the courage. I guess I'd be looking for validation and sympathy, and I might not get it. It might all be in my head, but somehow I don't really believe that people become so badly disordered as I am without a hefty dose of abuse and neglect.

[gingerwoman]

I want to say hugs to all who have expressed such dreadful mother/child stories.

At least we are all here trying to better ourselves and therefor do better for our children.

I get mad with people who say David Pelzer's books are lies. I think his mother had some kind of personality disorder and it rings true to me that she always chose one child to victimise.

[Antari2012]

I've always seen babies' interactions and responses as very blunt versions of our own reactions and such. We're almost exactly the same now as then, with the only difference being that we don't react quite as obviously, or bluntly.