posted April 13, 2011 02:56 PM            

I know she was abused as a child, including sexually, though the majority of that came from outside the family. It's a pretty sordid story and something her own mother deeply regrets, though mostly it was because her mom was far too trusting of others at the time.

Before I was born she eloped with Dad but any romance was burned off by the time I was 4. She had a modeling career in Houston for awhile but that turned out bad and came to an end when she became pregnant with me (something she complained of to me as if it was my fault she got pregnant).

She left me with my Granny (her mom) for the first 4 years but then in a fight she took me saying she'd never leave a child in her care. Unfortunately she and Dad were far worse parents than my lone Granny. Both were alcoholics and Mom especially was prone to temper tantrums.

Rarely they'd get silly. Like when Pepsi cans (IIRC) said "sex" if you stacked them on top of each other which caused a big deal at the time they bought some, stacked it, and asked me (I think I was about 8-9), "What does that say?" and laugh. At the time I didn't get the joke.

What I recall the most about growing up is more the neglect than the abuse. But Mom & Dad fought so much over stupid stuff and it got intense, like when Mom tried to shoot Dad but was too drunk to do it right and Dad disarmed her before knocking the crap out of her (I was hiding under the kitchen table and saw it). I once saw Mom riding Dad's back clawing at him while he slammed her against the wall trying to knock her off his back. It scared me, but better than when I was the target of the violence (but I quickly learned to evade their attention, becoming very independent in the process).

What I still find strange is that Mom made me do the chores whenever possible and then complained how tired she was to Dad from doing the chores herself. He didn't fall for it and when Dad once pointed out I did enough to be called "Cinderella" Mom looked at me angrily for some reason (maybe she thought I told Dad?).

Mom & Dad had a divorce even more dysfunctional than their marriage, and Mom had a short lived affair with her (married) lawyer. After which Mom made me live with her for child support which she used for her booze and cigarettes. She didn't care that I didn't have enough food to eat that I had to go to other homes for food. But then she didn't know I stole some of her brandy to give to others so they'd give me food later (which I rationalized as since she got it from "child support" the brandy was mine anyway).

But she seemed content to sleep through the end of the month starving. When I ranaway from home living on the streets she didn't report me for fearing to lose her child support.

And she obsessed over Marilyn Monroe and modeling and I know she was intensely sad. She thought beauty was everything, that it could get her anything. At times she would get nice to me and have me look through her old modeling pics with her (though she criticized me saying I wasn't a platinum blonde and too short to be a model, etc, and at such times she seemed to accuse me of ruining her career as she got pregnant with me). She'd be pretty wasted, lonely, had candles lit, talked of Marilyn's death a disturbing amount and often played songs like "Father Figure" by George Michael and "Candle in the Wind" over and over. This was the closest I think we ever got to each other and I recall the time as very dreary.

posted April 13, 2011 03:58 PM            

i'm an only child. no cousins. my parents divorced when i was an infant and i did not know my real father till i was 17. until then i thought her husband was my father, mainly because back then where i had to grow up divorce was a taboo subject. when i was an early teen my mother started a dark evil campaign to kick him out by psychological torments. throughout my life, she isolated me from the rest of the relatives saying they are stupid and evil.

in retrospect, it was a mind-control. it was as if being in a religious cult. i really completely believed what a god-like perfection my mother was, and even got to the point to question if the concept of god is even necessary when there is a real living person who is as perfect as god. on the other hand, i had inner conflicts as a confused and totally lost person who never learnt to cope with the world outside of my family (which consisted of just me and her).

i became reclusive and refused to go to high school, and begged my mother to let me see a psychiatrist but she told me it's a place for real cuckoos. i also studied French and wanted to study in France. it was dismissed by her with "only real professionals do that, like ballerinas" (wtf). instead she contacted her high school best friend in the US and persuaded me to go there. but after i stayed with the friend and her family to look for a university there, my mother and this old friend had a fall-out and i never heard from the family again. i suspect the friend was alarmed about the way i seem to have grown up and tried to caution my mother, and got black-listed by her.

if a person says something in my mother's favour, the person is an angel and she almost worships them. if the same person says something that disagrees her belief, the person is suddenly either stupid, or her enemy and deserve a long-tormenting slow death. she is singularly THE most vengeful person i've ever met. she holds eternal grudges. she mumbles death-threats perpetually, especially when she drives.

while i was studying in the US, i started seeing therapists and psychiatrists to find out what my problems were. i cannot tell you exactly what was wrong with me, but it was actually exactly that, that i had a problem that was not recognisable. in short, i felt like i was living a life of another person. but i could not put that in these words back then. it was indescribable.

i had agoraphobia, fear of phones, and peculiar indecisiveness. i often had to ask my mother for an opinion. and she would tell me to have a courage and be brave. but at the same time, she got a lot out of that, she could feel that she owned me. and that's precisely she had moulded me into. i also suffer from a statue phobia. i had no idea why for years, but now i think it's because i reflect my fear of rejection on to the cold and unmoving statues, often with the air of authority.

being a heavily Sagittarius influenced person, i felt like i was not alive to not be able to to be "me". real me is fun-loving, social to a fault, perpetually moving achiever, as i recall myself from my early childhood. it was impossible to go on with life that way, it was WRONG. i often thought i was delusional, to have this feeling that i was not myself. but i kept seeing different psychologists, and after 10 years of many many trials, i met one doctor who identified my mother's symptoms (he called it Narcissistic Mother, within the range of BPD symptoms). so FINALLY, i had the NAME, and the CAUSE. but that was all he could do. from then on, i had to find out more about what the borderline is exactly, and how i can heal myself from my traumas on my own. in the last few years, the information about this disorder became more available publicly, thank god.

i almost didn't know anything about her, until over 10 years ago i started investigating her past. i asked my mother herself, face-to-face, but it was futile. it was mind-wrenching and just made me want to die. i started talking to my father, my aunty and my grandma. this was hard too, because they also all hate each other and live separately (what's wrong with my family lol). my mother also was p*ssed at me that i talked to them. i got different stories from them, but after a decade, i just stopped and decided to accept the most reasonable version i could construct based on what i have heard. i understand now that there are things in life i will never find out.

i always believed completely that my mother wanted nothing but what would make me happy, and she always let me do what i wanted. but when i look back, she never let me do anything "i" chose to do. "she' chose them and convinced me that "i" wanted it. it's incredible how much borderline can manipulate a person into believing the complete opposite. they make you their ally, obliviously, with a great pain. i started having break downs because of the stress, but she would just stay cool and tell me to stop "faking it". towards the end of this phase, i had 2 occasions where my mind went blank after her extreme psychological abuse, and i became numb and "abnormal". eventually my mother called my aunt to "deal with" me, and aunty took me to a psychiatrist.

i don't think i'm a weak person. my mind is pretty healthy, i think. i'm fair within my capacity, and i'm a born optimist. i don't think there is anything wrong with my psychiatric health. but for years, without having a better way to understand it, i was depressed of the belief that i was depressive! i doubt i was ever actually DEpressed. i was just REpressed.

it's unthinkable, where i am now. i am singularly proud that i am ALIVE. i think many in my situation would have committed suicide. it was THAT hard and morbid and lonely and unpenetratable. my life definitely has been derailed. i'm fighting to get my life back now.

she now lives alone with her 5 lapdogs, completely isolated from everyone. she loathes her parents, and thinks her sister is an idiot. somehow she has threats to make her husband pay for her expenses, the poor fellow who i grew up thinking as my father, who i have not been allowed to see for 20 years, is forever trapped.

beside being paranoid, she is also dramatic in her own ways. she wants to appear she is in control. i have actually never seen her break down, despite tough and trying situations sometimes her life has had. so to compensate that, she dramatises and fakes her emotions. it's embarrassing sometimes.

now she has disowned me and i have no contact with her anymore. i try not to think about it, despite all what she has done to me, she is human and she also is a victim. i'm only focusing on healing myself. someday, i will see her again and we'll be like when we got on. because we were greats friends, too, despite all. i love her.

posted April 13, 2011 05:00 PM            

PlutoSquared and PixieJane, do you suffer from any traumas? if so, how do you deal with it, and if not, why do you think you came out "ok" from your experience?

what i hate the most is, when i tell my closer friends a bit of what i have figured out, i usually get "well, everyone has some problems like that, and they live with it" or "everyone had more or less of childhood traumas and such". i don't want people to PITY me, but i want to be accepted that my problems are not MY problems. i can get rid of it, and it's not a part of my personality. it makes me think of the time my mother recommended me of taking anti-depressant (funny joke, isn't it?).

posted April 13, 2011 06:13 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by LEXX:
Borderline?
Waaaaaay over said borderline.
Rabid Christian psychotic.
"Shudder"
When not in a rabid moment was like a 12 year old girl.
But omg!
When in her rabid times;
well visions of hellfire and brimstone seemed a better thing to deal with than her.

---

ok, let's say my mother was "abnormal"

psychiatrists avoid diagnosing BPD, because the symptoms vary from this end to the other, and it's usually coupled with other psychological disorders like paranoia and narcissism. it has not been treated in main-stream as much as it should have, because it's hard to tackle. i think it's good to give it a name and try to understand it.

posted April 13, 2011 07:28 PM            

in my case, i cannot say i had an abusive relationship pattern (except just an unlucky emotionally abusive bf i once had). but i am really afraid of being rejected and be lonely. this has led me to remain in relationships that were no longer working more than i should have. i crave comfort and protection more than anything, and i feel that i cannot be set free until i truly have it once.

my partner… he had a horrible upbringing too, from what i hear i think it's safe to assume his mother also is borderline. he was… abused, and he has told only me about it. i'm just trusting the fact this is an anonymous forum when i mention that. together we have very strange neurosis and habits and we developed to cope with them somehow. it's great that i'm with someone who can truly, and i mean TRULY understand where i come from, and it's the same for him too. but we have our limitations as "sufferers" as well.

what i am working on removing is the block that i believe i am not fit enough to join the society and earn money like normal people. my mother always rejected my "person". she always dismissed me and told me i'll never be able to have a normal job, have kids, etc. the root of my financial crisis now and also failure to establish myself anywhere because i sabotaged my own goals. i wandered from city to city, country to country, continent to continent all my adult life. it's time to settle and provide security for myself. i probably sabotaged myself from marrying and having kids too, i still think i would not like that. but recently, i think i might not be against it if it's with someone i really love.

posted April 13, 2011 07:53 PM            

quote:

---

do you suffer from any traumas? if so, how do you deal with it, and if not, why do you think you came out "ok" from your experience?

---

I have some minor scars, but overall I think I'm ok. As for why I guess it's because I managed to do well as an independent.

The first time I can think of was when I was 5 and I woke up late in the morning very hungry. Having been slapped across the room the last time I tried to wake the 'rents to make me breakfast I wasn't about to do that again.

Pondering it I put a chair up by the cereal cabinet, but it was still out of reach with me on the chair. So I grabbed a spatula and then wooden spoon and coaxed a box of Cheerios out into my arms. The milk and everything else was easy compared to that and as I ate I got a huge glowing feeling of "I did it myself!" And I always wanted to do it myself as much as possible since then.

Since then life seemed to repeat the lesson (or maybe it was the pattern I learned to see) that authority figures were harmful but I could take care of myself. And that made what I endured a lot more endurable.

And I think all my Sag influences also helped.