# Does anyone else have a parent with BPD?



## fiberglasscottoncandy (Oct 29, 2012)

My mom has Borderline Personality Disorder. I was looking up ways to cope with my past childhood problems/trauma that was caused by her. I came across this link. It talks about the problems a child could have from dealing with a BPD parent. http://www.bpdfamily...ces/nk_a108.htm

"Concomitantly, a mother with BPD tends to treat the child as a "need gratifying object" as opposed to an individual, an autonomous person. Such behaviors, mixed with the powerful, alternating idealization and devaluation characteristic of BPD, are likely to obviate a positive mother-child relationship and negatively affect the child's developing interpersonal skills and sense of self."

The last part about the sense of self really got me. That's one really big problem I've been having with the DP, and I'm sure all of you have too.

Also, this quote got me thinking too. "a mother's hostility, rage, and destructive behavior may be disguised as love, making it difficult for a child to trust his or her own perceptions of reality" I have a lot of issues with my own perceptions of reality, which has to do with the DP, but I'm sure also has something to do with having a mother with BPD.

And this is the last part I'm going to quote from the link "Disorganized children face stress management problems, frequently engage in externalizing behaviors, and may even face dissociative behaviors later in life" 

So, I'm wondering if maybe my mom could be the cause for why I have DP...or at least part of the reason why. I'm also wondering if anyone else has a Borderline parent and thinks they may have somehow contributed to them getting depersonalization. 

I've been really down because I feel like she ruined my life. Not just because she may have caused the DP, but because she made my life a living hell for so many years. I feel like I could have been normal if she had just gotten help, or if another family member had taken me in at a younger age.


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## Guest (Nov 4, 2012)

My mother was a psychiatrist who most likely was borderline/narcissistic. Borderline is mainly diagnosed in women, but my mother had traits of both.
I don't know if this *caused* my DP, anxiety, depression, but it certainly didn't help, and there is indeed a theory that certain forms of mental illness in first degree biological relatives can increase your chances of developing some other mental illness, but it again depends on so many factors. Many with destructive parents do not develop mental illness.

My father was a surgeon and a hoarder/clutterer, a compulsive gambler, had social anxiety, and Lord knows what else.

My entire family is riddled with depression, schizophrenia, and other mentlal illness. It is almost impossible to sort out. What is interesting is that I found out I have a half-brother my mother gave away at birth. He is in his 80s!!!! (My mother was very young when he was born, and she was 43 when I was born). He and I have MANY traits in common, and he is an alcoholic though he wouldn't admit it. He has mannerisms my mother had. He uses words in a funny way that my mother did. He was involved in music, theatre, went to the same University I did, and is a creative person -- much like me. And my mother was talented musically.

My half-brother NEVER knew my mother or me. He found my mother when he was in his 60 and I was in my 30s.

It's all rather uncanny. Scared the hell out of me. He is also a racist -- as my mother was. Just bizarre.
THEY NEVER MET for decades. And my mother never wanted to see him in person. Talked with him twice on the phone.


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## Guest (Nov 4, 2012)

As far as your Mom ruining your life.... and forgiveness. I have to say, I consider myself an orphan. I had no parents. They were not part of my life and never gave me the time of day. They were separated early on.

Each person decides in their own best interest how to deal with the past. I was with both of my parents when they died. I was a "good girl" as I couldn't live with NOT "saying goodbye." They were after all the only "family" I ever had. But to be honest, I never really loved them. I don't miss them. They gave me the money to have wonderful advantages that probably saved my life. Travel, an excellent education, lessons in the Arts of all kinds, but none of that is a substitute for healthy love. They gave me NO guidance re: ANYTHING. My mother never talked "girl talk" with me. Nothing about my own family, marriage, boyfriends. We only talked about what interested HER.

I have been told to "forget about my mother." Well, I try to work on not letting her disgust with me (being ill, being not like her, being artistic and NOT wishing to become a doctor -- an extension of her) not affect me. I "push her voice out of my mind." It is extremely difficult to do. You can try. You can try to get away physically from her toxic presense (as I did -- I ran 3,000 miles away after University), but the scars remain.

The opening line of one of the greatest works of literature -- *Anna Karenina *by Leo Tolstoy:
_*"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."*_

You must deal with this also in your own way. There is no "right way" or "wrong way" -- save to try to move on with your life. Some can forgive, others cannot. You can only try to create a life of peace, as best you can.


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## Guest (Nov 4, 2012)

Well, it sounds like both my parents and I have traits of BPD. I've noticed for a while that I've had traits of it after reading a few things about it in the past, and that article only reconfirms to me that I possibly have it, which is not so good, because I so desperately want to be a mother one day and be the best mother possible to my children. I am so determined to not follow in my parents' footsteps!

They were workaholics, hardly paid me any attention, and were always very selfish with their wealth. My mother was an ex-alcoholic by the time I was born, and she had a really unhealthy attachment to food (hoarding and stashing), was also manic depressive, got panic attacks and was bulimic. She was and still is the most manipulative person I know. When she first met my step-father when I was very young, she told his eldest daughter to leave (who then ended up in a homeless shelter) because she wanted "time with her new husband", so she apparently saw her as some kind of threat. She would get into rages that I was terrified of. She was always a jealous, very twisted person.
My stepfather was always verbally abusive to me and I ended up being neglected by them both.



> But to be honest, I never really loved them. I don't miss them. They gave me the money to have wonderful advantages that probably saved my life. Travel, an excellent education, lessons in the Arts of all kinds, but none of that is a substitute for healthy love. They gave me NO guidance re: ANYTHING. My mother never talked "girl talk" with me. Nothing about my own family, marriage, boyfriends. We only talked about what interested HER.


Dreamer*, I could have written that myself!

I think _all_ my issues are down to them, DP included. I certainly have a messed up attachment style now as a result.

My sister lets them babysit her children and I get so concerned. I've distanced myself from them for a few years now, we talk on the phone occasionally but I pretty much have to pretend that nothing ever happened, or it would be a battlefield again. Been there, done that!


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## Darklife (Apr 17, 2012)

My mother has BPD and has made it her life goal to hurt me in anyway she can . She loves to see me fail and is jealous of anything good i ever have in my life instead of being happy for me . She loves to make me hurt emotionally you can almost sense her happiness to do so :/ I could go on about the things shes put me through in my life but i'm guessing if you have mother with BPD you already have an idea of what their like.
Nice to know i'm not alone with this thanks for the post !


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## Chris H. (Apr 15, 2012)

I understand exactly what you went through and am in therapy dealing with this very issue, I also found some videos on YouTube by Dr. Dan siegal that explains what happens at a young age to cause us to have these symptoms later on in life. Highly recommend watching those videos as well as getting in therapy with a competent analyst that can become a new model of a "Good mom" for you. That is the base level of security we missed that makes us feel as though we are missing something else everyone has, security comes from mom (ages 0-2).


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