BPD Family Problems: Children's Inheritance

I forgot about this until today -- the life that the BPD's little girls had to live because of their mother's limited abilities. I'm not talking about the BPD's parents or other family members -- you can read about this in other posts where I've covered the BPD Family and these issues. Now, I'm talking about the immediate nucler BPD Family -- the children of the borderline. Not partners, but children.

BPD's Children: Inherited Behaviors

These are the people that I feel bad about. Their parent (usually their mother) is someone who does not have a good concept of reality. When there is not a significant other in their life, they will project their anxieties onto their children, so their children gain borderline traits, right from the onset.

The BPD Family Revisited -- Partially Learned Behaviors

I've thought quite a bit about this and have researched it as well. The more I think it, the more I think that one's family and upbringing contributes significantly to their disposition to having borderline personality disorder. The DSM-IV indicates that many that have BPD came from a family where their parent suffered from the disorder -- given this, the fact that 75% of borderlines were sexually abused as a child and that most others came from overly controlling parents, you have the perfect storm for the making of a BPD.

The Making of A BPD

Many experts indicate that the making of a borderline is both nature and nurture, meaning that the person has to have a genetic predisposition for the disorder, but also have to be raised to acquire it.

Could most of us have borderline personality disorder? Probably. However, most of us are fortunate enough to be raised in homes where we were not sexually abused or raised by overly controlling parents.

In the instance of my ex borderline girlfriend, her mother had a brother die when in her care - she was 12 years old. As a result, she must have smothered her children, not letting them go up properly.

What's Happens When Someone Has Controlling Parents?

A number of things happen to someone with overly-controlling parents. Some of these could include:

Cannot Establish Healthy Boundaries

When someone tells us what to do, how to do it, and when to do it, we have difficulty thinking for ourselves. This is okay when we are quite young, but we as people must be given the opportunity to excel and fail as well, so we learn how to interact with the outside world. This is how we learn to tell others what we are willing and not willing to do. The person with overly controlling parents will have quite a difficult time saying no to people when they cross boundaries where others would clearly feel violated.

Under Developed Sense of Self

Like the lack of boundaries, when someone tells you everything to do as you get older, you lose the ability to be your own person and have differences with others. You want to agree with others for acceptance, losing your ability to be an individual.

Little or No Accountability
People who have been raised by someone who is controlling does not understand the impact of their actions, and will usually deflect responsibility as someone else has always shouldered responsibility for them. They learn to fly under the radar and have others be responsible for their actions. Unfortunately, in a relationship, we are accountable for our actions; if our partner is not accountable and does what they want and we accept this, our self esteem and self worth suffers.

Black and White, Judgemental Thinking

We live in a world where very little is black or white; there are extenuating circumstances surrounding most everything. When someone tells you yes or no for everything, you don't learn how to think about extenuating circumstances. The world is one way or another.

You Can't Change Your Family

Unfortunately, you can't change the people that had you. We're born into what we are born. All we can do is try to heal from our childhood scars and pain, become better people, and not repeat the patterns of dysfunction in our family. If we have done this, we're successful. Unfortunately, for some of us, there was too much damage done.

All we can do is try our best, try to get to our true self, love our true self, and strive for contentment.

Dreams About The BPD

Healing takes a long time, especially when you have suffered verbal and physical abuse in a relationship. I'm now over two years out of the relationship, yet I still harbor scars.

A couple of nights ago, a scar came out. I had a dream about the BPD.

Images of Healing while Still Harboring Pain

In the dream, I saw her (the Borderline Personality Disordered woman whom I was in the relationship with) and we said hello to one another. She was quite distant and wouldn't look me in the eye. She was wearing a man's outfit (most likely the outfit of the person that she is now with), and we exchanged pleasantries. I, of course, wanted to see how she was and see how things were.

I remember trying to talk with her for a couple of minutes but she said very little, then eventually responded with, "I'm done with you."

The interaction that I had in the dream wasn't really with the BPD. We obviously spoke, but did not really talk of anything meaningful. It was with her daughters.

Victims of a Borderline: More Than Just Partners
I've written about the girls before, from posts where I wrote about Missing the Girls to writing about When the Girls First Met My Kids. While I've pretty much healed from the relationship and the chains of addiction that the BPD had on me have been broken, I still miss the girls dearly and worry about them.

 The girls were so sweet and so pure. Spending so much time with them, putting so much of my time into them bonded us quite closely. I'm the kind of person that believes in quality time and values this time above all other, so I put quite a bit of time into them. I helped with homework, read books, and put them to bed every night.

When the relationship first ended, I was too hurt from the relationship to really think about the girls; clearly, based on my posts, I thought about them and missed them, but the loss has continued while the loss of the BPD has gone away in time.

In the dream, I saw each of the girls who were sitting next to one another. I hugged each of them, and I told them how I've missed them so much and that I loved them and will always love them. They both cried and told me that they missed me. Strangely, they hadn't aged.

Still Learning
I continue to learn about how I'm healing and how to deal with different parts of this loss. The dream taught me a number of important things: That I still miss the girls; that I'm not worried about the BPD; and that I harbor a lot of anxiety about when I actually will run into the BPD.

We live about 20 miles away from one another, but some day, our paths will cross where we will be face-to-face. I'm not sure why I'm so nervous about such a thing -- I would never worry about past relationships, but I am. I think this is because you just don't know what you're going to get when dealing with a borderline, if it will be an amicable interaction or if she will be crazy and start accusing me of things. Or, she could call the police after I saw her and tell them that I was stalking her. You just don't know.

This is why I've worked hard to avoid the borderline. When I saw her, instead of saying hello, I avoided her. Because the situation is so unknown, you just don't know what she is going to do. Who wants to go into a situation that could be volatile? When one is addicted to a borderline, they're more willing to take a chance (depending on the depth of the addiction); however, now, avoiding the situation is best.

My Kids and The BPD

When you're in a relationship with a BPD, you know that things are strange. You don't realize how out-of-whack it is until you hear from your children, years later, about what the BPD was telling them:

"She [the BPD] said that you were cheating on her with another woman."

That's where the line is drawn. Say what you want to me. Say something like that to my kid and we're DONE.

I didn't hear this until the BPD and were long over--at least one year over, if not more. If I had known that she had said such things to my kids, things would have changed immediately.

Getting yourself out of these kinds of situations are tough, but you need to draw the line. When I heard this, I was furious. Absolutely furious.

The BPD said one time that my kids are a bunch of mental patients. They're not -- they're actually quite well-adjusted and are top-of-their class in terms of academics and intelligence.

It doesn't matter. She said that about my kids. I loved on her kids like there was no tomorrow, overcompensating for the girls' losing their father and unstable mother.

The BPD had a good relationship overall with the kids. They liked her overall, she interacted well with them, but she clearly had times where she stepped over lines that she should not. Again, such as shame.

Be careful of Borderlines and stepping over these boundaries. Have clear boundaries; if the BPD in your life steps over them, have actions that you are willing to take in response to this.

My kids know that the BPD had issues -- they know the 'crazy eyes'. Ironically, since my youngest daughter was about two, we used to say to her "give me crazy eyes" and she could make the wild-eyed look that they have.

Now that she's ten, she has stopped having that ability.

Her eyes can only be normal now.

BPD Family Continued -- Control

ON THE SURFACE, the BPD's family seemed normal. Quite normal.

Things definitely weren't normal. However, she wouldn't reveal too much about her family. She always seemed to assert that they were normal, and they seemed normal to a fault. What I did know reeked of problems:

- The BPD's mother had her younger brother die as a toddler while under her care. Her parents were out of the house, and the child died when she was watching him. I think it was from SIDS or a similar illness. She is an alcoholic, drinking a bottle of wine every night by herself, self medicating herself from her early born soul wounds

- The BPD's father had a strange background. He was unemployed for quite some time and was home, not working, for a good portion of the BPDs childhood. I know that right before the BPD's parents were planning on retiring, he came to the BPD quite scared because he had racked up over $70,000 in credit card debt.

They were nice people overall, however, they were quite judgmental. They passed judgment on most everyone, most everything. At first, it seemed that they really liked me. Then, over time, I became a bad guy in their eyes, most likely because of the things that the BPD was telling them about me.

Control

One time, when the BPD had gone off about something and I sat her down for her daily talking-to where I explained the world to her, I was quite upset. I forget what she had done, but it was bad, and I wasn't happy.

The BPD was drinking at that time -- we drank espresso martinis. Out on her porch, when I began tell her just how unacceptable her actions were and seeing why she was acting the way that she does, she blurts out, "my parents were so controlling when I was a kid."

Huh? I never understood anything about that comment or sentiment. If you think about it, however, if you were her parents (particularly her mother), wouldn't you also be overprotective and controlling with your daughter?

I don't remember how her parents were controlling of the BPD. I remember that she felt like when they were growing up, they had no money and could not buy clothes that were comparable to those living in her affluent town in Central New Jersey. She also was not allowed to go out and do things that her friends were allowed. She went to college and kicked loose, never going home again. She met her husband in college and married him shortly thereafter.

I think that the Controlling Parents issue is pretty common with BPDs as there are BPD-focused books titled If You Had Controlling Parents. So, this seems to be a common thread with them.

Now, was the BPD just making excuses because she was about to be reprimanded by me? I'm not sure. Clearly, there were big issues with her parents that we never got near. The last counseling session that we had together, when she walked out in the middle of it, revealed that she needed to explore these issues more. The last night that we spent together, as we shared a bottle of champaign, she told me that when she fought with her parents and they asked her what was wrong, she was going to scream "I learned it from you," like the drug commercial.

So, the more I write, the more I realize just how dysfunctional it was. I've spent my last two years healing, not looking at her existence. These are clear indicators that I should have seen -- I guess that I did see these indicators and this is why I insisted on counseling so early. However, I got myself too involved -- I cared too much when there was so much out of my control.

We live. We learn. Life is not about all of our successes, but the journey that we take to get where we are.

I'm in a good place. Things aren't perfect -- they never will be. They're pretty good, and I'm grateful for that.

The BPD's Sister -- Family Illness?

My son saw the BPD's sister last week. He was playing soccer and his soccer team faced a team that the BPD's nephew plays on. Her sister was at the game with her husband.

They seemed like a nice couple overall, both of them having advanced degrees and a successful business that they owned. The BPD always told me that her sister's husband had large issues, and her sister grew tired of issues sometimes. Their children were very nice.

When I first started dating the BPD, she was the one that reassured the BPD that I was, in fact, a good guy. When the BPD would freak out about some issue and make something out of nothing, the BPD's sister would reassure her that her issue was minimal.

In fact, she (the BPD) told me that she would raise many issues to her entire family and get support from each of them. Strange, but I had never thought about this before. She essentially made me the object of her anxiety, tension and insecurities, then would bring the problem to her family. They would collectively judge the action and provide their verdict, through her and the family's eyes, of course.

When times were good, I was good in their eyes. As we had our issues and the BPD provided them with distorted stories, I became bad in their eyes. It was sad, but I became the bad guy. They backed her up, but I was still the bad guy. Makes me sad, looking back. I tried so hard with her, and she was able to make me bad.

Back to her sister and her family. My son said to me, "Dad, she has crazy eyes too." Thinking about it, she did.

Now, is BPD a family illness? Is the anxiety passed down through the generations? Did the BPD's mother pass her trauma on to her daughters?

Probably the anxiety was passed along, and the family dysfunction was definitely passed along. However, she probably didn't have the environment that the BPD had fostered to become borderline.

In the end, it's tough to tell. Highly dysfunctional families foster mental illness, particularly borderlines and other diseases. However, they don't pass the illness to all family members.

The Private Investigator--Twisted Reality

When I was dating the BPD, I traveled on business quite infrequently. Before the relationship was 1 year old, I had to travel to Orlando, Florida for business. She was not happy at all about it, and accused me of everything under the sun -- like I was going on this trip for some type of rendez vous with another woman.

Looking back at these things, they were so ridiculous, so downright goofy. With that said, they were the reality of the BPD, whether I like it or not.

So, I went away and did my business. I called the BPD regularly and spoke with her when I could. Overall, things were going okay -- just okay -- for the first two days. I was scheduled to leave on the morning of the third day, and suddenly things fell apart at 11 pm the night before I left.

I spoke with the BPD at 9 PM and she said that she needed to call me back -- she and the neighbor smelled natural gas and had the gas company investigating.

I never heard back from her. I got worried that she was okay. I eventually called the police and told them that I was worried. They called me back and said that they checked out the situation, and that she was there and fine.

More games. I went to bed.

I woke up to my phone ringing at 2 am. She was in a rage, telling me that I was having phone sex the night before and talking with African American prostitutes on the phone. She told me that she "knew everything," then proceeded to fire off question after question about the night before.

All that I did the night before was speak with the BPD (she went to a concert so I spoke to her before she went and while she was going), speak with a lifelong friend and leave a message for an old co-worker. That's it.

We were up the entire evening, discussing the goings on the night before. She kept accusing me of doing things, which I continued to defend myself. I did not get any sleep, then had to fly back home.

I arrived back home to accusations of I don't know what, being hung up on repeatedly, and the locks changed in the place where I lived--with her. It got so bad that I told her that I was being so truthful that I was willing to take a polygraph test. She proceeded to try to find someone who would administer one.

She really believed I was lying to her so much that she wanted me to take a polygraph test. Again, her perception was that twisted.

For the wise, if you're required to take a polygraph by your partner, leave the relationship. There's no trust and little love in such a relationship.

Her sister called me at one point, then told me, "she wants to have a clean break." Game over, I guessed. I called my parents and had to stay with them. There was a bag of my stuff on the porch of where we lived. She had changed the locks, so I couldn't get anything else.

I drove to my parents, such a wounded soldier. I felt terrible. I never -- never -- want to feel that way again. Like I had done something wrong. No person deserves to feel the way that I did then.

The morning after she kicked me out, I went to a counselor that we both had seen together. The counselor was the first person that told me that she was a borderline. That's when I started figuring it all out.

It took me a year to get fully out, but this was the start.

I learned what happened after we reconciled, which took two days (she sent me a text message asking me to get my stuff, and when I stopped there, we reconciled). She told me that she had hired a private investigator. The investigator sat outside my hotel room, listened to my conversations (and transcribed them poorly), followed me out when I would go outside and smoke (I smoked back then -- they say smoking is anxiety -- I've stopped since then, thank the Lord -- I always hid my smoking, particularly in a professional environment), and that's about it.

The night that she flipped, she got the transcripts back and made them into some type of bad thing, which they weren't. My conversation with Chris was suddenly phone sex. She questioned me about who was this person, and who was this person. This interrogation would periodically re-appear throughout the relationship: "Who's Rhoda? Who's Fred (there was no fred)?" It was like she had the transcript and would periodically go back to it.

The shame of the matter is that she never had to do such a thing. The bigger shame is that I let it happen. This is a great example of having to give the BPD boundaries. The problem is that she had her family involved--she distrusted me so much that she told her sister, who recommended the Private Investigator.

That's all fine (not really), but the worst thing is that she was able to make something not bad into something bad.

They call that the BPD twist.

Birthday

Today's her birthday. She's 41. Happy birthday.

They say that it takes one year to fully heal from a relationship like this one. You have to go through the anniversaries, the holidays and the birthdays. I understand that.

Actually, the birthdays I spent with her were okay; they weren't wonderful. Last birthday, I got her 40 gifts for her 40th birthday. I know that a 40th birthday is supposed to be a big one, but unfortunately, she had kicked me out two weeks before and I had just moved back in the week before, so I wasn't able to plan any celebration for her. Not only that, she told me that her friends couldn't do anything because it was Mothers' Day weekend.

She made me feel bad anyway for not planning a huge celebration. We went to a local restaurant with her sister, parents (who were in town for her birthday) and kids, and she got drunk. Quite drunk. Her father wanted to talk to me later and tell me that I was an abusive man. My God, look at your daughter for once.

I still wonder how I could have planned a huge celebration when I didn't live with her before her birthday. I think that I moved back in a week before her birthday. Still, I managed to figure out 40 gifts for her that ranged from a golf bag and some special clubs to tickets to see a concert.

It still wasn't enough. Never enough for her. The woman was so selfish and so self-absorbed that it didn't matter what she did to me. All that mattered is what she felt. Her sister didn't plan a huge party. Her parents didn't have an enormous gathering brewing. She didn't kick them out of the house and refuse to communicate with them.

That was me. Yet I endured. I stuck with it. I jumped through hoops, being told that I was an abusive person by her father. And I took it, all in an effort to get her help and help her see.

I thought that she would see the light in time. I thought that a counselor would start treating her. No one ever did.

I now get to shed this baggage. I want it gone. I want the ill feelings gone. I want it all gone.

I never thought I'd say that, but the time has come.

Her birthday wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Is was actually quite good. I met up with a group of friends by happenstance and going to see a band play. We couldn't find the bar, actually I couldn't find the bar because I knew where it was. We joked that it was like high school again when you were going to a party, and it really felt like this.

I realized that this is what my new life is like. I don't know what's happening day to day, and it's a life of uncertainty. But that's okay right now. The nice thing is that anything could happen, and it's pretty nice having this feeling right now.

I'm getting comfortable in my new life, and I'm about to make big changes and try to live my dream life. I'm also starting to look around at houses, and church is back in my life. I'm starting to really get it together. Nice feeling. A real nice feeling.

A day that I thought was going to be so tough ended up being okay. That's what I'm shooting for -- okay. Don't need the moon and the stars yet, just need a state of stability.

Now that's cool. The Me Project is working.

2 Years When The Girls Met

My daughter just told me, "This is the two year anniversary of when we first met." April 23, 2006, they all first met. She misses the girls dearly.

These are the things that I resent the BPD for. My poor daughter has to go through so much pain because of the BPDs issues. That's a shame, and ultimately not fair for my daughter.

I wonder if the BPDs girls miss my daughter. I bet they do.

The saddest thing is that my daughter holds the date so special that she remembered it. In the BPDs world, I used to tell her about all the dates that we had -- our first date, our first everything, and she couldn't even tell me how long she dated any of her previous boyfriends. All dates were fuzzy and not defined.

Looking back, I don't think that she could remember the lies that she told me, so she didn't want to be pinned down. I trusted her blindly, and she took full advantage.

I wonder if the BPD's daughters tell the BPD that they miss her. I bet they don't. I bet that she doesn't allow them to talk about me or my kids.

I feel so bad for my daughter. She said that she sent the youngest girl a Happy Birthday message over the Internet. My little girl has such a good heart, and she misses them so dearly.

I wish I could do something for her to ease my daughter's pain as a result of this breakup. Unfortunately, there's nothing that I can do.

With a borderline breakup, there are many casualties. Families are broken apart, and the BPD creates a situation where no contact can be maintained. It's not like a normal relationship because of the splitting that occurs in the mind of the BPD.

Yet another shame. No one should be so hurt by another human beings, particularly my little girl.