+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Several years ago when I first began research for my writing I had no intention of focusing on Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).  The more I work with the transcription of my mother’s Alaskan homesteading letters, the more I realize that it is impossible for me to avoid the subject.

According to the statistics at the bottom of this post, approximately 1 in 50 adult Americans suffer from BPD disorder.  If I think about how BPD affects our population, I realize that the offspring of these people are severely affected.  From that ‘contagion’ the grandchildren on down are affected, as well as every person intimately (and even not so intimately) connected to the BPD person.

My mother’s letter that I present here is simply another tiny slice of the words she expressed from within her own psyche, from within her own perspective of the world.  Having been her abused child for 18 years, I can read a universe of twisted darkness not only behind the words she chooses to write, but in all the spaces between those words and between those lines.

Taken together, my mother’s letters (once I have completed transcription of them) has the possibility of being the single most comprehensive ‘case history’ of a severe Borderline Personality Disorder person ever collected.

++++

My mother intended to write her book about her story — her way.  She could not do it.  I believe her true story is ABOUT the mental illness that kept her from doing so.  In her September 26, 1959 letter to her mother she states:

“Please now send back all letters and this – it’s my only record and I’m determined – a book I will write!!  — I will — !!”

This letter this sentence is taken from is longer and perhaps sheds more light on her psyche than does the one I post below, and is well worth reading.  It can be found at:

*September 1959 Mother’s Letters

I cannot personally imagine any scenario in which a BPD parent can be a truly adequate parent.  I see that all such a parent’s offspring are in danger of being used in the twisted inner psychic reality world that the Borderline condition creates — used as pawns and props of an externalized psyche of a parent that has no idea what “ordinary” reality is.  These children will not be recognized as the individual actual people that they are, and will not be related to as such by their BPD parent.

Nor do I believe that Borderlines as severe as my mother was ever have the capacity to understand “ordinary” people or reality — ever.  It is an admirable effort should these people seek therapy and desire to change — and some progress might be able to be made IN THE DIRECTION of ordinary — but they will never get there.

BPD individuals do not have “ordinary” brains.  Part of their condition is that they will NEVER understand how different their thinking and acting is.  From the outside — such as from the position of readers of my mother’s letters — the difference in their thinking is almost imperceptible.

But it IS there.  Hopefully by the time I complete the job of transcribing my mother’s letters I will be able to CLEARLY pinpoint and point to examples that will make these differences as clear as possible.  In addition we can more clearly discern the insecure disorganized-disoriented insecure attachment disorder that lies at the root of the Borderline Personality Disorder’s condition.

So how do those of us who had such a parent, usually a mother, begin to untangle for ourselves the twisted childhood that has confused us at our basis from the time we were born?  I urge readers to take a long, close, hard, thoughtful look at these letters my mother wrote, both the one copied here below and the one at the end of the link to the September 1959 letters provided above.

But most importantly, pay attention to your body as you read them, particularly to your gut. Note any sensation that your body, through your right emotional brain sends you — not what your left brain very limited logical side might wish to convince you is real.

We also have hosts of cultural admonishments not to ‘think badly’ about other people.  I learned a long time ago that by looking for the truth about my mother I am NOT judging her.  I am trying to understand the devastatingly cunning and destructive mental illness that consumed her, and therefore her life.  My mother’s was an insidious disease.  My mission-possible is to offer some small insight into how to recognize both the conditions that contributed to its onset (almost always through childhood traumas) and the damage that it does particularly to the BPD’s offspring — especially to THE CHOSEN ONE for abuse such as I was.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

October 22, 1959 7:15 PM

Dear Mother,

Just a short ‘Hi’.  Bill is only working 10 hours now and I’ve been getting children’s meals and then he arrives and another meal to get so – tonite I’m waiting for HIM – so thought I’d write a note while waiting.

Just read your long letter – so nice and informative and interesting.  It’s funny how things work out.  Now you’re $ tight and we got that loan and can start paying you back.  Thank God.  We are watched over – for certain, for certain.

We’re tight too and eat beans and potatoes (Carrs gave us 100 pounds) but at least we can keep those D – vehicles.

I just finally got truck started.  All week it wouldn’t run but today it’s warmed up and now it’s raining and then will freeze!!!

Anyways went to garage to see about jeep and called Bill at work and he talked to mechanic.  I’ll know when he gets home.  It will cost but we’ve GOT to get it fixed.

Took truck up to get Linda at Brownies and J. at Cub Scouts.  I feel they need that.  {Linda note:  Brownies didn’t last long in my life, but it was at least something positive while it did.}

Those D – Vanover boys still don’t like J. and Julie came over and told him and that they say “none of the boys like him” and did I tell her.  I told her.  I told her they don’t even know HIM or his friends etc. etc. and I told her they were impolite and unmannerly to say such a thing and I knew plenty who didn’t like them!  [Linda note:  Chuckle!  Oh, great mom!  Look who’s talking!]

He felt terrible but I felt worse.  [Linda note:  That sucks having a mother like ours was!  She could only care about herself!] He must play baseball, ice skate, ski etc.  He MUST – we need $ for those things.

Oh Mom, it’s not easy to be a child – or a Mother.

They got report cards.  Linda got all B’s, J. got D in spelling and otherwise B’s.  I can’t understand it and wrote her a note about it.  She said when I visited school it was his arithmetic and he got C+ in that and all other B’s.  I’ll drill him now in that too!

Work work work

I worry over our 2 months [proving up time on the homestead].  Our neighbors – Pottle, Gunter etc. say “Who will know?”  Oh, I hate that.

I say We Know!  We’re Honest.

Spring is not good, roads are impassable – mud and all.  Remember?  Must be Nov, Jan, Feb or 2 of these.  Unless you come up in March and April.  I hate to depend on that.

Still no children – just Gracie.  I don’t feel she’s good publicity.  [Linda note:  Terrible thing to say about the “artist’s retarded daughter” in her Happy Time Nursery School, and read below!]

She’s a moron but easy for me!  She does say 20 words, plays dolls etc. ? But what do others think?

Oh Mom – I want a home and to live like other people.  I’m tired of all this mixed up MESS.

Tell C and C ‘Hi’ I’ll write Carolyn this week.

You come up in March and April and I’ll go back with you for a month – kids get out of school May 15^th.  I could — ?  Love, Your Loving Daughter

+++ [in same envelope – says Friday]

Dear Mom,

Enclosing your scarf – I never wear it.  It just looks like YOU – please wear it again.

Also Bill forgot your letter so you’ll get 2.

No new news!  It’s rainy today.

I’m going to try and take children out of school for 2 months.

Seriously could you come up for 2 months or would it completely throw you?

Jo Anne just was over – told me not to tell a soul – nobody – just sold 80 acres he homesteaded in Mountain View for 150,000.

Imagine!

But Jerry got 3 F’s and is on 3 week trial.

Oh Mom – she’s so interested in our place I’m suspicious and sick until I get back [there]!!!  Love, Me

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

The rest of October 1959 letters here:

*October 1959 Mother’s Letters

The rest of the 1959 letters here:

*1959 MOTHER LETTERS

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Prevalence and incidence statistics for Borderline Personality Disorder:

See also prevalence and incidence page for Borderline Personality Disorder

Prevalance of Borderline Personality Disorder: 2 percent of adults (NIMH)

Prevalance Rate: approx 1 in 50 or 2.00% or 5.4 million people in USA [about data]

Incidence (annual) of Borderline Personality Disorder: 3,019 annual cases in Victora 1996 (DHS-VIC)

Incidence Rate: approx 1 in 1,510 or 0.07% or 180,074 people in USA [about data]

Incidence extrapolations for USA for Borderline Personality Disorder: 180,074 per year, 15,006 per month, 3,462 per week, 493 per day, 20 per hour, 0 per minute, 0 per second. Note: this extrapolation calculation uses the incidence statistic: 3,019 annual cases in Victora 1996 (DHS-VIC)

Prevalance of Borderline Personality Disorder: BPD is more common, affecting 2 percent of adults, mostly young women. (Source: excerpt from Borderline Personality Disorder: NIMH)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++