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May 18, 2016 – The list you will see below in this post is here without my comments:

+LIST OF 43 CHARACTERISTICS OF bpd

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Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder by Paul Mason MS and Randi Kreger(Jan 2, 2010)

I only have in my possession the 1998 edition of this book.  It is from there, pages 16 – 18, that I am copying the following information (for educational thought only) into this post.  I am in the process of ordering the latest edition and hope to contact the publisher for permission to comprehensively include the updated list of this information I am working with in this post in my books to be published about my mother (deceased 2002) based upon her own writings.

Until l figure out how I am going to continuously protect my work toward publication from viral contamination or loss, I will be storing my ongoing process at this link which is located on the ‘About’ page accessed from its tab at the top of this blog:

++”The Demise of Mildred” – (her story in two parts)

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 The following list of characteristics common to people who have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) (This list is NOT the formal diagnostic checklist of criteria for BPD) could be used as a readers’ guide to my mother Mildred’s writings as I intend to publish them.

Here I will duplicate these characteristics as a precursor to my renewed editing of Mildred’s writings.  I will be adding comments in ITALICS.  I am putting my ‘yes’ and my ‘no’ at the front of these statements taken from Stop Walking on Eggshells at the front of each one as I present them here.

The most obvious discrepancy I can note at this moment concerning how Mildred’s patterns fit these descriptions is that in many cases even among the ones that fit her, she DID NOT DISPLAY THE ‘ALTERNATING’.  Hers was a one-way street.

I find this fascinating.  At this moment I am not prepared to suggest what it was about Mildred that created this perhaps unique (if not rare) aspect of her ‘practice’ as (I believe) a BPD individual.  I suspect that it was the severity of Mother’s illness that created her fundamentally extreme presentation of these characteristics.

Writing this post today has taken away from me any possible denial I have held onto about Mother suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder.  I hope to find an interested qualified professional willing to make as an authoritative postmortem diagnosis of Mother as could be possible.

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Thoughts That May Indicate BPD

Does this person:

 (1) — Alternate between seeing people as either flawless or evil?  Have difficulty remembering the good things about a person they’re casting in the role of villain?  Find it impossible to recall anything negative about this person when they become the hero?  — (YES) [Note:  Mildred’s belief that I was an ‘all evil – Devil’s Child’ and nearly always her belief that her chosen child, my younger sister was an ‘all good – God’s Child’, did not alternate or fluctuate.  These two beliefs were central to what I have come to call Mother’s ‘inner core of madness’ which had to permanently take the form it did so that she could function (at all!) with her ‘outer core of madness’.]

(2) — Alternate between seeing others as completely for them or against them? — (YES)

(3) — Alternate between seeing situations as either disastrous or ideal? — (YES)

(4) — Alternate between seeing themselves as either worthless of flawless?  — (YES) [Note:  I respond ‘yes’ to this, but how this pattern operated within Mildred is not at this moment crystal clear to me.  I suspect that Mother had lost any ability to ‘see’ or ‘know’ any truth about herself – she could not and did not exercise ‘self reflection’ on any level of depth.]

 (5) — Have a hard time recalling someone’s love for them when they’re not around?  — (YES) [Note:  This is a classic characteristic of people with Insecure Attachment Disorders]

(6) — Believe that others are either completely right or totally wrong?  — (YES) [Note:  This pattern was clear concerning both her ‘public’ and her ‘private’ human contacts.  Her need to maintain a fantasy world of denial about those who had hurt her in her infancy and childhood as she ‘pretended’ that another reality had existed rather than face the one that did exist was probably essential to her continued survival.  In her inner madness however, I was permanently wrong while my sister was permanently right.  My father was entirely battered back and forth between these extremes, as was her own mother to a much less extent (although if Mildred had not left her mother behind in Los Angeles to move to Alaska I suspect their relationship would have become brutal).]

(7) — Change their opinions depending upon who they’re with?  — — (Not clear to me yet) [NOTE:  At this moment I am tempted to say that Mildred so lived in her own reality that other people did not exist to her as ‘real’ people.  She did not, therefore, care a twit what anyone else thought or felt about anything – so why would she change her opinion to fit anyone else’s?  I have to ponder this one as I examine her patterns within her writings.]

(8) — Alternate between idealizing people and devaluing them?  — (YES) [Note: Clearly related to these other comments I am making about her polarization patterns.]

(9) — Remember situations very differently than other people, or find themselves unable to recall them at all?  — (YES) [Note:  While this is absolutely true I would add a qualifier:  Mildred did not find herself “unable to recall them at all” because if she had a different memory from others or did not remember, in her universe there was not a SINGLE chance that she was involved in ‘the wrongness’.]

(10) — Believe that others are responsible for their actions — or take too much responsibility for the actions of others?  — (YES) [Note:  My first reaction to this characteristic beyond ‘yes’ is puzzlement.  I find my response interesting.  It immediately gives me a red flag concerning my inner contamination with Mother’s thinking.  As it applied, for example, to ME, Mother psychotically believed that I was forever responsible for ‘my behavior’ of being born breech so that I could fulfill the devil’s intention of using me to kill her while I was being born.  Whether or not she took ‘too much responsibility for the actions of others’ seems at this moment to be a statement whose clarity lies in such a gray area that I cannot think ‘into it’ at this moment.]

(11) — Seem unwilling to admit a mistake — or feel that everything that they do is a mistake?  — (YES) [Note:  I’m not sure that Mildred ever admitted to making a mistake in her life or took responsibility for anything.]

(12) — Based their beliefs on feelings rather than facts?  — (YES, ABSOLUTELY) – [Note:  Again I would say that Mother’s feelings appeared to have shifted into areas of psychosis that placed them at a fundamental extreme from what most people would be able to recognize as being ‘feelings’ at all.]

(13) — Not realize the effects of their behavior on others?  — (YES, ABSOLUTELY)[Note:  I don’t think it’s possible to be more narcissistic, selfish and self-centered than Mildred was.  But, then, human beings close to her did not really exist as separate beings to her — so none of this mattered in her universe.  The question comes to my mind as I consider this characteristic, “How ‘real’ to Mildred were people she encountered outside her own family?  Mildred had no conscience regarding those she hurt.]

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Feelings That May Indicate BPD

Does this person:

(14) — Feel abandoned at the slightest provocation?  — (YES) [Note:  This is a complex pattern that includes a sense of self-righteousness, being unjustly treated by others and wounded by them, being misunderstood, not being appreciated, perceived slights, not getting what Mother wanted and/or thought she deserved — in other words, this area was rampant with sick control and manipulation of all kinds including tantrums.]

 (15) — Have extreme moodiness that cycles very quickly (in minutes or hours?) — (YES, ABSOLUTELY AND FUNDAMENTALLY)

(16) — Have difficulty managing their emotions?  — (YES, ABSOLUTELY AND FUNDAMENTALLY)[Note:  Mildred’s ‘inner core’ where she placed and kept me operated to contain the most intolerable of her feelings.  How she treated (abused) me was how she managed those ones.]

(17) — Feel emotions so intensely that it’s difficult to put others’ needs — even those of their own children — ahead of their own?  — (YES, ABSOLUTELY AND FUNDAMENTALLY) [Note:  So true that any thought that Mildred could have operated differently becomes ludicrous.  Mother’s children were dolls to her.  They were not children.  They were not individual people.  Most simply put – I was her ‘enemy’ and the other five were her ‘friends’.]

(18) — Feel distrustful and suspicious a great deal of the time? — (YES, ALWAYS)

(19) — Feel anxious or irritable a great deal of the time?  — (YES) [Note:  By abusing me and keeping me in her inner hell (so she could escape and function in her ‘outer’ life) most of Mildred’s most harmful feelings were nearly always focused on me.  This would include her minor feelings of distrust, suspicion, anxiousness, irritability – moving all the way through the range of intensely negative feelings such as brutal uncontrolled murderous rage, hatred and paranoia.  (Any deep ‘terror’ Mother had connected to her treatment of me is past any explanation here.)]

(20) — Feel empty or like they have no self a great deal of the time?  — (YES, but complicated) [Note:  This is such a personal, inner characteristic that nobody could accurately guess at it from the outside.  Fortunately Mother does address feelings related to this characteristic directly within some of her letters to her mother — we have her own words on this one.]

(21) — Feel ignored when they are not the focus of attention?  — (YES) [Note:  She was an expert on making sure this never happened in her family.  I suspect that how she isolated herself from public was part of how she controlled this from being an issue in outside relationships.]

(22) — Express anger inappropriately or have difficulty in expressing anger at all?  — (YES) [Note:  NEVER did Mildred have difficulty in expressing anger!]

(23) —  Feel that they never can get enough love, affection, or attention?  — (YES, ABSOLUTELY AND FUNDAMENTALLY)[Note:  It is most clear how the patterns of her childhood set her up for this one directly.]

(24) — Frequently feel spacey, unreal, or out of it?  (YES) [Note:  Interestingly, Mildred does describe this state in some of her letters to her mother.  Personally I see this characteristic as being an aspect of dissociation, depersonalization and derealization — all being physiological responses to trauma.]

Behaviors That May Indicate BPD

Does this person [Note:  Where I mark ‘yes’ below I mean fundamentally and absolutely so]:

(25) — Have trouble observing others’ personal limits?  — (YES)

(26) — Have trouble defining their own personal limits?  — (YES)

(27) — Act impulsively in ways that are potentially self-damaging, such as spending too much, engaging in dangerous sex, fighting, gambling, abusing drugs or alcohol, reckless driving, shoplifting, or disordered eating?  — (YES) [Note:  Her patterns were far too complicated to describe here.]

(28) — Mutilate themselves — for example, purposely cutting or burning their skin?  — (NO) [Note:  These answers are ‘no’ – but there are ‘buts’…..  For example, long after I left home Mildred’s friend knocked on her apartment door and was surprised to find that Mildred had written ‘666’ on her forehead and hands.  When asked why Mildred replied that this way if the devil came to take her he would leave her alone because he would know she already belonged to him.  This directly ties to what I know of Mildred’s psychosis about me.]

(29) — Threaten to kill themselves — or make actual suicide attempts?  — (NO)

(30) — Rush into relationships based on idealized fantasies of what they would like the other person or the relationship to be? — (YES)

(31) — Change their expectations in such a way that the other person feels they can never do anything right? — (YES)

(32) — Have frightening, unpredictable rages that make no logical sense — or have trouble expressing anger at all?  — (YES!!) [Note:  As I already stated, Mother never had trouble expressing anger.  The ‘make no logical sense’ part of this characteristic operated differently for Mother regarding me — It was devastating that as Mother’s psychosis defined my evilness — my father evidently came to BELIEVE HER!]

(33) — Physically abuse others, such as slapping, kicking, and scratching them? — (YES, INDESCRIBABLY SO)

(34) — Needlessly create crises or live a chaotic lifestyle?  — (YES!!!!) [Note:  Add Mildred’s choice to homestead on an Alaskan homestead into this mix and — well, it’s a story!]

(35) — Act inconsistently or unpredictably?  — (YES)

(36) — Alternately want to be close to others, then distance themselves?  (Examples include picking fights when things are going well or alternately ending relationships and then trying to get back together.)  — (YES) [Note:  I chuckle at some of these, so extremely so did Mildred display most of these.  Again, finding a remote Alaskan homestead does tend to distance a person….]

(37) — Cut people out of their life over issues that seem trivial or overblown? — (YES)

(38) — Act competent and controlled in some situations but extremely out of control in others?  [Note:  Mildred was a gorgeous woman whose charm was captivating to many.] — (YES)

(39) — Verbally abuse others, criticizing and blaming them to the point where it feels brutal?  — (YES!!!)[Note:  WAS BRUTAL!]

(40) — Act verbally abusive toward people they know very well, while putting on a charming front for others?  Can they switch from one mode to the other in seconds?  — (YES) [Note:  Faster than seconds.  Interesting that Mother did not verbally abuse her children except for me — if she did so it happened so seldom I have no memory of it happening at all.  She most certainly nearly ALWAYS verbally abused me, and frequently her husband.  I do not doubt that Mildred was verbally abused during her own infancy and childhood.]

(41) — Act in what seems like extreme or controlling ways to get their own needs met? — (YES!!)

(42) — Do or say something inappropriate to focus the attention on them when they feel ignored?  — (YES)

(43) — Accuse others of doing things they did not do, having feelings they do not feel, or believing things they do not believe?  — (YES) [Note:  Absolutely true Mildred accused me of doing things I did not do – a process tied to her psychosis about me.  She did this to my father, ACCUSE was one of her favorite actions.]

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