Category: borderline mother

+CHILD ABUSE: THE POWER OF THE TRUTH AND THE DANGERS OF THE LIES

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NOTE:  This post evidently has a formatting life of its own!  I can find no way to change what appears in big bold letters below.  I did not bold this part of this post, nor can I change it!

I do a lot of a different sort of thinking while I am outside spending hours digging dirt, mixing mud and laying adobe bricks in my newly forming walkway.  This morning as I think about this different sort of thinking I realize that I could probably call it ‘Jello thinking’, because that is the image that popped into my mind as I ‘looked inside my body’ to see what happens in this process.

As I have mentioned so many times before, because my body-brain had to form in the midst of ongoing and terrifying trauma, I had to change in my development and now neither my left- nor my right-brain hemispheres operate ‘normally’, nor does the corpus callosum region between them that passes back and forth information that they need to understand together.

(SEE this article for background:  McLean Researchers Document Brain Damage Linked to Child Abuse and Neglect – Release: McLean Hospital, December 14, 2000)

So it takes me much more time to put things together in my thinking, and even then I can never be assured that I end up with the same conclusions that I would have if infant-child abuse had not so changed my body-brain.  But I am left to work with the end result of these changes – who I am today – and I do the best that I can.

Which brings me back to my ‘Jello thinking’ process.  At the same time I am working my way through the transcription of my parents’ 1957 June and July letters to one another, which now includes over 60,000 words and I’m not done yet, I realize that the best thing I could ever hope for is that some day some special person finds these letters and studies them thoroughly with an attachment-informed mind toward the completion of a Doctoral thesis.

I would ask the question of any one of us who has some experience with opening a little rectangular box of Jello, who have ever boiled up water and poured the Jello’s brightly colored crystals into it, stirred them around until they dissolved, and then put the mixture into the refrigerator to cool – returning periodically to stir the mixture to make sure it solidifies without the thick gelatin coating on the top – at what point is the Jello, well, Jello?

Is it Jello in its powdered form?  Is it Jello while it is still soupy?  Or is it only ACTUALLY Jello when it is firm and ready to serve and to eat?

At the same time I would ask, “When is a thought ACTUALLY a thought?  Is it a thought only when it appears with proper grammar, complete in words within a sentence?”  Are the ‘body thoughts’ that I have without words while I am working to transcribe these letters and as I then go work with my hands in the mud ACTUALLY thoughts?  When has a thought ‘Jello-ed up’?

Even though as the daughter of these two people who lived with them for 18 years, and as a person who was nearly six years old at the time they were written, I perhaps SHOULD be able to put my finger on the pulse of what was going on between my parents these 53 years ago, I cannot do it.  I realize as I write this that I can’t ‘put my finger on the pulse’ of what was going on between them because what’s really going on is that there is a terrible gaping wound within BOTH of these people that means that they were both actually bleeding to death.  Would I look for the pulse in their letters while ignoring the fact the fact of their massive, mutual and mortal hemorrhaging?

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Because I have made an agreement with myself to simply publish the collection of my mother’s letters with their responses intact without censorship or editorial comment, I am attempting to ignore most of my reactions to their words contained in these spewing ‘love letters’ between Mother and Father.  I am saving my reactions for some future date when the letters have been completely transcribed, edited for format and published.  THEN I hope to write my version of this ‘Alaskan homesteading adventure story’ that belongs to my family.

In the meantime there are some glaring topics that appear to me right now.  They are as hard to ignore as someone else’s on-bright headlights as they drive too close to your rear bumper behind you as you drive down a dark highway in the middle of a moonless night.  Those lights are reflecting straight into your eyes, glaring from your rear-view mirror – and you have to do something about it.

Closing your eyes and driving blindly is not a good option.  Do you put on your sunglasses?  Do you flip the switch on your mirror that allows you to dim the reflection?  Do you slap the mirror so it aims the distracting and irritating brilliance anywhere else but into your eyes?  Do you slow down or pull over to the side of the highway, hoping the car behind you will pass so you can watch their red taillights disappear into the distant darkness ahead of you?  Or do you ignore the situation and keep on driving like the lights that belong to the driver behind you don’t even exist?

How much of what my body-brain knows as the truth about what was ACTUALLY going on between my parents in their lives do I pay attention to as I work to transcribe their letters?  I often imagine what readers of my parents’ letters might see in them.  Will they detect the madness?  Will they in their innocence and naivety believe that what they are reading IS ACTUALLY a love story?  Can I leave those readers alone to experience their reading without my added comments about what a totally living hell our home life truly was?

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I am learning to watch how my brain processes all this information.  My body has very real and powerful FEELING reactions to this work I am doing.  When someone asked me last week why I continue to do this work if it is so difficult and I don’t anticipate getting anything personally helpful out of the process, I told them, “I do this work because I believe it is important for others.  I believe there is something here that will be helpful to somebody else.”

In the meantime my right brain, tied as it intimately is with the nonverbal knowledge of the history in my body of 18 years of abuse from these exact same parents – abuse that was as hidden from the world of words as it remained hidden in the words of their letters – I feel as if I am hanging onto the broken end of a still very hot live electrical high wire.  I am a sort of conduit for the truth about the reality of the damage that a severe Borderline Personality Disorder person can do in their lifetime, particularly to their children (and to their mate).

I am very grateful that I can go outside in the pure desert air, in the sunshine, among the birds and the butterflies that stop to cool their tiny, dainty feet on the newly formed wet mud bricks, and in the midst of the sounds of Mexican life that drift through the air over the dividing borderline between our two countries – and ground out the terrible intensity of the truth about what ACTUALLY happened during my childhood and during the childhood of my siblings.

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But before I go out there today to sling my mud and make my bricks there are two things I NEED to mention.  My body, my right brain, my left brain are not going to let me leave this computer screen until I say these two things:

(1)  When my mother first wrote to my father in Alaska that she was going to relinquish the rented house she was staying in as she waited in Los Angeles for him to send for us to join him, and move into her Mother’s house, my father VERY CLEARLY warned her not to do it.  While I am not going to delve into their letters at this moment to find all of the exact words that transpired between them on this topic, I will say that my mother obviously ignored everything that my father had to say on the topic and made the move anyway.

By the time my mother has given up the rented house (which she really HAD to do because there wasn’t any money available to pay the rent), and moved in with her mother, and things went as terribly as my father had told her they would, and by the time my mother writes my father her pitiful and desperate sob story about how terrible things were indeed going at her mother’s, my father simply responds back to her by saying in his July 24, 1957 letter:

“I hate your family for making things so miserable for you!  Only a few days left, why couldn’t they let you leave in peace?”

“I have the letter you wrote Sunday night, and it’s heartbreaking to read.  I can sense the way you felt, and I know what a horrible time you’ve been having.  I feel so responsible for letting you in for all this.  It seems as though I should have been able to prevent it somehow.”

He then concludes this letter with this:

“Oh Mildred I love you, love you, love you! X X X X X Hurry to me now as fast as you can darling – I love and wait only for you.

Your Adoring Husband, Bill”

He didn’t say “I told you so.”  Did he think that?  Did he even remember he’d warned her?  Did he wonder at all at her decision to ignore his warning and move in with her mother in spite of them?  Nor does he seem to have taken any kind of an objective stance so that he could question whether or not what my mother was describing ACTUALLY happened that way or not.  He doesn’t indicate that perhaps his wife caused the difficulties to erupt with her mother.  He simply unequivocally believes her and supports her in her reported version of reality.

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By body-brain put the information just presented above in (1) with this information:

(2)  I have retained intact a memory from this time period before my 6th birthday that has never changed.  In this memory we arrive at this mountain resort cabin my mother is writing from with my beloved 14-month-older brother carefully carrying his beloved turtle, Timothy inside a Chinese food take-out container.  John was terribly worried about the affect the hot summer’s day was having on his pet.  In my memory I am walking right behind John as he enters the cabin, locates the kitchen, stands in front of the refrigerator, opens the door of the freezer as he continues to talk to Timothy.

I understood what my brother, who had just turned 7 was doing and why.  He put the little container with Timothy in it into the freezer to cool him off.

I also remember John’s horror upon discovering he had forgotten Timothy in the freezer.  In my memory I am again standing very close to John as he opens the freezer, removes the container, opens the top, and finds his beloved pet frozen inside a block of ice.  I remember his heartbroken tears.

While John has no memory 53 years later of the turtle, let alone of what happened to the turtle, I have NEVER forgotten my memory of it.  So when I read the following words last night in my mother’s July 15, 1957 Monday letter, I went into a form of ‘memory shock’.

“I drove to the town and lake this morning, poor Mother got sick after breakfast and had to go to a gas station and when we returned we found John’s turtle dead from the heat yesterday.  He broke down completely and cried and cried.  I tell you it’s been awful.”

I am still processing the confusion I feel over the conflicting accounts – mine and now my mother’s – about the death of Timothy.

First of all, she rented this mountain cabin beginning on Saturday July 13th and I would expect that this Saturday is the day that we drove through the heat to the mountain.  If my memory was accurate, the turtle would have been placed by my brother in the freezer on the Saturday when we first arrived at the cabin.  My mother is writing on a Monday and is referring to Sunday’s heat as being the contributor to the demise of John’s beloved turtle who died according to her version of the story on Monday.

This state of inner confusion that I feel about these conflicting accounts is typical of what happens to me most of the time when I try to find my own version of reality and hold onto it in the face of my mother’s version of reality.  Working my way around and through this tiny turtle story is significantly important for me to do.

Second of all, a turtle is (DUH!) a reptile.  It cannot regulate its own body temperature.  If a turtle gets too hot, hot enough that its life is endangered it does not wait a day or two to have its fatal reaction.  It simply DIES when the overheating happens.

This is an extremely important turning point inside my own being about how my mother’s version of reality SELDOM matched the truth!  It is also an extremely important example of how subtly, thoroughly and effectively she was ALWAYS able to manipulate everyone else’s version of reality so that it matched her own.

I hold onto this FACT as if it is a life preserver thrown to me as I sink below the surface of deadly waters:  An overheated turtle does not wait to die.

Therefore, without my having to suspect MYSELF I can tell immediately within my mother’s letter that there is something fishy about her story.

This FACT helps me gain my own footing about my own memory of what happened.  For some reason, perhaps because he was a little boy, perhaps because of my mother’s continual creation of strange excitement that sucked everyone around her into her chaotic storms, perhaps because my brother was distracted by being in this foreign environment with grandmother present, and everything that was going on around him – another FACT of the matter seemed to be that John simply forgot his turtle in the freezer from late Saturday until sometime Monday.

If I give myself permission to believe my own self rather than believe my mother’s version of this story, I can learn right here, within this single, tiny, nearly insignificant (in the grand drama of our family’s life) event of the death of my brother’s turtle how expertly my mother’s created her twisted version of stories that she would tell my father.

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This is an example of the insidious way my mother controlled her family – ALL of us, including her own mother when it suited her.  (See post:  +A WORD ABOUT INSIDIOUS INFANT-CHILD ABUSE.)

I believe that there is AN EXTREMELY, CRITICALLY IMPORTANT POINT here.  This is an example of what MANY severe infant-child abuse survivors experienced when they were little.  It is an example of how difficult it is for we survivors to EVER BE ABLE TO VALIDATE OUR OWN REALITY in the face of the twisted, distorted, unbelievably destructive nature of living with ANY ABUSIVE BORDERLINE PARENT!

When people ask me why I continue this nasty work on my forensic autobiography even though it is ‘upsetting’, and I tell them there is something in this work that MATTERS to other survivors, these two examples are proof to me that I am right.

It NEVER mattered what the seed of an event ACTUALLY was, whether my mother was communicating about her terrible feelings within her relationship with her own mother or the death of the turtle that was so loved by her little son.  At the center of EVERYTHING that my mother touched was her Borderline Personality Disorder.

My mother was a MASTER manipulator of the truth.  She was a MASTER manipulator of all information about what happened within her family.  In the same way that my mother was expertly able to manipulate what my father knew about her fight with her mother or the death of John’s turtle, she also expertly manipulated what my father KNEW about me.

At the same time my father was present and KNEW about many of the terrible things my mother did to me he NEVER ONCE ‘interfered’ to stop her or to protect me in any way.  What last night’s lightning bolt of insight hit me with and triggered deep within my entire being by these two statements between my parents I am citing here today, was the realization that my father existed within my mother’s Borderline world and no other.

My father was my mother’s SAP, and everything about their relationship MEANT that exactly what happened TO ME – HAPPENED.

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Did my mother consciously KNOW and CHOOSE to distort and twist the story she told my father about the turtle?  Did she consciously KNOW and CHOOSE to distort and twist the story she told my father about ‘the fight’ she had with her mother?

What possible REASON might my mother have had to LIE to my father about the turtle’s death?  Was she afraid the truth would have implicated HER in some way?  Was she afraid that admitting the truth of her young son’s FORGETTING about his precious turtle in the freezer would somehow make her husband think badly of his – HER son – so that his view of HER through the actions of HER son would somehow reflect back BADLY on her?

The truth is that this entire topic is sickening.  That the underlying reality this topic addresses consumed my entire 18-year childhood (and that of my siblings) and hence changed our entire physiological development body-brain-mind-self and hence the entire quality of the lifetime of all of us, MATTERS!

It also MATTERS to me that nobody who has not lived with a severely abusive Borderline parent cannot even BEGIN to imagine what we endured and what we have survived.  Nor can these other people BEGIN to imagine how the madness of such a parent permeated everything we experienced not only when we were little, but also for the rest of our lives.

It is nearly impossible to disentangle THE TRUTH, let alone OUR TRUTH, from the all-encompassing, all-pervasive MENTAL MANIPULATIONS that accompany severe infant-child abuse by a severe Borderline parent.  To be able to actually find the truth means that we have to be able to detect the lies.

This lie-truth detection process is about as impossible to accomplish as it would be to consciously detect and then choose which air molecules we are going to breath before we inhale them.

Yet we survivors cannot give up on our task of sorting out the fiction of the lie from the truth of reality, no matter how difficult the job may be.  As I examine the forensic evidence bequeathed to me by my decade-dead parents, I am performing an effort that is beyond microscopic.

I am looking for the truth that exists in the WORDS THAT WERE NEVER WRITTEN in the same way that they WERE NEVER SPOKEN by either one of my parents (or by my grandmother than I know of).

This forensic level of work to claim MY REALITY out of the complete and total wreckage of my childhood is happening on the equivalent level that DNA forensic validation happens in today’s criminal investigations.

What I am learning that is valuable and useful to my own self-betterment and healing is that ANY TIME I experience even a shadow of a doubt, a glimmer of a glance of a doubt, a shimmer of a reflection of a doubt about how MY OWN VERSION of reality differs from the one created and presented by my mother AND BY MY FATHER – I NEED TO KNOW THAT MY VERSION IS RIGHT BECAUSE IT IS TRUE.

At this instant as I write these words I realize that THERE IS a way to make the invisible Borderline visible:  That invisible Borderline is defined by DOUBT.  Wherever, whenever, however I detect ANY DOUBT WHATSOEVER within my body as it relates to any experience I ever had with my parents, that DOUBT defines and makes visible the undefined and invisible Borderline.

Being able to recognize my feeling and even tiny SENSES of doubt allows me to bring the invisible Borderline into visible existence.  My father did not doubt my mother.  In the two examples presented here my father did not doubt my mother’s story about ‘the fight’ with her mother just as he did not doubt my mother’s story about the death of my brother’s turtle.

My father never doubted my mother’s version of ME, either.  Yesterday as I made mud and slung it around I thought about the only time in my life my father telephoned me.  That was in the winter of 1986.  He followed that call with the only visit he ever made to see me and my children.  Looking back on that visit yesterday I realized that he was as completely a representative THEN of my mother’s ‘version of Linda’ as he had been from the moment I was born.

I didn’t recognize my doubts in 1986, so I could not stand up for myself or against his version of reality with my own version of reality.  Yesterday I knew that if I had known in 1986 what I know at this moment, that visit with my father would have gone in an entirely different – and for me healing – direction.

Both of my parents’ words exist on these pieces of paper they wrote them down on over 50 years ago.  I recognize the powerful gift they provide not only to me, but to anyone who considers them in the light of the Borderline reality they represent.  Although I plan to publish their writings as they were written, I also plan to follow their publication with my OWN version of what these letters contain – because they DON’T contain anything about THE TRUTH.

My sister recently took her two grand daughters to a WWII museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico that has sanitized the exhibition by erasing ALL MENTION of the holocaust.  ALL OF IT!  I will not, in the end, be a contributor to that kind of deceptive, dangerous madness!

I will tell MY story.  What I am working up to is being able to tell MY story without any doubts within myself that MY story is how things actually happened and that my parents were, within both of their lifetimes, unredeemable liars.

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+ADOBE MOMMA NEWS: THE WALKWAY CONTINUES….

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My work on the adobe walkway continues.

I am hoping by the time the walkway reaches the fence to the north, the triangle growing to the right (east) of it will be a garden – the Pomegranate tree made LOTS more flowers!

This is the growing walkway looking south – the line of bricks on the left running along the fence will be a wall – there’s the roses – the fence runs at an angle, the walkway is straight –

To the left where the far white bucket sits is the end of the walkway from the beginning adobe patio project – I had to work from both ends so I can see how they are going to join one another – I am almost there.

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+NOTES FROM MY MOTHER’S 1957 LETTERS CONTINUED

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In one of her July 15, 1957 letters to my father my mother described a fight she had with her mother.  This was her conclusion:

“They [I guess meaning her mother, brother and his wife] can be happy again when I’m gone and I pray for all of us to have some peace.  I never have given her happiness – I see that now.  The only one I’ve ever made happy is you and I pray for a chance again.

I know we’ll both be happier away from our families – it hurts me so but is true.

I can’t stay in Pasadena now and won’t.

Please help me.”

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My father is in Alaska, Mother and kids still waiting in California – we went to a mountain resort cabin for the 3rd week of July.  This is from the 3rd ‘letter’ my mother wrote to my father on July 16, 1957 –

++ Afterthought – 15 minutes after my last letter

“I never hand described this cabin.  It’s location is not nearly as nice as some, as it’s located on a corner, quite (very) close to the road (which is a busy intersection for here).  As I said before there are huge pine trees all around and quite a sharp drop-off in back.  When we’re at home the children play in the house or on a tiny bit of cement out front.

But then it’s location is much nicer too than some.  It’s away from town, comparatively quiet and in a nice section!

The ones overlooking the lake are truly superior in every way.  There aren’t any real, real close to the water – with the exception of one beauty – built 30 years ago with 90 acres around it.  We were told by someone that the owner died recently, leaving it to a friend, rather than his own family – for some reason.  But his friend (?) is already busy putting a road through that beautiful wooded area – do doubt he’ll soon be selling lots.  All of the other cabins are away from the immediate lake – on high surrounding hills overlooking it.

The cabin we’re staying in has a fair size living room (no fireplace) with knotty pine walls and a tiny kitchen with old boards for walls and still fixed up kind of cute and a back-hall big enough for the refrigerator.

There’s a long porch off of the living room with a couch and old chair on it but we haven’t unlocked the door because it only has a rail around it and such a steep drop off right below it!  But I’ve told Grandma it would be a nice place for her to type if the children (or ME) prove too much for her.  (It’s a wonder it’s unlocked)

The furniture is old and cabinish.  It’s name is Owl Roost and it’s a wonder if we all don’t have nightmares of OWLS.  There are cute wooden cut-outs of owls on the blinds but that would be enough.  But oh no, there’s a large stuffed owl with evil, beedy [sic] eyes staring at me as I write (stuffed, of curse) perching realistically on a branch on the wall.

Still that’s not enough!  There are wooden cut-out owls on the window cornices, what-not shelves with all kinds of owls on them, pine cone owls, wooden owls, 8 tiny owls in a corner on the branch.  Is that enough?  Oh no – there are 3 framed pictures of OWLS in a row on the wall to my right and the theme (I guess you would call it that) is carried throughout the house.

There’s a black Franklin stove to burn papers in and help keep warm in the winter I suppose and old, old upholstered chairs (covered with plastic of all things – to protect them).

Really – it’s not bad though and has a peculiar charm all its own.

Now I’ll turn around and describe the upstairs – or maybe draw a picture.  (Which would be worse?)  I guess I’ll try both.  [Linda note:  There is a sketch, not copied here]  Now I understand how difficult it’s to describe thins in letters.

When we first moved in it was a surprise to see the stairs (I knew it was 2-story but of this type) and the upper floor is peculiar.  The 2 bedrooms are just barely big enough for a double bed a piece (one has a beat-up chest) – then the 2nd flight and there’s a larger bedroom under the eaves with a cot-sized bed where John sleeps and another double bed.  There are no closets and only burlap curtains for doors!

As I said, it has a ‘kind of charm’ but I’ll appreciate my log house in Alaska after roughing it here in Southern California.  (I can hardly wait.)

(Oh, we too have a bath-room – I don’t want to worry you!)

I still like it here and prefer it to Pasadena!

I love you for letting me come without a fuss.  I know it probably wasn’t easy – as you said you could picture me before and knew where I was.  Well, now you can again!  With the owls.

Good night my love, Good-night. Do I hear a Hoot?”

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+A WORD ABOUT INSIDIOUS INFANT-CHILD ABUSE

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Before I take my friend’s eleven-year-old Chihuahua to the vet, I have something to say about this three-word combination echoing in my thoughts this morning:  INSIDIOUS CHILD ABUSE.

One thing that I know about insidious child abuse is that it does not have a beginning, a middle or an end.  Insidious abuse has always been there, is always there, will always be there.  For this reason, if not for any other, insidious child abuse remains undetected because it operates the way it does because its insidiousness makes it undetectable.

Turning to Webster’s online dictionary I find:

INSIDIOUS

Etymology: Latin insidiosus, from insidiae ambush, from insidēre to sit in, sit on, from in- + sedēre to sit — more at sit

Date: 1545

1 a : awaiting a chance to entrap : treacherous b : harmful but enticing : seductive <insidious drugs>
2 a : having a gradual and cumulative effect : subtle <the insidious pressures of modern life> b of a disease : developing so gradually as to be well established before becoming apparent

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What is more enticing to a child from birth but to receive the affection of its caregivers?  In cases where mental illness that leads to infant-child abuse exists from the time an infant-child is born, the caregiver SITS with a trap baited with the hope of affection that the innocent little one is biologically destined to be caught by.

SITTING in wait to trap one’s prey is not a natural state for a mother to be in.  Obviously when this is the set-up, there is something terribly wrong.  The last possible person to detect the existence of the trap is the victim.

Infants and children who are born to Borderline mothers such as mine was are ambushed from the start and ambushed every single step of their way through infancy and childhood.

Part of what brought these thoughts into my head this morning relates to the post I wrote this weekend – +EXAMPLE OF MY MOTHER’S BORDERLINE ‘GOOD VERSUS BAD THINKING’

Not only could I not expect any version of natural mothering response if I ever was sick as a child, I could not express my SELF in misery, either.  I was doomed, ambushed, trapped in insidious abuse I did not understand that meant my mother would rather I be sick than her other beloved offspring.  Many times over the years of my childhood she brought this up – that in essence I couldn’t even be sick RIGHT, which meant NOT SICK ENOUGH.  She hated it that I was not the one to get the worst end of any childhood illness that came through our family.

What was the possible way for me to escape her ambush about this?  There wasn’t any.  I never felt jealous, envious, or angry that her beloved ‘good’ child received her entire approval and resulting loving care.  I had no ability to perceive the world in any other way than the way it was.  Her abuse of be was insidious, had been there since I was born, and was erosive and corrosive of my quality of life and my well-being, and I never even knew it.

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+EXAMPLE OF MY MOTHER’S BORDERLINE ‘GOOD VERSUS BAD THINKING’

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Although it might not seem to be much of a major ‘thing’, this little excerpt from my mother’s July 7, 1957 letter to father (he’s in Alaska, we’re still in California) paints a very big picture of the contrast in the way my mother felt toward me (nearly 6) and my sister who just turned 4.

This dynamic my mother created with Linda being the BAD child and my sister being the GOOD child existed throughout our childhoods.  There was NOTHING I could do to change how my mother felt about me.  To my mother, I was as innately, inherently and completely a BAD child as my sister was a GOOD one.

My mother wrote:

I was hoping I could tie up our shots here tomorrow but Cindy still can not [sic] have hers.  She’s well (or better) one day and sick the next.

Now she has developed a very bad glandular condition.  On the same order as Linda’s (suppossed [sic] mumps) only much worse!

The big difference is with Cindy.  She never complains and is such a good girl!  Linda would have fussed all over the place.

Today we decided to go out to breakfast for a change and Cindy said she wasn’t hungry.  (She seldom is anymore.)  She looked listless and just not well.  I felt her and she was truly burning up – but it was another ‘scorcher’ of a day!!  But I felt the others and they were not as hot to the touch and I knew Cindy’s heat was not all due to the weather.  She wouldn’t eat so I ordered her some peaches, which she enjoyed.

I felt her glands and her left one under her ear was the size of a small egg!

I brought her right home and took her temperature = 104 [degrees].

This afternoon I brought her to Hankins Medical Group in Azusa.  The doctor gave her a very thorough exam and said it’s a bad cold (or virus) which has settled in her glands.  They gave her a shot and she’s to have two more for the next two days.

Poor darling Cindy!  She never even winces – how I love and adore that child of ours!  She’s such an angel – I die when she’s sick.

I gave her some birthday presents and she was better tonight — .

Oh, Bill the other day All On Her Own she made the sweetest picture, which I’ll send you, of you.  I [sic] when we got married, holding hands.  She did us very well, even – hands, arms feet etc.  The thought was so sweet – she’s our “own love child.”

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+MY PARENTS’ RACISM – WHY DO I FEEL ASHAMED?

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I am trying to figure out how I feel about my parents’ prejudice.  Despise comes to mind, along with embarrassed, ashamed, angry, guilty, humiliated and appalled.  I knew from my experience during my senior year, as written in post:  *Age 17 – What My Parents Taught Me About Racism, that my parents were hypocrites about people and racist.  But reading about it in my parents’ 1957 that I am in the process of transcribing now is sickening.

I am prejudice against prejudice people.  While I might feel uncomfortable with my ignorance about other people’s cultures other than the one I was born into and therefore understand, that discomfort I feel is pointed at ME and my shortcomings, not other people.

Evidently racism was a part of my family’s culture, and that surprises me.  Fortunately, I never bought it, never borrowed it, do not own it.  In fact, I hate racism and prejudice and I consider it malevolent and in every way ABUSIVE.

I find that my emotional reaction at finding these racist comments in my parents’ letters creates more of a reaction to unjust, unfair and just plain WRONG attitudes, beliefs and treatment of others than even my mother’s abuse of me does.

Child abuse has never been socially condoned.  My parents would have been ‘on their own’ without social support for the abuse in our home.  But racism is different.  It is an abuse that is socially condoned and shared – not by all, of course, but certainly by far more people than the numbers that ‘support’ child abuse!  In my thinking, both forms of abuse are equally wrong and harmful.

I was thinking about this fact, too.  I cannot see ANY time when racism is justified or acceptable.  In my mind it is perpetrated upon innocent people.  Somehow I don’t see myself as this kind of innocent person in relation to my parents’ treatment of me – as if I somehow deserved what they did to me because I was their child and a member of THAT family.  Unlike the innocent people I see as victims of the abuse and maltreatment of racism and prejudice, I must on some level see myself – AS my parents’ child being guilty by association.

Why can I feel more outrage at the injustice of their prejudice and racism than I can for what happened to me and my siblings?  There is something about UNFAIR versus fair, as if being a member of my family made me ‘fair game’.  I don’t feel the same sense of shame toward my parents for the child abuse in our home as I do for their racism against ‘innocent others’.

Why do I feel humiliation at my parents’ prejudice?  It isn’t MINE.  Again, guilt by association?

I didn’t know I felt this way until I encountered what my parents wrote in these letters.  I’m not finished with the transcription of all their 1957, but these selections make their stance clear:

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In his June 16, 1957 letter from my father who was in Anchorage, Alaska to my mother who was still in Los Angeles, California, I found this description:

“Another thing that has startled me – and I know it will you too – is the absence of any “color barrier.”  There are quite a few colored G.I.s here, and they have just as much right to family housing as anyone else.  So they’re scattered throughout the different developments at random, and their children play with the rest on an equal basis.  You might find yourself living next door to one, and housing being as short as it is nobody is going to move because of it.  I just thought I’d let you know these things in advance so you won’t be surprised when you get here.

There are going to be a good many things for all of us to get used to here, and it will probably take a while before we can be sure whether we like it or not.  It’s hard for me to tell now, things will all seem so different when we’re together here.”

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In her July 26, 1957 letter mother writes to father:

“She [Linda note:  No idea who Mother is referring to here – her mother?] just left as she said her house was a mess after the women left.  She said everything went fine but it ended up costing her a fortune.  She provided a ham and turkey, which she had cooked outside.  She had her colored lady there all day and in the evening plus men out last week to wash walls, plus a team of men all day yesterday to garden etc.  Even so, she said she never would have been ready if Charlie hadn’t saved the day by coming over and carving the meat etc.  He worked in the kitchen for hours she said – that was thoughtful and nice!

Dr. Pratt, the woman doctor in the group, brought her colored nanny to help plus her three children.  She brings them everywhere and the oldest is only 7.  I hope Mother liked that!  I wouldn’t go over yesterday afternoon with our well-behaved darlings (and they’re!!!) for fear of upsetting things.  She says the doctor’s kids are bold brats too!  Well, it’s over and I bet she’s relieved.  I know we always are!”

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I am including a bit more of mother’s July 5, 1957 letter describing what we did without my father with us on the 4th of July as context for her racist remarks:

“Finally I decided it wasn’t fair making everyone unhappy and we got picnic things together and I drove back to Lytle Creek, where I had enjoyed myself so much with the children.

I never should have returned.  Sometimes it’s better to keep a happy memory than to try to repeat it.

We had a miserable time from beginning to end as I shall relate.

On the way I stopped to get gas and was very careful to ask for $1.00’s worth – as I am hoping the new owner will pick up the car and give me the balance of money today.  He put the gas in and asked for $4.00.  I explained that I had only asked for 1.00 worth and why.  He was very nice – but had to drain the gas out.  It took well over 30 minutes in the heat and naturally was upsetting to all of us.

Finally we were on our way again!  About two miles down the lonely road and bang yes another Flat.  I never should’ve taken the car out when it was sold!  Luckily, I flagged down two young boys on a scooter and once again we waited (picture Mother) while they changed the flat.  I gave them 1.00 for their trouble and we were on our way again.

As we approached the picnic entrances we saw car after car after car (really) of negroes – I never so saw many [sic].  The ones that weren’t negroes were Mexicans.

Mother was starved, my head was splitting (and I feared another flat) and the children were hot, tired and ANGELS.  (They’re the best children any parents have ever had).

I drove to the end of the paved road to the place where I had seen the house ‘for sale’ we had liked.  I remembered a sign “Not paved ahead – enter at your own risk.”

I announced that we would walk aways [sic] and find a pretty, quiet, picnic spot (a place where there would be no intruders) and return for our picnic things.

Well darling, I think if you and I had been together we could have enjoyed ourselves.  But ahead was a dirt road – rocks and very hot (remember I said it was 105), and no trees but I felt if we walked toward the stream we could find a nice spot and leave Mom there to rest while I returned to the car for our things.

We walked and walked.  I carried Sharon and Mom trotted behind.  Of course, she’s always dressed up.  I don’t think she owns low shoes or slacks (or the equivalent).  I told her if she’s to chum with me she better get some sneakers and levis (she looked shocked) and I doubt if she enjoyed herself.

Finally we reached a clump of trees at the stream end.  The stream was dry there and it was NOT pretty.  A few other brave souls were there – most of whom had driven their cars on the road.  (Oh, for a jeep!)

We rested – I said to Mom  that I was sorry and should’ve insisted she stay in the car.

He [sic] exact remarks was as follows.

“Now really would it have made any difference if you had known.”

I told her it would have and it was not necessary for her to be sarcastic and I was only trying to find a place away from the colored for her and I was tired too as I carried Sharon and she better get some levis and low shoes (as I told you).

I left her sitting there and explored further and it got quite pretty – kind of pastureland etc.  We all missed you more than ever and wished for you and wished we were in Alaska – Also, I admit I was kind of scared being so far off the beaten road without you but wouldn’t admit it to Mom.  I promise you though, I won’t do it again.

Also the car sits in the garage now until actually completely sold!  I had to buy another tire – and cursed the luck – but only paid 4.00 this time as to 12.50 before.  Last time I got a new tube.  He couldn’t patch it this time either (except for the tube) as I ran over glass.  What a day!

You can see us trekking back to the car.  We drank all our lemonade then and had our picnic dry.

I drove back to the picnic grounds which were dirty, smelly, full of awful people – we ate (ugh) I cried in my sandwich for you and we came home.

After we arrived home tired and dirty I scrubbed the children, got dinner and shot off our 75 [cents] worth of fireworks (sparklers, one fountain, one torch).

The children were good all day and Mother claimed today she had a good time yesterday. (* _ _ ?)”

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+MUD MOMMA – ADOBE DAY – I am so lucky!

alchemynow2 Comments

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I hate taking buildings apart, but this one has to go - soon. There are two mesquite trees behind it - this is where I hope to build The Little Adobe Chapel of the Peaceful Heart - right on the Mexican-American line

Marking center as I began to figure out the 'plan' - I knew this is where I wanted to plant the Ballerina rose

Dry powdered dirt-cement filling cracks, will be swept away from surface when all packed in – saves lots of work mixing water into that mud!  All the rows of bricks are angled down slightly, hopefully to send the rain water right to that Ballerina rose in the center – grow, baby, grow!

Very ELEMENTAL work!  Earth.  Water.  Sun and Air to dry the bricks – loving it!

I could not find my compass, so had to eyeball-guess a north-south line when I laid the first blocks down – by the time I did the steps and they met by lower section, I found out I was an inch and a half off – IF the men who did the shed slab laid it straight.

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+SILLY EGG IMAGES AND PARENTING – CONTINUED

alchemynow1 Comment

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Well, at least I slept last night, though I woke numerous times with odd thoughts in my head!  One of them is related to parenting and eggs.  How?  Think:  Pickled Eggs.

If I picture the early caregiving environment an infant-child is born into as being ‘trauma-toxic’, and then think about pickling eggs, I can better picture how the effects of early trauma changes a little tiny developing body-brain in parallel ways to how soaking an egg in vinegar (with or without spices) will completely change an egg!

Not the same kind of eggs!

When I woke up from whatever odd dream about parents and eggs that I was having last night, I also ‘saw’ one of those nifty hardboiled egg slicers.  If I were to peel a pickled egg and an unpickled egg, and then submit their nice oval shape to the effects of an egg slicer, I would find that what the environment did to the egg completely permeates its constitution.  While the eggs would still equally be eggs, they would be very much changed from one another through and through.

How early maltreatment, trauma, neglect, abuse can stimulate trauma-altered early development is very much like this process.  In cases like my mother’s was, the changes that her body went through in her earliest development (certainly from birth through the age of six) completely changed her through and through.  By the end, nothing was left of her original egg-self.  Influences from her early environment, which also affected the way her genetic code manifested itself, resulted in an entirely different egg-self – through and through.

When I refer to MY mother as ‘My Borderline Mother’ I am referring to this fact.  I had a trauma-changed mother.  If I look at what I know about her very, very closely, I can see the true-egg part of my mother present in her love of the natural world.  That part of who she was born as was not lost.  That part of who she was, I believe, existed so close to the core of who she was that nothing (no one) could change that, in the same way that all the maltreatment my mother did to me never took away from me my love of nature, of plants, of beauty, or of artistic expression through creative use of my hands.

Trauma in infant-childhood CAN and DOES create body-brain changes in development that last a lifetime!

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+A SILLY IMAGE FOR GOOD VERSUS BAD PARENTING (AND STRESS)?

alchemynowLeave a comment

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For some reason tonight is not turning out to be a good night for sleeping.  I’m awake and thinking about the pressures that unsafe and insecure attachment conditions create upon a growing infant-child.  When a human being’s earliest development cannot follow the best possible pathway due to early traumas, stress and distress in its relationships with its earliest caregivers, related changes can easily contribute to continued distress for that person for the rest of their lifetime.

So-called mental illness, including Borderline Personality Disorder, and the whole rest of the gamut of brain and nervous system difficulties are being found to often happen because of severe distress and stress during these earliest and most critical ‘windows of development’.  For some reason at this moment this makes me think about early pressure and an egg.

So I looked up the instructions for how to ‘distribute stress just right’ – thinking that this might be an image-experiment that might be like how the stress of life can be handled so much better by a body-brain that was built right from the start in an adequate parenting, safe and secure attachment environment versus how it’s handled by a body-brain that was deprived of these opportunities

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I found the following in an article on the wikiHow website:

How to Squeeze an Egg Without Breaking It

originated by:Sondra C, Krystle, Jack Herrick, Ben Rubenstein

SteveSpanglerScience.com – More instructions on this experiment and the source of this article

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Here's my pretend newborn baby in its parent's hand - "If you don't do it right - you break it!"

Is it possible to squeeze an egg as hard as you can without breaking it? The answer is – yes! We’ve all learned the hard (and messy) way that eggs can be fragile, but despite their reputation, eggs are amazingly strong. Amaze your friends and yourself by doing this easy experiment.

STEPS WITH ONE HAND:

(1)  Place an egg on your fingers.

(2)  Close your hand so that your fingers are completely wrapped around the egg.

(3)  Squeeze the egg by applying even pressure all around the shell.

(4)  Look at everyone’s amazement (mostly your own) as the egg remains whole and your hand remains dry!

STEPS WITH TWO HANDS:

(1)  Lace your fingers together.

(2)  Place the egg lengthwise between your palms.

(3)  Squeeze your palms together as hard as you can on the points of the egg.

TIPS:

(1)  If you’re a little nervous about the outcome, try sealing the raw egg in a zipper-lock (plastic) bag before putting the squeeze on it, or hold the egg over the sink if you’re in the super brave category. Or go outside and try it.

(2)  Eggs are similar in shape to a 3-dimensional arch, one of the strongest architectural forms. The curved form of the shell distributes pressure evenly all over the shell rather than concentrating it at any one point.

(3)  By completely surrounding the egg with your hand, the pressure you apply by squeezing is distributed evenly all over the egg. However, eggs do not stand up well to uneven forces which is why they crack easily on the side of a bowl.

WARNINGS:

  • Be careful not to wear a ring while squeezing. The uneven pressure of the ring against the shell will result in an amusing display of flying egg yolk.
  • Do not attempt this experiment near carpet, curtains, or any other hard-to-clean item. If this experiment fails, egg yolk will fly in all directions.
  • This only works if you perfectly apply even pressure. Read the discussion page for examples of successful and failed attempts on this trick.
  • One reason why this trick often fails to work, is that even an almost-invisible, hairline crack will cause the egg to break easily, no matter how evenly you apply pressure. The 3D arch structure is indeed very strong, but it only takes one minor flaw to weaken it dramatically. Read up on the Paris Airport Terminal collapse for a larger-scale example of this phenomenon. So inspect the egg very carefully before you try it. If there’s even a hint of a crack, use another egg.
  • Don’t try this in the store before you buy the egg. The storekeeper will not be amused.

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ONLY the affects of infant-child trauma, severe stress and maltreatment during early critical windows of body-brain development are not fun or funny:

Traumatic Childhood Can Reduce Life Expectancy

A difficult childhood reduces life expectancy by up to 20 years according to a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The study found that participants who were exposed to more then five different types of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) were over 50 percent more likely to die during the 10-year period of the study. On the other hand, people who reported fewer than six ACEs did not have a statistically increased risk of death compared with the control group.

Listen to a podcast Adversce Childhood Experiences and the Risk of Premature Mortality.

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FROM GALLUP:

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Introducing the Wellbeing Finder, a revolutionary program for measuring, managing, and improving your wellbeing.

Take the assessment today to see how your Career, Social, Financial, Physical, and Community Wellbeing compare with others.

+MAKING IT CLEAR: MY SYMPATHIES ARE NOT WITH BORDERLINE PARENTS

alchemynow2 Comments

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I believe that these blog comments posted in the past few days about Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) (and how I use the term ‘Borderline’ to describe my own mother) are worth a careful, thoughtful read.  If you follow the live links posted below with the comments you can see the original posting the comments were made to and my replies.

Before I launch into my discussion of some of the points of view expressed in these comments, I want to mention some facts as they are appearing in the scientific community about what I call ‘The Borderline Brain’.  Each of these live links below leads to related information in a Google search – and represent the very tip of the proverbial iceberg about how different a Borderline’s brain, nervous system, mind, self, are changed from ‘ordinary’:

(1)  Difficulties in early caregiver infant-child interactions create developmental stress that can lead to a person developing BPD.

(2)  BPD involves a developmentally ‘changed brain’.

(3)  These changes affect all interactions in the brain regarding ‘self reference’

(4)  BPD most often involves an insecure attachment disorder

(5) BPD affects memory

(6)  BPD brain and nervous systems do not process emotion in ordinary ways.  These changes affect someone with a Borderline brain in significant ways that include:

– their brain’s self-referencing resting default mode

– their ability to regulate emotion

–  their ability to experience empathy for others

– their ability to process their life experiences and interactions with others because the development of their Theory of Mind is altered

– their ability to use a human-social skill called ‘mentalizing’ is affected

– all these alterations affect how the Borderline brain-mind operates – and their ‘mind sight’ abilities

(7)  Epigenetic factors that change development are beginning to be recognized in BPD – that affect the way the genetic code manifests (see phenotype and genotype)

(8) All these changes are known to affect a BPD mother’s interactions with her infant and her ability to form safe and secure attachment with her offspring

(9)  The BPD central nervous system is involved, their autonomic nervous system, their vagus nerve system, their stress response, their oxytocin connection system, their immune system, their hormones, and their neurotransmitters – to name just a few of the major influences that Borderline Personality Disorder can create in the body

(10)  BPD can involve delusional disorders and dissociation

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Would you place YOUR well-loved child in the care of someone with life-disorder complications like those described above?  We have to use our common sense – not a BPD strong suit.

When I use the term, ‘my Borderline mother’ I am describing a woman whose physiological existence was probably entirely influenced by the kinds of changes I mention above.  My story is about my life as the abused daughter OF my Borderline mother.

I make no claim to be an expert about BPD.  I am, however, an expert at being the daughter of my Borderline mother.  I had nothing like an ordinary mother.  I had a mother who was a Borderline mother – and a severely disturbed one.

My concern in writing for this blog is ONLY about people who have BPD physiology as it might relate to their ability to safely and securely parent their children.  My concern is WITH THE WELL-BEING OF INFANTS AND CHILDREN.

I do not believe that my mother had any CHOICE about how she behaved toward me and the rest of my family.  The only CHOICE that could have influenced positive change for my mother would have needed to come from the outside and would have needed to be court ordered and professionally enforced.

In essence, I firmly believe that in cases like my mother’s, her children needed to be permanently removed from her care.  Any contact she might have then been able to have with her children would have needed to be strictly (professionally) supervised.

In today’s world of not wanting to be ‘politically incorrect’ we put ourselves at risk for leaving infants and children in dangerously abusive, unsafe and insecurely attached environments with Borderline parents – especially mothers.  There is no comparing – as the commenter below suggests – between an inadequate and/or dangerous BPD parent and a ““lesbian mother” or “over-eater mother”.”  My Borderline mother had no problem with bashing my 4-year-old head in the toilet, for example.

The very last people on this great green and blue earth that we can afford to listen to about the dangers to infants and children of Borderline Personality Disorder parents are PBD parents, themselves – for ALL of the reasons I just pointed out above.

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Comment posted by reader to:  MY BORDERLINE MOM

Hi,
It is okay for me if you want to post my comment and also okay if you don’t. Mostly I would like to express my personal feelings about your blog (basically one particular thing).

First, I read your blog on occasion. I am DID [Dissociative Identity Disorder] and can relate to what you write about. I think you do a wonderful work with your blog and it does help others (at least it helps me).

The thing that bothers me is how you slam your “BORDERLINE” mother. I know everything you went thru was terrible (I have my terrible experiences) but as a BPD [Borderline Personality Disorder] mother it really hurts me how you always refer to her as “Borderline Mother” as if all borderline mothers are terrible monsters. I am DID and Borderline and anorexic and . . . . I have 4 outside kids who belong to a 14 yr. old alter who no longer wants them because they are not “babies” any more. I have stepped in and am working really hard to be the best mom I can be. Most of the time my BPD is contained inside (comes with a lot of “inner self-harm” because it does not get released). I do not want that crap released onto these kids.

When other people read your site and are not real familiar with BPD they will assume all BPD moms are out right crazy. Then if they come across my blog and read that I am BPD they will assume I unleash that same crazy stuff onto my kids and I do not. I wish you not refer to your mom as terrible, crazy “Borderline” mom (though I am sure she was). Maybe you could mention she was (is) borderline once or twice and then just refer to her as “crazy, horrible, terrible” instead of slamming the borderline word around when referring to her.

I cringe somewhat when I come to your site, though I like it, because I believe all borderline moms do not behave as such on the outside. I have begged my psychiatrist to remove that label from me but I know I have it. I just hate the way people out there slam it so frequently.

Thanks for listening to me rant! I only wanted to point it out to you. I will still read your site anyway I just do not need to be reminded about how terrible I am.

Thanks

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Next comment posted by this same reader to:  +WORD WARRIOR NEWS: “GO IN PEACE, MY MOTHER.”

Hi, I appreciate you listening to my feelings, posting my comments, and leaving it open for others to post also. I am not sure what you are saying in this new post. It seems like you are still saying bad things about borderline mothers, borderlines in general. But I could be totally wrong. When I see borderline and “yanking out the jugular” that does not feel good. Yank YOUR mom’s jugular, not all borderlines behave that way. Why can’t you just say “My Mother” instead of always attaching the BPD with it? You can mention her detailed issues, BPD being one of them, in another place where you explain more about you and your family.

I do not know where I am on the spectrum of borderlines but I can tell you it has to be a conscious effort on my part to think through things before I react. It is a work in progress. I am not the best mom and I lose it at times. I believe any mom can admit that.

One of the beliefs of Dr. Colin Ross (DID expert in Dallas) is that all DID people first split into BPD (that is the FIRST split) then DID comes next. The more I think about it the more I can see this making sense. Some in our system ARE BPD while others are not.

I wonder how others would feel if you were referring to your “lesbian mother” or “over-eater mother”. I do not think it is necessary to continue slamming the BPD label down with the abuses your mother did to you. It is like saying BPD is completely uncontrollable and all of us are crazies who should be in a mental institution.

My mother launched BPD stuff on me all of my life but I would not refer to her as my BPD mom repeatedly. She is my mom and she had a choice not to behave that way but she chose to. I have a choice NOT to behave that way. I am learning a new way.

I understand your anger, your frustration. It just seems you are SO focused on just BPD and not all of the other ways moms abuse their kids. If you abuse kids you abuse them no matter what your diagnosis.

Anyway I am sure my therapist will recommend I stop reading this blog as she does a lot of the blogs I read because it upsets our system. I am thankful to be able to speak up for all of us and express how we feel when we read the BPD references.

Post or not I am okay either way.

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Followed in time of posting by this comment by another reader also to:  +WORD WARRIOR NEWS: “GO IN PEACE, MY MOTHER.”

Linda, In reading your blog, I would assume that your mother was on the severe end of the borderline spectrum. Borderline personality can manifest itself as extreme anger and violence–it is what it is! The label itself explains much of your mother’s bizarre behavior. I know not all borderline’s are like your mom just like all depressed people don’t stay in bed all day or commit suicide. It’s a matter of degrees but it is what it is!

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Followed by yet another reader to +FOOLED BY AN ABUSIVE BORDERLINE? – MY MOTHER’S EXPERT DISTORTION OF REALITY

Linda,
There would be a quite a lot of people who would call it a bluff. But rest assured, I completely agree with you on this count. Your assessment of BP (borderline personality) is just about perfect. In my case however it is my father and his mother (my grandma) who appear to be the culprits. It appears that BPs are compulsive control-freaks and their entire life revolves around a desperate and somewhat diabolical obsession to take charge of everything and everyone around them. The best option for a non-BP in most situations would be to walk-out on these scheming maniacs without prior warning. As I have observed trying to warn these people of dire consequences if they do not stop their abuse is usually counter-productive. It simply strengthens their resolve to find more innovative ways of abuse. It is only when they [have] no fall-guy left to flog, that they are faced with the terrifying reality of their madness and usually break down irreversibly.

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Infants and children born to a Borderline Personality Disorder parent DO NOT HAVE THIS CHOICE:  “The best option for a non-BP in most situations would be to walk-out on these scheming maniacs without prior warning.”

It is up to outside informed and compassionate adults to protect ALL children.  In my opinion, we cannot trust those with Borderline Personality Disorder to parent their infant-child appropriately.  While this fact might not be true in SOME BPD parent cases, my strong suspicion is that as long as we continue to turn away with our blind eyes to the possibilities for severe distortion of reality with a BPD parent’s brain-body-mind that can lead to their offspring’s’ maltreatment, we are risking being contributors to this infant-child maltreatment.

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Prevalence:

BPD has a higher incidence of occurrence than schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, and is present in approximately two percent of the general population. BPD has been evidenced in all cultures. It is estimated that between 10 percent of clients in outpatient clinical settings and 15 to 20 percent of those in inpatient psychiatric settings meet the diagnostic criteria for BPD.

Thirty to 60 percent of those presenting with a personality disorder have BPD.

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