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+A BRIEF LOOK AT BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER AND PSYCHOSIS
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+DID MY MOTHER SUFFER FROM BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER (BPD)? (this is eerie)
October 6, 2012
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+BRAINWASHING, MIND CONTROL – INFO RELATED TO MY MOTHER
October 12, 2012
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Post:
+MAKING IT CLEAR: MY SYMPATHIES ARE NOT WITH BORDERLINE PARENTS
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Follow this link to —- all my mother’s writings
which are over on the section of my blog I call Take Care of Mothers.
Once you reach this blog, which is the sister blog to this one, you can pick and choose which of her writings you would like to read for such headings as MOTHER’S CHILDHOOD
, which contains her childhood stories and my analysis of them,
+ her pre-Alaska writings that include her journals,
+ her letters written after she had reached Alaska but before the homesteading had begun,
+ the whole years’ range of letters about homesteading itself,
+ my mother’s article and book writings, though she never was able to publish anything..
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Please also visit my main blog that presents my personal child abuse story – Stop the Storm – and it’s partner blog that contains useful information about the physical changes that happen to the developing brains of severely abused infants and young children – Workspace for Stop the Storm – both blogs being about stopping the intergenerational transmission of unresolved traumas, about stopping child abuse and about healing traumas. Thank you! Linda
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These writings are about my and my sibling’s earliest years and remain on this site:
*MY INTRODUCTION TO MY MOTHER’S 1953 DIARY
**1953 – MY MOTHER’S DIARY – PART ONE
**1953 – MY MOTHER’S DIARY – PART TWO
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Stop the Storm 
My memoir has just been published about growing up with my mother’s untreated BPD. I wrote it on the advice of my therapist, for people like us who had their childhoods stolen, had their hearts and souls whittled away by incomprehensible behavior and suffering, and who yearn for a life where the past no longer ruins the present. The Emotional Terrorist: Growing Up With a Borderline Parent (Amazon) resonates with readers and shows them the light at the end of the tunnel.
As well, my story demonstrates that it is possible to break the cycle of abuse and raise a child with unconditional love. I hope it offers some solace.
Best wishes,
Arabella
My memoir has just been published about growing up with my mother’s untreated BPD. I wrote it on the advice of my therapist, for people like us who had their childhoods stolen, had their hearts and souls whittled away by incomprehensible behavior and suffering, and who yearn for a life where the past no longer ruins the present. The Emotional Terrorist: Growing Up With a Borderline Parent (Amazon) resonates with readers and shows them the light at the end of the tunnel.
As well, my story demonstrates that it is possible to break the cycle of abuse and raise a child with unconditional love. I hope it offers some solace.
Best regards,
Arabella
Thanks for your comment! Have you tracked any of the ACEs research and actions taken from that?
What do you think? Was she BPD?I’m almost thinking so…if you get a chance- watch the whole documentary
There is no need to continue “storming” at me. I have done nothing to you. I am in therapy and have grown leaps and bounds over 4 years. Remember. people with BPD likely have their own abuse issues when they were growing up.
I completely disagree.
These are the 43 characteristics I found in the 1998 edition of the book “Stop Walking on Eggshells” – through which I was able to finally understand what was wrong with my mother. of these 1 I wasn’t sure about, 2 were no (self harm and attempted suicide, although both of these did combine to cause her death in 2003) – I could answer a clear ‘yes’ to 40 of these — only my mother did not alternate on very many where the authors ask that question. Personally, my mother could never possibly have been an adequate mother.
Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder by Paul Mason MS and Randi Kreger
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?
(2) — Alternate between seeing others as completely for them or against them?
(3) — Alternate between seeing situations as either disastrous or ideal? )
(4) — Alternate between seeing themselves as either worthless of flawless?
(5) — Have a hard time recalling someone’s love for them when they’re not around?
(6) — Believe that others are either completely right or totally wrong?
(7) — Change their opinions depending upon who they’re with?
(8) — Alternate between idealizing people and devaluing them?
(9) — Remember situations very differently than other people, or find themselves unable to recall them at all?
(10) — Believe that others are responsible for their actions — or take too much responsibility for the actions of others?
(11) — Seem unwilling to admit a mistake — or feel that everything that they do is a mistake?
(12) — Based their beliefs on feelings rather than facts?
(13) — Not realize the effects of their behavior on others?
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Feelings That May Indicate BPD
Does this person:
(14) — Feel abandoned at the slightest provocation?
(15) — Have extreme moodiness that cycles very quickly (in minutes or hours?)
(16) — Have difficulty managing their emotions?
(17) — Feel emotions so intensely that it’s difficult to put others’ needs — even those of their own children — ahead of their own?
(18) — Feel distrustful and suspicious a great deal of the time?
(19) — Feel anxious or irritable a great deal of the time?
(20) — Feel empty or like they have no self a great deal of the time?
(21) — Feel ignored when they are not the focus of attention?
(22) — Express anger inappropriately or have difficulty in expressing anger at all?
(23) — Feel that they never can get enough love, affection, or attention?
(24) — Frequently feel spacey, unreal, or out of it?
Behaviors That May Indicate BPD
Does this person
(25) — Have trouble observing others’ personal limits?
(26) — Have trouble defining their own personal limits?
(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?
(28) — Mutilate themselves — for example, purposely cutting or burning their skin?
(29) — Threaten to kill themselves — or make actual suicide attempts?
(30) — Rush into relationships based on idealized fantasies of what they would like the other person or the relationship to be?
(31) — Change their expectations in such a way that the other person feels they can never do anything right?
(32) — Have frightening, unpredictable rages that make no logical sense — or have trouble expressing anger at all?
(33) — Physically abuse others, such as slapping, kicking, and scratching them?
(34) — Needlessly create crises or live a chaotic lifestyle?
(35) — Act inconsistently or unpredictably?
(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.)
(37) — Cut people out of their life over issues that seem trivial or overblown?
(38) — Act competent and controlled in some situations but extremely out of control in others?
(39) — Verbally abuse others, criticizing and blaming them to the point where it feels 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?
(41) — Act in what seems like extreme or controlling ways to get their own needs met?
(42) — Do or say something inappropriate to focus the attention on them when they feel ignored?
(43) — Accuse others of doing things they did not do, having feelings they do not feel, or believing things they do not believe?
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 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 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,
Haley
Dear Haley
I just copied your comment over to the end of the post I just wrote: +WORD WARRIOR NEWS: “GO IN PEACE, MY MOTHER.”
at https://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/word-warrior-news-go-in-peace-my-mother/
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Thank you very much for posting your thoughts and feelings.
When I use these two words in connection to one another, “Borderline mother,” I am always and specifically referring to MY mother. At least that is what I try to do. When I include information on Borderline Personality Disorder I try to do that by referring to expert and professional descriptions and information about the ‘condition’ from the outside.
In reading your response I will make the clearest effort that I can from now on to make even more of an effort to keep these distinctions as clear as I can.
I of course can not tell this for sure, but in reading your words I perceive that you express three things I can see here that my mother never had toward me (and only peripherally demonstrated toward anyone else, including her other 5 children): (1) the ability to self-reflect, (2) the ability to connect consequences with actions, and (3) the ability to experience care, concern and compassion for the well-being of your children.
Without having these three abilities, my mother was a lethal weapon and an extremely dangerous mother.
The shortcomings related to diagnosis of so-called ‘mental health categories’ and the cultural stigmas connected to them is a problem within our society at large: http://www.jwoodphd.com/borderline_personality_disorder.htm and http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/b/borderline_personality_disorder/wiki.htm#wiki_Origin_of_the_term
There is enough neuroscientific research appearing to suggest that before much more time passes, it will be possible to diagnose something akin to what is now called Borderline Personality Disorder far more accurately by watching scans of a person’s brain operating while performing certain specific tasks.
When this time comes, I see that the diagnostic process will be very similar to the ones used now to find and diagnose something as problematic, life threatening and difficult to treat as are breast cancers discovered through mammogram procedures today.
It was not that long ago in the past that ‘having cancer’ was considered as a shameful thing. We are socially removing that stigma.
It was not that long ago in the past that child abuse was also a taboo topic for public discussion.
I make every effort to connect what my mother did to me to the suffering my mother experienced during her formative years that changed her into the terribly abusive mother she became. Nowhere do I EVER say that my mother was a bad or an evil person.
The point you make today is not only an extremely important one, but is one that is appearing at a critically important time in my own writing process. I thank you for this. I will enlist everyone on my end that is involved in the process of preparing my book on the experiences of my childhood to help me consider how best to approach the legitimate and important point you are heart-fully making making here.
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I consider my mother (who was never diagnosed with this disorder first named in 1984) to have been at the severe end of the Borderline Personality Disorder spectrum. My concern so far has been that if a mother as severely abusive as mine was could so completely hide her abuse and so completely manipulate her home environment that nobody on the outside ever suspected the abuse was occurring, how does anyone even today have a chance to intervene and rescue any child living with this kind of abuse?
I consider the entire matter of child abuse to be a life-and-death concern. I would rather not be an inconsiderate ‘bull in a China shop’ and trample all over other people who have been given this diagnosis or help create a stampede of others who would do the same. Yet because I believe that severe Borderline mothers have the physiological constitution that makes them about the most dangerous abusive parents possible, I have as yet not chosen to back off from assigning ‘Borderline’ as a prefix to the term ‘my mother’.
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I make no pretense (at least that I know of) to tell anyone else’s story other than my own. In my most recent process within the past 24 hours, I have even realized that my mother’s own words need to be published without my side of the story being presented at all in connection with my mother’s writings. That is a HUGE step for me because I have always believed that if I could somehow bring the light of the true reality of my mother’s violent, dangerous and consistently abusive nature into the telling of my mother’s story that it might be able to help someone in ‘the public’ rescue a child preyed upon as abusively as I was.
Yet if nobody can ‘read the mind’ of a Borderline, as this article suggests
Click to access The%20Borderline%20Empathy%20Effect.pdf
I will not be able to accomplish what I hoped for, anyway.
I am not yet able to think fully about what you are saying. I obviously retain my own bias in regard to my mother. I know fully that there are readers of this blog who DO have something to say about this topic. Please respond. Put within your comment, as this reader did, your feelings about having your comment published or not – I will of course honor your request. But, your opinion IS NEEDED here! And I thank you again, Haley as I thank other readers for their comments even before they are received.
Please also see this post: +IT MIGHT BE JUST FINE TO RIP THE JUGULAR VEIN OUT OF ‘BORDERLINE’
at
https://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/it-might-be-just-fine-to-rip-the-jugular-vein-out-of-borderline/
I realize that this post was written awhile ago..but I’m compelled to make some sort of comment.Haley, I understand your plight, I am a Borderline and I’ve often felt that professionals and member of the community have shunned and black listed us.Unfortunately, we are “different”, we are altered so to speak.I’m tempted to say we are “bad” and they are “good” or we are “unhealthy” and they are “healthy” but that’s not the case….we are adapted for a different kind of world.Human kind is going through a transition presently, our neurolucal changes or adaptations point toward this as evidence…stealing, lying, hoarding, manipulation, creativity, lack of empathy…all survival strategies for a very hostile world – all are embedded into the BPD brain.THERE’S NO POSSIBLE WAY an altered person can be a caring loving, attentive parent. BPD are lone predators, not connected to any other soul.. let alone themselves!Haley, you and I are predators, needy, lying, creative, crafty, PREDATORS!! Pretend you adore your child,pretend that you put their needs before yours…PRETEND!This doesn’t make you terrible, it makes you incapable.! Incapable of nurturing.Incapable of raising a child that will not be altered.I’m just stating the truth, from one bpd to another.
Hi Helen – Just one note here from my perspective on your words: “THERE’S NO POSSIBLE WAY an altered person can be a caring loving, attentive parent.”
There are many degrees of alteration that people go through in their early trauma-filled developmental stages. Some develop BPD. Most do not. Researchers suggest that 55% of the population receive ‘good enough’ early caregiving to end up with a body-brain developed for a safe and secure (enough) world.
That leaves 45% of the population with some degree of an unsafe and insecure attachment pattern (disorder).
Everyone in this 45% has undergone some kind of trauma altered development that impacts their ability to regulate emotions and to process empathy.
BPD is a very specialized change triggered – I believe – by very serious if not very particular kinds of early relationship traumas.
I know there are various ways we can be altered…bpd is total transformation. Bpd is the extreme end of the trauma spectrum
I’m sorry, I should have been more specific…a totally altered individual like myself and Haley…someone diagnosed as BPD
I hear you, Helen. You are invaluable to me as I work through my mother’s writings. I also wonder if within BPD you would say there are degrees of severity to the illness?
I see the total transformation that you speak of with my mother.
I wonder now about her mother.
I also believe that science needs to get the research completed to diagnose BPD with brain scans.
All the misunderstanding coming from misdiagnosing people with BPD who do not have this disorder is not helpful to ANYONE – and not helpful toward understanding how the disorder operates
You know Linda…I keep trying to write this paragraph and then POOF another thought pushes it`s way past that rigid metal door called “that’s it, that’s the way it is”.You may be clever enough to get me past that door.I was was going to state that there is NO possible way that Bpd could be a spectrum disorder!!But, they are now toying with the possibility that RAD may be a spectrum disorder…so, yes, perhaps there are mild, moderate, and severe cases of Bpd .And yes, CT, MRI and EEGs should be able to detect the severity of each case. My stepson is due for another CT/MRI scan next week…this should be interesting as he is TOTALLY ALTERED, we’ve actually seen atrophy in certain parts of his brain!Apparently the neurologist has stated that he will never be able to have empathy or reasoning- he is a totally transformed human! They’ve also stated that he operates mostly out of his ” reptilian/primitive brain” as the higher levels of thinking are not developed ( memory, emotions, reasoning)…I’m assuming that “Ds” mother’s brain would look very similar to his….and she’s raising two more kids!!!!So, perhaps there is a spectrum to Borderline..I have yet to hear one .In regards to BPD specifically..I’m assuming that D’s mother is severely altered, my mother, grandmother and relatives as well.In the future it would certainly be helpful if every individual that is suspected of being a bpd/npd/apd/ have some sort of CT/mri to detect the transformation so that this can not be passed on to their offspring. PERSONALLY, ( and this isn’t Linda’s opinion) I believe the children or offspring should be released into another family to be reared and loved.And in regards to “Haley”, if your “alter” rejects your children, than a part of you rejects them..alters are merely “fragments” of our selves..the ego or “self” splits as a way of getting away from an experience, BUT AN ALTER IS STILL PART OF OUR EGO ( self), a part of you rejects your children.Pull all those alters together Haley and you get ONE self..YOU!!!
There is only one way that I think BPD mothers could raise their own children – and that would be under 24/7 surveillance with someone living next door to intervene immediately on behalf of the children. That’s round-the-clock supervised visitation, really. Plus more! There’s NO WAY this is going to happen
So, in other words, I agree with you 100%, Helen. No BPD mother should be allowed to raise her children.
If this were enforced, what BPD would have a child?
None?
Good.
Lol, I don’t know of any “healed” bpd…my stepmother claimed she was “healed” but her ex husband ( father of her kids) is refusing visits.But, yes you’re absolutely right…there would have to be 24hr supervision.
My OWN SISTER who is Npd/bpd abandoned her children,,,”I’m not parent material, my kids hate me- but at least I’ve acknowledged that I’m horrible”..my mother’s last words to me were, “I’ve got to be the worst parent on the planet, all my kids are so very damaged”….both have BPD
I won’t know what others will think/feel about this book I am working on – my BPD Mother – but what an illness she had!!! It amazes me that she made it all the way through her life with that mind – No way she could have been healed – but have to wonder if in the future when BPD is better understood if SOMETHING could be done to help them!?!
Right now – it’s entirely possible that people being misdiagnosed BPD – get better – ’cause BPD is not what they suffer from – need for brain scan diagnosis – no different from other medical conditions diagnosed with tests
Alters are still part of our essence or self…people often think that alters aren’t a part of us ( kinda like possession)., they are, it’s the essence or “self” fragmenting into pieces..If your alter ( a 14 year old) rejects your kids,part of you rejects them.Don’t try to convince YOURSELF, because you’ve already decided that they aren’t yours.Part of healing and growing is recognizing that trauma has split your ego…but regardless of the split, IT IS YOUR EGO, all of it.You don’t feel or think any differently than your alter….
And, to be even more specific…I know in my maternal line that at least half of all my grandmother’s offspring would be bpd, that would make 5 altered. One, an aunt actually came forward last year to talk about her drug use and the final loss of my young cousin ( who’s actually RAD).One uncle took his only life…leaving three my mom, my aunt ( Brenda who came forward), and another uncle( currently serving 12 years for shaking his son to death).My great mother was a horribly abusive parent- my grandmother was very aggressive and rejecting towards my mother, also a psychotic/ alcoholic- my mother ALMOST killed me, she’s psychotic, manipulative, violent and severely detached!!!All my siblings are altered…one is in jail, the other is a very abusive/ neglectful/violent spouse who lost her two children permanently.IF YOU ARE DIAGNOSED WITH BPD and you have children, and you’ve been in their lives since birth…they’re altered to some degree.I’ve witnessed it, had it happen to me and believe me, I STRUGGLE TO PARENT MY KIDS.I’m not the ideal parent
Help! Your site made me very curious. The linke above under “my mother’s writings” does not work for me.
I will die out of curiousity if you do not correct it. Please.
I’ll try to figure out what’s going on
but all her writings can be reached here!
http://takecareofmothers.wordpress.com/
let me know if this doesn’t work! The site seems really slow today!
Yes, thanks, I could reach it there.