+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!

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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

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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)?

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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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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

alchemynow4 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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+MY FATHER STILL REMAINS IN ALL SIX OF HIS CHILDREN’S ‘BLIND SPOT’

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Even now, ten years after the death of my father, not one of his six children can make a definite statement about who he was or how-why he was the way that he was in our childhood.  The ability to master any clear perception of him alludes us all just about equally.  If all six of us sat in session with the most competent therapist for a month of Sundays, would we come to any better of a conclusion about him than – “He was an enigma?”

Did we all come out of our insane childhood equally enveloped within the illusion that my mother was ‘the demon’ and my father was ‘the angel’?  After all, that kind of ‘splitting of the archetype’ of good versus bad was certainly a big part of the delusions of my mother.

I am sure glad that I am not an only child.  I am very glad that I have five mature siblings who all agree with me about the condition of the home we grew up in together.  And yet, reading these letters my father wrote to my mother in 1957 makes me feel uneasy, as if we all made up one version of a childhood while OBVIOUSLY my father lived in a different one!

It baffles me that anyone could be as blind to my mother as he evidently was.

In this letter (below) from my father:

“And I miss the children too – the feeling of all of us together as a family – the happy rush to meet me when I come home – the tender little voices at bedtime – I even miss their noises.  It gives me the saddest, tenderest feeling to think of all of you so bravely carrying on without me, and depending on me to take care of you – and I will.  And I will take care of everything, you can depend on me and trust me completely – always!”

and:

“(And thank you, my dearest Mildred, for being the sweetest Mother any children ever had.)”

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July 1, 1957 Monday – Anchorage, Alaska

Dearest Mildred,

Boy – what a time I had today!  The woman who brings the mail around to the office came in this morning and handed me a bundle of mail – 8 envelopes and 3 cards!  J  The mail seemed to be very slow last week, and some of them had been mailed as long ago as Wedensday [sic].  Then this afternoon she brought me another one which you mailed on Saturday!

Thank you, thank you, thank you – for writing so much and for telling me everything.  I know how you feel – the loneliness, the responsibility and the helplessness.  I don’t wonder that you wrote the way you did.  I don’t know which of my letters you got when, or even remember just what I said, but I know you react to the things I write.  The one where I talked about buying the house was written hurriedly in the postoffice [sic].  I’d  been out looking at houses for sale – much as you’d been looking at cars.  The one I wrote about would have been a good deal, a nice house to live in, one that could be enlarged very easily, and a good resale.  But of course it would be out of the question.

I know I must have told you about the apartments but I’ll repeat it just to be sure.  The first week I was here I went over to their rental office and filled out a card.  When she went to file it she found that I already had one in, dated May 10th – when I wrote to them.  So I’m on the list as of then, but she also told me that there were still people on the waiting list who’d been waiting since March.  She said that today, July first, was the deadline for people to give notice who were moving out August 1st, so I’m going over again tomorrow to check on it.  Incidentally, I’ve been over twice more in between – just to make sure I didn’t miss out on anything.

From what you said in your letters last week you apparently didn’t know this.  Yes, I would take an apartment right now if I could get one, and yes, I have applied and will keep hounding them.  As for anything else – I followed up several ads in the paper which proved to be no good, but in every case in talking to the people I found that they expected two months’ rent right now.  They wouldn’t even take a deposit to hold if a few days while I wired for money!  They have a credit union here at the District where I could borrow money but – Dammit – you have to be here 90 days before you can use it – which is no help at all.

I figured that I would have to send money to you on payday – Wedensday [sic] – but in this last letter I got you said not to.  I still don’t understand about those two small checks you got from work – or did I understand what you said about getting $68 soon from L.A.  Is that my vacation pay?  Did you check on it?  Anyhow – I’ll put as much of my pay check as possible in the bank, and I won’t send you any unless you ask for it.  Your next letters may tell me more, but I’ll go on the assumption that you have enough to get by on, unless I hear otherwise.  I would like to send it all to you, but the most important thing right now is to have enough to rent a house for us to put our home in.

I’m living just as cheaply as I possibly can, and I’ve resorted to one of Charley’s [mother’s brother] old tricks.  I bought a notebook before I left L.A. to keep track of my expenses on the trip so I could put in for reimbursement, and after I got here I kept on using it.  I write down everything I spend – even a nickel for a cup of coffee – and it sure helps.  I think twice before I spend anything!  Breakfast only costs 60 to 80 cents, lunch about the same, but suppers run from $.75 to $2.00 – and there’s no place else to eat.  The room costs $6.15 every two weeks, which is about 45 [cents] a day.  I wash my own socks and underwear but I send my shirts to the laundry at 40 [cents] each so that’s another 20 [cents] a day.  Yes, you’re certainly right about the cost angle of this business – and that’s the least-bad part of it.

Don’t ever, ever think I’m “getting used” to being away from you!  Perhaps you feel the strain more because you have the sole care of the children and because you’re reminded so much, but I do miss you – Mildred, I love you – I need you – I want you here as much as you want it.  I am and will always do everything in my power to get you here just as soon as possible.  Nothing in this world could ever make me go through a separation like this again!  We were made for each other, Darling Mildred, and we were made to be together!

I want so much to be able to give you the comfort – the love – the care, protection, – everything you need.  And I need just as much from you – all the things that you and only you can give me.  But most of all I simply need to be with you – always near you.  Sweetheart, my eyes fill with tears too when I think of being away from you any longer – Oh Mildred I want YOU!

And I miss the children too – the feeling of all of us together as a family – the happy rush to meet me when I come home – the tender little voices at bedtime – I even miss their noises.  It gives me the saddest, tenderest feeling to think of all of you so bravely carrying on without me, and depending on me to take care of you – and I will.  And I will take care of everything, you can depend on me and trust me completely – always!

I’m sending you a clipping from the paper – let’s hope it does some good.

I’m also sending the Household Finance paper back – signed.  Sorry I missed it last time, too much hurry I guess.

I’m so happy that you and the children have had a little fun for yourselves.  I had noticed that Museum when we’ve gone by it before, but never got around to going there – like so many other things.  I’ll bet Johnny really enjoyed looking at the old cars, the way he’s always talked about old-fashioned things being best.  🙂  And the fishing trip!  How I wish we’d discovered that before.  That sounds like so much fun – for you and them.  Next summer we’ll be able to do that all the time – and not at 40 [cents] a fish either.  I’m waiting eagerly for those pictures – I can just imagine the happy, happy faces.  🙂

I looked at the postcards first when the mail came, and I couldn’t figure out where they came from or how.  Then I read through all the rest of the letters and came to the last one before I finally found out.  I hope you didn’t forget the rest of the adventure story – the titles were intriguing!

As I read your various letters, I got several stories about the car.  But when I got to the last one I discovered that you weren’t going to wait for an answer from me.  It would sure be nice to have a new station wagon, and the prices you quoted were better than the first one you gave me by quite a bit – and considerably less than the price I got here, even counting $300 for shipping.  But I think you’d do better to sell the Chevy yourself rather than trading it in, in any event.  If you have definitely decided to go to your Mother’s to stay, you could get by without our car for now.  Then we could decide later about a new one.  I agree that the Ford is a better buy than the Chevy – this year anyhow.  I’ve tried to find out about how much travel allowance we’d get if you drove to Seattle – just out of curiosity mind you, I still don’t like the idea – but so far I haven’t been able to.  It seems that every time I try to see somebody they’re on vacation.

As I said before, Darling, you alone can decide whether you could live at your Mother’s.  It would certainly be the most practical thing to do – if the other can be worked out.  [Linda note:  “Other” being grandmother’s interference with mother’s parenting]

I am truly sorry about the letter that Jonna saw – there was really no need to say those things and I regretted it right afterwards.  You might know that would be the one!  I’ll never do that again, and not because I expect you to let anyone read them.

I still haven’t gotten my trunk, there was a ship last week but it wasn’t on it.  There’s another one next Monday and I sure hope it’s on it.  I need my “tools” and books at the office, and my clothes that I put in there.  I’m sure glad you insisted I get some moth-balls, the moths could have emptied the trunk in all this time!

Tell Cindy “thank you” for the lovely bag she made for me.  I’ll use it every day and think of her.  And tell Linda that her picture looks very nice on the wall next to the other one she sent.  And another thank you to Johnny and to the girls for the beautiful pictures of the place where they went fishing. They are on the wall too, and my room is brighter for having them there.  Tell Johnny I would like to have another letter from him, too.

(And thank you, my dearest Mildred, for being the sweetest Mother any children ever had.)

This is my last sheet of paper, so I have to stop now.

This time each day when I write to you is the happiest – and the saddest – of the whole day.  It makes me feel close to you for a little, but when I seal the envelope and drop it in the mail box – a piece of my heart goes with it, and I walk back to my room with sad, slow steps.  Without you I am so alone, my sweet, I need you to make me whole again.  I love you always, I love you truly, Bill.

P.S.  Yes again, I did take out Blue Cross, and you are covered.

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+’PARTICIPATION’ AND MY MOTHER’S SHARED DELUSIONS

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I have been outside working on my adobe yard project, but my mind is not on the job.  My thoughts are turning again and again in the direction of my mother, my father,  my childhood and the letters.

I have already written a post some time ago about this statement my mother made to my father in one of these June 1957 letters:

June 17, 1957

I spend every spare minute packing and sorting.  This house is so nice and well laid out for a small house.  It has many nice features that our others didn’t have.  Oh, to be able to build a house of our own and incorporate all the features.  I am going to buy some chicken wire to put across part of the back as there are so many ant hills out there.  I mentioned to you that Sharon sat on one.  Linda was to watch her in the yard and I had bought them a beach ball.  I think Sharon caught it and sat down on the hill.  She screamed! They were small red ants and each one was doubled over and seemed to have their stingers in her.  I had to actually pick them off of her.  She stopped crying when she knew I was fixing her and said over and over, “bite, bite, bite.”  I didn’t even know she knew the word “bite”.  There must have been 30!  They swelled and got all red.  They’re almost gone now.  Everytime [sic] we go out back, needless to say she hasn’t gone out alone since, she walks around looking on the ground and says “bit, bite, bite.”

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When I write about the missing silent truth in my mother’s letters, I think about this one.  While she does mention that I was supposed to watch nearly two-year-old Sharon in the yard as she describes this event, she does NOT tell my father of her violent attack on me because her baby got hurt.

Whether or not five-year-old-me was given the responsibility to watch Sharon in the yard or not I don’t know.  What I do know is that this event was added to my mother’s abuse litany for me and brought up again over and over with repeated beatings throughout the following years that proved I was irresponsible, that I could not be trusted with anything, that I hated my sister, that I resented her for being alive, that I wanted to be an only child, that I LET Sharon get bit by the red ants on purpose…..

No, mother doesn’t mention this to my father.  She didn’t share with him the rest of the story.  She simply told him her version, leaving out what she DIDN’T want to share with him.  She did this in the same way that she carefully chose to share with my father what she did in her letters (as I mentioned in my last post) about the missing card and my missing tooth.  Because my grandmother was just too close by, and because my grandmother was beginning to UN-SHARE parts of my mother’s delusions, grandmother had to go.

But what is really rolling around in my thinking as I dig dirt and shovel wet mud into my adobe forms outside is the fact that this collection of letters between my mother and father shows some of the patterns of the SHARED delusions between them in a way that is unique to the situation that allowed the letters to be created in the first place.  (Eventually the letters ended up being shared with me and now with you – but that certainly was never mother’s intention!).

SHARED relates to her statement that “We’re not ordinary people – we’re a close knit family and should never be separated!”  My mother lost her ability to share her delusional world unquestioned with her own mother different than she could when I was smaller (“Linda’s tired, she’s in her room resting, she’s in her room sleeping, she was a bad girl and I had to punish her…”).  Because the delusion had to remain intact, my grandmother was, as I wrote the other day, simply and effectively removed from the stage of our family’s ongoing life once we moved to Alaska.  From that point forward, my mother could control what my grandmother knew in her letters – the same way she did in these letters to my father.

I was also thinking that in the letters my mother wrote to her mother once we were all in Alaska, patterns of difficulties between my mother and other people outside our family begin to appear in her letters to her mother.  The only delusion that my mother could make REAL – and could hence tolerate other people’s participation in it, albeit remote participation – was our ‘homesteading’.

As far as the truth about what was going on within the walls of our home, my mother could hardly tell the neighbors or anyone at PTA meetings, “I beat my 1st grader last night, didn’t feed her supper, made her spend the night in the dark alone on a kitchen stool because she got the white ruffs at the edge of her coat dirty.  By the way, what happened in your family’s home last night?”

Experts often talk about the isolated world abusive family’s live in.  Of course, my parents found very extreme ways to accomplish this state for ours.  But in the end, I think it may well be that the need to keep the violence and abuse going on within a home a secret is so that the SHARED delusions that feed the abuse can remain intact.

Shared, in my thinking, means joint participation.  Joint participation in my mother’s delusion about me was critical to its continued existence.  The delusion justified her martyrdom of me.  As long as nobody broke through the delusion, her treatment of me could continue unchallenged and unstopped.  This is exactly what happened.

NOTE:  In case we might be tempted to entertain any illusion or delusion of our own about how powerful delusional participation-sharing can be, we need only to think about what happened when Hitler was able to create a delusion and share it with others who were willing to participate in his delusion with him.

While I was born into my mother’s delusion and never given any option but to participate and share her delusion with her, somehow I have managed to claw my way free enough to begin to consider the delusion (and my childhood) from an outside perspective.

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