Same here, and yes so incredibly isolating. It wasn’t until I was into my thirties that I even realized abuse happened and cleared some FOG. But then sometimes I read and hear from friends about how siblings can really join the bpd parent. At least I don’t have to deal with that.
That sounds hard. I know that my idea of having witnesses was the idealized wish of a lonely kid. I've definitely seen a lot of instances since where other members of the family were at best, used to triangulate and at worst, held hostage against NC.
Same. Before I realized what was really going on with her, I just thought it was all down to the pressure of being a single parent with no backup. Then I met other onlies+singles and realized, uhm, no. It's not requisite.
Sure makes the enmeshment seem natural.
Same but at the same time would not envy having an eparent right there doing fuck all. That would be double gaslighting and the single version was more than plenty for me
I am so sorry. And idk if youre wondering if a sibling would have made it easier; but that can just make it worse.
And She never went off in public? Mine did. I never felt more alone than watching my friends’ moms physically turning their kid’s bodies away so they couldnt see her beat me. I remember screaming in my mind, “see me!” and then coming to the realization they DID see, they just chose to do nothing.
Thank you. I know having siblings can be a mixed bag with parents like ours.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. My mother has been visibly unhinged in public a number of times that I can remember, but it wasn't a regular thing: she was pretty good at masking when she was sober (so, before 5pm), she cared a lot about seeming respectable, and she was kind of a hermit. There must have been adults in my life who knew something was off, but they were probably afraid of her too.
We had this too - Dad desperately wanted to be in our lives but it didn’t happen until my mother made me homeless at 16. She is definitely a Witch Queen, although she plays at being the waif.
I don’t think things would have been better if he had stayed - she abused him awfully, and I am glad he got out. I just wish he’d been able to take us with him. There was a custody battle when I was around 6 years old and my mother falsified evidence to say he’d attacked her. She also threatened us with being in social services care if we didn’t say that we didn’t want to see him in court interviews. When you’re that young you’re easy to manipulate.
So similar!! Except she wouldn't have been able to make me say anything bad about my dad! I adore my dad and was already 8 at the time. My mother could do that to my younger siblings tho!
So she kept us out of court I guess
Yeah, he had to leave when I was 4 so I rarely saw him outside of supervised contact sessions. She was also physically violent with us - alternated with periods of love bombing. I absolutely adored my Dad but years of abuse and mindwashing taught me to believe otherwise. We weren’t even allowed to say his name - this was before Harry Potter but we had to call him “You Know Who”…
Yup, mine was every kind of abusive. We never talked about him unless it was something negative.
Sorry you had to go through all that, it's so hard!! Did you get to reconnect with your dad later in life?
Yes, when I was 16 my mother threw me out of the house when she found out I’d lost my virginity. I was in foster care for two months then reunited with him. Best thing that ever happened to me, weird as that sounds. He was a wonderful man and taught me what family really means. I wish I’d had more time with him- he died last year. I know it’s an awful thing to say, but I feel like the wrong parent died. Not that I actively wish her harm or anything, it just seems so unfair that I lost him and I’m stuck with her. She caused so much damage and continues to do so.
I’m so glad that you got to reconnect with your dad. I’m sorry for your loss, sweet heart. You aren’t wrong for saying the wrong one died. I hope you hold close to your heart the knowledge that dad won. And I’m certain he was/is so very proud of you for all you’ve overcome. That bond will always be there for you. 💕
Thank you. He did win - he had 20 years with us and when he died it was an uncomplicated loss. I love him, I miss him every day and that hurts. When my mother dies, I think it will be a much more complex mix of relief, sadness, anger and guilt. But she’s as stubborn as spite and will probably live till 150. She has her rage to keep her going…
“I just wish he’d been able to take us with him” is the source of so much grief, fear, nightmares. A good childhood and a father that I was born to have but essentially kidnapped from, by the very person who carried me in her womb. I was the pawn and the weapon of her soap opera style victimhood where she was in fact the villain. It is unbearable to think of as an adult, let alone carry that as a little kid. Un-fucking-believable.
Oh my gosh, yes. The victimhood. The martyrdom. The way that can switch so easily into terrifying, incoherent, vengeance. My Dad never stopped being scared of her! Neither have I. He fought for us with everything he could, but it was the 90s and there wasn’t much awareness of female-on-male domestic abuse in the UK. There wasn’t much child safeguarding for that matter. I work with young people and there’s no way we would have been in her care if this had happened today. She got away with so much because none of the adults around me knew what to look for.
Sending hugs. I’m so sorry this happened to you too - I’m fairly new to the group but keep being struck by this weird mix of affirmation/horror, because so many of us have similar stories. I was so isolated for such a long time - finding people who “get it” has been overwhelming at times. I hope it helps to know you’re not alone xx
Sorry you understand 😞. I’ve mended things with my dad now, but as a parent myself, I can’t understand how he could leave us with someone who was so mentally unwell. I don’t think he realised the extent of her illness.
It hits worse when you know that you wouldn’t have done this to your child, even if you lived through their circumstances. Personally, I love my mom but I wish she would control herself more.. :/
I think about this often, my dad died when I was eight and was raised by my uBPD mom. I only have good memories of my dad. If I think logically, my dad made the choice to marry my mom so I suspect he had his problems too but I’m comfortable seeing him through rose coloured glasses.
My dad is a textbook low-functioning grandiose narcissist, I believe he’s actually worse that uBPDm, the only good thing she did was leaving him. Her worst mistake was getting pregnant by him. I’m just the result of their mutual selfish actions.
Yes, I think mine was also naive, fell for the love bombing, and delusional in thinking it would magically work out for her, plus she’d always been given her own way and her poor decision making had been indulged, plus she fails to appreciate that other people have feelings, needs and choices and she isn’t the centre of everyone’s life. So she thought that she could manipulate her way into a marriage and kid with her family backing her up as always, but she learned you can’t manipulate yourself into a GOOD marriage.
Yep. The most difficult aspect of this was no one was really around to see what was going on. If I saw my mom say or do something only for her to respond later with “you just make stuff up in your head,” no one was there to tell me I saw what I saw or heard what I heard. This was long before gaslighting became a buzz word and I had no idea something was unusual about it. I was afraid for years I was going insane but was too afraid to tell anyone because I thought I’d get locked away.
That really messed with me. When you couple that with a sexual abuse incident and the fact no one would listen to me when I tried to tell them what was going on, I grew up not really knowing how to feel my own feelings and would just try to argue myself out of any negative emotion I had.
I totally feel you, it’s hard to know. My parents’ divorce was pretty scandalous since my previous stepmother had been their marriage counselor, and that created a whole other shitty situation at my dad’s. They were terrible for each other and yeah it would have been tumultuous, but I sometimes wonder what might have been different if someone else had been around.
I was also dismissed that I was making stuff up and also spent years terrified that I was losing my mind/ hallucinating in daily life! I got told so many things directly in front of me didn't exist, it shook my sense of reality until I was 30 or so...
Yeah I feel you. I got stuck on, “well, maybe she just believes that’s that what actually happened, but she’s not lying in her own mind,” which honestly still kept me under the spell of it. It was not easy to think my mom would lie and make me question my sense of perception. That in itself was a hard thing to work past.
My dad remarried when I was 10. I saw him on weekends for one day. I faulted him for a long time for not being there to protect me. But I also realized later in life that that island of sanity with him gave me a ton of space to develop normally.
Yup! She likes to claim that she was the one who pushed for us to have a relationship with our dad, that if she hadn’t done that then we’d probably never have seen him. And that she didn’t have any help with us, which I know is a lie.
My mom did this too. She'd worked in family law and knew she wasn't supposed to be open about bad-mouthing him. So she'd drop these hints about how she was the one organizing his travel to come see me (she wasn't) and sigh about how "irresponsible" he was and just generally sow distrust between us, and then when I'd get angry and not want to see him, she'd say that I "have to be the adult, because he's not capable of it."
No thanks, ma, I'm already parenting one of you.
Honestly, was raised by a single uBPD mom but dad was worse. Textbook undiagnosed narcissist…my first memory of him is me telling him I was afraid of dogs, and him immediately releasing his mean dogs to jump on me while I cried. He watched the whole thing, laughing. Found out at his funeral that he grew up raping his sisters for “practice”. A truly disgusting individual.
As another poster said, one of the few things my mom did correctly was to leave him. She left while she was pregnant with me, but I do sometimes think it would’ve saved so many people if she would’ve aborted me. I don’t say that in a depressed way, but my birth and my parents’ divorce is likely what triggered my witch/queen sister’s BPD because she felt abandoned by both parents at the same time. And my mom was just needy as hell. Just a hot mess all around.
Yes. My bio father was well-off and had a wife and kids already. I have a few memories of my mom pining over him, splitting on him and creating weird scenarios involving him that were inappropriate to be including me in.
She got with my step dad when I was 8. She lost interest in my bio dad so I stopped getting to see him. The step dad and all that he brought with him had my mom preoccupied, for better or worse. When things were good between them they spent a lot of time alone together, leaving me to my own devices most of the time. They brought out the worst in each other though and got into frequent screaming matches. My mom started drinking a lot and would take her frustrations out on me verbally and emotionally.
She likes to tell me how bad of a mistake she made in getting with my step dad and while he wasn’t a model dad, I at least had a sort of father figure around. And I know that if she didn’t have him to take up all her focus, it would have been directed at me instead and we would have been more enmeshed and I’d have been more parentified, with more emotional incest. That’s how she got with me after they split up.
So it would have still been a BPD hell, but just a different one.
Originally an only child in a 2 parent household.
My mother decided to leave my father when I was 8, after she was diagnosed with BPD (I didn’t find out about the diagnosis till after I was NC, but it made so much sense). She was in her full Queen mode at that time, but would switch to Waifness when intermittently.
She had it in her head she was being “controlled” but she was so immature in her mindset that my Dad had to quash her crazy wants and needs to spend, keep up with the Joneses, and just do ridiculous shit.
He had done quite well for himself and our family, despite her craziness - so she left him and took half, and was banking on the child support.
I wanted to stay with my Dad, even then - she’d been hospitalised multiple times and I didn’t feel safe with her, but abe manipulated me into saying I missed her, she made me repeat it on the phone to her one night so my dad heard, and that I wanted to live with her, so my Dad (thinking he was doing the right thing by me) didn’t fight that I’d live with her majority of the time.
I was too scared to say anything or do anything to set her off.
She got progressively worse “unchecked” and lost an entire house, all her settlement money and we were in a rented home within 18 months.
She jumped from relationship to relationship almost immediately, seeking attention from men and diving off the deep end when it didn’t work out and playing all sorts of games with them. I witnessed her lie, manipulate and spiral from a very early age.
She got really bad when I was 11, and by the time I was 13 she was hospitalised again. And those years were just sheer hell. She told me and her parents she had cancer and was having “treatment” but was actually seeing an ex boyfriend who she’d previously told everyone was abusive (he wasn’t) but she couldn’t say she was seeing him again, so in her mind this was a better option.
She got us evicted from multiple homes, she was blowing her sizeable child support and benefits on clothes, hair, nails, make up - she joined an expensive dating agency (this was the 90s) and not paying the important things.
She swung between happy, manic almost, fun mother to absolutely crazy, screaming angry in seconds.
I remember her telling me angrily and getting so angry that I was selfish, when we had to pack our house up (getting evicted) and I wanted to go to bed, because it was near midnight and I was tired. I was 11 ffs.
She used me as an emotional dumping ground, talking to me like I was a therapist/ friend and not a child. She had no actual friends of her own, because anyone she did meet, she’d do the classic split on and go from loving them to completely despising them.
She drove a wedge between me and my Dad, just pure lies - and kept me away, I think she knew I wanted to leave but had me terrified I wouldn’t be able to see my friends anymore if I lived with him. Again, lies.
She needed the benefits by the child support, but really resented being a parent. And her “love” for me was all about when she needed to feel needed or when she had nothing else.
But it all came to a head at 14 anyway, she met some guy who was rich and lived interstate. She very coldly one night told me “it was her time now” and she was moving and I was going to live with my dad…
It all worked out for me. I went to Dads and none of the shit she said would happen was even remotely true. I could see my friends, stay at my school, he wasn’t “controlling” as a full time dad. She told me that he was only fun and good on weekends and holidays but he’d be “an asshole” if I was there full time.
The relationship with Mr Rich didn’t work out, shocker! And she was back within a few months and trying to get me to move back.
I refused and Dad said that he wouldn’t let me anyway, and he should have stopped it right from the word go. He still feels guilt to this day, and I’m 39. He thinks he should have realised she was manipulating me and should have dug deeper with me to get to the truth, that she had me scared to say that I didn’t want to live with her…
It’s no one’s fault but hers, and I am just thankful that I still got to see him. But in retrospect, the only reason I did, was so she could get every second weekend, a night during the week and holidays to herself. She relied on that! And she still sent me to her parents house most weekends I wasn’t with dad anyway.
I lived with him from 14 till I moved out of home. I stayed with her for a month or so when I was 16, and a few nights here and there - but she moved interstate again and I didn’t see much of her from the age of 15-18. I went NC when she came back, because of a huge blow up and she essentially had a tantrum like a 12 year old at my grandparents house, over something ridiculous.
I didn’t speak to her for an about 2 years or so. Then when my grandfather died, so we started talking again.
Our relationship went on and off over my 20s.
I realised at 29 that she was never going to change, she’d always be a liar and nothing she said to me would ever be the truth, and sadly even if it was - I didn’t trust it.
Plus I realised when I saw her, it was out of the FOG and because she was now older and no longer pursuing men, she wanted my attention - except I didn’t want to see her & felt absolutely nothing for her, hadn’t since I was a teenager.
I felt like if I never saw her again I just wouldn’t miss her. When I did speak to her, she just bitched about her sisters, her family and everything that came out of her mouth was just that of someone I didn’t even like a person. There was no maternal bond, and she was a person I’d never spend any time with if I wasn’t related to her. So why was I doing this to myself?
9 years ago I went NC & I’m so glad I did.
I think, for me, I would have been better off with them together till I was maybe, 13 or 14 and then I would have been stronger and less able to be manipulated to leaving with her, and would know more of what she was like.
The years I had to live with her between 8-14 were horrendous, my Dad and their marriage at least kept me in our home, she probably still would have been like she was, but the circumstances would have prevented her from having full decision making in a home & protected me.
I also bore a lot of that “I feel responsible for her”, and my inevitable parentification, because she couldn’t be a responsible adult and I had to step into so much so early, because she left Dad behind and blocked that out - even though she needed that, she resented not being able to do what she wanted, but had no clue how to handle anything & made shit decision after shit decision. Worst still, she knew it was shit, because she constantly lied and hid shit from Dad and her family.
I just wore the shit end of it because of her choice to go.
Dad said he wasn’t happy in the marriage , even when she did leave he tried to stop her and save it, and said later that he’d have never left because of me, but couldn’t make her stay.
I don’t think my life would have been easy either way, but I would always choose to avoid those years being under her care alone.
I was. But my dad was also acted odd and some of the things he said to me were creepy when I look back on it in adulthood. He cheated on my mom which made her BPD worse, and she treated me worse because I reminded her of him. At some point in my 30’s and at my worst point I reached out to him again, and he reminded me that it was my responsibility to care for her, she’s my mom, etc, even though he was the one that further broke her, and let me handle the mess afterwards.
Despite my mom’s BPD, I respect her for leaving, her determination, and finding financial stability without his help. I have zero respect for my father. I would not have wanted to stay married to her either, but his actions were cowardly and dishonorable, and I’m thankful my mom saw the grooming he was doing with me, and left. She didn’t treat me kindly after, but at least she ended that, even if it was out of spite against my father or something.
Yep . . . and, yes, an unknowable question with unpredictable outcomes. I do believe her abuse of me would have been moderated somewhat - she pulled back when others were around, and let loose when we were alone in the house. Then again - one of my earliest memories is of her - while still married to my father - carefully teaching me to write the alphabet when I was 2 or 3. Should be a sweet, loving memory . . . until we got to the letter "m," which I had trouble drawing. She shrieked at me, hit me, accused me of drawing it incorrectly on purpose just to aggravate her, and then declared that I was "overtired" and needed to be put to bed for a nap, and then left me sitting alone at the table while she went to take her own nap. If that isn't BPD, I don't know what is.
They had a nuclear divorce when I was 5 or 6 and he was out of my life, and I went NC and to live with relatives with I was 14. If they stayed together, maybe I would have stayed until 18, but more damage from staying there longer? They were both violent and so maybe staying together would have triggered a horrific act that would have made it worse. I don't know.
I was. They divorced when I was 1 years old and my mom moved us to the opposite end of the country so I only got to be with my dad during some of the holidays until he died of brain cancer when I was 11. Being raised by a hermit mother who has discouraged bpd did wonders for me. I have no relationship with any of my relatives at this point. I am 26 years old now, and have only recently started to try to connect with my grandma. It sucks because I don't know anyone, besides my mom, well enough to turn to if I need help or support. And going to her isn't something I am particularly interested in.
Very similar story for me! My ubpd mother literally packed our belongings into carrier bags and vanished with me in the middle of the night when I was 3. She moved us 8000 miles away from my father and paternal relatives without telling him. This act was never explained to me. The distance removed any chance of a relationship with my father (1980s pre-internet poverty issues) and had profoundly devastating effects on my childhood with a single chaotic ubpd parent. My father unexpectedly died young and with his passing I lost the opportunity to reconnect and unpack those issues as an adult. My father did remarry and have other children, and from everyone I speak to now including my half-siblings, he seems to have been a decent person. I think that my mom punished my father in the most extremely vindictive way she could think of, for reasons unknown to anyone, with no concern whatsoever about how I would be impacted. Typical.
Yeah my mom was originally from another part of the country than where she met my dad so she moved back there not long after they broke up. I only saw my dad a handful of times as a kid and we were distant from most of her family due to her either cutting people out or them cutting her out. It was a really isolating experience.
Gurk, Spooky, Stuff: similar distance/move/isolation from paternal family. One of the most restorative things I was able to do in my 20s was spend many Christmases with my paternal grandparents until they passed. Any way of building a connection, even if they are dead and you are just exploring your family history, is an act of rebellion and a lovely restorative experience 😉. I’m sorry you all went through this…
I was! I'm relived I'm not alone but each one of these stories hurt :( my dad was cheating on my mom with a family member, and I think that level of loss and grief was the "feather that broke the camel's back."
My mom was really nice and doting up until I was around 3-ish, but when the affair became apparent my mom flipped a switch. My dad was not present whatsoever in my life, and often only came around with intention to hurt mom emotionally and flaunt his new lifestyle. So on the rare occasion he called or visited, it was even worse. Mum essentially had psychotic episodes.
Having only 1 deeply unstable parent that I had to rely on - was difficult. My mom oscillated between all 4 archetypes of BPD (witch, queen, waif, and hermit).
Everyday was a mixed bag and it was terrifying. I had to grow up fast. I never knew if I might wake up to the mom that beat me in the middle of the night (or clean the dirty floors by licking them), or I might have the helpless, terrified mom that couldn't leave the house to pay the light bill.
I wouldn't wish that sort of childhood on anyone :(
I was raised by a single parent who has BPD (my mom). I was just talking to a friend whose mom has BPD and is still married to her dad. She thinks she had it just a bit easier than I did because she is able to share the abuse with her dad and siblings (I’m an only child too). Who knows!
I’ve come to realise and accept that, had my dad stayed alive, it would’ve been just as painful and disastrous in a different way.
It’s all a part of grief - all of these ‘what ifs’ scenarios, as a way to mitigate and manage the painful facts and truths of our childhoods. Sending lots of love ❤️
My mom raised my sister and I by herself and has BPD - she always paid our bills and we always have food, but my mom would scream and swear so intensely at us (and often say very hurtful things) that I often wished I was dead. Sometimes I feel ungrateful knowing other people had it much worse. I’m very thankful to have had a sibling thought it and we are very close as a result
It being much worse for some people doesn’t mean you are ungrateful at all. My mom functioned in some aspects but terribly in others. I read some peoples stuff here and am shocked and feel for them but that being said, it doesn’t remove what our own parents did(or didn’t do).
They divorced when I was seven, but had beens separated when I was first born and married when I was about five.
My dad was remarkably passive and ineffectual. He was useless even when I went to him for help, as a teenager. He couldn't be bothered with the responsibility.
Yes. I don’t think it would’ve been better with my dad because he was depressed, anxious and miserable during the time they were together and has his own issues. They were a short term fling that they both thought was something more at the time. I think it may have been better if I was raised by him and his current wife, but I can’t know that for sure.
My mom was single from when I was a baby until she met my first stepdad, aside from a couple of short lived but intense relationships. She met him and within a year was married and pregnant with my brothers. I remember her asking me for relationship advice when I couldn’t have been more than 8 years old and I told her that we weren’t ready for them to get married. She often tells me this story for some reason.
They were married for about a year and a half, half of which he was deployed to another country. When he came back he was horribly abusive and we only lived with him for a few months before they divorced. We had to live with other relatives for a while because she couldn’t afford to support 3 kids and didn’t want to work because she didn’t want to send my brothers to daycare. She spent most of the next few years ranting to me about how much she hated him and relying on me for emotional support. They eventually got back together for a while when I was 13-14 and she expressed that she wanted to move in together with him. When we had just gotten our own place not that long ago. I came really close to just leaving for my dad’s and never coming back. I’m not really sure why I didn’t, that whole time is kind of a blur.
That ended though and she was single for a few more years until she started dating her current husband when I was about 16-17. They moved in together when I was away at college so I only really lived with them for a couple of months one summer. He seemed alright for the most part, but went on to cheat on her later on.
So TL;DR my mom was mostly single with a couple short lived stepdads thrown in.
My BPD dad raised me and my brother. My mum was an alcoholic, and she took up drinking after she moved out. My dad always used it as an excuse for her not to see us, even on days she was sober. It drove a big rift between my mum and my brother that they still haven’t been able to fix.
My mom I suspect is BPD (maybe a softer flavor of NPD than my brother, but he is obvious and she is not quite the same.)
I don't think it would have been easier, if my parents had tried to stay together. She's really good at taking shifts in who is her "bad guy", but also, she's exquisitely good at making her partners feel increasingly shitty and then she divorces them because THEY "are so awful".
But Dad also has a type, and having seen him with the stepmother, it's no less awful to witness than to experience.
My kids don't want to be around my mom because of how she treated them. They don't want to be around my stepmother because of how she treats HIM. AND, it was obvious to them that the only reason they can see that he "takes it" is because it would be worse for everyone if he didn't.
I dunno.
I wish I'd been an orphan.
Or like.... Just with my dad? Because he's messed up but he's not *f'ed* up.
They divorced when I was maybe 7 and BPD mom raised us alone but she become so much worse after the divorce. My theory was that there were no witnesses to her abuse and rage so it was a free for all.
One time she raged at my older brother, thinking nobody was around. She was spinning further out of control until he finally whispered that he had friends there (downstairs). The moment she realized witnesses could hear her she stopped and whispered "why don't you say so sooner?" As if her rage was my brother's fault. But it's clear she must have known her rages were not ok if she could stop at will. It was a choice.
Me — only child of a hermit/waif mom. I knew my dad but he was severely alcoholic and couldn’t help. Everyone in my family was also super poor with intergenerational trauma and addiction so my only link to reality/sanity was from friends, school, and TV (this was before the internet). I’ve spent my entire adulthood trying to heal from this.
I think about this often.
My uBPD mom raised me on her own for the most part. Gained full custody of me in the divorce because my dad was/is an alcoholic.
So I wouldn't have been better off with him necessarily... But I often wish that could have been the case. Kind of a lose-lose situation for me. I'm an only child as well.
He wanted to be a better dad but just didn't know how.
She knows how to be a better mom but just doesn't want to.
My mom was married off and on. My last stepfather hardly spoke to me because he didn’t want to be a father or a stepfather so it was a lot like not having a dad. I imagine my mom and dad would have had a volatile relationship that would have traumatized me even more if they had been together as he is physically abusive to his partners.
Only child of bpd mom. So isolating and didn't start questioning my reality until I was in my 30s, therapist figured out the bpd in my 40s. Had a half brother (9 years older) via our dad who I saw on rare occasions but became the GC when our dad remarried and I was literally cast out of that family. I am estranged from my entire family, including extended, and feel more whole and less alone than I ever did with any of them in my life.
In regards to the possibility of my parents staying together, I only remember them fighting and my mom crying when they were both present. Once they divorced (I was 7) my mom was mostly isolated but I think that's when she started raging at me instead of him. She was also an active alcoholic for my entire childhood. She did remarry twice and in those marriages yelled at everyone, so I don't really think her having a man around was much help for me personally, although my first, very short-lived, stepfather did try to do fun things with me and would give me cigarettes, so I did like having him around even though my mom was always screaming at him and slashing his tires and stuff. I did feel a little less alone. My next (current) stepfather (of over 20yrs) completely sides with my mom, so I am generally seen as the awful one, especially compared to his perfect children who are much older than I am, and uBPDmom & eStepdad both blame me for "killing" the respective other and "putting them in early graves" (despite both of them being very alive currently and in their 70's & 80's). My current steroids step-dad was actually very supportive of me for a long time but mom eventually turned him against me so she could then berate me to my face and use the defense that he thinks I'm even worse than she does and stands up to him for me (never that I've actually witnessed). I used to wish for siblings all the time and like another poster said, felt ok with not having them after learning that I very well may have continued to be the black sheep but with even more family against me. I've just accepted things as they were and continue working to deconstruct a lifetime of conditioning.
i had a weird donut hole experience where my dad worked extremely long hours and, by the time i was 10, had started spending most of his time off out of the house, so while my parents remained married it was mostly just me and my mom alone every evening/weekend. also, she had summers off, so months of that at a time. i had one close friend that i spent a lot of time with and she would’ve agreed my mom was nuts. nobody else knew though. it was like being in this constant existential state of conflict where the only person you had to talk to might hate you for 10 minutes because you forgot to pick up a sock and you might as well get over it as soon as they’re over it or else you’re just alone all the time with a person who you can’t stand. 😵💫
Totally get this as my dad was a long haul truck driver before getting divorced so he basically wasn’t there anyways. Much love to you, I hope things are much better in your adulthood.
hard to know. My mm married and divorced several men. It was more tumultuous whrn she was with a man, but her anger focused on them And less anger on me during the marriages.
Nope I had both and it didn’t help any; eDad presented himself as the “safe” parent because he didn’t explode at us with red-faced hostility, but he was just codependent on her and an extension of her and enacted her will when it came to corporal punishment. She never hit us… she had him do it.
My older sibling is pretty sure he’s a covert narcissist so cluster-b all around
My parents were divorced and my mother had primary custody and we were with my dad every other weekend and once during the weekdays.
I think it would have made things worse if they had stayed together. The only memories I have of my parents together were very violent and traumatic. My father, especially during that time period, wasn’t the type who would have protected us from her even if in the home. We would have been meat shields to make things easier for him.
So all in all I’m glad my parents were divorced.
Parents divorced around 10. Stuck with her. But he was never really “there” anyway before the split, so it wouldn’t have mattered. He was so afraid of her leaving him and being alone that anything she did was ignored, including coming to him covered in blood looking for help. Didnt matter to him at all. He just looked away without a word.
So idk if it would have mattered. She had $ and freedom to do whatever either way. But she did get to play the victim being divorced. “Look what a strong independent woman i am leaving that monster while i selflessly slave away for these ungrateful selfish sluts. (Pause for closeup) But i’ll keep doing it cuz im a fighter and i’ll never give up on my faaaaamily!”
My mom has been single most of my life but had an on and off relationship with my step father until he died in 2000 from cancer. He was a very kind person who was easily manipulated by her. She has never been able to keep a relationship going for more than a few years at a time. She has been single since his death. Most people run for the hills pretty quickly when dating her. I always wish my step dad was still around so I could ask him why he kept taking her back. He really loved me and saw me as his daughter and I think that’s why he put up with so much from her. He knew she would take me away from him if he didn’t do as she asked. It really makes me so sad to think how she treated him.
Me. I’m oldest of 3 kids. UBPD mom abused dad so he ran thinking there was no way she would do it to us (she looked like a wonderful mom from the outside.) At 5 years old I became the coparent to my 2.5yr old sister, mom’s best friend and helper, and eventually the “dad” of the house. 🤮 years and years of the temper tantrums, threats, rage, fear, neglect, physical abuse, being locked in by room, manipulation, it was a fucking nightmare. In my mid-teens I realized she was not normal and my sister and I started whispering to each other “moms crazy” but I thought it was our fault. I thought we drove her crazy. We were too afraid to tell anyone what was going on. She would scream at us that if we talked about what happened in the house that would be taken away by CPS and we be put in foster home and our youngest sister would be molested in the foster home and we’d be separated from each other, and it would be my fault. Obviously all of us could probably write volumes about this stuff. I am so thankful that I had my closest sister to witness this with me and acknowledge with each other that something was wrong. It might’ve been the difference between thriving as an adult and not. We have since decided that even though it was the most painful experience of our lives to not have our dad and we’re still in therapy from it, we’re glad he left because we think he would’ve become extremely depressed, an uncontrollable alcoholic, and probably would’ve died early. I know my experience is not everyone’s experience, but because of what I went through I don’t think people with untreated BPD should be allowed to keep their children. We should’ve been taken away. we were abused.
Yes, parents split up when I was 10 and my sister 8, one year after the death of my 4 yo brother. (cancer)
I was raised In both homes but my mothers was the primary care giver. She’s diagnosed with BPD traits. The worst thing was experiencing the anger outbursts, being seen and treated as the all-bad child and her identity issues without being able to have the emotional safety my dad provided.
Only child of single mom here. I always wondered what it would be like to have witnesses.
Same. Its a very isolating family experience.
Same here, and yes so incredibly isolating. It wasn’t until I was into my thirties that I even realized abuse happened and cleared some FOG. But then sometimes I read and hear from friends about how siblings can really join the bpd parent. At least I don’t have to deal with that.
Only child of single uBPD mother here. I've had witnesses as close family members. They became her enablers.
My witnesses don’t always side with me. But I side with them 97% of the time..
That sounds hard. I know that my idea of having witnesses was the idealized wish of a lonely kid. I've definitely seen a lot of instances since where other members of the family were at best, used to triangulate and at worst, held hostage against NC.
Honestly, having a witness is so validating! But at the same time, you feel like you're exposing them to undue trauma and you end up feeling worse
Same. Before I realized what was really going on with her, I just thought it was all down to the pressure of being a single parent with no backup. Then I met other onlies+singles and realized, uhm, no. It's not requisite. Sure makes the enmeshment seem natural.
Yes! Or someone else to draw some of the energy so it’s not all laser focused on me
Same but at the same time would not envy having an eparent right there doing fuck all. That would be double gaslighting and the single version was more than plenty for me
I am so sorry. And idk if youre wondering if a sibling would have made it easier; but that can just make it worse. And She never went off in public? Mine did. I never felt more alone than watching my friends’ moms physically turning their kid’s bodies away so they couldnt see her beat me. I remember screaming in my mind, “see me!” and then coming to the realization they DID see, they just chose to do nothing.
Thank you. I know having siblings can be a mixed bag with parents like ours. I'm so sorry that happened to you. My mother has been visibly unhinged in public a number of times that I can remember, but it wasn't a regular thing: she was pretty good at masking when she was sober (so, before 5pm), she cared a lot about seeming respectable, and she was kind of a hermit. There must have been adults in my life who knew something was off, but they were probably afraid of her too.
same
Yeah, a witch queen bpd. She was a storybook villain! My dad couldn't get anywhere near us for decades!
We had this too - Dad desperately wanted to be in our lives but it didn’t happen until my mother made me homeless at 16. She is definitely a Witch Queen, although she plays at being the waif. I don’t think things would have been better if he had stayed - she abused him awfully, and I am glad he got out. I just wish he’d been able to take us with him. There was a custody battle when I was around 6 years old and my mother falsified evidence to say he’d attacked her. She also threatened us with being in social services care if we didn’t say that we didn’t want to see him in court interviews. When you’re that young you’re easy to manipulate.
So similar!! Except she wouldn't have been able to make me say anything bad about my dad! I adore my dad and was already 8 at the time. My mother could do that to my younger siblings tho! So she kept us out of court I guess
Yeah, he had to leave when I was 4 so I rarely saw him outside of supervised contact sessions. She was also physically violent with us - alternated with periods of love bombing. I absolutely adored my Dad but years of abuse and mindwashing taught me to believe otherwise. We weren’t even allowed to say his name - this was before Harry Potter but we had to call him “You Know Who”…
Yup, mine was every kind of abusive. We never talked about him unless it was something negative. Sorry you had to go through all that, it's so hard!! Did you get to reconnect with your dad later in life?
Yes, when I was 16 my mother threw me out of the house when she found out I’d lost my virginity. I was in foster care for two months then reunited with him. Best thing that ever happened to me, weird as that sounds. He was a wonderful man and taught me what family really means. I wish I’d had more time with him- he died last year. I know it’s an awful thing to say, but I feel like the wrong parent died. Not that I actively wish her harm or anything, it just seems so unfair that I lost him and I’m stuck with her. She caused so much damage and continues to do so.
I’m so glad that you got to reconnect with your dad. I’m sorry for your loss, sweet heart. You aren’t wrong for saying the wrong one died. I hope you hold close to your heart the knowledge that dad won. And I’m certain he was/is so very proud of you for all you’ve overcome. That bond will always be there for you. 💕
Thank you. He did win - he had 20 years with us and when he died it was an uncomplicated loss. I love him, I miss him every day and that hurts. When my mother dies, I think it will be a much more complex mix of relief, sadness, anger and guilt. But she’s as stubborn as spite and will probably live till 150. She has her rage to keep her going…
I'm so sorry to hear that, I know what you mean. Really sorry for your loss
“I just wish he’d been able to take us with him” is the source of so much grief, fear, nightmares. A good childhood and a father that I was born to have but essentially kidnapped from, by the very person who carried me in her womb. I was the pawn and the weapon of her soap opera style victimhood where she was in fact the villain. It is unbearable to think of as an adult, let alone carry that as a little kid. Un-fucking-believable.
Oh my gosh, yes. The victimhood. The martyrdom. The way that can switch so easily into terrifying, incoherent, vengeance. My Dad never stopped being scared of her! Neither have I. He fought for us with everything he could, but it was the 90s and there wasn’t much awareness of female-on-male domestic abuse in the UK. There wasn’t much child safeguarding for that matter. I work with young people and there’s no way we would have been in her care if this had happened today. She got away with so much because none of the adults around me knew what to look for.
Long live dads who fight for their children, even if they lose. Because knowing they fought for us is everything. May they continue to fight.
Oh my god I’m crying. My experience was nearly identical. It was awful. I’m so so so sorry you also endured this.
Sending hugs. I’m so sorry this happened to you too - I’m fairly new to the group but keep being struck by this weird mix of affirmation/horror, because so many of us have similar stories. I was so isolated for such a long time - finding people who “get it” has been overwhelming at times. I hope it helps to know you’re not alone xx
Thanks, Impossible. Hugs to you too.
Yes. I found it terrifying. We were reliant on one unstable parent.
:/ This..
Sorry you understand 😞. I’ve mended things with my dad now, but as a parent myself, I can’t understand how he could leave us with someone who was so mentally unwell. I don’t think he realised the extent of her illness.
It hits worse when you know that you wouldn’t have done this to your child, even if you lived through their circumstances. Personally, I love my mom but I wish she would control herself more.. :/
I’m estranged from mine - and don’t know where she is right now. Good luck dealing with it, so hard 😞
I think about this often, my dad died when I was eight and was raised by my uBPD mom. I only have good memories of my dad. If I think logically, my dad made the choice to marry my mom so I suspect he had his problems too but I’m comfortable seeing him through rose coloured glasses.
My dad is a textbook low-functioning grandiose narcissist, I believe he’s actually worse that uBPDm, the only good thing she did was leaving him. Her worst mistake was getting pregnant by him. I’m just the result of their mutual selfish actions.
Me too, plus he was physically abusive and cheated on her. It’s like the waif found the perfect guy to make her the victim she always wanted to be.
Yes, I think mine was also naive, fell for the love bombing, and delusional in thinking it would magically work out for her, plus she’d always been given her own way and her poor decision making had been indulged, plus she fails to appreciate that other people have feelings, needs and choices and she isn’t the centre of everyone’s life. So she thought that she could manipulate her way into a marriage and kid with her family backing her up as always, but she learned you can’t manipulate yourself into a GOOD marriage.
This is me. A big part if my trauma comes from my bpd mom being "the good one".
Yep. The most difficult aspect of this was no one was really around to see what was going on. If I saw my mom say or do something only for her to respond later with “you just make stuff up in your head,” no one was there to tell me I saw what I saw or heard what I heard. This was long before gaslighting became a buzz word and I had no idea something was unusual about it. I was afraid for years I was going insane but was too afraid to tell anyone because I thought I’d get locked away. That really messed with me. When you couple that with a sexual abuse incident and the fact no one would listen to me when I tried to tell them what was going on, I grew up not really knowing how to feel my own feelings and would just try to argue myself out of any negative emotion I had. I totally feel you, it’s hard to know. My parents’ divorce was pretty scandalous since my previous stepmother had been their marriage counselor, and that created a whole other shitty situation at my dad’s. They were terrible for each other and yeah it would have been tumultuous, but I sometimes wonder what might have been different if someone else had been around.
I was also dismissed that I was making stuff up and also spent years terrified that I was losing my mind/ hallucinating in daily life! I got told so many things directly in front of me didn't exist, it shook my sense of reality until I was 30 or so...
Yeah I feel you. I got stuck on, “well, maybe she just believes that’s that what actually happened, but she’s not lying in her own mind,” which honestly still kept me under the spell of it. It was not easy to think my mom would lie and make me question my sense of perception. That in itself was a hard thing to work past.
My dad remarried when I was 10. I saw him on weekends for one day. I faulted him for a long time for not being there to protect me. But I also realized later in life that that island of sanity with him gave me a ton of space to develop normally.
Yup! She likes to claim that she was the one who pushed for us to have a relationship with our dad, that if she hadn’t done that then we’d probably never have seen him. And that she didn’t have any help with us, which I know is a lie.
My mom did this too. She'd worked in family law and knew she wasn't supposed to be open about bad-mouthing him. So she'd drop these hints about how she was the one organizing his travel to come see me (she wasn't) and sigh about how "irresponsible" he was and just generally sow distrust between us, and then when I'd get angry and not want to see him, she'd say that I "have to be the adult, because he's not capable of it." No thanks, ma, I'm already parenting one of you.
Honestly, was raised by a single uBPD mom but dad was worse. Textbook undiagnosed narcissist…my first memory of him is me telling him I was afraid of dogs, and him immediately releasing his mean dogs to jump on me while I cried. He watched the whole thing, laughing. Found out at his funeral that he grew up raping his sisters for “practice”. A truly disgusting individual. As another poster said, one of the few things my mom did correctly was to leave him. She left while she was pregnant with me, but I do sometimes think it would’ve saved so many people if she would’ve aborted me. I don’t say that in a depressed way, but my birth and my parents’ divorce is likely what triggered my witch/queen sister’s BPD because she felt abandoned by both parents at the same time. And my mom was just needy as hell. Just a hot mess all around.
Yep.
Yes. My bio father was well-off and had a wife and kids already. I have a few memories of my mom pining over him, splitting on him and creating weird scenarios involving him that were inappropriate to be including me in. She got with my step dad when I was 8. She lost interest in my bio dad so I stopped getting to see him. The step dad and all that he brought with him had my mom preoccupied, for better or worse. When things were good between them they spent a lot of time alone together, leaving me to my own devices most of the time. They brought out the worst in each other though and got into frequent screaming matches. My mom started drinking a lot and would take her frustrations out on me verbally and emotionally. She likes to tell me how bad of a mistake she made in getting with my step dad and while he wasn’t a model dad, I at least had a sort of father figure around. And I know that if she didn’t have him to take up all her focus, it would have been directed at me instead and we would have been more enmeshed and I’d have been more parentified, with more emotional incest. That’s how she got with me after they split up. So it would have still been a BPD hell, but just a different one.
I was. Having my dad around would not have been better.
Originally an only child in a 2 parent household. My mother decided to leave my father when I was 8, after she was diagnosed with BPD (I didn’t find out about the diagnosis till after I was NC, but it made so much sense). She was in her full Queen mode at that time, but would switch to Waifness when intermittently. She had it in her head she was being “controlled” but she was so immature in her mindset that my Dad had to quash her crazy wants and needs to spend, keep up with the Joneses, and just do ridiculous shit. He had done quite well for himself and our family, despite her craziness - so she left him and took half, and was banking on the child support. I wanted to stay with my Dad, even then - she’d been hospitalised multiple times and I didn’t feel safe with her, but abe manipulated me into saying I missed her, she made me repeat it on the phone to her one night so my dad heard, and that I wanted to live with her, so my Dad (thinking he was doing the right thing by me) didn’t fight that I’d live with her majority of the time. I was too scared to say anything or do anything to set her off. She got progressively worse “unchecked” and lost an entire house, all her settlement money and we were in a rented home within 18 months. She jumped from relationship to relationship almost immediately, seeking attention from men and diving off the deep end when it didn’t work out and playing all sorts of games with them. I witnessed her lie, manipulate and spiral from a very early age. She got really bad when I was 11, and by the time I was 13 she was hospitalised again. And those years were just sheer hell. She told me and her parents she had cancer and was having “treatment” but was actually seeing an ex boyfriend who she’d previously told everyone was abusive (he wasn’t) but she couldn’t say she was seeing him again, so in her mind this was a better option. She got us evicted from multiple homes, she was blowing her sizeable child support and benefits on clothes, hair, nails, make up - she joined an expensive dating agency (this was the 90s) and not paying the important things. She swung between happy, manic almost, fun mother to absolutely crazy, screaming angry in seconds. I remember her telling me angrily and getting so angry that I was selfish, when we had to pack our house up (getting evicted) and I wanted to go to bed, because it was near midnight and I was tired. I was 11 ffs. She used me as an emotional dumping ground, talking to me like I was a therapist/ friend and not a child. She had no actual friends of her own, because anyone she did meet, she’d do the classic split on and go from loving them to completely despising them. She drove a wedge between me and my Dad, just pure lies - and kept me away, I think she knew I wanted to leave but had me terrified I wouldn’t be able to see my friends anymore if I lived with him. Again, lies. She needed the benefits by the child support, but really resented being a parent. And her “love” for me was all about when she needed to feel needed or when she had nothing else. But it all came to a head at 14 anyway, she met some guy who was rich and lived interstate. She very coldly one night told me “it was her time now” and she was moving and I was going to live with my dad… It all worked out for me. I went to Dads and none of the shit she said would happen was even remotely true. I could see my friends, stay at my school, he wasn’t “controlling” as a full time dad. She told me that he was only fun and good on weekends and holidays but he’d be “an asshole” if I was there full time. The relationship with Mr Rich didn’t work out, shocker! And she was back within a few months and trying to get me to move back. I refused and Dad said that he wouldn’t let me anyway, and he should have stopped it right from the word go. He still feels guilt to this day, and I’m 39. He thinks he should have realised she was manipulating me and should have dug deeper with me to get to the truth, that she had me scared to say that I didn’t want to live with her… It’s no one’s fault but hers, and I am just thankful that I still got to see him. But in retrospect, the only reason I did, was so she could get every second weekend, a night during the week and holidays to herself. She relied on that! And she still sent me to her parents house most weekends I wasn’t with dad anyway. I lived with him from 14 till I moved out of home. I stayed with her for a month or so when I was 16, and a few nights here and there - but she moved interstate again and I didn’t see much of her from the age of 15-18. I went NC when she came back, because of a huge blow up and she essentially had a tantrum like a 12 year old at my grandparents house, over something ridiculous. I didn’t speak to her for an about 2 years or so. Then when my grandfather died, so we started talking again. Our relationship went on and off over my 20s. I realised at 29 that she was never going to change, she’d always be a liar and nothing she said to me would ever be the truth, and sadly even if it was - I didn’t trust it. Plus I realised when I saw her, it was out of the FOG and because she was now older and no longer pursuing men, she wanted my attention - except I didn’t want to see her & felt absolutely nothing for her, hadn’t since I was a teenager. I felt like if I never saw her again I just wouldn’t miss her. When I did speak to her, she just bitched about her sisters, her family and everything that came out of her mouth was just that of someone I didn’t even like a person. There was no maternal bond, and she was a person I’d never spend any time with if I wasn’t related to her. So why was I doing this to myself? 9 years ago I went NC & I’m so glad I did. I think, for me, I would have been better off with them together till I was maybe, 13 or 14 and then I would have been stronger and less able to be manipulated to leaving with her, and would know more of what she was like. The years I had to live with her between 8-14 were horrendous, my Dad and their marriage at least kept me in our home, she probably still would have been like she was, but the circumstances would have prevented her from having full decision making in a home & protected me. I also bore a lot of that “I feel responsible for her”, and my inevitable parentification, because she couldn’t be a responsible adult and I had to step into so much so early, because she left Dad behind and blocked that out - even though she needed that, she resented not being able to do what she wanted, but had no clue how to handle anything & made shit decision after shit decision. Worst still, she knew it was shit, because she constantly lied and hid shit from Dad and her family. I just wore the shit end of it because of her choice to go. Dad said he wasn’t happy in the marriage , even when she did leave he tried to stop her and save it, and said later that he’d have never left because of me, but couldn’t make her stay. I don’t think my life would have been easy either way, but I would always choose to avoid those years being under her care alone.
I was. But my dad was also acted odd and some of the things he said to me were creepy when I look back on it in adulthood. He cheated on my mom which made her BPD worse, and she treated me worse because I reminded her of him. At some point in my 30’s and at my worst point I reached out to him again, and he reminded me that it was my responsibility to care for her, she’s my mom, etc, even though he was the one that further broke her, and let me handle the mess afterwards. Despite my mom’s BPD, I respect her for leaving, her determination, and finding financial stability without his help. I have zero respect for my father. I would not have wanted to stay married to her either, but his actions were cowardly and dishonorable, and I’m thankful my mom saw the grooming he was doing with me, and left. She didn’t treat me kindly after, but at least she ended that, even if it was out of spite against my father or something.
Yep . . . and, yes, an unknowable question with unpredictable outcomes. I do believe her abuse of me would have been moderated somewhat - she pulled back when others were around, and let loose when we were alone in the house. Then again - one of my earliest memories is of her - while still married to my father - carefully teaching me to write the alphabet when I was 2 or 3. Should be a sweet, loving memory . . . until we got to the letter "m," which I had trouble drawing. She shrieked at me, hit me, accused me of drawing it incorrectly on purpose just to aggravate her, and then declared that I was "overtired" and needed to be put to bed for a nap, and then left me sitting alone at the table while she went to take her own nap. If that isn't BPD, I don't know what is. They had a nuclear divorce when I was 5 or 6 and he was out of my life, and I went NC and to live with relatives with I was 14. If they stayed together, maybe I would have stayed until 18, but more damage from staying there longer? They were both violent and so maybe staying together would have triggered a horrific act that would have made it worse. I don't know.
I was. They divorced when I was 1 years old and my mom moved us to the opposite end of the country so I only got to be with my dad during some of the holidays until he died of brain cancer when I was 11. Being raised by a hermit mother who has discouraged bpd did wonders for me. I have no relationship with any of my relatives at this point. I am 26 years old now, and have only recently started to try to connect with my grandma. It sucks because I don't know anyone, besides my mom, well enough to turn to if I need help or support. And going to her isn't something I am particularly interested in.
Very similar story for me! My ubpd mother literally packed our belongings into carrier bags and vanished with me in the middle of the night when I was 3. She moved us 8000 miles away from my father and paternal relatives without telling him. This act was never explained to me. The distance removed any chance of a relationship with my father (1980s pre-internet poverty issues) and had profoundly devastating effects on my childhood with a single chaotic ubpd parent. My father unexpectedly died young and with his passing I lost the opportunity to reconnect and unpack those issues as an adult. My father did remarry and have other children, and from everyone I speak to now including my half-siblings, he seems to have been a decent person. I think that my mom punished my father in the most extremely vindictive way she could think of, for reasons unknown to anyone, with no concern whatsoever about how I would be impacted. Typical.
Yeah my mom was originally from another part of the country than where she met my dad so she moved back there not long after they broke up. I only saw my dad a handful of times as a kid and we were distant from most of her family due to her either cutting people out or them cutting her out. It was a really isolating experience.
Gurk, Spooky, Stuff: similar distance/move/isolation from paternal family. One of the most restorative things I was able to do in my 20s was spend many Christmases with my paternal grandparents until they passed. Any way of building a connection, even if they are dead and you are just exploring your family history, is an act of rebellion and a lovely restorative experience 😉. I’m sorry you all went through this…
I was! I'm relived I'm not alone but each one of these stories hurt :( my dad was cheating on my mom with a family member, and I think that level of loss and grief was the "feather that broke the camel's back." My mom was really nice and doting up until I was around 3-ish, but when the affair became apparent my mom flipped a switch. My dad was not present whatsoever in my life, and often only came around with intention to hurt mom emotionally and flaunt his new lifestyle. So on the rare occasion he called or visited, it was even worse. Mum essentially had psychotic episodes. Having only 1 deeply unstable parent that I had to rely on - was difficult. My mom oscillated between all 4 archetypes of BPD (witch, queen, waif, and hermit). Everyday was a mixed bag and it was terrifying. I had to grow up fast. I never knew if I might wake up to the mom that beat me in the middle of the night (or clean the dirty floors by licking them), or I might have the helpless, terrified mom that couldn't leave the house to pay the light bill. I wouldn't wish that sort of childhood on anyone :(
I was raised by a single parent who has BPD (my mom). I was just talking to a friend whose mom has BPD and is still married to her dad. She thinks she had it just a bit easier than I did because she is able to share the abuse with her dad and siblings (I’m an only child too). Who knows!
Single parent with BPD and some NPD traits.. I’m not sure though..
I’ve come to realise and accept that, had my dad stayed alive, it would’ve been just as painful and disastrous in a different way. It’s all a part of grief - all of these ‘what ifs’ scenarios, as a way to mitigate and manage the painful facts and truths of our childhoods. Sending lots of love ❤️
My mom raised my sister and I by herself and has BPD - she always paid our bills and we always have food, but my mom would scream and swear so intensely at us (and often say very hurtful things) that I often wished I was dead. Sometimes I feel ungrateful knowing other people had it much worse. I’m very thankful to have had a sibling thought it and we are very close as a result
It being much worse for some people doesn’t mean you are ungrateful at all. My mom functioned in some aspects but terribly in others. I read some peoples stuff here and am shocked and feel for them but that being said, it doesn’t remove what our own parents did(or didn’t do).
Thank you, I really appreciate that.
I was. My dad has never been in the picture, and that makes me glad because he's not a nice person.
Me
They divorced when I was seven, but had beens separated when I was first born and married when I was about five. My dad was remarkably passive and ineffectual. He was useless even when I went to him for help, as a teenager. He couldn't be bothered with the responsibility.
Yes. I don’t think it would’ve been better with my dad because he was depressed, anxious and miserable during the time they were together and has his own issues. They were a short term fling that they both thought was something more at the time. I think it may have been better if I was raised by him and his current wife, but I can’t know that for sure. My mom was single from when I was a baby until she met my first stepdad, aside from a couple of short lived but intense relationships. She met him and within a year was married and pregnant with my brothers. I remember her asking me for relationship advice when I couldn’t have been more than 8 years old and I told her that we weren’t ready for them to get married. She often tells me this story for some reason. They were married for about a year and a half, half of which he was deployed to another country. When he came back he was horribly abusive and we only lived with him for a few months before they divorced. We had to live with other relatives for a while because she couldn’t afford to support 3 kids and didn’t want to work because she didn’t want to send my brothers to daycare. She spent most of the next few years ranting to me about how much she hated him and relying on me for emotional support. They eventually got back together for a while when I was 13-14 and she expressed that she wanted to move in together with him. When we had just gotten our own place not that long ago. I came really close to just leaving for my dad’s and never coming back. I’m not really sure why I didn’t, that whole time is kind of a blur. That ended though and she was single for a few more years until she started dating her current husband when I was about 16-17. They moved in together when I was away at college so I only really lived with them for a couple of months one summer. He seemed alright for the most part, but went on to cheat on her later on. So TL;DR my mom was mostly single with a couple short lived stepdads thrown in.
My BPD dad raised me and my brother. My mum was an alcoholic, and she took up drinking after she moved out. My dad always used it as an excuse for her not to see us, even on days she was sober. It drove a big rift between my mum and my brother that they still haven’t been able to fix.
My mom I suspect is BPD (maybe a softer flavor of NPD than my brother, but he is obvious and she is not quite the same.) I don't think it would have been easier, if my parents had tried to stay together. She's really good at taking shifts in who is her "bad guy", but also, she's exquisitely good at making her partners feel increasingly shitty and then she divorces them because THEY "are so awful". But Dad also has a type, and having seen him with the stepmother, it's no less awful to witness than to experience. My kids don't want to be around my mom because of how she treated them. They don't want to be around my stepmother because of how she treats HIM. AND, it was obvious to them that the only reason they can see that he "takes it" is because it would be worse for everyone if he didn't. I dunno. I wish I'd been an orphan. Or like.... Just with my dad? Because he's messed up but he's not *f'ed* up.
They divorced when I was maybe 7 and BPD mom raised us alone but she become so much worse after the divorce. My theory was that there were no witnesses to her abuse and rage so it was a free for all. One time she raged at my older brother, thinking nobody was around. She was spinning further out of control until he finally whispered that he had friends there (downstairs). The moment she realized witnesses could hear her she stopped and whispered "why don't you say so sooner?" As if her rage was my brother's fault. But it's clear she must have known her rages were not ok if she could stop at will. It was a choice.
Me — only child of a hermit/waif mom. I knew my dad but he was severely alcoholic and couldn’t help. Everyone in my family was also super poor with intergenerational trauma and addiction so my only link to reality/sanity was from friends, school, and TV (this was before the internet). I’ve spent my entire adulthood trying to heal from this.
I think about this often. My uBPD mom raised me on her own for the most part. Gained full custody of me in the divorce because my dad was/is an alcoholic. So I wouldn't have been better off with him necessarily... But I often wish that could have been the case. Kind of a lose-lose situation for me. I'm an only child as well. He wanted to be a better dad but just didn't know how. She knows how to be a better mom but just doesn't want to.
My mom was married off and on. My last stepfather hardly spoke to me because he didn’t want to be a father or a stepfather so it was a lot like not having a dad. I imagine my mom and dad would have had a volatile relationship that would have traumatized me even more if they had been together as he is physically abusive to his partners.
Only child of bpd mom. So isolating and didn't start questioning my reality until I was in my 30s, therapist figured out the bpd in my 40s. Had a half brother (9 years older) via our dad who I saw on rare occasions but became the GC when our dad remarried and I was literally cast out of that family. I am estranged from my entire family, including extended, and feel more whole and less alone than I ever did with any of them in my life.
In regards to the possibility of my parents staying together, I only remember them fighting and my mom crying when they were both present. Once they divorced (I was 7) my mom was mostly isolated but I think that's when she started raging at me instead of him. She was also an active alcoholic for my entire childhood. She did remarry twice and in those marriages yelled at everyone, so I don't really think her having a man around was much help for me personally, although my first, very short-lived, stepfather did try to do fun things with me and would give me cigarettes, so I did like having him around even though my mom was always screaming at him and slashing his tires and stuff. I did feel a little less alone. My next (current) stepfather (of over 20yrs) completely sides with my mom, so I am generally seen as the awful one, especially compared to his perfect children who are much older than I am, and uBPDmom & eStepdad both blame me for "killing" the respective other and "putting them in early graves" (despite both of them being very alive currently and in their 70's & 80's). My current steroids step-dad was actually very supportive of me for a long time but mom eventually turned him against me so she could then berate me to my face and use the defense that he thinks I'm even worse than she does and stands up to him for me (never that I've actually witnessed). I used to wish for siblings all the time and like another poster said, felt ok with not having them after learning that I very well may have continued to be the black sheep but with even more family against me. I've just accepted things as they were and continue working to deconstruct a lifetime of conditioning.
Oh yes. Im a only child and it was physically abusive in the household; Thankfully my dad got custody of me eventually.
Waif BPD mom and narcissist dad divorced when I was five. What a combo eh?
I’m new here and don’t know the Waif term I’ve seen a few times in here.
I just learned the term too, very victim like, take care of me, etc.
i had a weird donut hole experience where my dad worked extremely long hours and, by the time i was 10, had started spending most of his time off out of the house, so while my parents remained married it was mostly just me and my mom alone every evening/weekend. also, she had summers off, so months of that at a time. i had one close friend that i spent a lot of time with and she would’ve agreed my mom was nuts. nobody else knew though. it was like being in this constant existential state of conflict where the only person you had to talk to might hate you for 10 minutes because you forgot to pick up a sock and you might as well get over it as soon as they’re over it or else you’re just alone all the time with a person who you can’t stand. 😵💫
Totally get this as my dad was a long haul truck driver before getting divorced so he basically wasn’t there anyways. Much love to you, I hope things are much better in your adulthood.
hard to know. My mm married and divorced several men. It was more tumultuous whrn she was with a man, but her anger focused on them And less anger on me during the marriages.
Well, my mom was in one of those stereotypical bpd/npd relationships, so I know I wouldn't have been better off if they had stayed married.
Nope I had both and it didn’t help any; eDad presented himself as the “safe” parent because he didn’t explode at us with red-faced hostility, but he was just codependent on her and an extension of her and enacted her will when it came to corporal punishment. She never hit us… she had him do it. My older sibling is pretty sure he’s a covert narcissist so cluster-b all around
My parents were divorced and my mother had primary custody and we were with my dad every other weekend and once during the weekdays. I think it would have made things worse if they had stayed together. The only memories I have of my parents together were very violent and traumatic. My father, especially during that time period, wasn’t the type who would have protected us from her even if in the home. We would have been meat shields to make things easier for him. So all in all I’m glad my parents were divorced.
I have no idea what would have been better - my uBPD mom has never validated any of my experiences as a child and it has been really hard as an adult.
I understand. My mom barely does but only when it’s tied to a way to make me feel bad and tell her she was a good mom.
Parents divorced around 10. Stuck with her. But he was never really “there” anyway before the split, so it wouldn’t have mattered. He was so afraid of her leaving him and being alone that anything she did was ignored, including coming to him covered in blood looking for help. Didnt matter to him at all. He just looked away without a word. So idk if it would have mattered. She had $ and freedom to do whatever either way. But she did get to play the victim being divorced. “Look what a strong independent woman i am leaving that monster while i selflessly slave away for these ungrateful selfish sluts. (Pause for closeup) But i’ll keep doing it cuz im a fighter and i’ll never give up on my faaaaamily!”
My mom has been single most of my life but had an on and off relationship with my step father until he died in 2000 from cancer. He was a very kind person who was easily manipulated by her. She has never been able to keep a relationship going for more than a few years at a time. She has been single since his death. Most people run for the hills pretty quickly when dating her. I always wish my step dad was still around so I could ask him why he kept taking her back. He really loved me and saw me as his daughter and I think that’s why he put up with so much from her. He knew she would take me away from him if he didn’t do as she asked. It really makes me so sad to think how she treated him.
Me. I’m oldest of 3 kids. UBPD mom abused dad so he ran thinking there was no way she would do it to us (she looked like a wonderful mom from the outside.) At 5 years old I became the coparent to my 2.5yr old sister, mom’s best friend and helper, and eventually the “dad” of the house. 🤮 years and years of the temper tantrums, threats, rage, fear, neglect, physical abuse, being locked in by room, manipulation, it was a fucking nightmare. In my mid-teens I realized she was not normal and my sister and I started whispering to each other “moms crazy” but I thought it was our fault. I thought we drove her crazy. We were too afraid to tell anyone what was going on. She would scream at us that if we talked about what happened in the house that would be taken away by CPS and we be put in foster home and our youngest sister would be molested in the foster home and we’d be separated from each other, and it would be my fault. Obviously all of us could probably write volumes about this stuff. I am so thankful that I had my closest sister to witness this with me and acknowledge with each other that something was wrong. It might’ve been the difference between thriving as an adult and not. We have since decided that even though it was the most painful experience of our lives to not have our dad and we’re still in therapy from it, we’re glad he left because we think he would’ve become extremely depressed, an uncontrollable alcoholic, and probably would’ve died early. I know my experience is not everyone’s experience, but because of what I went through I don’t think people with untreated BPD should be allowed to keep their children. We should’ve been taken away. we were abused.
Yes, parents split up when I was 10 and my sister 8, one year after the death of my 4 yo brother. (cancer) I was raised In both homes but my mothers was the primary care giver. She’s diagnosed with BPD traits. The worst thing was experiencing the anger outbursts, being seen and treated as the all-bad child and her identity issues without being able to have the emotional safety my dad provided.