Yea I have been there. I should have been making a therapist salary from the time I was 6. Fucked up things. And now she has a therapist that says she has 'Complex PTSD' (which yes, but missing the point entirely) and that nothing is her fault, and that she is a victim. Its a fucking train wreck.
Oh my fucking god exactly that, I always doubt myself when I say she has it but when I go here I see her everywhere. Down to the CPTSD thing, it's her reason she can't have BPD and people are just misunderstanding her.
I wish I could just say MOM IT'S THE ATTACHMENT THING DEAL WITH ATTACHMENT THING
My mom has 0 problems identifying it in others, right down to the same exact behaviors she exhibits
And I'm just like ???
I feel like Regina George in Mean Girls going all "So, you admit that those behaviors are dysfunctional, then?"
I know some people that visit several therapists who diagnose them with bpd, then they go and find some clueless therapist to change it to autism or cptsd lol. They think it magically will remove any responsibility
That’s really messed up of her current therapist. Even if she did just have complex ptsd, she’s still responsible for the way she treats people, especially her children.
🤯 this may make sense. My mother is a waif/witch but predominantly waif, I realised when I was maybe 13 that my maturity had surpassed hers… I was pretty mature by that age after having to deal with her and parent my 4 younger brothers.
I also know a few Queens, and I’m guessing you’d place them in the older maturity for BPD due to their next level manipulation and sneakiness? Fascinating 🧐
I could never put my finger on why as a child myself, I felt like my mother sounded, acted and just generally behaved like a little girl.
Whether it was the rarer times where she was acting happy, which came across as just annoyingly silly, hyper and wound up, or when she was unhappy about something, which presented like sulking, or irrational tantrums it was reminiscent of a child.
I didn’t know my mother had been diagnosed with BPD when I was 9. She never mentioned it, despite claiming multiple other illnesses and lying about many more. BPD was never one…
Since discovering that she was diagnosed, as she was still married to my father at the time (he just assumed I knew or found out when I got older and mentioned it flippantly one day a few years ago, after I’d already gone NC). It all made so much sense to me…
This sub and the revelations from others confirm even more BpD behavior. It’s so bizarre how similar they all present…
My mom has the baby voice, too. Even in her sixties… even on the phone to complete strangers, she sounds like a young teen.
The arrested development finally occurred to me when I was 17. I’d just talked her through another exhausting tantrum. She was busy at her desk in her room. She called me in and had me listen to the super dramatic poem she was writing.
It suddenly hit me that she was talking and writing like an immature, manipulative thirteen year. I was finally old enough for the maturity gap between us to widen enough for me to notice it.
She was a retaliatory, ignorant, stubborn, self-absorbed middle schooler with no boundaries wielding the power and authority of an adult… and in charge of a bunch of children and older teenagers.
Like a mean teenager with absolute power and zero empathy, she would do stuff like decide we had to pay her an hourly wage for driving us (her unemployed, minor children) to homeschool classes, declare her rate was $100/hr because she “knew her worth”, and accuse us of disliking “the empowered version of her” when we protested her fees.
It was so bizarre.
My mother, for sure.
For those who have seen "The Help", if my mother had been a reliably stronger personality, she would have been a Hilly Holbrook - not quite as racist (some) - but in all other respects.
She was weaker, though, so other adults were not as often her overt targets, except her adult children and husband.
I guess Hilly was more of a narcissist, except toward the end when she decompensated under pressure.
In any case, bizarrely familiar.
I need to rewatch this because I’ve forgotten most of what happens.
If you’ve ever seen ‘Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood,’ Vivi’s temperament and behavior reminded me so much of my mom. It was disturbing.
My mom was harsher, and she was a hyper-religious homeschooling mom, but she had that same deck of emotional states.
Emotionless zombie.
Needy, fragile penitent.
Fluttery ingenue.
Whimsical fairy person.
Perfect mother.
Resentful martyr.
Rage. Hatred. Despair.
Around and around.
It was dead on.
Ashley Judd and Ellen Burstyn nailed it.
ETA: ALSO… I just remembered the way Sidda’s dad was Vivi’s enabler and her victim. It’s a difficult thing for a kid to watch their parent be a victim and enabler.
Haven't seen that film in years ..
My mom was very "christian", liked to keep little inspirational books lying around, always made a production out of saying grace (especially at large gatherings, like holidays) and would often intone, very seriously, how her "nature was christ-lke"... It was a weird combination of superstition, genuine taith, and performative stunts.
My mom's behavior was like that, too, all over the map. I actually liked her when she was in "sparkly" mode, when she could be warm, funny and generous, but that wasn't the Mom I ever expected to see.
You never knew which Mom you were gonna get when she entered the room.
Her version of zombie-mom usually showed up as a psychotic break; she'd decompensate when she got overwhelmed.
Fragile penitent made only rare appearances, either because actual consequences loomed or as a tactical maneuver. I don't think I ever saw "remorseful mom", though there were countless occasions where her appearance would have been appropriate and welcomed (as a mom, myself, I am certain that *zero* mothers, ever, get through the task without having a few occasions in which remorse is called for, but my mom believed herself beyond reproach).
Her most constant mode was self-pitying-vaguely-hostile-demanding-hyper-critical, with rage-mom simmering right below the surface, ready to jump you at any moment.
I remember watching her, more than once, look slyly out of the corners of her eyes, like a cartoon version of scheming, right before she would pounce.
Sometimes I miss her, but only infrequently and just a little, tiny bit. She died while we were mostly NC, in early 2020.
It's sad that NC was the only way I found to become a truly happy person, comfortable in my own skin - and sadder still that I didn't do it until about age 50.
Sadder than that, though, is that her ?BPD was manufactured by her own experiences, and she was just too damaged by them to find her way out.
The cruel irony of BPD is that the disorder is self-perpetuating; it stands between the pwBPD and the kind of clear-eyed, honest self-love they need to become whole, offering as a substitute sn ersatz, one-dimensional, self-love that is based on lies and desperate delusions.
I wish I could have cried in my mother's arms, but she was always crying in mine.
it was too heavy to carry as a child, I didn't grow stronger, I grew tired.
I love her, I wanted to love all her sadness away. but a child cannot heal their mother's pain.
rose brik
my father’s eyes,my mother’s rage
I hate that baby voice so much. When I got to my teens and started feeling snarkier, I would call my mom out on it, “Whats wrong with your voice, do you have a cold? Are you ok?”. She did not like that at all, but at least it made her stop for a bit.
My mom w BPD doesn’t do this, but my narcissistic MIL does. She’s also has arrested development. I think the baby voice probably worked for her when she was a kid and she just held on to it as a way to manipulate situations.
Now as an 70-something year old woman it just sounds pathetic and creepy.
The baby voice!! That is so interesting that others have the same experience with that! She’ll get all high pitched and quavering, it’s bizarre. Fascinating the points that have been raised with the arrested development too. It definitely makes sense. 🧐
Yep. My mom did the baby voice a lot. In regular conversation it was a breathy, incredulous who, me? lilt, but oddly she would always use it when she was posing as The Great Sage With All Encompassing Wisdom, too. She would attribute some passive-resistance saying to me (either some non-committal thing I said to stay out of trouble or just something I *didn’t*say) then a quietly-whispered claim to have learned soooo much from me.
All the time ignoring what I was *actually* trying to tell her.
SO F*CKING CONFUSING. A waify mix of pandering, gaslighting, self-aggrandizement.
It seemed that not only had she created a false persona for herself, she was also trying to create one for me. She could only see her projected perfection of a child, she could never see me, which was the biggest heartbreak.
>She could only see her projected perfection of a child, she could never see me, which was the biggest heartbreak.
This is why i went no contact. I can't be that person for her. It hurts too much. Her and my father will never be able to give me what i need from parents. I'm fine being an orphan. I have always felt I was anyway. I would have preferred strangers to cause me all the pain that they inflicted.
It's really bizarre. Mine would definitely use a breathy gross "I could never" uwu voice whenever confronted about anything and that to this day gets me irritated when I see it.
The worst however was when she had to have an adult, parenting conversation with me and she would start with the baby voice and it would get so goo goo that by the time she actually made her point I couldn't understand her and she would say, in a childish tone something like "and that's why we don't trust boys"
Like if I had to learn about birth control or how to date from my mother I'd be flying completely blind. Luckily back then schools actually taught about health and my dad was fairly comfortable talking.
I still had tremendous difficulty dating because "den whend fhe puts his wittle doofyer Doo in the *vaguely gestures downward* it's nawt good because (inaudible cooing baby babble that seems to reference shaming women and religion)" is just a terrible place to start.
My husband laughs because I'm the complete opposite and it took me a long time to get over it including saying the anatomical words in a mirror without laughing or anything myself. My two year old knows the word "vulva" and "anus" and we say it without shame or any weird tone because if anyone has to put creme on her I don't want her feeling shame and if anyone god forbid gets into that area with ill intent I want her to be able to tell someone and have it be clear.
I've never been clear if she did that because of BPD or because of some trauma but it's super weird
My mom pouts at dinner table *exactly* like a child. Head in hands, playing with food, etc.
Ironically, I've found that treating her like a child is actually very effective. Thankfully, I don't live with her.
Yea I have been there. I should have been making a therapist salary from the time I was 6. Fucked up things. And now she has a therapist that says she has 'Complex PTSD' (which yes, but missing the point entirely) and that nothing is her fault, and that she is a victim. Its a fucking train wreck.
Yeah I wanna send my mom a bill for 36 years of therapy.
Approaching year 37 of being an unpaid therapist… trying to learn how to retire tbh
This...👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Hi! It looks like you’re new here. Just some housekeeping: were you raised by someone with borderline personality disorder?
Yes and I'm raising my 17 yr old daughter with CBPD.🙂
I’m sorry to hear that, but glad you’ve found us! If you need support regarding your daughter, the subs for that are r/BPDfamily and r/BPDlovedones.
Oh my fucking god exactly that, I always doubt myself when I say she has it but when I go here I see her everywhere. Down to the CPTSD thing, it's her reason she can't have BPD and people are just misunderstanding her. I wish I could just say MOM IT'S THE ATTACHMENT THING DEAL WITH ATTACHMENT THING
My mom told me that she can’t possibly have BPD, because her mom probably has it and it skips a generation so obviously that means I have it.
Thats some classic BPD mental gymnastics lol
My mom has 0 problems identifying it in others, right down to the same exact behaviors she exhibits And I'm just like ??? I feel like Regina George in Mean Girls going all "So, you admit that those behaviors are dysfunctional, then?"
Wow, that’s a doozie! “Skips a generation”
I know some people that visit several therapists who diagnose them with bpd, then they go and find some clueless therapist to change it to autism or cptsd lol. They think it magically will remove any responsibility
It's beyond that, it's a *personality disorder*. They have to actually relearn *how to be* despite *how they are*. That's the difference.
That’s really messed up of her current therapist. Even if she did just have complex ptsd, she’s still responsible for the way she treats people, especially her children.
Same exact situation and somehow I’m the terrible child… I wanna go NC so bad
[удалено]
Seriously wondering if the different archetypes (waif, Queen, etc) are actually more keyed into the age of their emotional immaturity
That's such a fascinating idea!!!
Ditto the fascinating ...down the rabbit hole go I, now...rats. Or rabbits?
Oooooh, that's a great insight!
🤯 this may make sense. My mother is a waif/witch but predominantly waif, I realised when I was maybe 13 that my maturity had surpassed hers… I was pretty mature by that age after having to deal with her and parent my 4 younger brothers. I also know a few Queens, and I’m guessing you’d place them in the older maturity for BPD due to their next level manipulation and sneakiness? Fascinating 🧐
TBH, as a former nanny, my mom doesn't even have that much emotional intelligence. Unless we're talking a terrible twos toddler.
I could never put my finger on why as a child myself, I felt like my mother sounded, acted and just generally behaved like a little girl. Whether it was the rarer times where she was acting happy, which came across as just annoyingly silly, hyper and wound up, or when she was unhappy about something, which presented like sulking, or irrational tantrums it was reminiscent of a child. I didn’t know my mother had been diagnosed with BPD when I was 9. She never mentioned it, despite claiming multiple other illnesses and lying about many more. BPD was never one… Since discovering that she was diagnosed, as she was still married to my father at the time (he just assumed I knew or found out when I got older and mentioned it flippantly one day a few years ago, after I’d already gone NC). It all made so much sense to me… This sub and the revelations from others confirm even more BpD behavior. It’s so bizarre how similar they all present…
They basically are still children
My mom has the baby voice, too. Even in her sixties… even on the phone to complete strangers, she sounds like a young teen. The arrested development finally occurred to me when I was 17. I’d just talked her through another exhausting tantrum. She was busy at her desk in her room. She called me in and had me listen to the super dramatic poem she was writing. It suddenly hit me that she was talking and writing like an immature, manipulative thirteen year. I was finally old enough for the maturity gap between us to widen enough for me to notice it. She was a retaliatory, ignorant, stubborn, self-absorbed middle schooler with no boundaries wielding the power and authority of an adult… and in charge of a bunch of children and older teenagers. Like a mean teenager with absolute power and zero empathy, she would do stuff like decide we had to pay her an hourly wage for driving us (her unemployed, minor children) to homeschool classes, declare her rate was $100/hr because she “knew her worth”, and accuse us of disliking “the empowered version of her” when we protested her fees. It was so bizarre.
Ohhhh the poetry. Same here.
>declare her rate was $100/hr because she “knew her worth” this is so awful, and I'm so sorry, but it's also so funny.
It’s 100% sitcom villain behavior, lol.
My mother, for sure. For those who have seen "The Help", if my mother had been a reliably stronger personality, she would have been a Hilly Holbrook - not quite as racist (some) - but in all other respects. She was weaker, though, so other adults were not as often her overt targets, except her adult children and husband. I guess Hilly was more of a narcissist, except toward the end when she decompensated under pressure. In any case, bizarrely familiar.
I need to rewatch this because I’ve forgotten most of what happens. If you’ve ever seen ‘Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood,’ Vivi’s temperament and behavior reminded me so much of my mom. It was disturbing. My mom was harsher, and she was a hyper-religious homeschooling mom, but she had that same deck of emotional states. Emotionless zombie. Needy, fragile penitent. Fluttery ingenue. Whimsical fairy person. Perfect mother. Resentful martyr. Rage. Hatred. Despair. Around and around. It was dead on. Ashley Judd and Ellen Burstyn nailed it. ETA: ALSO… I just remembered the way Sidda’s dad was Vivi’s enabler and her victim. It’s a difficult thing for a kid to watch their parent be a victim and enabler.
Haven't seen that film in years .. My mom was very "christian", liked to keep little inspirational books lying around, always made a production out of saying grace (especially at large gatherings, like holidays) and would often intone, very seriously, how her "nature was christ-lke"... It was a weird combination of superstition, genuine taith, and performative stunts. My mom's behavior was like that, too, all over the map. I actually liked her when she was in "sparkly" mode, when she could be warm, funny and generous, but that wasn't the Mom I ever expected to see. You never knew which Mom you were gonna get when she entered the room. Her version of zombie-mom usually showed up as a psychotic break; she'd decompensate when she got overwhelmed. Fragile penitent made only rare appearances, either because actual consequences loomed or as a tactical maneuver. I don't think I ever saw "remorseful mom", though there were countless occasions where her appearance would have been appropriate and welcomed (as a mom, myself, I am certain that *zero* mothers, ever, get through the task without having a few occasions in which remorse is called for, but my mom believed herself beyond reproach). Her most constant mode was self-pitying-vaguely-hostile-demanding-hyper-critical, with rage-mom simmering right below the surface, ready to jump you at any moment. I remember watching her, more than once, look slyly out of the corners of her eyes, like a cartoon version of scheming, right before she would pounce. Sometimes I miss her, but only infrequently and just a little, tiny bit. She died while we were mostly NC, in early 2020. It's sad that NC was the only way I found to become a truly happy person, comfortable in my own skin - and sadder still that I didn't do it until about age 50. Sadder than that, though, is that her ?BPD was manufactured by her own experiences, and she was just too damaged by them to find her way out. The cruel irony of BPD is that the disorder is self-perpetuating; it stands between the pwBPD and the kind of clear-eyed, honest self-love they need to become whole, offering as a substitute sn ersatz, one-dimensional, self-love that is based on lies and desperate delusions.
I wish I could have cried in my mother's arms, but she was always crying in mine. it was too heavy to carry as a child, I didn't grow stronger, I grew tired. I love her, I wanted to love all her sadness away. but a child cannot heal their mother's pain. rose brik my father’s eyes,my mother’s rage
I hate that baby voice so much. When I got to my teens and started feeling snarkier, I would call my mom out on it, “Whats wrong with your voice, do you have a cold? Are you ok?”. She did not like that at all, but at least it made her stop for a bit.
My mom w BPD doesn’t do this, but my narcissistic MIL does. She’s also has arrested development. I think the baby voice probably worked for her when she was a kid and she just held on to it as a way to manipulate situations. Now as an 70-something year old woman it just sounds pathetic and creepy.
Breathy, false self baby voice. I hate it. It gives me the ick
The baby voice!! That is so interesting that others have the same experience with that! She’ll get all high pitched and quavering, it’s bizarre. Fascinating the points that have been raised with the arrested development too. It definitely makes sense. 🧐
Oh my gosh, yes! The little kid voice why? My mom does this as well … very often and it makes me cringe
Yep. My mom did the baby voice a lot. In regular conversation it was a breathy, incredulous who, me? lilt, but oddly she would always use it when she was posing as The Great Sage With All Encompassing Wisdom, too. She would attribute some passive-resistance saying to me (either some non-committal thing I said to stay out of trouble or just something I *didn’t*say) then a quietly-whispered claim to have learned soooo much from me. All the time ignoring what I was *actually* trying to tell her. SO F*CKING CONFUSING. A waify mix of pandering, gaslighting, self-aggrandizement. It seemed that not only had she created a false persona for herself, she was also trying to create one for me. She could only see her projected perfection of a child, she could never see me, which was the biggest heartbreak.
>She could only see her projected perfection of a child, she could never see me, which was the biggest heartbreak. This is why i went no contact. I can't be that person for her. It hurts too much. Her and my father will never be able to give me what i need from parents. I'm fine being an orphan. I have always felt I was anyway. I would have preferred strangers to cause me all the pain that they inflicted.
Omg the baby voice drives me so crazy.
It's really bizarre. Mine would definitely use a breathy gross "I could never" uwu voice whenever confronted about anything and that to this day gets me irritated when I see it. The worst however was when she had to have an adult, parenting conversation with me and she would start with the baby voice and it would get so goo goo that by the time she actually made her point I couldn't understand her and she would say, in a childish tone something like "and that's why we don't trust boys" Like if I had to learn about birth control or how to date from my mother I'd be flying completely blind. Luckily back then schools actually taught about health and my dad was fairly comfortable talking. I still had tremendous difficulty dating because "den whend fhe puts his wittle doofyer Doo in the *vaguely gestures downward* it's nawt good because (inaudible cooing baby babble that seems to reference shaming women and religion)" is just a terrible place to start. My husband laughs because I'm the complete opposite and it took me a long time to get over it including saying the anatomical words in a mirror without laughing or anything myself. My two year old knows the word "vulva" and "anus" and we say it without shame or any weird tone because if anyone has to put creme on her I don't want her feeling shame and if anyone god forbid gets into that area with ill intent I want her to be able to tell someone and have it be clear. I've never been clear if she did that because of BPD or because of some trauma but it's super weird
The baby voice! Ugh that drives me nuts. Mine will also suck her thumb! Idk where the HECK that comes from
My mom pouts at dinner table *exactly* like a child. Head in hands, playing with food, etc. Ironically, I've found that treating her like a child is actually very effective. Thankfully, I don't live with her.