PDs and self esteem

[Psuedonym]

I have been thinking today about self image and how that is warped in a person raised by a PD. I ran across this article today that was so similar to my own experience that I was amazed: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/stuck/201105/why-i-avoid-mirrors. I did this for years and years and heard a) the exact same words from uBPD M, as well as having all that projected on to me. I spent years where I couldn't look in mirrors and only when I got some distance from M did I start to realize that it was my thinking that might be not so accurate.

I've been thinking about this lately because M's way of dealing with the fact filled letter given to her in December has been to try to convince my BF that I'm mentally unstable and a liar. She's tried to use the fact that I was a depressed kid with no self-esteem against me - as if there was just something wrong with me that she obviously had nothing ot do with. In fact she paints herself as the hero of this story - she did everything she could to 'cheer me up!' I've called it emotional Munchausen by Proxy, and I think that's pretty close to the truth.

Anyone else experience something similar?

[RavenLady]

Hi Pseudonym. Ugh. There's so much here. My uPDm, to her credit, worked hard not to do to me what her M and grandma did to her, which was judge her harshly and exclusively on the basis of looks. She recounted repeatedly how every time she saw her grandma, she would tell her she would be pretty "if only she could lose 5 pounds," regardless of her current weight. I've seen photos of M from her youth and she was always a healthy weight. 1960's cheerleader weight, actually. Curvy and strong and beautiful. She also was stuck in beehive hairdos and way too much eye makeup that failed to mask her sorrow. She abandoned all that to do the hippy thing and for that, I am thankful.

But she always hated herself. She still does. She spews her self-hatred everywhere she goes, carries it like a badge, and went the other extreme, into ostentatious self-neglect. Quite waify. She did not spend time in front of mirrors, and eventually developed a dogma that it was bad to do so at all, that vanity and superficiality made you sinful and bad.

As her daughter, I understand why she banned Barbie dolls. I don't understand why she wouldn't teach me skin care. I appreciate that she steered me into developing more enduring character traits than fine hairspray technique. I don't appreciate that she left me unequipped for "the real world." I was selfish and vain when I wanted to blend in with the other girls and instead got her blessing for dressing like I was straight out of Little House on the Prairie. We wore thrift store clothes regardless of funds (I still do...) and I only learned about makeup from my involvement in performance arts. (Pro tip: the "pancake" of stage makeup is not a good look for the 8th grade.) This made "going out" on rare special occasions as a family incredibly stressful because she hated how she looked, didn't buy nice clothes for herself or me, and photos show we looked like an anachronistic circus act of self-contempt and knew it.

I am messed up about about my appearance now. Like a lot of American women, I suppose. Every day, I ask the mirror, "Do I pass? Do I look normal enough not to deserve social shunning?" Usually, the mirror says "no." I look back at pictures of my youth and think, hot damn. I was kinda cute. Had no idea. No wonder I was a magnet for sexual predators.

On the other hand, during adulthood I developed significant permanent facial blemishes that probably put me automatically in the ugly category for a lot of people. One thing Mom gave me is to know, deep inside, that that is a reflection more on them than on me. And yet, I struggle to see my own face as anything other than a problem. When it comes to self-care, it's damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I'm actually trying to wear makeup more often because whether it should or shouldn't it actually does make me feel more sexy, which it turns out, doesn't make me evil after all (at least, I still haven't grown horns). I look in mirrors now too just because I want to try to understand my own face. Who is this woman? Can you tell by looking at her what she's about? I don't even get vaporized or struck by lightning when I smile at me! So progress, here.

I got so depressed last year in the Great Reckoning with my parents' PDs and my own C-PTSD that I dropped a ton of weight which makes it easier to find clothes I like and feel good in, even in thrift stores. Yay mental illness! Wouldn't you know that in America, despairingly wasting away makes you more desirable. We're all just fine here. Really.

(Maria Bamford has some great jokes about living in L.A. and how many compliments she got after being sick and dropping weight that way..and how we are all pressured to get into "a shape"...and how they take the food away at restaurants before you're done...couldn't find these but if I do I will post...unless someone beats me too it!)

[Fiasco]

My BPDm took me to "have my colors done" and buy me the makeup recommended for my skin and eye color. Then when I was putting my new makeup on in the car on the way home she told me I was putting on too much and how awful it looked. Fast forward I finally had a girlfriend with excellent makeup skills come over for dinner and drinks in exchange for teaching me how to put on makeup. I was in my late 30's! It's never too late.

[Sophie48]

As Ravenlady said, "Ugh. There's so much here." So, so much...

My mom was beautiful (haven't seen her in years, though), but acted like she was hideous when I was growing up. Back then, I never understood why, and wished I looked more like her.

With my mom, it wasn't only mirrors; cameras were also the enemy. She frequently refused to be in family pictures.

For most of my life, I've reacted like her; dreading my reflection, dreading pictures. Never feeling thin enough. Never feeling pretty. Never feeling I belonged.

But now, slowly, making progress in accepting myself, with less internal judging.

Some days, progress feels slow, but it continues

[overitall]

My uBPDm literally hid from the world...refused to attend parent/teacher conferences...I was not allowed to join any clubs which required parental participation....never taught to cook (would "ruin" her kitchen....never taught how to do laundry (would "break" her washer and dryer....never taught anything about menstruation, makeup, boys, etc.

Suffice to say, when I left for college at 17, I knew NOTHING about "real" life...the learning curve was sharp, but within a few years I was very aware of how dysfunctional she was....I wonder how any of us survive such a disordered FOO....

[daughter]

My malevolent NBM conveyed a constant message that I was an unattractive disheveled young woman, to point where I thought no guy would date me, that I was a defective person destined to be alone forever.  My medical and dental needs were neglected, despite my parents' solid upper-middle class life-style.  My clothes were few, often ill-fitting, me living mostly in my school uniform (one set of clothes for several years, replaced only when uniform itself changed by school itself); later, my only clothes were those I bought myself from meager baby-sitting earnings (not paid to watch nsis, only by handful of paying-clients).  No lessons in basic hygiene, no treatment for acne or scoliosis, etc.  My childhood was "Cinderella SG in the unheated attic", while my only sibling, GC "princess" nsis, enjoyed altogether different upper-income childhood life-style benefits and choices.  It's inexcusable, unforgivable, and as a parent myself, finally a contributing factor to my belated NC decision.

Lots of therapy, and personal initiative, have helped rebuild my self-esteem and personal confidence to a certain degree.  But I also see the long-term damage, to me personally, and to my career outcome, due to that constant negative messaging from NBM throughout my childhood and much of my adulthood.  I was severely limited in my aspirations, and thus my accomplishments, as I think-back now in my 60s, under-employed for my background and abilities.  And I still see myself as a frumpy unattractive woman, near invisible, even when I receive compliments on my wardrobe choices, my haircut or glasses, my handling of a work-matter.   What my mother did to me was unforgivable.  What my father allowed to happen, what he enabled, is equally unforgivable.  I'm quite content NC, and wish I'd done so in my early 20s, when I was already quite aware, quite Out of the FOG regarding their dysfunctional expectations and demands, their pd-disordered behaviors, their emotional abuse (and physical neglect)  towards me, their older SG-daughter.

[freddyb]

oh totally.  I learned to dislike myself from my parents behaviour towards me.  I remember being 9 years old and struggling with something and my mom - a woman who presented as this wonderful caring person to others but in private while parenting herself was judgmental, dismissive, completely emotionally detached and unable to mother in any normal way - saying something that just made me feel like my struggles were all my fault.  At the age of 9.  No comfort or encouragement, no emotional connection or support.  It took me almost 40 years for my own denial to lift enough to understand that my struggles were the direct consequent of my parents atrociously negligent parenting, not any failure of my own.  I was obsessed with self help ideologies for decades, until I realized I was barking up the wrong tree - I wasn't the problem.  I never was the problem.  The problem is and always was these people, my "family".  On the day I realized this I put every self help book I had into a box and walked them over to the nearest dumpster.  That was me reclaiming my own power to some extent.  I haven't looked at one since.

While I still have very minimal contact I'm effectively estranged from all of my family as I've learned theres just no way to address these issues with them.  They just don't care.  I've gotten all the same responses as others and I'm just tired of fighting with these people, they don't get it and never will.  If they don't give a whit, they are all in denial and would rather tell me my experiences and feelings are there result of some fault of mine.  Even my own mother, after I had figured out looking for comfort from her was a waste of time, she brought up this difficult situation I had gone thru and asked me about it.  I said I was tired of talking about it - what I meant was that I was tired of getting no support from her on it.  Her response?  I'll never forget it.  In this fake and condescending tone of voice she says "I bet you are." - as if to tell me what I had already figure out - I don't want to hear your problems, in my heart I don't care about you at all.  Meet my needs though, do this and that for me....but do anything for you other than hand you a cheque, not interested, sonny.     

Our society today loves to atomize problems like this, they'd rather blame the individual for something going wrong with it than take a deeper look at the system around it that is actually the problem.  My family has a serious problem with reality - they have absolutely no idea what it is, and choose to deny it on a daily basis.   I've even told my mother she should have never had children on several occasions - she never did respond to that statement, she probably knows its true.  I don't have compassion for them, wasting compassion on people who don't care about me is not something I do anymore.  They are just broken people, hopeless cases who will all go to their graves as clueless as they are now.  It's sad, but I'd rather believe the truth than a bunch of lies.

I too struggle with developing some self esteem as it is so low.  I bought in so completely to what these people have taught me about myself so long ago it set the guideposts for my life.  But then again its teaching me self compassion as well as I can recognize there could have been no other path for me, it could not have turned out any other way.  I had no guidance or direction at all, there is no way any of these people would have ever elevated me, they were too busy trying to prevent any foundation from developing.  I'm past the despair and loss of having to come to this realization I think and its probably because self compassion has taken root.  I understand and accept I won't achieve a variety of things in my life because of who my family were and what they didnt provide for me.  Now I have a healthy relationship with a partner who is supportive of me and doesn't try to undermine me and that really helps.  Medication also helps haha