Brief question on bonding

[Preamble]

Hi Everyone
I have a question on bonding that I have never seen talked about.  If a mother has a personality disorder, is it better for the baby, long term, if she does, or does not, bond? 

Let's say two girls are born at different times to the same mother, and one has an easy birth with relatively good support afterwards, and the other does not due to various social disasters surrounding the birth.  Do you have any ideas on this, from what you have observed in life?

[Leonor]

Hi Preamble,

I'm not quite sure what your question asks for, but it seems to me that mothers with a personality disorder do not bond with anyone, including their babies. Empathy is necessary to see and mirror and connect and bond with someone else, and PDs lack empathy.

On the other hand, I would also say that babies do bond with their mothers. They are attached, because for so long in their precious little lives they were, literally, attached to mommy. How mommy responds to the child determines the child's own attachment, or bonding, style.

So there is no real long-term or short-term bonding in a situation in which the mother is personality-disordered. There may be disrupted or delayed bonding when mother and child are separated by external conditions, like personal/family/social upheaval. These stressors and disruptions may cause trauma for the child and mother, and reestablishing the bond may be extremely difficult and painful, but that's not due to the mother's inability to bond. The potential for re-bonding and healing is present if the mother is able to hold herself and her baby in compassionate empathy.

[PunkCroc]

Preamble,

Are you asking if it is better for the child long-term if the mother doesn't bond, because it could potentially "save" the child from the emotional and mental stress of the PD mother in their life? I'm a little confused about your question too, but I'm guessing that's what you mean?

From that perspective, I think that's shaky ground. On the one hand, it could potentially lessen the stress of having to deal with a mother who is personality disordered, however, there is a lot of research that supports children who's parents do not form a healthy bond with them creates psychological maladjustment and can contribute to forming anxious or avoidant attachment styles, and is linked to a higher likelihood of developing depression later in life, and often leads to difficulty with adult relationships and friendships.

So, if that is what you were asking, I would say no. It's not necessarily "better" for the child long-term to have a parent not bond with them. I think it's really a no-win situation. It's likely a personality-disordered mother can lead to its own mental and emotional health issues for the child long-term, but not bonding at all can, and research has pointed out again and again, does lead to other mental and emotional health issues for the child.

[Srcyu]

Good question, it's thought provoking.
My mother and I did not bond. My mother and sister did.

At this stage in my life I can honestly say, that it was better for me not to bond because she was such an awful person. I'm immensely pleased not to be like her.
Yes I do have social difficulties, which I have come to terms with and understand.

While growing up the lack of bonding led to emotional and physical neglect. That still hurts even now.
My sister received better treatment. I am no contact with her and my mother is dead.

[Cat of the Canals]

Because I share Leonor's understanding that disordered mothers would have a difficult (if not impossible) time forming what's called "secure attachment" to their children, I'm going to take the word "bonding" to mean "enmeshment." And I do think you could make an argument that NOT being enmeshed with a PD parent is often better than being enmeshed.

My purely anecdotal evidence: my PDmil didn't have the social skills to properly enmesh with my husband. On the other hand, my own PDmom did everything she could to create enmeshment with me. She was only partially successful, in my opinion. And even then, my FOG was much thicker than my husband's ever was.

[Preamble]

Hi Leonor, I agree with you, but it's also very confusing.  It seems to me that even if a mother has a personality disorder, the birth experience and situation, and the surrounding support can be better, or worse, and if so, what does that look like?  For example I used to feel cheated by what I saw as my mother's grandiose behavior with extended family and strangers, to the detriment of her children, but recently I began to wonder, were they perhaps "propping her up" and her treatment of us would actually have been worse without the approval she received from outside?  I just don't know.

I think the babies attach to their mothers, I definitely did, but I would not call that "bonding" which surely has to be two-way.  You can know a lot about a person, and want them desperately, without having any relationship with them.  In an adult I think this would be what stalking is.

I agree with your last paragraph.  It reminds me of what someone said to me once after a breakup:  "if it could have (got better) it would have".

Hi Preamble,

I'm not quite sure what your question asks for, but it seems to me that mothers with a personality disorder do not bond with anyone, including their babies. Empathy is necessary to see and mirror and connect and bond with someone else, and PDs lack empathy.

On the other hand, I would also say that babies do bond with their mothers. They are attached, because for so long in their precious little lives they were, literally, attached to mommy. How mommy responds to the child determines the child's own attachment, or bonding, style.

So there is no real long-term or short-term bonding in a situation in which the mother is personality-disordered. There may be disrupted or delayed bonding when mother and child are separated by external conditions, like personal/family/social upheaval. These stressors and disruptions may cause trauma for the child and mother, and reestablishing the bond may be extremely difficult and painful, but that's not due to the mother's inability to bond. The potential for re-bonding and healing is present if the mother is able to hold herself and her baby in compassionate empathy.

[Preamble]

Thanks PunkCroc, that is what I meant to say.  I just wondered why I was the only one who could see what was (and wasn't) going on with my mother, whether it was because my sister had a closer-to-normal relationship that I did.

Of course these relationships can't exist in a vacuum and there are other people around to rely on.  It's hard to imagine a woman raising a child in complete isolation and that child surviving to adulthood.  So I know my question is kind of nonsensical.

Preamble,

Are you asking if it is better for the child long-term if the mother doesn't bond, because it could potentially "save" the child from the emotional and mental stress of the PD mother in their life? I'm a little confused about your question too, but I'm guessing that's what you mean?

From that perspective, I think that's shaky ground. On the one hand, it could potentially lessen the stress of having to deal with a mother who is personality disordered, however, there is a lot of research that supports children who's parents do not form a healthy bond with them creates psychological maladjustment and can contribute to forming anxious or avoidant attachment styles, and is linked to a higher likelihood of developing depression later in life, and often leads to difficulty with adult relationships and friendships.

So, if that is what you were asking, I would say no. It's not necessarily "better" for the child long-term to have a parent not bond with them. I think it's really a no-win situation. It's likely a personality-disordered mother can lead to its own mental and emotional health issues for the child long-term, but not bonding at all can, and research has pointed out again and again, does lead to other mental and emotional health issues for the child.

[Preamble]

Windmill, hi, it sounds like you know exactly what I am talking about.  Do you think maybe if the child looks like the mother, or not, has a big influence?  Is this "just" golden child/scapegoat happening?

I am sorry this happened for you and for me, but I think we can actually draw strength from it with the right approach.

Also I try to remember that none of this was anything to do with me, I didn't "decide" to bond or attach, or not to.  It's an instinct, there is no moral aspect to it.

Good question, it's thought provoking.
My mother and I did not bond. My mother and sister did.

At this stage in my life I can honestly say, that it was better for me not to bond because she was such an awful person. I'm immensely pleased not to be like her.
Yes I do have social difficulties, which I have come to terms with and understand.

While growing up the lack of bonding led to emotional and physical neglect. That still hurts even now.
My sister received better treatment. I am no contact with her and my mother is dead.

[Preamble]

Hi Cat of the Canals, thank you for this.  I think it really clarifies it for me, yes you are right there is a big difference between enmeshment and bonding.  Probably what I am talking about is enmeshment for my sister, and less so for me.  Or is it the other way around?  I sometimes wonder if  for some children the situation, the craziness, is so very bad that it sends them over the edge and they have the choice, die or be reborn, while others suffer less and thus fail to get out of it at all.   

I am sorry about the FOG, yes mine was much thicker like that too.  I spent a lot more time alone with my mother than my sister ever did.

Because I share Leonor's understanding that disordered mothers would have a difficult (if not impossible) time forming what's called "secure attachment" to their children, I'm going to take the word "bonding" to mean "enmeshment." And I do think you could make an argument that NOT being enmeshed with a PD parent is often better than being enmeshed.

My purely anecdotal evidence: my PDmil didn't have the social skills to properly enmesh with my husband. On the other hand, my own PDmom did everything she could to create enmeshment with me. She was only partially successful, in my opinion. And even then, my FOG was much thicker than my husband's ever was.

[Leonor]

Hi Preamble,

You have asked a really interesting question and I always live to read how all of us fellow journeypeople Out of the FOG respond!

I wonder if you might get the kind of responses you are looking for if you ask the original question that inspired the question you ask in your post. What was your experience of your mother and sister growing up, and how do you believe that experience has shaped you perceptions about bonding and motherhood today?

[xredshoesx]

i'm pretty sure part of my trauma comes from being insecurely attached to my mother because she ran hot/cold for the majority of the time i was around her as an infant/ toddler, then i didn't live with her again until i was about to start school; same pattern.  i also think that factor made it easier for me to be NC because i knew no matter what i did she may favor me for a minute, but it would never be the long term, parental care i so needed growing up. 

[Srcyu]

Hello, Preamble.
I do think my sister was more pleasing to my mother's eye, yes.
My mother had my sister first followed by my brother. She played at being the middle class mother with them - piano lessons, dancing lessons, professional portraits done,  home cooking. Any imperfections such as wonky teeth, were fixed.

Then she had me.

I was a slow, sickly baby and needed extra care. I didn't fit the predetermined standard of what was expected.
Looks like you've helped me to see the situation from a different angle.

[Preamble]

Thank you everyone, all your responses have helped me, first to see my confusion, and then to see that the answer is, enmeshment is not bonding.
To me they seem mutually exclusive, now that I think about it.  Bonding requires empathy, enmeshment requires an absence of empathy.

I feel sad, but satisfied somehow