My BPD mother is my biggest cause of heartbreak

[alexandra4awhile]

Hi guys! I'm Alex.
So my mum.. is the most wonderful, brave, loving, caring, hard-working, good hearted down to earth and selfless woman I know.. with the brightest laugh and sweetest smiles and hugs, and a fierce fighter for our home and for me, her daughter. Also, my mum has Borderline Personality Disorder. The woman I just described is truthfully my mother, and that's why I love her more than anything in the world.
But that´s not all of who she is, there's this other side to her....

My mother left my father in Germany where I was born when I was a baby, and moved to Australia with me in pursuit of her lifelong dream of the warmth, the sea and an adventurous life. She got married there when I was 4. Life was good for me as a kid growing up on the beach. The marriage ended tragically and abusively when I was 12, causing my mother to pack up the whole house and move to Spain with me. I was completely cut off from the Dad I had grown up with and was told that he had ruined our lives, and we had left to escape his abuse. (I don't know the truth - I was only 12 and had no capacity to truly judge).

Anyways, my mother was now alone and heartbroken, utterly shattered, depressed, suicidal, hysterical, lost... I felt broken for her.
Many failed relationships followed, all ending dramatically in heartbreak. It hurt me to see her so hurt so many times... I believed (or wanted so desperately to believe) for many years that my mother couldn't possibly be at fault for all these disastrous relationships... and of course she definitely believed that she was not at fault. She'd spend hours and hours telling me about these men and what awful things they'd done to her.

Anyways, these men came and went throughout my teenage years. Sometimes I liked the guy, and had hope it would be different. It never was. It always ended in screaming, door slamming, people leaving in the middle of the night in a taxi with a suitcase....
One time the man she was with was heavily physically abusive and extremely violent. My mother ended up in hospital twice throughout their two year relationship before gathering the strength to call the police, who stormed in and arrested him in his house.

Meanwhile, I disappeared into my own dark dark world of despair in my teenage years. I struggled with serious depression, locking myself in my room for weeks at a time and refusing to come out, go to school or otherwise accept that I was at all alive. I developed a very serious eating disorder, which would stay with me for many years to come. My mother and I began really fighting a lot. She reacted to my despair by telling me constantly that I was lazy, selfish and don´t care at all about her or about anything but myself. She insisted I was using her for free food and accommodation. She would storm into my room and drag me out of bed screaming and shouting at me, barking long lists of tasks at me that she wanted me to do so that I´d stop being such a selfish, lazy brat. Meanwhile I was dying of heartache and pain, pain of seeing her suffer all the time. And pain of the unstable and chaotic environment. Pain of the loss of my dad and pain of slowly seeing my mother scare one man after another away. Pain of picking my mother up from the hospital covered in bruises. But more than anything, the pain of knowing that I was, in my own mothers eyes, nothing but a worthless, lazy, selfish, horrible child.

By the time I was 18 I had a full blown eating disorder, zero self esteem, a false bipolar diagnosis, had experimented with drugs and alcohol, had still finished school with almost straight A´s and had been living on my own for a year due to finally storming out of my mothers house after one of our daily screaming / abuse matches.

The hardest thing I ever had to do in my life is face the truth that my mother is not only this wonderful, brave and loving woman I described at the start. She has severe borderline personality disorder. She has another side to her. One that comes out whenever she is hurting, one that brings torment, chaos, abuse and manipulation. I learned as I became an adult that my mother played a big big role in all the incredible pain I went through as a young person. The nights I lay in the rain hurting so much I thought Id kill myself. The hate I felt for myself due to a completely shattered self esteem. Nothing hurts like facing the fact that your own mother is not only your hero, but your biggest source of abuse and hurt.

My mother has borderline personality disorder but she is a wonderful and very special person. She is also abusive to me whenever she is in pain. She is my best friend and the one I laugh the most with. But when she snaps and her fears and nightmares are triggered, she lashes out and I become the enemy in her eyes, just as much as all her other sources of pain. My mother is a human with very valid emotions and I understand where she's coming from. But I am a person too, also with feelings. Its time I understand where I'm coming from, and more importantly how to protect myself from being trodden into the muddy ground.

I am Alex, I'm 21 years old. I'm a sailor and a diver, a girlfriend, a conservationist, a hippy and a rock star. I'm a daughter of a BPD mom. and I'm a survivor. I love my mum and I hope I can learn to love her and love myself at the same time someday. Because if I dont I know I´ll break under her abuse.

Lots of love to you.
I know nobody fu*kin reads a post this long probably (hey if you did then wow, pop me a message and let me know) but it was very therapeutic writing it down.
Thanks to all you fellow survivors. We are not alone!
I´ll end with a Charles Bukowski:
´Love breaks my bones
and I laugh..´

[Andeza]

We read them. We read the whole thing.

You've had a very rough time. If you haven't yet, please have a look through the toolbox. A number of items in there may help you down the path of loving yourself the way you deserve. It's a good start. Please do stick around. We're all on a journey here. Different stages, different destinations even, but we help each other out.

[Amadahy]

Hi Alex,

I'm sorry for your pain.  We all understand, more than we wish.  You are wise, especially at your age, to see that you must take care of yourself.  I was living in denial until age 47 and have struggled massively with active symptoms of complex-ptsd since (for six years now).  You will find love and support here.  Your bpd mother lashes out when you get too close, when you see who she could be without the bpd.  It is too much for her to know such intimacy.  And, it is not your fault.  It is not something you can fix.  Like Andeza said, the toolbox will be very helpful for your understanding and coping.  Take good care.