I think I now understand.

[PinkFreud]

I've been in pain for a year and a half since my BPD "mother" blindsided me. I've been lucky to have supportive friends, and a supportive spouse. However, everyone is getting tired of my not "getting over it." Hell, I want to get over it! I'm tired of it too!

I think that yesterday, I might have finally pinpointed what is bothering me so much, that I haven't been able to get over/past. It suddenly occurred to me that I no longer have any fond/pleasant memories of my family, at all. It was all a fraud! It's like I'm trying to hold these memories in my hands, but they all disintegrate, and I'm only holding ashes which flow through my fingers and dissolve into nothing.

She caused this. She never should have had children. I broke the cycle by not having children.

[practical]

For me, I felt I couldn't trust anything anymore. Did M take me out for ice-cream or to the theatre because she wanted to share the joy of it with me, or was it part of her manipulation, or the enmeshment or because F didn't do those things with her and I was her emotional incest husband again? All my good memories started to feel hollow, like I had eaten something that had no nourishment but left me with an weird, unpleasant aftertaste - and the longing for the real thing, which I knew I would never get.

I think recognizing this, feeling it as you do is part of the grieving process and it is very painful. Take good care of yourself.

[Pepin]

  I understand where you are coming from.  One of my siblings also chose not to have children for the same reason as you.  All their energy goes into their marriage and dog.   

I on the other hand did choose to have children to make up for what I did not have.  I get to reparent myself, too.  Personally it has been satisfying but also scary at times.  By having children I learned to enforce better boundaries, cut out people who behave badly, and to guide my children into hopefully having a fulfilling life -- and most importantly, teaching my children to avoid PDs.  One of them is a master while the other one is still working on it.  It warms my heart to watch the "master" roast PDs while taking care of herself.   

[spring13]

PinkFreud, I can relate to that feeling that others are getting tired of us not "getting over it." I think it is very, very difficult for most people to relate to our situations if they haven't been in our shoes. Everyone processes this abuse and pain differently. I know my DH got tired of me having the same frustrating realizations after every interaction with my parents. I pretty much lost it on him once saying since he has a healthy relationship with his relatively normal parents, he can't possibly relate to how hard it is to lose one's parents because of their abuse. I need a lot of time to really break free. It was torturous to me to make that decision and to gradually realize how little I meant to them was incredibly painful and difficult to process.

It does feel like it is difficult to tell what was real, what was a lie, and to feel like we have to second-guess so much of our childhoods. I felt foolish personally because I realized how much I had believed that my uNPD/BPD m had said over the years about us, our family, other family members, people she claimed had wronged her, etc. But we were innocent children. It was okay and normal to take all of their behavior and everything they said the way a child would normally take such things. I too have been unable to really unearth very many positive memories. Any positive memories I have from childhood stem from interactions with friends or family pets or a mere handful of one-on-one interactions I had with my enabling father where he would do something like buy me my favorite gum when uNPDm wasn't around. It's not much, but I treasure those and honestly, I don't talk about my childhood much anymore.

I wish you peace and healing.