It feels like i’m losing all my belongings to a house fire…

[beacartoonheart]

My bpd mother, threw away and sold all of my memories. I went no contact years ago and left some pretty important things behind ( photos, drawings, letters, things that were left to me from people who passed ect) The day I left I had no idea it would be the last time ever seeing her. I remember asking myself in the driveway if I should go back in for my things and in that moment part of me knew if I walked back in that doorway, i would have never been able to get away.... So i knew the consequences of leaving my belongings behind, I was trying to save myself and at the time I thought I would come up with a way to get my stuff without seeing her. I never brought myself to get my belongings because i did not want to set either of us back by seeing each other, being apart has been the best thing for the both of us even if she doesn't understand that. I didn't want to hurt her by showing up and then leaving once again when she has finally been able to put her life semi back together. I found out recently  that she sold and tossed out all of my belongings. I feel like this solidifies the fact that she does not care for me at all. I understand when my partner tries to tell me that my things are just things, and I get that you can't take objects with you when you die but it still hurts. Should I really be hurting this much over things? Has anyone else gone through this? If so, how did you cope? Is it wrong of me to pretend that it is all still there and that I will get it all back someday even though that is clearly not the case?  How can I let this go? Caring so much about objects, is making me feel insane.... I wish I could just let this go.

[Seven]

Is it really about the "things" or is it more about maybe you feel that it's her final rejection?  Kind of like being disinherited...it's never really about the money, is it?  It's more about feeling rejected and not having the type of closure we long for.

Sorry you're going through it. It is painful feeling.  One I'm trying to help my husband through.

[EtherOrchid]

I had the opposite experience. When I left I took all my stuff and a ton of junk from our basement.  Decades later I have an apartment littered with psychological landmines.  Everything brings back bad memories of my childhood.  And it's not just things like the chipped Pyrex measuring cup and metal mixing bowl from the old kitchen. Even my own drawings and paintings from that time make me feel sad.  I still have nightmares where I am transported back to that time. When my relatives see me looking for my keys and trying to leave, they laugh, "What car? What apartment? You live here. You will always live here. You're too stupid and crazy to be on your own."

[blacksheep7]

I'm so sorry.   

She doesn't care and it's mean because these are personnal belongings, yours.

I would be upset too.  It's not just things.  Pictures are memories of  your life.

It is pure revenge of  pd nc. 

I don't know if my silver cutlery from my gm will still be there when nm dies.

The first time I went nc she gave away a silver necklace with stones that I liked very much and had promised it to me.  She even told me  and asked me if it bothered me    My sis dd has it.

[square]

I lost clothing I had an emotional attachment to because my H was absolutely malicious one day (he didn't destroy them but refused to help me save them, needed help due to disability).

They are just clothes but I feel a physical pang every time I think about them.

It's not just the clothes themselves, but the malice. If the clothes had just been lost in a move or something, I'd sometimes think about them and sigh, but it wouldn't HURT. But the combo of the loss and the reason for it causes a complex and ugly grief feeling. Also mixed up is my second guessing over my own actions, whatifs, etc.

No advice. When I think aboit it I just stuff it right back down, like whack-a-mole.

[Hepatica]

beacartoonheart, i think what your mother has done is one final act of rage and abuse toward you and it is meant to hurt. What you're feeling is a normal response to a person who is supposed to offer their child unconditional love and acceptance and reign in their own rage because they care about the other persons feelings. With PD folks it seems these key things are muted or missing entirely. And that really, really hurts.

It seems to me that anything hurts with these people, because, like EtherOrchid, having the things can also be painful. Any resonance of the old abuse that come through items, or homes, or land, or the hometown you grew up in, can feel icky and painful if it coincided with abuse. Recently I was, for lack of better words, disinherited, meaning something that I was told would come to me when my uNPD father died, he sold off, and the timing was key. He did it eight months after I went no contact. I know rage motivated him, and I lost something that held generational memory. I went through shock and grief and now I'm in a place of sad acceptance. I know that if I had inherited that, it would be tinged with a lot of painful nostalgia anyway, so I am hurt but strangely, somewhat relieved.

Should you be hurting this much? Yes. I think the pain you feel is real and normal. It is grief and compounded by years of former grief and the shock of realizing the normal relationship where many people receive the most love and support, is the opposite with those of us who have a PD parent. How much it hurts is astounding. What I do is re-parent myself with compassion. I understand that I am grieving. I let myself have bad days and move slowly and lovingly through them. On really bad days, I accept that I am not the only one on this earth who has had terrible things happen, and favourite things stolen. I feel strongly that if I work on healing it will reverberate outward and help heal others.  In that I find meaning. And it helps.

[moglow]

I moved out of my mother's house the summer before my senior year of high school - when I visited her house several months later [holidays probably] the only sign she had children was our most recent school pictures displayed in her dining room. Everything else was GONE. I can absolutely see her having had an epic meltdown and demanded that it all be removed, that whole abandonment mentality gone cray cray. It was hard being in her house after that, knowing we'd basically been erased.


BUT, I'll also admit to not having attachment to "things" as a result - and there's not much of my childhood that held special happy memories. She's mentioned several times as she got older, come over and let her know what I wanted "later" and all that, but no. I'd happily torch that house and everything in it just to not have to go through or see any of it ever again. Different perspective after all these years.

[JustKathy]

How can I let this go? Caring so much about objects, is making me feel insane.... I wish I could just let this go.

Beaconheart, I understand what you're going through. I think we develop strong attachments to items that were sentimental to us because we didn't get love from our parents, so we bonded with toys, objects, pieces of clothing that meant something to us.

When I ran away from home in high school my first thought was to take clothing and personal care items so I could keep going to school and to work. I managed to fit a photo album and a few other small items in my car, but left behind gifts that had been given to me by friends and relatives. I thought I'd be able to get the rest of my possessions back. There was one toy that had been given to me by my grandmother that I desperately wanted back. At some point, my Nmother sent me a box of childhood toys, but they were items I barely even remembered. When I asked her for the other items she laughed and said she had thrown "that junk" in the trash.

They do it to hurt us. And it does hurt, a LOT. I had strong emotional attachments to items that had been given to me by people who loved me. I think it's also normal when our parents don't love us, to become attached to stuffed animals and other things that comforted us. It's hard to let it go. I grieve the loss of some items like I would grieve a death. I think it's okay to grieve. These were things that we loved, and they were destroyed to make us suffer.

Be kind to yourself...

[square]

I just want to say that I think having a sentimental attachment to some things is completely normal.

[beacartoonheart]

Seven
"It's more about feeling rejected and not having the type of closure we long for."

- You're right, I wish I had closure, and I wish I held a lot less guilt in my heart. She is capable of tearing me down and yet I constantly wish I could have done better, I wish I could fix her but she is clearly still the same person I walked away from years ago.


Etherorchid
"  Decades later I have an apartment littered with psychological landmines.  Everything brings back bad memories of my childhood."

- This statement was a pretty big awakening  slap in the face, I never actually thought of it like this before. You're right, everything there has some sort of sad story attached . A lot of photos have people cut out of them ( depending on who was not agreeing with her at the time) It would be really hard to have a lot of those things but there are still some things that I would have as a kid that maybe for a moment made my sad little self smile. There are things family members have either given me while alive or after they passed and things i've made with loved ones who passed that I hung on to. Art from a family member that tried to reach out to me when I was a child knowing my bpd mother was tossing out the letters she sent. That drawing gave me hope for years... and now it's in the trash....





Square
"It's not just the clothes themselves, but the malice. If the clothes had just been lost in a move or something, I'd sometimes think about them and sigh, but it wouldn't HURT."

Totally agree with this, The fact that it was done to hurt me and then to actually be hurt by her act just solidifies the fact that she still has control over me, even being NC for years she still finds a way to manipulate me and hurt me, and that just makes me mad at myself.

Hepatica

"What I do is re-parent myself with compassion. I understand that I am grieving. I let myself have bad days and move slowly and lovingly through them. On really bad days, I accept that I am not the only one on this earth who has had terrible things happen, and favourite things stolen."

Thank you for this, I really do need to try and be more kind to myself... all I have are negative thoughts about myself.

Moglow

" I can absolutely see her having had an epic meltdown and demanded that it all be removed, that whole abandonment mentality gone cray cray."

This statement hit home, I know these cray cray meltdown fits all too well, and the irrational abandonment fear she had... only to push everyone important out of her life ultimately sabotaging herself with her greatest fear... 


JustKathy

"I think we develop strong attachments to items that were sentimental to us because we didn't get love from our parents, so we bonded with toys, objects, pieces of clothing that meant something to us."

Thank you justKathy, I don't go to therapy but i'm pretty sure you just saved me hundreds of dollars with this statement alone. I could not for the life of me figure out why my childhood favourite bear meant so much to me while i'm nearly pushing 40. I've been way too embarrassed to admit to anyone that the stuffed bear was something I wanted back most.  Now I know why.... The bear was more of a mother to me than my damn mother was. That bear took in a lot of tears and gave out a lot of hugs.... I just kept wondering why I wanted my childhood stuffed bear so badly.... Thank you for helping me understand. You have no idea how much this helps.

[Hepatica]

Dear beacartoonheart,

How about you buy that young part inside of you that is in pain a new bear, and let it be the beginning of your healing process? You are in control now and much of your healing will happen by taking yourself in hand tenderly. For me the one thing that gave my childhood beauty was our family dog. He was the only thing in my house of origin that came to me when I cried. He would tuck his body against my legs like he knew. As an adult I knew that the first thing I would do with my independence was get a dog. It was a gift to myself. Sometimes I think I can relate only to dogs. haha! Because it was the only empathy I felt growing up.

I think we need tonnes of empathy to recover from a childhood like ours.  I also find Kristen Neff really helpful. She teaches about self-compassion and healing. When you begin to ban the negative voices (which are the voices from the parent who hurt us, that we've taken on) and replace those with the voice of a loving parent, the healing begins to really transform. It's a slow and steady process.

[JenniferSmith]

Regardless of her actual motivations, you're left with the feelings of hurt, sadness, anger, etc, over her getting rid of things that were important and had meaning for you.  Its a loss and just like someone who lost things in a fire, you will be grieving what those items meant to you and no longer having them with you.   

Personal items such as these are things we infuse with meaning based on our memories about them.  Sometimes a memory can only be accessed by seeing an item or photo from our past - the items become a symbol of the feelings and memories.  For myself, I cherish many items from my past for this very reason.  Perhaps you could spend time writing down the feelings and memories in a journal about each item you know was discarded and maybe even sketching the items if you're inclined to that.  And then make sure you keep a back up copy somewhere, such as stored in the cloud, so that you will not have to fear losing it again.

I am a collector, so I have many items from childhood such as photo albums, etc.  At one point though I had some of these cherished items stored at my father's home.   When he decided to move, he neglected to ask me if I wanted them, and he threw them away.  There were items that I still think about today and wish that I had them. In his case, it wasn't a malicious act, but it still hurts just the same that he didn't take the time to consider that they might be important to me.

[beacartoonheart]

Dear Hepatica

I don't think I will be buying myself a bear, but you definitely gave me an idea. She threw away something valuable to me that me and a family member made before he passed. We made a car out of wood when I was a child and I was thinking maybe I would make a new one. He may no longer be here to make it with me in person but I feel him in my heart. Maybe making this would be a great way to start the healing process you speak of.

I completely understand the love you had for your dog, I too had a pet growing up and she was the only one who showed me compassion and empathy too. I was nowhere near ok when she passed. I often feel like if it were not for my childhood pet I wouldn't be around today. She meant the world to me. I definitely also feel I relate better to animals than people so you are not alone!


Dear JenniferSmith

Thank you for your suggestion, I think your idea of writing things down and maybe even sketching things, that were important to me might help make me feel like they are somewhat with me. I lost a lot of things but only cared for about a handful of items.

I'm sorry your father did not take your feelings into consideration about your things during his move. I feel like some people just don't understand.

It hurts me to know that so many people have gone through the same childhood as me but i'm grateful to have everyones support. Family and friends don't understand. They will call my BPD mother crazy and laugh about it and just block her out of their lives and tell me things are just things to not get upset about it and to just put the past behind me but they didn't have to grow up in the environment  I did. I don't think they understand the things I struggle with on a daily basis. I appreciate all of you for being the only ones who truly understand what i've gone through. The support is overwhelming yet so comforting.

[Boat Babe]

Dear beacartoonheart,

How about you buy that young part inside of you that is in pain a new bear, and let it be the beginning of your healing process? You are in control now and much of your healing will happen by taking yourself in hand tenderly. For me the one thing that gave my childhood beauty was our family dog. He was the only thing in my house of origin that came to me when I cried. He would tuck his body against my legs like he knew. As an adult I knew that the first thing I would do with my independence was get a dog. It was a gift to myself. Sometimes I think I can relate only to dogs. haha! Because it was the only empathy I felt growing up.

I think we need tonnes of empathy to recover from a childhood like ours.  I also find Kristen Neff really helpful. She teaches about self-compassion and healing. When you begin to ban the negative voices (which are the voices from the parent who hurt us, that we've taken on) and replace those with the voice of a loving parent, the healing begins to really transform. It's a slow and steady process.

Yes to dogs and yes to Mindful Self Compassion.

[daughter]

My NM did this while I was still "dutiful daughter", even in childhood, all along, lots of favorite items outright disappearing, items given-away to her friends, items sold or thrown-out w/no notice or discussion, items "needed by my GC nsis".  Always had super neat room; not issue here. NM always "super-snooped", whether my room at my parents', or in my own homes.  Some very sentimental items found in garbage can (!) before trash pick-up occurred.

Even each of my childhood pets eventually "vanished" one day, disposed of in some manner by NM.  Such cruelty is truly astounding.

What kind of mother does this, over and over again?

Later on, NM took to "shopping" within my home, asking for items she liked, to be promptly gifted to her, or she purchasing exact duplicate.

Your upset is justified. I'm sorry.

[beacartoonheart]

Dear daughter

Good lord!? Your pets vanished!? That is absolute insanity! I am so so sorry this happened to you.


"Later on, NM took to "shopping" within my home, asking for items she liked, to be promptly gifted to her, or she purchasing exact duplicate. "

This statement rang so true to me. Years ago when my bpd mother would visit she too would try to "shop" at my place. She would throw tantrums if she was not  given the item she asked for. Some items I searched for a duplicate of just so that she would not be upset and when i would buy her the exact same item after spending hours/days looking for something I purchased years prior she was upset that it was not mine and would demand to have my item instead of the exact ones I would gift to her.

[moglow]

Later on, NM took to "shopping" within my home, asking for items she liked, to be promptly gifted to her, or she purchasing exact duplicate.

Yes! Mine would go as far as rooting through boxes/bags of items intended for donation to local shelters, pulling out clothing or other things she'd given me, setting them aside for discussion later. Um no. I don't wear it, can't use it, tired of dusting it etc. It's there for a reason, stop replaying it already!! She'd also go through my kitchen cabinets and say "this looks like mine, did you take it from my house?!" and set it out as if it were to be used that moment. Need I mention that last time I was in her house all cabinets, counters, closets etc are packed solid with items I've never seen her use??

Interesting you mentioned that about pets - my brother and I were talking about that not long ago, wondering what happened to this or that animal. I remember only a few who lived out their lives with us. Where did the others go???

[JustKathy]

Later on, NM took to "shopping" within my home, asking for items she liked, to be promptly gifted to her, or she purchasing exact duplicate.

My Nmother did something similar on Christmas Day. We always had an Aunt, Uncle, and cousin that came over to our house so there were a lot of gifts. Many of the gifts came from family back home in another country, so she didn't see them until we unwrapped them. We would unwrap our presents on Christmas morning, but had to put them all in a pile with the gift tag on each item to identify where each gift came from. She'd go through my gifts, and if she saw something she liked she'd just take it. I lost a beloved gift from my grandmother this way. I still grieve the loss that item. I never got it back.

The inspection of Christmas gifts went on into adulthood. She couldn't outright steal my gifts when I was in my 30s, but she'd pull items aside and say something like, "You probably don't have a use for this so you can leave it here with me." Even if I didn't have a use for it, um no, it's NOT yours to take. I'm quite sure my siblings readily handed over items, though.

[kelleron]

@JustKathy
Yikes! That sounds like outright power play uBPDMom never did something as overt as that. It must have felt so infuriating! What’s with PD parents and having 0 boundaries with their kids? Also, where were your aunts and uncles when this was going on? I just feel quite upset that they just stood by and watched it happen.

I’m so sorry it happened to you. No child deserves to be treated like pawns in a chess match. I hope that you remember your grandma loves you no matter how much your mom tried to get in the way of it. /hugs/

I found going back to the memory and reliving it, correcting it and standing up for myself helped me have sympathy for my child self. Just remembering it vividly and feeling all the feelings I had was hard, but also therapeutic. Felt like I was getting semi-justice for what happened. Before I couldn’t even “feel” rage. All forms of anger were buried so deep that I believed I was “just not an angry person” until I was 24.

@moglow
My uBPDMom was the same - taking stuff out of the donation box. We ended up with so much clutter! I don’t know why they do that. By overriding your decision, it’s like saying “I know what you want. Even when you think I’m wrong, I still know you better than you.” It’s like they want to say they own us. It is so sad really. They just can’t live without others to dominate.

My mom was the opposite with animals…I’d always wanted a dog but she’d never allow me. Said I wasn’t old enough. Suddenly, when I was 12 and came back from a trip, there was a puppy in the house. She’s got one while I was gone, apparently “for me”. I was happy but also I wanted to pick the dog. So I told her next time I wanted to pick the dog.

Next year, exact same thing happened. I went on a trip, she got another puppy. Wth? She got them in the same gender order as me and my sibling (1 female, then 1 male, one year apart). Till this day as far as I know, she treats the dog better than her own children. She literally said “dogs are cuter than babies. Much much cuter.” And she made the front seat in the car a permanent place for the dogs to sit in. I literally got booted to the back seat ever since. The dogs see her as their owner, and though I love them, we both know I’m the “playtime” human (what my mother called me). I never really felt like they were “for me” in the first place.

Still, I’d love to have a dog of my own one day. But then again, I kinda feel incapable of taking care of it, since uBPDMom was always nagging me to do more caretaking and I didn’t because of all these complicated emotions. Argh!

Thanks for listening to my rant  I feel as I have gone off topic, so I might move this reply elsewhere.

[JustKathy]

@JustKathy
Yikes! That sounds like outright power play uBPDMom never did something as overt as that. It must have felt so infuriating! What's with PD parents and having 0 boundaries with their kids? Also, where were your aunts and uncles when this was going on?

My aunt and uncle just stood there and did nothing. Everyone just shrugged it off as, "Oh well, you know how your mother is." It's always safer to turn a blind eye than to speak up and risk the wrath of the narcissist.