Quote from: Mr. Psychologist on April 10, 2017, 02:53:07 PM

Has the therapist made an official diagnosis of it, or is it their thoughts on what might explain the behaviours you've described to them? The description sounds dead on for BPD though.

The questioning your own sanity part is the thing I found to be the worst part of it. Damn near everyone who has lived with a parent/partner with BPD will echo that sentiment. The constant web of deceptive bullshit, rewriting of events and goebbels tier certainty in the lies they peddle will have anyone spinning in circles.

I think you are on the right track already, the best way to deal with a BPD parent is distance.
It's bloody hard, especially to start with because they will most likely hound you through phonecalls and texts as they seek to exert their influence over you from afar. Maybe you'll be lucky and dodge that but christ it's hell.

The therapist is probably the one best placed to help you with coping with it, but yeah. The sooner you can break away from it the better, and don't be drawn back into the mess after you do manage to get out.

Really the only people who can help with BPD (On the off chance it's Bipolar rather than borderline, it's even moreso the case) are seasoned clinicians. So I think the best hope is for her to reach the point where she can seek help for herself and start to work through it.

I'm not sure if it's an official diagnosis or not but my father has apparently seen four different specialists and they all came to the conclusion that she has BPD, as well as my therapist.

Here's some background:

Around 2011, my parents were going through a rough patch and were on the verge of divorce. My brother was also planning on the leaving my mother to go live with dad. The divorce never happened and they wound up sticking together. A couple months later my brother committed suicide and left a note blaming my mother for "stealing his identity" from him and that she had failed as a mother. He also wrote on the back of the note that she had BPD.

I became so upset by the constant fighting and blaming going back and forth between Mom and Dad that I kind of just shut down emotionally. Eventually my parents did divorce and I decided to live with my mom out of pity and not wanting to hurt her or make her think that she was responsible for my brothers suicide. Problem is, I'm getting tired of feeling like I owe it to her to live with her. I feel more like an emotional slave than I do a grown adult. I'm a grown man who has no job and no plan forward and is too scared of doing anything out of fear that I may hurt my mother. It's only been recently with the help of a very smart therapist that has awoken me to the trance that I've been in for the past 5 years. I'm beginning to feel emotions again and it's clear my mother has sensed it. She senses that I'm getting fed up with her and she's threatened by the thought of losing me. This is where the fake suicide attempt happened last Sunday and she won that battle. I fell for her mind games, felt sorry for her and gave her the attention and sympathy that she wanted.

A book called Stop Walking on Egg Shells was recommended to me on how to deal BPD in your life so I'm going to give that a read.

It's also likely that my therapist will eventually start seeing my mom to treat her BPD.
Also, thanks for the response.

Christ, I'm sorry to hear about your brother.
Doesn't leave much room for doubt, that sounds exactly like it.

The book sounds like a good idea, the only thing I'd advise is to be careful about leaving it somewhere where she might find it. I can't speak for the situation on your end, but with my mother she was blissfully unaware of any problem in her thinking (until quite recently) and so the 'there is nothing wrong with me' line was repeated ad nauseam. However, god forbid anyone breathed a word that she might have been mentally ill, because that was a surefire way to dial up the psychosis to 100. So yeah, i'd just be careful about letting on that you ''suspect'' it in her (i.e, know she is) until you are well clear of the potential fallout.

I would hazard a guess that she isn't, but maybe she is. Is your mum self-aware about it?

The thing that was quite hard to reconcile with the endless bloody mind games and psychological abuse was that at the end of the day, it's a mental illness. Someone who is borderline cannot help it, their mind is warped by something that fucked them up a long time ago. There are a few ways that it can be treated, but as with any mental illness it needs the engagement of the person to actually be successful. Otherwise it is a waste of everyone's time because the BPD patient sits there thinking they are playing the therapist like a fiddle, whilst the therapist is painfully aware of all the madness being displayed infront of them with not a huge amount they can do to tackle it.

It really is awful to live with, and I'm glad you've got a good therapist to help you through it because I wouldn't be too surprised if after it's all 'over' you'll get hit by an emotional truck from all the mental abuse sustained.

I really do hope she comes out of it alright, I had pretty much written my mother off many years ago and made peace with the fact that she would be a twisted person for the rest of her days - but this last year or so has proven me wrong and she has actually started to see a therapist about the chaos in her head. Just remember to put yourself first, it's not selfishness by any means.

If you've got anything you want to ask, feel free.

Quote from: Mr. Psychologist on April 10, 2017, 03:50:25 PM

Quote from: Dan on April 10, 2017, 03:21:17 PM

Quote from: Mr. Psychologist on April 10, 2017, 02:53:07 PM

Has the therapist made an official diagnosis of it, or is it their thoughts on what might explain the behaviours you've described to them? The description sounds dead on for BPD though.

The questioning your own sanity part is the thing I found to be the worst part of it. Damn near everyone who has lived with a parent/partner with BPD will echo that sentiment. The constant web of deceptive bullshit, rewriting of events and goebbels tier certainty in the lies they peddle will have anyone spinning in circles.

I think you are on the right track already, the best way to deal with a BPD parent is distance.
It's bloody hard, especially to start with because they will most likely hound you through phonecalls and texts as they seek to exert their influence over you from afar. Maybe you'll be lucky and dodge that but christ it's hell.

The therapist is probably the one best placed to help you with coping with it, but yeah. The sooner you can break away from it the better, and don't be drawn back into the mess after you do manage to get out.

Really the only people who can help with BPD (On the off chance it's Bipolar rather than borderline, it's even moreso the case) are seasoned clinicians. So I think the best hope is for her to reach the point where she can seek help for herself and start to work through it.

I'm not sure if it's an official diagnosis or not but my father has apparently seen four different specialists and they all came to the conclusion that she has BPD, as well as my therapist.

Here's some background:

Around 2011, my parents were going through a rough patch and were on the verge of divorce. My brother was also planning on the leaving my mother to go live with dad. The divorce never happened and they wound up sticking together. A couple months later my brother committed suicide and left a note blaming my mother for "stealing his identity" from him and that she had failed as a mother. He also wrote on the back of the note that she had BPD.

I became so upset by the constant fighting and blaming going back and forth between Mom and Dad that I kind of just shut down emotionally. Eventually my parents did divorce and I decided to live with my mom out of pity and not wanting to hurt her or make her think that she was responsible for my brothers suicide. Problem is, I'm getting tired of feeling like I owe it to her to live with her. I feel more like an emotional slave than I do a grown adult. I'm a grown man who has no job and no plan forward and is too scared of doing anything out of fear that I may hurt my mother. It's only been recently with the help of a very smart therapist that has awoken me to the trance that I've been in for the past 5 years. I'm beginning to feel emotions again and it's clear my mother has sensed it. She senses that I'm getting fed up with her and she's threatened by the thought of losing me. This is where the fake suicide attempt happened last Sunday and she won that battle. I fell for her mind games, felt sorry for her and gave her the attention and sympathy that she wanted.

A book called Stop Walking on Egg Shells was recommended to me on how to deal BPD in your life so I'm going to give that a read.

It's also likely that my therapist will eventually start seeing my mom to treat her BPD.
Also, thanks for the response.

Christ, I'm sorry to hear about your brother.
Doesn't leave much room for doubt, that sounds exactly like it.

The book sounds like a good idea, the only thing I'd advise is to be careful about leaving it somewhere where she might find it. I can't speak for the situation on your end, but with my mother she was blissfully unaware of any problem in her thinking (until quite recently) and so the 'there is nothing wrong with me' line was repeated ad nauseam. However, god forbid anyone breathed a word that she might have been mentally ill, because that was a surefire way to dial up the psychosis to 100. So yeah, i'd just be careful about letting on that you ''suspect'' it in her (i.e, know she is) until you are well clear of the potential fallout.

I would hazard a guess that she isn't, but maybe she is. Is your mum self-aware about it?

The thing that was quite hard to reconcile with the endless bloody mind games and psychological abuse was that at the end of the day, it's a mental illness. Someone who is borderline cannot help it, their mind is warped by something that fucked them up a long time ago. There are a few ways that it can be treated, but as with any mental illness it needs the engagement of the person to actually be successful. Otherwise it is a waste of everyone's time because the BPD patient sits there thinking they are playing the therapist like a fiddle, whilst the therapist is painfully aware of all the madness being displayed infront of them with not a huge amount they can do to tackle it.

It really is awful to live with, and I'm glad you've got a good therapist to help you through it because I wouldn't be too surprised if after it's all 'over' you'll get hit by an emotional truck from all the mental abuse sustained.

I really do hope she comes out of it alright, I had pretty much written my mother off many years ago and made peace with the fact that she would be a twisted person for the rest of her days - but this last year or so has proven me wrong and she has actually started to see a therapist about the chaos in her head. Just remember to put yourself first, it's not selfishness by any means.

If you've got anything you want to ask, feel free.

. I'm glad to hear that your mom is getting help and that it seems to be helping her. That really gives me hope for my mom and that she will eventually be in a better state.

Yeah, it's something to hope for at least.

It'll be a long road, as long as you look after yourself your mum should find her way eventually.

I got a question, or sort of an observation with a "why?" at the end.

For other disorders and mental illnesses like extreme anxiety, depression, suicidal tendencies, etc, other than counselling it's recommended that the person has company or encouraged to engage in social interaction. Don't isolate them, basically.

So why with BPD, if it's an underlying fear of being isolated, is the recommendation to isolate them?

I suppose I can't empathise with you having never experienced something on par with that, but I find that contrast in secondary/supporting treatment a bit odd.

It's not so much a recommendation to isolate them from the community, they aren't overtly dangerous in that regard. But the psychological damage they cause to family members is appalling, particularly in children/young adults (Most vulnerable to it). Making sure that they are looked after is as important as treating the person with BPD, which very often cannot actually be achieved for a good length of time.

BPD is a very complex disorder, from what I understand (which could easily be wrong) it usually starts off with some sort of abuse/trauma in the early part of someone's life, which without proper support at the time leaves them to develop these very twisted and warped ways of thinking. Unpicking these lines of thinking takes a lot of time, and willing engagement (which necessitates acceptance of the condition in the first place) by the person. Sadly you cannot treat a BPD person unless they want help, and getting them to realise they need it is not an easy task.

Sorry if this^ is a mess of a post, I've written it about 3 times now and been interrupted each time so it's a bit bleh.