The Impact of a Mother with Emotional Problems on Development of BPD

Taking a little break from putting things in chronological order to side track here.

I really believe one huge factor, after the incredible amounts of abuse in general that I endured as a child, in my developing BPD was being born to an emotionally self-absorbed and frigid mother.  While I believe in her mind she loved me, I also believe she was completely incapable of showing that love or putting a child's needs above her own.  By the time I was born she had been in a subservient role to my dad for 13 years and I can only guess the role she played in her family before marrying.  Suddenly having this little creature who depended on her for everything was probably awe provoking at first but later overwhelming.
Throughout my life, my mom has tried to impose her will and thoughts on me.  I don't remember the first 9 months of my life but I began to speak very early and suddenly having a little human who could express her opinion didn't sit well with my mother.  I also developed severe sensory issues...the cute corduroy jumpers, jeans, and frilly skirts my mom wanted me in sent shivers through me and pains shooting up and down my body.  The daily battle of dressing me resulted in me being pinned to the bed screaming in pain and begging for soft clothes, pleas which were ignored because...as I later learned...appearances were all that mattered.

To say my mom was emotionally cold is an understatement at best.  I would try to crawl into her lap as a toddler, only to be pushed to the floor and told she was "too tired".  Any time I was allowed on her lap, or kissed, or held, was in public or in front of my dad for show.  Despite this hatred of being close to me, she would often come and sleep in my bed instead of sleeping in bed with my dad.  This resulted in me sometimes sleeping on the floor or wedged between the mattress and the wall.  Her excuse was that she knew I was touching myself and "being dirty".  At one point, her solution was to put me in pajamas that were so small they cut into my ankles, wrists, and waist until there were blood bruises.

When I became deathly ill and was admitted to the hospital right after my 7th birthday I would scream and cry from the pain of the IVs, an uncontrollably high fever, and my own fear.  I'd beg and plead to be held or for her to lie in the bed with me, she'd brush it off saying I couldn't ask that!  Did I want her to get in trouble?  Grudgingly she'd submit to letting me hold her hand on occasion...I think more to appear a "good mother" to the medical staff than anything else.  Upon my first night home after almost two months in the hospital - exhausted, weak, and completely overstimulated; she I sister in tossing me in the bathtub, dumping pails of water over me, and yanking at my long hair until every knot from the past two months was out.  Letting me rest my first night back home wasn't important since I "wasn't going to look like that" in her home.