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.

Part 3.....

After I was out of day treatment, the child psychiatrist I was seeing insisted I be in therapy and I insisted I see a female.  So, my mom's wonderfully involved parenting style consisted of throwing the insurance book of providers at me and telling me "Pick someone!".  Unbeknownst to me, I picked someone who actually had a background in personality disorders and ended up diagnosing me at age 14 with BPD.  There were a few problems with that whole situation though.  First of all - I had no clue what it was and her having me read the criteria from the DSM-IV didn't help things any.  Secondly, my mom's view on life was (and still is) minimize and ignore things and they'll just go away.  And third, this woman engaged in some unethical if not fraudulent billing practices.

At this point in time there was no longer any way to hide that I'd been sexually abused, I'd incurred even more of my mom's wrath by saying too much about that already but she quickly made up a cover story to protect her family and the real perpetrators.  I learned it by rote, backwards and forwards, still hoping I could do something to earn my mom's love finally after all these years.

"I've only got hurt once, at my school when I was 8.  I asked for a pass to the restroom that was sort of in a separate building and when I left the girls room a bigger boy grabbed me and pulled me in the boys room.  He took my panties off and put his fingers in here and tried to make me such his thing but I bit him and got away and hid.  Later another girl from my class got sent looking for me and I told her I had got sick and didn't tell anyone what happened for real."

That was what I told this psychologist, nothing about 11 years of severe physical and sexual abuse by relatives or verbal and emotional abuse and neglect by my parents.  My mom quickly talked me out of the idea that I had Borderline Personality Disorder after reading how it was caused by serious abuse or neglect during childhood and going on and on about how anything I remembered of growing up was wrong and I had a 100% wonderful childhood.  (While I do have great memories, I also remember the hours of her screaming over one misplaced toy as long as my dad wasn't home, threats of having me arrested for crying, locking me in my room, etc.  And my dad's drunken driving which nearly killed us all quite a few times).  After the psychologist helped get me transferred to a new high school I found myself quickly running out of things to discuss with her since I couldn't be honest.

Tensions rose between her and my mother since she kept insisting I had Borderline Personality Disorder, and my mom also found out she was doing something slightly shady with billing (I never understood what).  The drive home from appointments would take about two hours due to rush hour traffic and they turned into sheer misery for me due to my mom's hateful tirades about how much time and money I was costing the family.  She had some severe back injuries, a side effect of a medication she'd taken for a chronic illness, and I heard daily how those hours on the road put her in pain for the entire week.  Finally I gave in and did what I thought she wanted - I refused to see the psychologist anymore.  That day was taken up with dozens of phone calls...demands from the psychologist that we arrive at the scheduled time, more calls when we did not saying to be there at 8pm, then demands to talk to me on the phone (which I refused), then a final call that the police and social services were being called.  For weeks I lived in fear anytime I saw a police car but nothing ever came of that last threat.