My Borderline Mother

People will let you down in life. Having your parents let you down is probably the worst of all of them. My father was an alcoholic and a convicted sex offender. He also was a huge racist and at age 16 he told me that if he ever caught me dating outside my race...he would put a bullet though the middle of my forehead. My Borderline mother did not have it in her to be a mother who was there emotionally. I could sit and talk to you about heartache and pain all day long my dear friends. It's the hand that some of us are dealt. It doesn't make me any more of less of a person than those who haven't experienced it. It just makes me a bit more in tune with the feelings of others. 

Foolishly over the years I kept hoping that one day magically my parents would change. That they would be the parents I needed them to be. For my father that change never happened...and he passed away. I never felt safe with either of them. I grew up on edge and walking on eggshells. I would find myself instinctively "tip-toeing" around the house as not to wake my mother. Waking her would mean enduring whatever emotional abuse or anxiety was being served up that day. 

A child needs to be nurtured and feel safe. My needs were not met and I endured emotional and sexual abuse and this has caused my mental illness and trauma related reactions. To this day, I know I can seem needy at times.  It comes from a good place...really. 

My psychiatrist wouldn't like me saying this, but I'm a hard person to love. Borderlines can seem emotionally flat at times. Then like flipping a switch over emotional. What I do know is that I am NOT my mother. I have worked to undo the damage and I'm a survivor. I have made a lot of progress. I will continue to do the work. 

I have spent the last 13 years avoiding and living far away from my mother. Why am I trying to forge a relationship with her now? They say you have to let go of the past, but the past is still very much the present.

In the end all I really want is to be loved. Loved by someone who accepts that I have lived this life and gets me. Someone who is a lighthouse on my dark horizon. 

I've got a war in my mind.

People like myself with BPD to get overwhelmed and discouraged more easily than the average person. We are emotionally unstable and feel anger and sadness more intensly than most. You may feel anger in a situation and the borderline instead will feel rage. We are very "black and white" type of personalities. All or nothing and no middle ground, no grey area in between. As a person with BPD I face daily challenges that aren't obvious. As Lana Del Rey says in her song Ride "Been trying hard not to get into trouble, but I've got a war in my mind." My behavior may seem strange at times on what I call my "bad days." I find that feeling extremely stressed triggers me. Change triggers me as well. I become highly irritable and short tempered or maybe I will do what I call "hibernating" and become antisocial. It's a toss up. You never know what you're gonna get. It's that unpredictable, impulsiveness that makes it hard to try and understand the Borderline.