IRedW77

[IRedW77]

Hi,

I don't like introductions, but I want to be respectful of everyone here.

I'm in my early 40's. I've been in therapy for about a year now. It's something I avoided as an adult (along with a lot of other things) because it wasn't optional when I was a kid and it wasn't really about ME.

My T diagnosed me with ADHD about a month into therapy and I got on medication and it made a HUGE difference for me. I've had depression and been (mostly) successfully medicated for that for 20+ years. I have about one bad day a month where I'm clearly depressed. When that happens I recognize it and it's always better when I wake up the next day.

About 6 months ago I started to have episodes of a different kind of depression that lasted days on end. I kept talking about it and trying to explain it and eventually discussion meandered to my family.

I wrote 20 pages of memories and notes and thoughts about bad things that had happened from aged 0-20 and gave them to my T. The next session he said that it sounded like my mother had BPD.

I finally got brave and asked my emotionally repressed, but otherwise mentally healthy dad for answers to all the questions I'd been avoiding asking for 40 years. That filled in worse details than anything I remembered and gave me proof enough that yes, my mom has BPD.

I joined OOTF and have been posting there a lot. People kept mentioning C-PTSD in responses, so I started reading. I don't have a diagnosis yet, but I'm working with my T. I'm in the U.S. and it's not really recognized, so I'm having to educate both of us at the same time.

Everything I've read about it really fits with the issues I've always struggled with. The idea of emotional flashbacks alone explained a LOT. I'd been trying fruitlessly to get to the bottom of those as well. Since I've been digging into things I think I've had a couple of more traditional flashbacks as well.

I know minimization is a thing, but I am still worried reading other people's stories that mine isn't really that bad and I'm convincing myself of something. The NPD's sound so much scarier than the BPD's.

My parents divorced when I was 5. I'm an only child and BPDm got primary custody. My dad tried and tried to get more custody of me, but it was the 80's and the judge said "a child belongs with his mother." Never mind the fact that she'd been hospitalized the year before after she made a suicide attempt while she was alone with 4 year old me.

I was enmeshed and parentified from age 0 to 17 or so. My mom is a "waif" type BPD and she's been sick with something or other my whole life. When I was a kid whatever she got herself diagnosed with she'd get me diagnosed with next. It wasn't just different diagnoses, it was different types of medicine, eastern, western, whatever else.

She's always seeking the next big "cure" and I got pumped full of all kinds of crazy ideas and medications as a kid. She had me in therapy for years, but that consisted of her telling the therapist everything that she was dealing with in raising me.

From the time I was born she'd rage at me at random. That kept up until I was a teenager and learned to rage back. At this point I just glaze over while she complains at me. I yawn compulsively in her presence. I'm her golden child and she doesn't have anyone else left, so she knows better than to rage at me anymore.

When I left home I disavowed any and all childhood diagnoses and decided never to go to a therapist again. That was a mistake.

When I had my own kids a few years ago I started having issues I couldn't deal with and ended up in therapy. That childhood ADD diagnosis would have been worth holding onto, and I could have learned about her BPD and everything else 25 years ago, but I'm here now.

I have a wonderful wife and two very young kids. I'm a stay at home dad. Since all this I worry desperately about what I may have already done to my own kids. We live a fairly comfortable life, but I don't really have much of any friends anymore. We're also very burnt out because we have no other childcare—except my BPD mom when she's willing.

I'm kind of obsessed with all of my own mental health stuff right now and trying to remember and learn about the past. I want answers and I want to fix everything all at once right now.

I get fascinated with things and devote all of my spare time and mental energy to them. I think of that as a problem, if for no other reason than it's what I've watched BPDm do my entire life. I think some of that behavior is the ADHD, which I obviously also inherited from her.

I'm trying to become more accepting of myself, so I kind of don't know if that's a bad trait or not. It's so fundamental as a through-line of all of my behavior that I don't know that I could change it if I decided I should.

I'm at least aware of it as a pattern in my life. BPDm changes her focus and beliefs regularly and all previous contradictory beliefs just cease to exist.

I know I struggle with boundaries when it comes to other people's problems and the compulsion to help them. I've read the warnings and will try not to do that here. Please anyone warn me if I overstep any boundaries. You will not offend me.

[Not Alone]

IRedW77, welcome to OOTS.  Thank you for sharing.

It was brave to ask your father about your mother. I'm glad that he was able to affirm your experience.

I know minimization is a thing, but I am still worried reading other people's stories that mine isn't really that bad and I'm convincing myself of something.

For many of us, we were told or others told us, "It's not that bad." Yeah, it really was bad. Just reading this one post of yours, I can say, what you went through was awful. A long time ago someone told me that he never compared pain. I'm not always successful, but I try to live by that also.

[Blueberry]

Hello IRedW77 and welcome to the forum

I second everything notalone wrote except obviously the someone who spoke to her about pain didn't speak to me 

The "my past wasn't as bad as everybody else's" is a fairly common theme on here. As notalone says, it's because we were usually told that for years on end. When I think my past wasn't that bad, I'm probably in an EF. It really was that bad. So was yours. I can tell by what you wrote.

I hope you find this forum a supportive place.

[woodsgnome]

So many of us have been so conditioned to not trust our own feelings that we naturally tend to downplay our own hurt. We compare notes, but really there is no comparison when we've been so damaged, invalidated, and unsupported before.

So, you're not at all alone about the grief and self-doubt these wounds ha caused. As Blueberry noted, many here have expressed similar sentiments to yours, but in the end all are unique; which is but one way this forum can help you set foot towards creating a new outlook for coming to grips with your own troubled past. I'd like to start by offering this gentle 

Welcome.

Here's hoping you'll feel safe and comfortable here as you begin the important journey back.

[mojay]

Hello and welcome IRedW77!! 

I'm kind of obsessed with all of my own mental health stuff right now and trying to remember and learn about the past. I want answers and I want to fix everything all at once right now.

I really resonate with this! I think that's a very compassionate thing to do for yourself. I truly hope that OOTS can be a resource for you and help you on your mental health journey. Glad you're here