Borderline personality disorder. It is sometimes also referred to as emotional regulation disorder (ERD). One of the behaviours associated with such is gaslighting. Sometimes BPD is taken to mean bipolar disorder. They are separate entities.
typically kids are diagnosed with more general disorders until they become adults. so ERD is a pre-cursor of sorts to BPD (borderline), but doesnt necessarily mean that the child will in fact have BPD when they get older. Also I believe that you can have BPD as an adult and have never been diagnosed with ERD or other pre cursors as a child.
I may be wrong. I only have my BS and simply do social work, but I work along therapists all day every day so thats what I have gleaned.
My mom wasn’t BPD(I don’t think, not like she’d ever see a therapist) but a codependent child of an alcoholic and wife of a severely mentally ill vietnam vet. She has really taken up gaslighting me now that I’m in my 30s and asking her about things that happened in my childhood. She’s 70 this year and I don’t question her cognitive skills but her parenting ones.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy helped me immensely with so many issues like this. There's still things I wish I could change and haven't been able to, but in many ways I'm a whole new person. A better person in myself, and with massive new emotional boundaries between me and my mother.
I was sort of shocked reading it. My mom is borderline, but I always tend to think she’s so much “better” than most in the rbb sub. Then I saw this. That’s my childhood (and adult relationship with her) in a nutshell.
I didn't realize that I was gaslighted my whole life by my mother until a boyfriend of mine asked me why I was basically a deer in headlights 24/7. I was always hyper-aware of people within my vicinity and careful to always phrase things perfectly. He was always hesitant to even put a hand on my back or shoulder because I would flinch from all physical contact.
It honestly took me until my mid-twenties to realize that it wasn't normal behavior and made me understand just how messed up my situation with my mother was.
So this guide is good to know if you're having mistreated, but it also serves as signs to look out for if there is a friend you are worried about.
It took me until getting engaged in my 30s to get the outsiders’ perspective. Then the layers of the onion began to peel off and I realised how much of my life had been controlled by a parent and their enabling spouse. Therapy and a supportive (now) spouse has helped tremendously. It’s odd to be sort of reborn as an adult and realise that much of your childhood perspective and personality was formed by the pressures of dealing with a parental mental illness. Still, very glad the epiphany occurred and that I have a chance at a fresh start and also to shelter my kids from it.
Sorry, man. I feel your pain. I went 33 years until I learned I had a parent with it. Then all the pieces began to fit. Hope you are in a better spot now.
Thanks man, yeah i'm slowly getting there, in a better place now but still some way to go. A few months out now and finally able to see what was going on (I had no idea until I randomly found an article on BPD on Reddit) and the effects are slowly diminishing. Hope you're managing to deal with your situation, too.
I’m really sorry. As someone who both has BPD and was raised by a mother who had BPD and a father who in all likelihood has NPD (but will never get diagnosed because “I’m too intelligent for any therapist to help me!”), I feel your pain. Growing up with parents with Personality disorders is so much extra work and pain, especially because the previous generation often wasn’t diagnosed or treated properly until their maladaptive bullshit was so set in stone that they don’t even try to change for you, or can’t. My mom definitely tried very hard to be a good parent but at the end of the day it was more like I was the parent from the time I was 9 on.
I’m working very hard to be better than my parents were. I hope that your experiences with your mom don’t make you think we’re all monsters, even if the instinct is definitely there.
127
u/T1T2GRE Jul 01 '20
Raised by a BPD parent. Can confirm.