Surviving the Borderline Parent
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. cooking
. painting
. making love
. working in your woodshop
. petting your dog or cat
. playing squash.
STOP AND THINK:
What Qualities Make You You?
Consider what qualities make you you. How would your friends describe
you? Are you warm, funny, ambitious, mellow? How would you describe
yourself? Think about it, and write your responses in your journal.
What makes you feel competent? What do you feel comfortable
teaching others how to do? What do you know you’re good at?
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You’ve Got the Goods
It’s not uncommon for adults who were raised in emotionally
charged, unhealthy, or dysfunctional homes to continue to lack a strongly defined sense of self and to struggle with self-esteem. While you may face those issues yourself, it’s also important to consider the positives that have come from your experiences.
As author Wayne Muller (1992) writes in Legacy of the Heart: The
Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood, “Adults who were hurt as children inevitably exhibit a peculiar strength, a profound inner wisdom, and a remarkable creativity and insight. Deep within them—just beneath
the wound—lies a profound spiritual vitality, a quiet knowing, a way of
perceiving what is beautiful, right, and true. Since their early experiences were so dark and painful, they have spent much of their lives in search of the gentleness, love, and peace they have only imagined in the privacy of their own hearts” (p. xiii). He goes on to write about how you’re likely
stronger than you give yourself credit for. Just simply living in your home on a daily basis and surviving took courage, determination, and strength.
You probably learned to be observant, scanning your environment
and those around you for cues as to what to anticipate, when to take shelter in your room, when to go out, how to respond to questions. You also
likely developed your intuition and learned how to be adaptable, nimble,
to adjust to change and chaotic circumstances. You developed resilience
and found a place deep within you that allowed you to nurture and pro-
tect yourself to some degree.
STOP AND THINK: Positive Results
Take some time to think about the positive qualities you developed as a
result of your experience. Examples might include being compassionate,
empathetic, sensitive, observant, funny, and able to find humor in dark situations. They might include being insightful, perceptive, fair, self-reliant, independent, kind, a good judge of character, appreciative, able to see
beauty in ordinary things or where others typically don’t. Write your
thoughts in your journal.
Also consider what you learned about others as a result of your
experience. How are you a better, stronger, smarter, more insightful
person?
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Be Mindful of Yourself
Your inner resources served you well as a child, and they likely still
do today, even though at times you may feel that they’ve been tapped out.
One way to rebuild and connect with those inner resources is to increase
mindfulness or self-awareness. The more you know about how you’re feel-
ing, what you’re thinking, what you’re sensing, at any given moment, the
more strength, power, and control you will have. The better and healthier your decisions will be. The more confident you’ll feel in your knowledge
and perceptions.
Self-awareness means focusing your attention on the present, on
what you’re doing, feeling, thinking, smelling, tasting, seeing, wanting, and planning to do right now. It means being in the moment. It may sound obvious to say that you need to focus attention on what you’re
doing at any given time, but it’s a true challenge. How many times has
your mind wandered while you were taking a shower and you stayed in
longer than you anticipated? How often have you had a conversation with
someone while thinking about what you needed to pick up at the grocery
store or what you mustn’t forget to tell your son as soon as he gets home?
How often do you vaguely feel your stomach growl but because you’re so
busy you don’t think about it or the fact that you forgot to eat lunch?
STOP AND THINK: Practicing Mindfulness
Try practicing mindfulness using the following exercises. You can do them with any activity. These are just three examples to get you started.
Mindful Walking
Walk slowly across the room and notice how it feels as each part of
your foot comes into contact with the floor—your heel, your arch, the
outside of your foot, the ball of your foot, your toes. How do the muscles of your foot feel? Your skin? What’s the texture of the floor like? The
temperature? The sound as your foot moves over it? If you’re wearing
socks, how do they feel on your foot and against the floor?
Mindful Folding
Using all of your senses, practice mindfulness as you fold a freshly
laundered sheet. How does it smell? What’s the texture like? The temper-
ature? How does it feel against your skin as you fold it? What sounds do
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you hear? What’s the process like of trying to align the corners and edges to fold it evenly? How does its feel change as you continue folding it?
Mindful Handwashing
Next time you wash your hands, notice how the water feels as it
runs over them. What’s the temperature like? The pressure? How does the
water sound as it comes out of the faucet? As it hits your hands? What
does the texture of the soap feel like? Notice the patterns of the suds as they form on your hands. Notice their irridescence. What sounds do you
hear?
Confronting Vestiges of the Past
Part of who you are today includes those long-ingrained responses to your parent’s behaviors. Those responses, those ways of being in and seeing the world are still with you in subtle yet fundamental ways. The following
pages are designed to help you continue to identify the areas you want to examine further.
Again, the by-products of having been raised by a parent(s) with
BPD or similar emotional and cognitive patterns may be seen in the fol-
lowing areas:
7 difficulty trusting yourself and others
7 feeling shame
7 feeling guilt
7 possessing a negative self-concept, including self-definition, self-
esteem, self-awareness, self-expression
7 difficulty setting appropriate boundaries
7 being quick to judge; judging yourself and others harshly
7 black-and-white thinking
7 feeling out of sync with others
7 difficulty regulating emotions
7 engaging in self-harming or self-defeating behaviors.
You may notice that you have issues in some areas and not others.
There’s no right or wrong, good or bad here. And within each area,
there’s a wide spectrum. You may show some tendencies at one or both
ends, or anywhere in between. For example, you may have rigid
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135
boundaries, walls up, or you may have very loose boundaries, so that you
become easily enmeshed with others. You may see patterns on both ends
of the spectrum, depending on the circumstances.
STOP AND THINK: Where Are You?
For each of the following statements within each area, rate how closely
you identify—1 indicating that you don’t identify at all; 10 indicating that you identify very strongly.
Difficulty Trusting Self and Others
If someone does something nice for me, I tend to wonder what
their real motives are.
It takes me a long time to trust someone.
It’s hard for me to feel safe and secure.
I often second-guess myself; I feel like I must be missing some-
thing, so it’s hard to make decisions.
Life seems very complicated.
It’s hard for me to accept things at face value.
It’s difficult for me to relax; I’m often paying very close atten-
tion to who and what’s around me for signs of danger.
I startle easily, don’t like loud noises, often feel anxious.
I bristle at unexpected touch even from loved ones, or if
strangers get too close.
Feeling Shame
If I make even a silly mistake, I feel ashamed.
I feel undeserving of people’s kindness, love, affection.
Sometimes I feel like I don’t have the right to just “be.”
I can’t seem to do anything right.
Feeling Guilt
I feel responsible for others—their actions, their well-being,
their happiness.
I frequently wonder whether people are angry at me.
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I find myself apologizing a lot.
If I only tried harder, I think I could fix. . . .
I sometimes feel like I’m a burden.
It’s selfish not to think of others’ needs and feelings before my
own.
Possessing a Negative Self-Concept
Deep down, I wonder who I am.
It’s a challenge for me to identify how I really feel about an
issue or event. Sometimes I just feel numb, or the feelings can
be so overwhelming, it’s hard to separate them.
I often repress or deny my feelings and say things like, “Oh, it
wasn’t that bad.”
If I don’t have the same beliefs and feelings as others, I worry
that they won’t accept me.
I’m uncomfortable telling others, directly, how I feel and
addressing issues with them.
I prefer to stay in the background; I feel uncomfortable when
I’m the center of attention.
I feel unlovable.
Difficulty Setting Appropriate Boundaries
I see patterns in my relationships—I tend to choose partners
and friends who are unhealthy or physically or emotionally
abusive to me or very, very dependent on me. I’ve wondered
(only half-jokingly) whether I have a sign prominently dis-
played somewhere on me that says, “Sucker.”
I’m a natural-born caretaker.
I really like to solve other people’s problems—it makes me feel
good.
I feel better keeping my defenses up; that way I won’t be taken
advantage of.
I feel bad saying no to anyone unless I have a really good
explanation.
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Judging Yourself and Others Harshly
Doing things exactly right is important to me.
People will think less of me if I make a mistake.
I’ve been told I’m a perfectionist, and that may be true.
I find that I’m quick to judge others (in positive or negative
ways).
I tend to focus on people’s flaws rather than their good points.
I tend to focus on my flaws rather than my good points.
It’s generally hard for me to accept someone just as they are. I
find that I wish they could be different.
It’s hard for me to accept myself. I often wish I were different.
If I’m with someone and they do something wrong, it reflects
on me.
Black-and-White Thinking
Seeing the gray areas of issues is challenging to me. Things are
either one way or the other; you can’t have both.
I like things clear-cut.
For a while I’ll see only the good in people, but then they dis-
appoint me somehow.
If someone upsets me, it’s easier for me to distance myself or
cut them off than to try to work it out.
Feeling Out of Sync with Others
I was a late-bloomer in some ways; there are things I realize I
need to learn now that others learned when they were kids.
I sometimes feel many years older than my contemporaries.
People have told me that I seem wise beyond my years.
No one really understands me or what I’ve been through.
I’m different than other people.
I feel like I’m playing catch-up all the time.
I can become highly anxious in new social situations.
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Difficulty Regulating Emotions
I’d say I’m a very emotional person.
My emotional ups and downs have gotten in the way of my
making good decisions in the past.
My emotional ups and downs have affected my relationships
with others.
I’d describe myself as moody.
I wish I could be more even-keeled.
It doesn’t take much to change my mood.
I have quite a temper.
Engaging in Self-Harming or Self-Defeating Behaviors
There have been periods in my life where I’ve been quite
promiscuous.
I show my feelings for people I’m interested in romantically
through physical intimacy.
When someone suggests I not do something, I take it as a chal-
lenge and do it anyway.
I believe in throwing caution to the wind. You only live once,
right?
I use things like alcohol, drugs, tobacco, sex, gambling, or
shopping to make myself feel better.
I’ve had a problem in the past with addiction.
Review your responses. Be on the lookout for responses on either
end of the spectrum, such as a 1 or 2 or a 9 or 10, because they may indicate difficulty seeing gray areas or striking a balance. You may want to
work on these areas.
An Exercise in Acceptance
As you consider the statements above and score your responses you
might be thinking, “Wow, I have a lot I want to work on,” or “Oh no, I
have a long road ahead of me.” Try not to think about that now. The first step toward any type of change is acceptance. Acceptance doesn’t mean
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139
contentment or approval; rather it means that you’re choosing not to
dwell on the past, which let’s you turn your attention toward the future.
Acceptance means striking a balance between ideas that might seem
to oppose one other: you’re fine as you are at this point in time and you have things you want to change; you’re not to blame for what you experienced as a child and you are responsible for creating the life you choose now.
STOP AND THINK: Practicing Acceptance
Write an acceptance statement that validates where you are now, the
changes you’ve made, and that encourages you to make more. For exam-
ple, “I have made lots of changes, and there are things I’m still working on. I am where I am, but that doesn’t mean
I have to be stuck here.” Or,
“I’m beginning to understand the roles assigned to me in my family of origin and the rules by which it functioned. I realize I no longer need to step into or follow them when they don’t fit. I’m no longer blindly following
them, and now I see more and more that they can be challenged.” Use
your own words.
At times the self-improvements you want to make may seem over-
whelming; they may seem impossible to attain. But you’re not doomed.
Maureen, the forty-seven-year-old daughter of a mother whom she sus-
pects has BPD, recalls how she felt in her early twenties: “I would have
told you I had an [irreparable] black, hollow space inside me. I thought if I let people see me that they’d find me unlovable. But I’m not so terrified now to be unlovable. I’m more comfortable in my own skin. I’ve made a
lot of changes, and I’m not done. This is where I am now and what I can
handle. I’ve worked really hard to be sane.”
PART 3
The Future
CHAPTER 8
Envisioning Change and
Breaking Old Habits
In the previous chapter, we talked about the messages you may have
received as a child and how you might have internalized them, incorporat-
ing them into your own sense of who you are. Identifying these core
beliefs is challenging precisely because they help define who you are. It’s hard to see them as notions that can be challenged—they just seem like
part of you and how you see the world. Your mind actually filters out evidence to the contrary while retaining supporting evidence. This only reinforces your thoughts and perceptions and makes them harder to question.
Challenging Core Beliefs
Let’s say you wonder whether you really are lovable. Growing up, you
endured much erratic and perhaps cruel behavior from a parent who was
inconsistent with affection, raged often and projected her angry feelings onto you, accusing you of being a “bitter” person who caused fights to
erupt in your wake. Today, as an adult, have you noticed that you’ve found yourself in situations where that has indeed happened? Have you chosen
friends who say or convey similar sentiments to you? Have you ever noticed that you react to people defensively as though they must be thinking you’re a bitter person, when really they may not have any such notion? Have you
lashed out at someone because you thought they were attacking you, even
though they weren’t? Your thoughts and your subsequent actions and