Surviving the Borderline Parent

by Freda Friedman

  every long-ingrained pattern overnight. Isolating particular patterns and focusing on them will help you make real and lasting change.

  In deciding what habits you want to challenge and change first, you

  might consider several factors. First and foremost, if you’re engaging in self-harming or self-defeating behaviors that are endangering your life or your health, you should place those issues toward the top of your list. If you don’t feel physically well or you’re not safe, it’s going to be that much harder to do the introspective work you want to do. By the same token, it can be extremely frightening and difficult to think of letting go of behaviors or thought patterns that you’ve come to lean on. If you’ve identified self-harming or self-defeating behaviors as areas for improvement, it might prove helpful to seek professional help as you work through them.

  Next, you might want to examine the beliefs and behaviors that

  interfere with your quality of life, that is, your career, family, friendships, your financial situation, housing. If, for instance, you’ve identified that you tend to judge others quickly and somewhat harshly, and you’ve

  noticed that your two children are acting in ways similar to how you

  responded to your own parent when you were a child, you might be moti-

  vated to make some changes. If feelings of anxiety are hindering your

  career advancement, and it’s affecting your salary and therefore your ability to buy the new car you desperately need, then anxiety might be where

  you want to focus. If your difficulty in trusting people is affecting your dating life and you want to find a partner, you might choose to work first in that area.

  Ultimately, you want to prioritize the steps toward what psycholo-

  gist Abraham Maslow (1998) called self-actualization, or the ability to reach your potential. These steps include the issues that prevent you from being who you could be, from finding happiness and meaning in life.

  What’s getting in your way?

  152

  Surviving a Borderline Parent

  There’s no right or wrong way to set your priorities. Certainly, it

  might be better not to choose the hardest to change, most entrenched

  belief or behavior first. In trying to change something you’re not ready to give up, you may unwittingly set yourself up for failure. And remember

  that focusing on one area doesn’t mean you’re completely excluding oth-

  ers. You can take baby steps with other issues as well. The choices are

  yours to make.

  STOP AND THINK: Prioritize

  In your journal, prioritize the work you want to do. What belief(s) or

  behavior(s) do you want to address first? Have you discussed them with

  your therapist? Are you in agreement on your priorities?

  Getting to Work

  One of the first steps toward change is understanding. Why did you

  develop the beliefs and/or behaviors you plan to challenge? As the child of someone with BPD-like traits, you likely had some very valid reasons.

  Maureen, struggled with painful shyness as an adult. When asked

  where she thinks it came from, she responds, “I think shyness comes from

  not being allowed to speak your mind. I was always afraid if I drew attention to myself that I’d get raged at. I’d also get spanked and slapped, but the raging was more damaging. Walking on eggshells—I think that’s what

  makes you shy.”

  Maureen also says she has a streak of perfectionism. Her thoughts

  on its origins? She remembers playing the guitar as a child and making up a song. “Who do you think you are?” her mother asked when Maureen

  excitedly and proudly played it for her. “Why don’t you learn how to play the thing first and save being fancy for later?” There were other similar incidents too.

  “Now, I either have to do something perfectly, or I can’t do it at

  all,” Maureen says. “I still have some black-and-white thinking about this.

  On the one hand, I say to myself, ‘You’re pond scum.’ On the other, ‘You

  have to be perfect.’”

  Maureen’s experience shows not only where certain beliefs and

  behaviors come from but also how a cognitive distortion, black-and-white

  thinking, exacerbates tendencies toward perfectionism.

  Envisioning Change and Breaking Old Habits

  153

  STOP AND THINK: Looking at Origins

  Where do you think the negative thoughts and behaviors you’ve identified

  come from? Can you see connections between them and your early child-

  hood experiences? Can you see how your inner critic and adulthood expe-

  riences have helped to reinforce them? Write about your observations,

  without judging yourself.

  In addition to your inner critic, what reinforces your negative beliefs

  and behaviors? Donna, forty-two, believes fear of the unknown may play a

  role: “It’s very difficult to think of your life, of yourself, without these things, since they’ve become a part of you. Sometimes you just have to

  force yourself to do something you don’t want to do. It’s scary to have to try to interpret things in a different way. It’s like you have a new identity.

  You don’t know who you are without the pain. Who do you become?

  Who is Donna without the pain of childhood? Am I just an ordinary per-

  son then?”

  STOP AND THINK: Examining Reinforcement

  What do you think reinforces some of the negative beliefs and behaviors

  you’ve identified? Even though these beliefs and behaviors have likely gotten in your way, consider how they may have made you feel comfortable.

  Did they seemingly protect you from being hurt by others? From rejec-

  tion? From taking responsibility for shoring up your self-esteem? Now

  think about what you stand to gain by letting go of them. Is the fear or

  uncertainty you may feel now worth the potential rewards?

  One of the major issues Donna works to overcome is seeing the

  world in rejection mode, ready to assume that she’s being snubbed,

  excluded, or talked about behind her back. This has affected her

  self-esteem, reinforced her shyness, and made it more difficult to meet and trust others. Her outlook has affected her ability to get a job. She took each unsuccessful attempt personally, and it didn’t take long before she

  was paralyzed and unable to think of going to yet another interview. Still, she knew she had to find a way to do it. Her husband had been shoulder-ing their financial obligations alone and, even though he didn’t complain, Donna felt that it was unacceptable over the long-term; she wanted to

  contribute her share.

  154

  Surviving a Borderline Parent

  STOP AND THINK:

  What Are the Consequences?

  What are the consequences, direct and indirect, of the negative beliefs and behaviors you engage in? How do you feel about the consequences? Are

  they motivation to change?

  Taking Small Steps

  Once Donna decided she needed to get out of “rejection mode,” she

  did a few things. First, she saw a psychiatrist, who prescribed medication for her anxiety. (This book neither endorses nor discourages the use of psychiatric medications; this is your decision, to be undertaken in conjunction with your medical and mental health care partners.) She also addressed her anxiety and specific job-related issues with her therapist. She took a one-day course on interview skills to increase her comfort level, and, perhaps most importantly, she continues to make it a point to reframe her thinking.

  “I finally figured out that if I was going to overcome this, there was

  no other way than making myself look at things without the rejection par-

&nbs
p; adigm,” she says. “If I lost a friend [she’d recently lost a friend to cancer], I was going to have to look at it as ‘this happens to people,’ and it is no fault of my own. If I didn’t get a job, I was going to have to look at it as a numbers game—you have to be rejected so many times before you get a

  job. Everybody has interviews and doesn’t get the job.” Instead of looking at her experiences as rejecting, she chose to see them as a normal part of life. “It’s depersonalizing it,” she adds. “It’s the only way to do it. I still struggle with fear of rejection; it takes a lot of effort to counter. I feel like I have two choices: Live like that for the rest of my life or try to overcome it. If not now, when?”

  In spite of her shyness and perfectionism, Maureen applied to and

  enrolled in a graduate program. She managed depression and other

  unhealthy thought patterns through counseling, yoga, weight training, and swimming (even though she was told by her mother with BPD that she was

  an “accident prone” child, and says she was never really athletic before).

  She went on to become a speech pathologist and joined a private practice.

  She says, “That was a turnaround for me, to be dealing with human beings

  every day. It was like therapy for me; in some ways it was healing. I found it to be desensitizing for the shyness. People say I seem normal and healthy, but I know how scared I still am on the inside. It still takes a lot of work.”

  As for her perfectionism, she says, “I allow myself to be more average now.

  Envisioning Change and Breaking Old Habits

  155

  I can do things and feel okay if they’re not just perfect. I keep telling people that my middle-aged goal is to become mediocre.”

  Start small. Even with the toughest issues, there’s always a first step.

  It can be as seemingly simple as buying a book to learn more about an

  issue (like you’ve already done with this book) or visiting a Web site to learn more about something you want to pursue. Give yourself credit for

  your effort, no matter how inconsequential it might seem to you.

  STOP AND THINK: Strategic Steps

  What are some small, realistic steps you can take to make changes in the

  area(s) you’ve identified? Brainstorm to come up with ideas, on your own

  or with a therapist or close friend, and write them down.

  Think specifically about how you will integrate these steps into your life, say, later today or tomorrow. Commit these plans to paper and, if

  applicable, add them to your calendar or organizer.

  Internalizing Change

  It’s one thing to know in your mind that you deserve to move

  toward the life you want. It’s quite another to feel it, and to know it so well that you take action. There’s no better way to internalize new and

  healthier beliefs and behaviors than repetition. That means practice, practice, practice. And then more practice. It means not waiting until you feel better, or ready to make a change, before taking the first step.

  Imagine that you’re not a morning person at all, but you want to be

  more productive so you decide you’re going to try to wake up earlier. You set your alarm for 7 A.M., about an hour earlier than normal. The alarm

  goes off and you’re tempted to hit the snooze button, thinking that it will be easier to get up in half an hour or an hour, after you’re feeling more rested. In fact, if you get yourself up and moving, start brewing some coffee and take a shower, you’ll probably feel wide awake much sooner. And

  you’ll have added time to your day and feel good about how you stuck to

  your objective. Success builds on itself, and many—not all—subsequent

  days will be easier. Soon you might even find yourself waking up a minute or two before 7 A.M., prior to your alarm.

  156

  Surviving a Borderline Parent

  STOP AND THINK: Chronicling Change

  Be sure to track your reactions—thoughts, emotions, changes in your out-

  look and behavior—and your successes and challenges in your journal.

  Note whether and how you see changes in how others respond to you as

  well.

  CHAPTER 9

  Trust Yourself, Set

  Boundaries, Build

  Self-Esteem

  The concepts covered earlier in this book—overcoming grief, dealing with

  anger, squelching guilt, communicating assertively and setting limits with your parent, unearthing your true self, and identifying the healthy changes you want to make—lay the foundation for three powerful tools: trusting

  yourself, setting boundaries, and building self-esteem. These three tools are interwoven; if you have trouble with any one, it’s hard to master

  either of the remaining two. Though not easy, they’re worth developing,

  for together they allow you to live a life that’s true to who you are; that’s safe, healthy, and rewarding.

  Trusting Yourself

  Adult children raised by a parent with BPD or its traits likely have a hard time trusting their own perceptions, their own judgment, their emotions,

  and knowing what’s normal. This has its roots in several childhood experiences, including the lack of validation for your emotions and perceptions.

  Instead of confirming your emotions by showing you (comforting you,

  hugging you, nodding empathically), or telling you that you behaved per-

  fectly appropriately for the situation, your parent may have discounted or disregarded your emotions or guided you to change your reaction to meet

  158

  Surviving a Borderline Parent

  his own needs. If, for example, you fell off your bike as a young child and cried out of pain and fear, your parent may have laughed at your reaction and told you not to act like such a baby. You learned that your feelings

  and your visible reactions were wrong.

  You may also have lived with chaos and inconsistency. There were

  likely few constants; it was hard to feel confident in your own beliefs and impressions because they were continually challenged and shaken.

  Your parent also may not have encouraged you to explore, to play,

  to satisfy your curiosity, or to take risks. You likely weren’t pushed to see that you could try something and succeed—or fail—and that you’d be fine

  in the end. While you may have learned to be very independent and

  self-reliant, you probably weren’t pushed to test your limits, to see what you could and couldn’t do. And so you learned not to trust your own abilities and resources.

  You also may have learned that you had to have proof of your

  impressions and feelings. It may not have been enough to say, “I feel

  sick”; you had to have a fever or be vomiting in order to be believed. It may not have been enough to say, “I was late because my friend’s car

  broke down”; you had to somehow show that it indeed happened. You

  learned that your opinions and perceptions, on their own merit, didn’t

  stand.

  In many ways, even though you may have grown up before your

  time because you were a parentified child, you may be feeling like you’re behind in some areas, that you don’t know or never learned some of the

  things that others did. You may not have learned to drive when others

  did, not attended college when others did. You may have a hard time

  knowing what’s normal or right with respect to everything from how to

  organize a linen closet or pantry to how to act in certain social situations.

  You may not trust your own instincts in any of these areas.

  Emily, twenty-six, recalls her first job with a large corporation.

  Before a meeting one day, she approached a coworker and told her she

  didn’t think her suit was very fl
attering, that it was a color that made her look drab and it accentuated her hips. Emily recalls, “I honestly thought I was being helpful and friendly by talking to her about her appearance. But the look on her face told me I’d really screwed up. I was so embarrassed

  and ashamed once I realized that I was totally out of line. And then I was angry. Angry mostly at myself for not realizing, but also angry at my parents for not having taught me some really simple social conventions.”

  As the adult child of a parent with BPD, you may also have trouble

  making decisions. Choices are difficult to make when you’re not sure how

  you really feel about something. If you’re not in touch with your

  Trust Yourself, Set Boundaries, Build Self-Esteem

  159

  emotions, if you tend to be risk-aversive and very cautious, you ultimately may not trust yourself to make the right choice.

  What’s Normal, Anyway?

  It’s important to remember that in most situations, there isn’t one

  absolute right or normal way to act. Decisions are rarely irreversible, and most of the time, they don’t have dire consequences. Typically, there are opportunities to reassess and take a different path. Most people, too, will understand if you tell them you’ve reconsidered and need to change your

  initial decision. Little in life is set in stone.

  Instead of asking yourself, “What is normal?”, reframe the question,

  suggests Steven Farmer, in Adult Children of Abusive Parents. Try “What is functional?” instead. What will get the job done? Will it hurt me, or

  others? Is it practical, realistic? Focusing on functionality gets you away from externally imposed standards of normalcy, a very relative and

  loaded, and therefore somewhat meaningless, term (Farmer 1989, p. 113).

  Following Your Feelings

  Your intuition will go a long way in helping you know how to make

  the best choices—you have to trust it. As a result of your childhood experience in a chaotic, emotionally charged and challenging environment, you very likely developed a keen sensitivity and awareness of your surroundings and the intentions of others. You’re probably a better judge of character than you think, if you allow yourself to listen to your gut reaction.

  Whether you refer to intuition as a little voice inside of you, following your heart, trusting your gut, following your instincts, your sixth sense, or