Surviving the Borderline Parent
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“just a feeling,” heed it. You do have the inner knowledge you need to
make good decisions, even if you doubt it.
STOP AND THINK: How Do You Know?
What are your ways of knowing? Try to notice what inputs or signals you
take in from others and your environment.
How do you interpret what these signals mean? For example, do
you feel these signals physically, knowing something is right or wrong for you by whether you feel tension (or a lack of tension) in your body?
What gets in the way of knowing? Do you doubt what you feel and
think? Second-guess yourself? Judge your reactions and then discount them?
Are there times when you’re even more vulnerable to this tendency? Have
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you noticed, for instance, that if you’re really busy and a little flustered that it’s harder to come to a decision? What if you’re angry? Depressed? Consider the effects of fatigue, drugs and alcohol, being hungry or uncomfortably full, of noise, or of strong emotions.
STOP AND THINK: What You Know
Think of a time where you just knew something, about a decision you
needed to make that involved a person or a situation, and you made your
choice accordingly. How did you know? How did you feel about what
you knew? What was your degree of confidence that you were making a
good decision? What were the consequences of following your intuition or
gut?
Now think of a time where you didn’t follow your instincts. Why
didn’t you? What were the consequences? How did you feel?
Reality Check
Particularly in the area of playing catch up on social and other life
skills, you can draw on plenty of resources to learn what’s functional,
what others tend to do, and what’s healthy for you.
You can ask trusted friends, relatives, or a therapist for a reality
check of your own perceptions. Doing so doesn’t obligate you to take
their advice or adopt their methods or views, but it can prompt you to
consider a new perspective or see an opportunity or solution that you
might otherwise not have. Others’ input may simply provide you with
some encouragement and validation of your own impressions and give you
added confidence to act.
Support groups and self-help books or tapes are other resources you
can draw on to see how others do things and to learn what may work for
you. Ian, forty-four, the son of a mother with the traits of BPD, says there have been times where he’s felt like he was missing important information in his life. “But I never just say, ‘Oh no, I don’t know what to do.’ Instead I’d tell myself, ‘I’m going to learn how to do this.’ I think education—of all kinds, life skills and academics—is learning how to learn. My father
taught me to question things and learn things for myself. I try to ask questions, read all kinds of books, practice new skills—whatever it takes.”
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STOP AND THINK: A Taste of Reality
. For what kinds of issues and situations have you felt you needed
a reality check?
. Think about the resources you turn to when you need a reality
check. Whom or what do you look to?
. What have the results been when you’ve sought input? Have you
felt more confident? Relieved at having shared your impressions
with someone else? Write about your feelings, both before and
after.
Bolstering Boundaries
Your boundaries are where you end and another begins. They’re akin to
the membrane around a cell that lets in water and other nutrients the cell needs and keeps out toxins by adapting its permeability according to its
needs and external conditions. You too can adapt the permeability of your boundaries, deciding how much of others’ issues, wants, and needs you
want to accept and what you want to keep out. When setting boundaries,
it’s important that they be neither too rigid nor too permeable. It’s also helpful to remember that boundaries will be easier to maintain with some
people in your life than with others.
Setting Healthy Boundaries
Healthy boundaries do a variety of good things. They can protect
you emotionally, physically, spiritually, financially, and professionally.
Healthy boundaries make it easier for you to ask for what you need and
state how you feel. They allow you to make deliberate, conscious deci-
sions about what you want and don’t want in your life. They help you
accept rejection; as you learn to respect others’ boundaries, you’re more able to depersonalize negative responses. Your boundaries keep you from
meddling in others’ affairs or invading their physical or emotional space.
Without trust and faith in yourself, it’s hard to maintain healthy
boundaries. Your boundaries may instead be very fluid and random, alter-
nating between being too strong or too weak. You may not know why, but
you won’t feel secure or at ease with yourself or with others. Unhealthy
boundaries impinge on your ability and willingness to trust.
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Reaching Out and Letting In
Boundaries aren’t just about saying no or keeping people out; they
allow you to say yes as well, to those things and people you want to let in.
It may seem ironic, but good boundaries actually enhance intimacy and
relationships. They allow you to reach out to others without feeling
threatened or fearful of being engulfed.
It’s only because of his healthy boundaries that Ian is able to main-
tain a relationship with his mother. His greatest challenge, he says, was trying to find a balance between feeling like he needed to take care of her and wanting to completely walk away from her to protect himself. Setting
boundaries has helped him to have conversations with her without getting
totally pulled in by the things she does and says, and he says he’s even
been able to have some compassion for her and what she must be going
through.
Children raised in families where a parent has BPD may not have
learned how to set healthy boundaries for themselves. In healthy families, children are encouraged to determine and voice their boundaries, and
those boundaries are respected. A parent with BPD and its traits, however, may discourage a child’s self-expression and boundary setting. Because the parent may see the child as an extension of himself, he may feel threatened by the child’s boundary formation and may strictly control it, and
the child. Other parents may take a more permissive approach, neglecting
to clearly define a child’s responsibilities and limits, leaving the child to do his or her own thing. Yet other parents with BPD ricochet back and forth
between the two extremes, modeling boundary-setting behavior in erratic,
inconsistent ways.
Not only do adult children of a parent with BPD likely not have a
good role model where boundaries are concerned, but they may have felt
controlled, manipulated by guilt or fear, and smothered yet neglected in
many ways. The result? Unhealthy boundaries—and therefore relation-
ships—that are either too rigid and guarded or else enmeshed.
STOP AND THINK: Messages at the Frontier
What messages about boundaries did you receive as a child and adoles-
cent? Try to remember a few instances
when you tried to set limits and
assert yourself at home. What happened? How were you received? Were
you supported and encouraged, discouraged implicitly or explicitly, or
some combination, depending on the circumstances?
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Looking back, how do you think these experiences affected your
boundary-setting skills and your comfort level?
Note the Signs
Unhealthy boundaries and boundary violations may manifest them-
selves in many, sometimes subtle, ways, including
7 being involved in physically or emotionally abusive relationships
7 promiscuous behavior
7 controlling behavior
7 emotional withdrawal
7 saying or doing inappropriate things; making others uncomfortable
7 assaulting someone physically or verbally
7 saying yes when you really mean no and vice versa
7 feeling obligated to fix others and resolve their predicaments
7 feeling a sense of dread or guilt
7 feeling anger or resentment over a commitment you made
7 a sense of frustration at feeling that you have no options
7 feeling devalued, invalidated, or ignored.
Susan, thirty-four, says that working on boundaries was her greatest
challenge. She recalls dating in high school. “If someone liked me, I felt I should go out with him. It didn’t matter that maybe I didn’t like him. I assumed my judgment was wrong, and if he’d give me the time of day, I
should agree to date him.” She also recalls many years of promiscuous
behavior and abusive relationships in her late teens and twenties. “I didn’t know how to ask for what I needed. I couldn’t say no. I didn’t know how
to figure out where my responsibilities began and ended. I thought I
needed to get everyone else’s problems straightened out. I’d agree to
something someone would ask me to do, even though I really didn’t want
to, and then I’d be resentful. When I think about it, my family really laid the foundation for me to allow others to treat me the way they wanted to based on their needs—I had no boundaries.”
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STOP AND THINK: How Do You Know?
Think about a relationship where you felt your boundaries were violated,
where someone crossed the line. What did you think and feel (emotionally
and physically)? What told you?
STOP AND THINK: What Gets in the Way?
Unhealthy boundaries can result from parenting styles as well as other
influences, including fear of loss, rejection, and abandonment; feeling
unworthy of stating your needs and limits; guilt; a sense of unease about yourself; past physical or emotional trauma, particularly in response to
your setting a limit in the past.
Think of a specific boundary issue you’d like to work on with your
parent but haven’t yet addressed; for example, your mother frequently
calls you when she has an argument with her sister, to whom you’re very
close. She unloads on you, then asks you for your opinion of the situation.
Of course, she expects that you’ll take her side, and she tries to pull you in, suggesting that you call your aunt to express your unhappiness with
how she’s behaved toward your mother.
Now think about what’s kept you from confronting the issue. Write
about the emotions and the physical sensations that come up for you when
you think about addressing it and setting a boundary with your parent.
Ian’s Story
Several years ago, Ian was feeling overwhelmed by his mother’s
requests—she wanted help paying her bills after she squandered her small
savings, and she expected him to take her to numerous doctor’s appoint-
ments for a variety of ailments and complaints. She was living in filth,
unable or unwilling to clean her apartment. Even though she wanted his
help, whenever Ian was around, she’d rage and verbally assault him about
everything from his driving to being a “goddamn perfectionist” when he
suggested some simple ways she might try to keep ahead of the mess in
her home.
After six months or so of enduring rages, feeling angry, frustrated,
and resentful, the final straw came when Ian snapped at his girlfriend during an argument. She pointed out to him how stressed out he’d been
recently and how he seemed to be withdrawing from her, consumed with
his mother’s ongoing drama that left him with little patience or energy for anything or anyone else.
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With the help of a therapist, he decided to make some changes that
took place over an extended period of time. At first, unsure of how to
confront his mother directly, he put some distance between them. Instead
of driving her to all of her appointments, he became selectively available.
If she couldn’t find a neighbor or friend to take her, he suggested a taxi.
He also called his brother, who lived nearby, and asked him, firmly, to
help out once in a while. He instituted a rule that unless there was an
emergency, he’d wait at least four hours before returning her phone calls (in the past, he’d call back right away). Sometimes he wouldn’t call back until the next day.
The increased time away from his mother allowed Ian to realize how
much he didn’t want to be responsible for every aspect of her life, particularly since she was abusive to him. He began to feel stronger and, little by little, started confronting her when she’d make a demand or fly into a
rage. She still behaves this way sometimes, he says, but the incidents are fewer and farther between, and when it does happen, he’s able to tolerate it without reacting. He helps out when he can and wants to—he no longer
feels obligated or totally responsible for her care. His girlfriend has commented that he seems calmer and happier, and a few coworkers have even
noticed that he seems in better spirits.
Using Enforcement Tools
In addition to the strategies for setting and communicating limits
discussed in chapter 6, the following suggestions may help you build
healthy boundaries. They can be used with your parent or anyone else you
interact with. And remember, boundaries don’t only mean keeping the bad
out; they help you bring (or keep) the good into your life too.
Distance
You can use the word LEMON to help remember the different ways
you can distance yourself from someone who’s violating your boundaries:
7 Leave the room or the situation.
7 Emotional distance. Reduce the amount of personal information
you share. Limit the topics of conversation.
7 Move out of the house, or away from the area.
7 On your terms. Visits and other interactions are your prerogative.
7 Not answering, or selectively answering, calls, letters, e-mail.
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Communication
You can use the word NICE to help remember the different ways
you can communicate when someone is violating your boundaries:
7 No. Practice saying it. And remember that you don’t need to
explain why the answer is no.
7 I. Express how you feel: “I feel . . .”; “I think . . .”; “I know . . .”
7 Clear commitments and agreements. Strive for clarity when you
communicate
your expectations and commitments.
7 Enough! Don’t hesitate to denounce abusive behavior.
Self-Awareness
You can use the word KISS to help remember how self-awareness
supports healthy boundaries:
7 Know thyself. Be able to identify how you feel, as well as your
goals for interaction.
7 Identify what you want in your life. Repeat the circle exercise in
chapter 7 often.
7 Self-esteem. Valuing yourself helps you maintain healthy boundaries.
7 Support yourself. Trust that you’ll make excellent choices and
decisions.
STOP AND THINK: Strengthen Your Skills
. Do any of the tools above seem especially applicable to your situ-
ation? Write about how you might put them into practice.
. Can you think of others to add to the list? Write them down, and
plan how you will put them to use.
It’s a Process
Don’t be surprised if, just when you feel like you’ve got some healthy
boundaries in place, they shift. That’s normal, and even good. Boundaries will, and should, change as your life or the context changes—as you acquire additional knowledge, as you get more comfortable with yourself and with
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setting limits, as the level of intimacy evolves in your relationships, as your self-esteem climbs, as circumstances change.
STOP AND THINK: Shifting Sands
Think of a time when you modified a boundary, consciously or uncon-
sciously. What were the circumstances around the change? How did it
make you feel? What were the consequences? How was your decision
(again, conscious or unconscious) validated? If it wasn’t, how did you feel and what did you do?
Know that as you begin and continue to build healthy boundaries,
you’ll experience awkward moments. At times you may wonder if you’re
doing the right thing. And even when you know you are, you may still have twinges of fear or uncertainty.
Setting and communicating healthy boundaries may also cost you
relationships. Those who tend to violate your boundaries may be espe-
cially likely to be put off when you no longer allow it, or you may start noticing that certain friends drain or upset you or demand more of you
than in the past. This could be a sign that they’d been overstepping some boundaries previously, and you’re more aware of being treated badly now.