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Postcards from Borderland
Sep. 28th, 2004 10:03 amZip brought home a copy of Understanding the Borderline Mother last night. I started reading it and got almost halfway through before surrendering to sleep.
Holy. Effing. Crap.
I could have written this part -- from an adult patient, Rachel, whose mom is borderline:
Her words can sear my soul like acid until it shrivels and turns black. All I can do is turn away, but then she accuses me of being too sensitive or misunderstanding. When she turns on me I am flung through space and time like a lifeless object. I am no longer her child and she is no longer my mother. I am a useless object she can throw away -- a worthless piece of trash.
I don't want to read this book, but I can't not read it either, in part because I'm so terrified of winding up this way. I know that children of borderlines are more likely to become borderline themselves, and I absolutely refuse to allow this to repeat with my own children. Nothing terrifies me more in this world than the idea that I may someday turn into her.
There so much in this book that feels eerily familiar. It's like I've known it all along, and just couldn't verbalize it.
I attribute my relatively good state of mental health to ghoulchick. When people ask me about her, I say she's my big sister, but that doesn't fully encompass it. In childhood she was my protector, my friend, my one piece of solid ground through the divorce and beyond. I don't think it's overstating it to say she saved my life, by the simple fact that she was the one person whose love I never had occasion to question. Through years of agony and suicidal depression, I always knew she was there.
I don't know how you did it. I don't know how you managed to hang on to your sanity, or how you manage it now when you have to deal with her all the time. My solution was to escape, to run away as far as I could. I guess it's obvious why I'm not in a big hurry to come back. But it tears at me that I can't be there to support you. I feel I'm constantly torn between the need to stay away from her, and the desire to protect you from her.
I know this doesn't even remotely cut it, but thank you. Thank you for always being there, for always loving me even when YKW hated me. It means more to me than you'll ever know.
Holy. Effing. Crap.
I could have written this part -- from an adult patient, Rachel, whose mom is borderline:
Her words can sear my soul like acid until it shrivels and turns black. All I can do is turn away, but then she accuses me of being too sensitive or misunderstanding. When she turns on me I am flung through space and time like a lifeless object. I am no longer her child and she is no longer my mother. I am a useless object she can throw away -- a worthless piece of trash.
I don't want to read this book, but I can't not read it either, in part because I'm so terrified of winding up this way. I know that children of borderlines are more likely to become borderline themselves, and I absolutely refuse to allow this to repeat with my own children. Nothing terrifies me more in this world than the idea that I may someday turn into her.
There so much in this book that feels eerily familiar. It's like I've known it all along, and just couldn't verbalize it.
I attribute my relatively good state of mental health to ghoulchick. When people ask me about her, I say she's my big sister, but that doesn't fully encompass it. In childhood she was my protector, my friend, my one piece of solid ground through the divorce and beyond. I don't think it's overstating it to say she saved my life, by the simple fact that she was the one person whose love I never had occasion to question. Through years of agony and suicidal depression, I always knew she was there.
I don't know how you did it. I don't know how you managed to hang on to your sanity, or how you manage it now when you have to deal with her all the time. My solution was to escape, to run away as far as I could. I guess it's obvious why I'm not in a big hurry to come back. But it tears at me that I can't be there to support you. I feel I'm constantly torn between the need to stay away from her, and the desire to protect you from her.
I know this doesn't even remotely cut it, but thank you. Thank you for always being there, for always loving me even when YKW hated me. It means more to me than you'll ever know.
