I think there are a lot of us with mothers with (probable) BPD. I am 47 and I think that a lot of people my age have mothers from the Baby Boomer generation which was a very confusing time for women to grow up in. For the first time ever, women had the possibility of a career in addition to (or even instead of) motherhood. I think it created a whole new level of competition and jealousy between women, and it became much easier for mothers to resent children as things who stole opportunities from them.
Mum has never sought diagnosis or treatment but - get this! - has "qualified" as a Counsellor! I use inverted commas because she is practically illiterate, she did an online diploma and got my dad to complete all the assignments. She had no contact with any lecturers or supervisors, for her it was about getting the certificate so she could say she was a counsellor. She has never practiced. It has given me a new distrust of counsellors and been the sick, ironic, cherry on top of the whole nightmare which is my mother's mental health.
I will tell you what I have learned through my private reading. Daughters of mothers with complex mental health have usually acquired some form of complex PTSD. The main crime of the mother is emotional neglect which is the hardest type of abuse to recover from because you have to mourn things you never had, which is near impossible. Daughters with CPTSD have profound insecurity, low self-esteem, difficulty with boundaries and impulse control. Fear, shame and emptiness describe our inner life. It has literally de-ranged us.
Understanding this about myself, that I am emotionally de-ranged, has actually become an enormous comfort to me. The "punishment" fits the crime. There is a reason why I hurt so much. And there is a definite outcome from all the toxic mothering I received. It hurts like hell, but at least I understand why.
Knowing this, I am ready to re-parent myself.
Knowing this, I am ready to renounce all the programming my mother gave me.
Knowing this, I am permitted to start again with a clean slate and to be gentle on myself. Although, sometimes, being gentle on myself means being (gradually) a little firmer on myself, as I remember I am literally de-ranged and cannot always rely on my own judgement. Because I am traumatised, I will always seek relief first but it is that very instinct which lands me in trouble and learning to control impulses is something I am very immature at, and I have to find a way to not give in to that tendency and to develop grit and perseverance. To this extent, I have to remember my trauma while at the same time not let it define me. In other words, I have to not reach for that chocolate bar. I have to not tell my whole story to a stranger because of my need for validation. And I have to accept that even though I feel extremely outraged at what sometimes feels like my partner's lack of care and attention, by exploding right then and there, I damage not only our relationship which has been carefully built over years, but also myself, and the work I have been doing to keep myself together.
Lastly, CPTSD/emotional neglect is always transgenerational. It is a very difficult pain to bear, it may be the hardest of them all, the very problem of life itself. I love the saying that if CPTSD was included in the DSM, that manual would be the size of a pamphlet.
Accepting that I have become de-ranged because of my mother's faulty parenting has been pivotal. I take this in the literal sense of the word - my emotional range is faulty, I react out of turn and cannot always see things in proportion. I flit between grandiosity and depression. This may be with me my whole life. But finally, I have a name for the problem I carry with me always. And now, deep in mid-life, I have a chance to correct this and to develop a healthy, productive range of emotional experience. I will learn how to amass myself over time.
