Share: How people helped minimize abuse from a BPD parent

People with BPD get an exceptional amount of sympathy, aid, and second chances. Being on the cluster B Spectrum which includes a narcissism they are incredibly manipulative and people are equally manipulated passively by their vulnerability. People with BPD can be very enigmatic, even if self-centered or selfish ultimately very loving, generous, again vulnerable, childlike, wounded, etc.

They had a very special magnetism that I suspect children with NPD and BPD parents had to deal with an exceptional amount of enabling, excuses, rationalizations, etc.

Feel free to volunteer yours.

"I don't believe you, you have to be mistaken."

My mother had an affair with a teacher of mine and even speaking with one of my close friends mother's growing up, she didn't believe me. I'm laughing because although I didn't see direct sex between them, I know what happened. Also, if they never had sex it still was a affair and not appropriate. She never had literal sex with most of the men she was having online affairs with, it has nothing to do with appropriateness.

My mother would occasionally also insult this teacher that she beloved which kind of reinforced this idea that my mother didn't actually have an affair with him. What this person didn't know is that my mother also emasculates and insults my father and other lovers all the time. They have no reflection of actual involvement.

"You must have seen/heared/touched/tasted/smelled that wrong."

I haven't told this many times about things I witnessed right in front of my eyes.

"Your mother is going through a hard time."

I've been told this from everyone from my grandmother to my mother's lovers.

I'd like to add here that I've a literal and figurative Girl Scout my whole life. My mother doesn't necessarily have this Troublesome child to complain about although I did grapple with depression, I wonder why. That's said, of course no one is going to be a perfect parent all the time. People are going to say things they don't mean, make big mistakes. But for some reason this exceptionally difficult for them to conceive of a BPD woman child being abusive.

"But your mother is your best friend!"

Anytime someone describes a mother as their best friend, and I'm not talking about an adult talking about how they can confide in their mother the actual Behavior like best friends, I know that this is a toxic thing.

"Your mother is so much fun!"

Because abusers, always have to be dour.

"It's all relative, you don't know what your mother was going through. She's in a lot of pain. You don't know how hard it is to have children."

Considering what my parent has done, I don't know what a parent can do any more for certain moral relativists to draw a line at child abuse. I know this is a new trend and I'm not a moral absolutist. It goes two ways because well theoretically when discussing the concept of Justice it's easy to feed anger and retribution however it's an equal pendulum swing to me. On the side of the relativist if anything it eases responsibilities because it's easier to sympathize with the suffering of someone so vulnerable and the intellectual interest in understanding where they came from, then trying to deal with the damage that they've done to an innocent party which is much more complicated.

This is an area where many people BPD or not have black and white thinking.

However children don't have any agency or choice.

Also not having children yourself has nothing to do with being able to understand child abuse or not.

"God's plan, or everything is relative."

Que Sera Sera is also a perfect placeholder people who have a religious or spiritual idea of justice and equality or people with new age beliefs. On the spiritual side of very difficult for a lot of people to accept that such Injustice can happen in the world. It's an easy way of wiping your hands of an issue while acting compassionate and not actually doing anything.

"Your mother did X for you, that was amazing!"

Occasionally my mother would pull the big gesture out of her hat. The thing is is that when my mother did something like this is because it brought her joy and attention, and she perceived that it made up for her mistakes. It did not.

"Try doing X, X, or X."

I wasn't a perfect child, but I wasn't a bad one, that's not why she was doing these things. The idea that if only the child did something different than they would have a less abusive I wasn't a perfect child, but I wasn't a bad one, that's not why she was doing these things. The idea that if only the child did something different than they would have a less abusive parent is infuriating.

"But your mother is so funny!"

Yes, being funny. Can't be an abuser.

"You don't understand what she went through."

First of all you can be a 911 Survivor and war hero that doesn't mean you get to abuse people with free license. Secondly, this is usually with regard to my mother's playing about my father's abuse. I grew up in that damn house. Yes I was not aware of the intricate parts of an adult relationship, but their fights were had in front of me and the incidence of which that my mother claimed abuse happened in front of me.

Needless to say this is still being used as a defense of child abuse. I think a lot of people feel guilty for their imperfect parenting so they project on the people like this not realizing that they actually are abusers because they have a set image and narrative of what an abuser is.

Don't get me wrong there were people in my life that no, most of the faculty of my Elementary School and childhood therapists especially, they just didn't do anything.

Yours?