Borderline Personality Disorder Inside Out

The Legacy of Borderline Personality in the Life of the Adult Child of a Borderline Parent

A.J. Mahari, author, life coach, a person who recovered from Borderline Personality Disorder, and who had 2 parents with BPD, in a video, talks about the legacy of Borderline Personality Disorder in the life of the adult child of someone with BPD.

The on-going legacy of Borderline Personality Disorder is one of abandonment and is also one of needing to Understand BPD and the Impact of The Core Wound of Abandonment as an adult child of a borderline parent whether you have also been diagnosed with BPD or not.

There is a legacy left deep inside of anyone who is an adult child of a borderline mother or a borderline father, or as in my case, both. The legacy is one of profound loss and often a woundedness that means that many adult children with a borderline parent, go on themselves, as I did, to develop and be diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. When one is both someone with BPD and an adult child of someone with BPD the duality of that legacy can seem like an unending maze-like time-warp of pain that just endures from one's past.

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• The Puzzle and Mystery of Hope on the Other Side of BPD
• Inside The Borderline Mind
• The Shame of Abandonment In BPD
• Breaking Free of The Borderline Maze - Recovery For Nons
• From False Self To Authentic Self In BPD - Getting In Touch With Your Inner Child
• Finding Hope From the Polarized Reality of BPD
• Emotion Dysregulation in BPD

Audio Programs © A.J. Mahari

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Those who are the adult child of a borderline parent (or parents), whether they have BPD or not, do need their own recovery. I found in my own journey of recovery, both from the legacy of BPD in my family, from being the child and then adult-child of two borderline parents, and from my own recovery from BPD that there is a way through and out to the other side of this pain and legacy.

As I talk about in this video and my other videos specifically about my own experience as the adult child of two borderline parents, healing and recovery, finding emotional freedom and peace is possible. Healing and finding emotional freedom really requires finding your way to compassion and forgiveness.

The road isn't short. The process is very painful. Part of this legacy is absolutely an on-going journey, and not a destination. But, it is possible to move beyond having the legacy of the Borderline Personality Disorder of a parent controlling your life or keeping you stuck in toxic relationships, enmeshed relating, and/or continuing to pursue relationships with emotionally unavailable people.

Adult children of those with BPD need to reclaim their lives. They need to take back their own truths and heal their own wounds, and often, find their own closure as well.

You can watch my other videos on the subject of being an adult child of borderline parents by
CLICKING HERE


© A.J. Mahari, January 22, 2009

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A.J. Mahari is a Life Coach and Strategist and you can also read more about that by going to Touchstone Life Coaching

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Adult Child of Borderline Mother Needs Own Recovery

A.J. Mahari, talks about the reality that those who have a borderline mother, or father, or as in her case, both, and who are an adult-child of a borderline need to actively engage their own recovery process.

Anyone who is an adult child of a borderline mother (or parent or parents) needs to find his or her own recovery, whether they too were diagnosed with BPD or not. If you do have BPD and you have a Borderline Mother or parent it is likely that your recovery as the adult child of a borderline parent will require the foundation of your recovery from BPD itself, yourself.

                                                      

Audio Programs © A.J. Mahari

• The Puzzle and Mystery of Hope on the Other Side of BPD
• Inside The Borderline Mind
• The Shame of Abandonment In BPD
• Breaking Free of The Borderline Maze - Recovery For Nons
• Facing the Facts of BPD - On The Other Side For Nons
• Overcoming Denial About BPD and Love

The legacy for the adult child of a borderline parent is loss. It is a loss that must be actively dealt with and grieved if one is going to be able to free oneself from the devastation of patterns of relating that are related directly to one's childhood experience.

 

Click Here To Listen - Adult Child Recovery

© A.J. Mahari, January 2, 2009

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A.J. Mahari is a Life Coach who, among other things, specializes in working with those with BPD and non borderlines. A.J. has 5 years experience as a Life Coach and has worked with hundreds of clients from all over the world.

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An adult-child of a Borderline Mother speaks about rage

Borderline Personality Disorder in a mother has significant, lasting, and impacting effects on her children. The effects of those who are now the adult children of a borderline mother seriously impact their relationships throughout childhood and into adulthood. There is often a desire, on the part of the adult child, to get some resolution, connection - actual relationship with a borderline mother - and/or find a way to make peace with it all. For many much of what they desire or hope to work out with a borderline mother proves illusive in and even through adulthood.

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Mike - son of a mother with Borderline Personality Disorder shares the following;

"As a child my mother was so controlling that I was afraid that she could actually destroy me as a person, steal my identity or something. That caused me to have an emotional response of being at her mercy and a fear of being destroyed by her.

As a child I was pretty much at her mercy, and I couldn't leave, so that response was probably not to far away from being accurate. That emotional response became like a reflex. When she acted a certain way I got that same emotional response.

Even as an adult, when she had no power over me, I still felt the same learned emotional response. Then one day it came to me that it was silly to feel that way, she couldn't do any thing to me any more. Then later I realized that I had been trying to make her act the way I wanted her to, which was to treat me with respect.

I also realized that I couldn't and I was wasting my time and energy trying. I wasn't trying to get rid of rage I just decided to quit wasting my time trying to make her treat me with respect. When I quit trying to control her the rage just left.

For people who are having a problem with rage, I would say try to figure out why it is so important to you that they do what you want.

Is your response really appropriate to the situation? How are they really hurting you? My response was not appropriate, maybe for a 9 year old.

If it looks like your response is blown out of proportions then ask your self why. Maybe the thing that you are responding to is not as big of a threat now, as it was when you first started responding that way.

Get realistic about the damage the action can cause you. Is it worth the rage? If it isn't then let it go. Almost all of the damage caused by rage is caused to the person who is raging.

My response was almost like a phobia. It was way out of proportion and I never seemed to really think about why. Until I realized that I don't think I could have let it go. I was to afraid to let it go. It is kind of like being afraid that the bogey man is under you bed for 50 years because some one told you he was when you were 6 years old.

You spend 50 years not being able to sleep for fear of the bogey man. Then one day you look under the bed and nothing is there. You have to face your fear.

What are you afraid of? Why are you afraid of it? Is it really that scary or not? I know the damage that can be caused by dysfunctional families. Maybe this will help some one try to deal with it a little better. I promise you, you wont miss rage that gets nothing accomplished except to give you a heart attack."

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Rage is a common problem for adult children of a borderline mother. As Mike so insightfully points out above, the rage continues to come from a place that is from one's childhood and that it can be resolved. Attempts to solve it with the borderline parent, more often than not, do not meet with success. Adult children of those with BPD, as I well-know myself have to take their own lives back and have to undo, often in therapy, the damage that they have been carrying from these types of emotionally chaotic and psychologically wounding childhood experiences.

The bogey man that Mike refers to is truly the unresolved pain and fear that each one of us has as the adult children whose inner child still longs for the mother or parent that wasn't he or she was not able to connect with or really be attached to in any lasting and meaningful way.

To be the adult child, who was a child, of a borderline mother (or parent) is to know what it means to be abandoned emotionally and to know also what it feels like, at least in part, to be an orphan, for all intents and purposes.

The rage of the adult child of the borderline mother (or parent) is really the fear of the pain of your unresolved loss.

© A.J. Mahari, November 9, 2008

The Adult Child of a Borderline Parent Needs to Take His or Her Life Back

The adult-child of a borderline parent need to, if he or she hasn't already, take his or her own life back. What does that mean? What does that look like? How does one do that?

In a recent segment of my radio show, "Borderline Personality Disorder Inside Out" I talk about my own experience as an adult-child of two borderline parents and what I learned about what taking my life back meant and how I was able to take my life back. I also talk about what taking life my back has taught me.

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• The Puzzle and Mystery of Hope on the Other Side of BPD
• Inside The Borderline Mind
• The Shame of Abandonment In BPD
• Breaking Free of The Borderline Maze - Recovery For Nons
• Facing the Facts of BPD - On The Other Side For Nons
• Overcoming Denial About BPD and Love

Audio Programs © A.J. Mahari

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The high percentage of the toxic aspects of the relationship between many adult-children and their borderline parent (or parents) is such that many are stuck in a type of relating that supports the continuation of the very issues in your life that you likely need relief from and need to address to find your own happiness and a balanced sense of well-being.

I also talk about my experience of going no contact with my borderline parents in my latest video, two-part video "Adult-Child of Borderline Parents and No Contact" on YouTube.

© A.J. Mahari, September 2, 2008 - All rights reserved.

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A.J. Mahari is a Life Coach who, among other things, specializes in working with those with BPD and non borderlines. A.J. has 5 years experience as a life coach and has worked with hundreds of clients from all over the world.

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Nobody Said Good-bye - Closure as an adult child of a borderline parent

I am the adult-child of two borderline parents. How can one get closure when the borderline parent(s) don't get help or ever change? In my experience, nobody said or waved good-bye but the loss had already taken place, oh so long ago. The pain needed to be addressed. Addressing the pain was the bridge from toxic emotional enmeshment to my past and the emotional freedom of both the "here and now" and my future.

By the time I was healthy enough and ready to let my parents go - to go no contact with my parents to save myself - and to wave and say good-bye to my past - toxic emotional carnage was everywhere. Nobody said good-bye. Nobody even waved. The sum total of all of my compounding losses just continued to mount.

Even after I first went no contact, it would be years later that I truly would, in my own way, in my own process, in the absence of my borderline parents - how fitting really - say good-bye in what was a quiet, personal, grief-filled process of letting go.

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• The Puzzle and Mystery of Hope on the Other Side of BPD
• Inside The Borderline Mind
• The Shame of Abandonment In BPD
• Breaking Free of The Borderline Maze - Recovery For Nons
• Facing the Facts of BPD - On The Other Side For Nons
• Overcoming Denial About BPD and Love

Audio Programs © A.J. Mahari

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My father passed away eleven years ago tomorrow, September 14, 1997. I had not seen or talked to him for 7 years prior to his death - no one said good-bye. I did not find out he has died until my borderline mother in her round about and punishing way told me on Mother's Day of 1998, some 8 months later. I talk about this in my video first two-part video on the subject of me being the adult child of a borderline father and a borderline mother Adult-Child of Borderline Parents and No Contact and Part 2 Adult-Child of Borderline Parents and No Contact

My mother is 83 and I have just recently again had to make the choice to go back to no contact after sporadic contact here and there over the last eight years. So there is an element of this saying good-bye that is an on-going experience of sorts.

What a painful process it has been. In some ways, in moments, here and there, it is a grief that will in much smaller ways always be with me. It has become a part of who I am. It is a part of my life story. That's okay. It's okay because I have learned that to truly know joy, one must know sorrow. The important thing about this grief and loss is that it doesn't control my life anymore.

I am no longer, nor have I been for years now, a victim of my past. It doesn't matter to me anymore why what happened did happen and why what "should" have happened didn't. I have just let it go. Radically accepted it. My past was what it was and is what it is. I have no further interest or desire in blaming my borderline mother or my borderline father for anything. It is just complexly enough - simply over.

I no longer live in the past with it. I have waved good-bye to it. And with and from within that good-bye, I have found emotional freedom. An emotional freedom that anyone in any unchosen relationship with someone with active and/or untreated Borderline Personality Disorder deserves.

Closure, for the adult child of a borderline mother or a borderline father, unless they get into successful treatment, is rarely possible in a mutual and/or reciprocal way with that parent. That leaves the ball of closure squarely in the court of the adult child alone. The good news is you can serve up an ace with that ball and you can find closure on your own even in the absence of any cooperation or joint-effort with your borderline parent.

I have done two more videos now available on YouTube about this experience in my life. These videos are basically, more or less, related or could be considered one two-part video. However they do not have the same names. Part one is entitled Philosophy of an adult child of borderline parent part 1 and what is essentially part two I ended up entitling Nobody Said Good-bye - Letting go to find emotional freedom

Just an ironic aside, due to my father's business, when I was a child we moved many many times. And each and every time we moved and I lost friends and precious and hard-fought for relationships were ruptured time and time again they would never let me say good-bye. We always just had to go. Nobody said good-bye and I was not able to say good-bye. And, as a child, when relatives died, people I loved and cared about in spite of their flaws (yes others in my family had BPD too) I was not allowed to go to their funerals. They existed while they drew breath and the moment they died, my parents insisted they not be talked about again. Typical borderline "out-of-sight-out-of-mind". Utter betrayal of people who mattered.

Nobody said good-bye. In typical borderline fashion, my parents inability to deal with loss meant that I wasn't going to learn anything healthy about it - not until I was 30 years old. They didn't allow me to say to good-bye to others or to them, either.

I wish I knew why some things in life unfold the way they do. But what I have come to learn that there is so much that is way more important than asking and searching for the elusive answer to the question "why" and its lack of closure. That is just a trap. Asking why keeps you stuck in toxic enmeshed emotional suffering. There is emotional freedom to be found in radically accepting that what has unfolded in your life with your borderline mother or borderline father has purpose and meaning.

Why, just really isnt that important - it really isn't.

You will, if you haven't already, discover that sacred purpose and meaning in your own life when you actively engage the process of letting go of the why's and through engaging your grief - grief of what has already been lost - start to take your own life back and say and wave good-bye to your past and all its toxic emotional trappings.

Even when you feel the pain of your grief - grief for the losses of the past with your borderline parent - even when it hurts, awareness to the power of now is something that can set you free. Mindfulness, awareness to the power of now and a radical acceptance of all that has been lost is the process of your own personal awakening to enlightenment. An enlightenment that is one of the most incredible teachers and blessed gifts I've ever had the experience of. It is an on-going journey of rich and life-affirming experience. It is a loving and nurturing experience.

The only thing that hurts more than letting go and finding your own way to say and/or wave good-bye to the past that you suffered in with a borderline mother or a borderline father is letting one more day go by where you deny yourself the emotional freedom that you so deserve.

© A.J. Mahari, September 13, 2008 - All rights reserved.

I am in the process of writing a memoir. My story of my life with Borderline Personality Disorder, and as the child of two parents with Borderline Personality Disorder, and more importantly, my recovery from it all. You can check for news - coming very soon - and excerpts about my memoir (which will include some audio and video) at ajmahari.ca

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A.J. Mahari is a Life Coach who, among other things, specializes in working with family members, adult-children of those with BPD and ex, soon to be ex or relationship partners of those with BPD. A.J. has 5 years experience as a life coach and has worked with hundreds of clients from all over the world.

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A.J. Mahari's Videos About Her Experience as an Adult Child of a Borderline Mother and a Borderline Father

A.J. Mahari, a woman who recovered from Borderline Personality Disorder over 12 years ago now, had 2 parents with BPD who did not recover. A.J. has done some videos now about her thoughts and experience about being the adult child of a borderline father and a borderline mother and finding her way to emotional freedom and her own closure.

If we don't take the initiative in our own lives to detach and disengage from the borderline "reality" of a borderline parent the legacy will live on in us and continue to hurt us as adult-children. I know from my own experience that even when a borderline parents dies, that does not bring with it emotional freedom or closure. We still have to go through our own actively engaged healing process to find our own closure and emotional freedom. This can be done while a parent is still alive and sometimes it requires going no contact.

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• The Puzzle and Mystery of Hope on the Other Side of BPD
• Inside The Borderline Mind
• The Shame of Abandonment In BPD
• Breaking Free of The Borderline Maze - Recovery For Nons
• Facing the Facts of BPD - On The Other Side For Nons
• Overcoming Denial About BPD and Love

Audio Programs © A.J. Mahari

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Ebooks © A.J. Mahari

• The Abandoned Pain of BPD Ebook
• The Legacy of Abandonment in BPD Ebook
• The Shadows and Echoes of Self - False Self In BPD Ebook
• BPD and Rage Ebook
• Loneliness Ebook
• Those with BPD and/or Non Borderlines can purchase A.J. Mahari's 3 "Core Wound of Abandonment" series ebooks only or A.J. Mahari's 3 "Core Wound of Abandonment" series ebooks packaged together with From False Self To Authentic Self In BPD - The Inner Child Audio Program
• Understanding Borderline Personality Disorder The Lost Self The Impact of The Core Wound of Abandonment
• The Other Side of BPD - Mindfulness and Radical Acceptance for Non Borderlines
• Non Borderline Dilemma - Can Borderlines Love? Do they feel love?
• Full Circle - Lessons for Non Borderlines
• Non Borderlines - You can purchase 6 ebooks packaged together with or without audio.
• Purchase all 3 of ebooks for NON BORDERLINES packaged together with or without audio.

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If you are the adult child of a borderline parent or parents there are ways to find your own closure and claim an emotional freedom that will put you on the path toward finding the emotional peace that you no doubt need in your life. Do not let guilt or obligation keep you stuck in a toxic relationship with a borderline parent in which you will continue to be hurt, and in which adult children often continue to be abused. I will have an ebook coming out on this specific topic soon.

© A.J. Mahari, September 21 2008 - All rights reserved.

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A.J. Mahari is a Life Coach who, among other things, specializes in working with those who are adult children of a parent or parents with BPD, those with BPD, and non borderlines. A.J. has 5 years experience as a life coach and has worked with hundreds of clients from all over the world.

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As an Adult Child of Borderline Parents I had to Choose No Contact

As an adult-child of a parent (or in my case parents) with Borderline Personality Disorder the love that is so scarce is toxic and the relationship is enmeshed as the child exists to serve the endless emotional needs of the borderline.

The adult-child of the borderline parent experiences the toxic love of what is a betrayal bond or in many cases a trauma bond that is born out of a lack of nurture and unmet needs and the emotional unavailability of the borderline parent. Whether one goes on to develop BPD or not, being the adult-child of a borderline parent usually results in various degrees of an abandonment wound and subsequent abandonment issues.

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• A.J.'s Ebooks
• A.J.'s Audio Programs

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In my experience as an adult-child of a borderline mother and a borderline father in a family emotionally ravaged and broken due to the inter-generational legacy of Borderline Personality Disorder I had to choose to go no contact in order to heal. Yes, I, too, had BPD. But even for the adult-child who doesn't end up having BPD no contact may be what you need to take your life back.

Whether you make the same choice that I did to go no contact with a borderline parent or not you do need to do whatever you have to in order to find your way to peace, health and happiness.

Often the legacy of the adult-child of a borderline is the legacy of toxic love. A legacy of enmeshed codependent concepts about love that lead us straight into significant other relationships with personality-disordered partners.

Many adult-children of a borderline parent only understand love to mean no boundaries and love to be the way it was experienced in childhood. The emotional unavailabilty of a borderline parent can lead to a pattern of being attracted to partners who are emotionally unavailable. Many adult-children of a borderline parent have learned to relate to others from a foundation of rescuing and trying to help - a trying to help that while well-intentioned can become abusive in its own over-controlling way.

It is difficult, if not impossible, in childhood, and for some, way beyond, to individuate from the borderline parent often. The attachment, if one feels attached, to the borderline parent, is often very dependent. Sometimes it's mostly about the borderline's dependence on the adult-child and sometimes that over-dependence (codependence) goes both ways.

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• A.J.'s Ebooks
• A.J.'s Audio Programs

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The ties that bind are often those of shame and blame, manipulation and guilt. Adult-children of a borderline parent (or parents) are shamed into remaining complicit. This is a toxic betrayal bond. One that many play out in their adulthoods as non borderlines who end up in relationships with borderlines.

We tend to gravitate to what is familiar. We tend to feel most comfortable with what is familiar. What is most familiar about all that toxic codependent relationships offer is the pain of love. When the fact is that healthy love doesn't hurt like toxic love hurts.

For many who are the adult-child of a borderline if can take years to unwind this reality. It can take years of painful relationships to come to know that you need to get some help yourself to understand what is going on in your relationship with others and often to learn how to disengage and/or detach from the toxic betrayal bond that is experienced when a parent has BPD.

I have just done my first video about my own experience as an adult-child of borderline parents. It is a 2 part video you can watch on YouTube called Adult-Child of Borderline Parents And No Contact  in which I talk about my experience of no contact and how I didn't find out my father had died until 8 months after the fact and the reality that closure with a borderline parent (still in the active throes of BPD) is nowhere to be found.

What I have learned as an adult-child of borderline parents is that I have had to find my own closure and do my own emotional work to let go of what was otherwise a lack of closure with my father and the impending and continuing lack of closure that I am currently facing with my borderline mother.

The adult-child of a borderline parent needs to quite purposefully take his or her own life back.

© A.J. Mahari, August 31,2008 - All rights reserved.

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A.J. Mahari is a Life Coach who, among other things, specializes in working with those with BPD and adult-children of those with BPD along with non borderlines generally. A.J. has 5 years experience as a life coach and has worked with hundreds of clients from all over the world.

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