Episode 141: Susanna Brisk

[ScottMentalPod]

Very enjoyable. Love a story a good success story.

[lolabellablu]

I absolutely loved this episode. Susanna is entertaining, articulate, well-spoken and highly educated. I saw her at a support group once and she passed me a sweet note with her number after my tender share. Never did call but I appreciated her kindness. I could have listened to her for a few hours more. Maybe I'll buy the book. My therapist diagnosed my mother as borderline so I was especially interested in this topic. She is brave for coming out with her diagnosis and I commend her. Great job in the interview. This was a really important show, one of the best. Paul, I love you and a suggestion- it might not be the best move to start an interview with a women by asking her age. I have compassion for her children. It is not easy being the child of a borderline. Her children are lucky because she is getting help. My mother never did. Also, the men who marry borderlines are likely to be narcissists so it compounds the childhood damage.

[bigeekgirl]

I knew Susanna from her time on Lynette Carolla's podcast "For Crying Out Loud" in it's previous incarnation before Susanna's divorce. I do find Susanna delightful and charismatic, however I also find myself frustrated with her changeability. Back before her divorce, she always talked about how sensual her marriage was and how they had passionate nooners. Now, her ex-husband's sex drive didn't exist and it was a major factor in their divorce. Ugh... It wouldn't bother me if I hadn't recently discovered my mother is untreated borderline and I'm not as crazy as Mom taught me I was. Listening to Susanna is triggering because I want to tell her exactly what I've seen over the time I've heard her just like I want to lay out for my mother the 30 years of inconsistency she's unintentionally Gaslit me with because I can never tell which "mom" is the accurate perception.

God bless her for seeking treatment and for being open. I do feel compassion towards Susanna and it helps me try to sort out my feelings at just the right time when I'm ready to accept it. I look forward to hearing and reading her in the future as she moves through treatment.

[Blackest Dog]

Susanna seems like a likeable enough person. However, I had to stop the podcast and listen to something else while I cleaned as her dishing on her ex-husband seemed immature and catty. Hey, I get it, older gal divorces dud and gets hot stud action and wants everyone to know... been there, sister. The exhusband in this case seems amiable enough to continue living together, so what's the point of rubbing his nose in how much banging you're getting post-marriage?

[bigeekgirl]

With someone who suffers from Boarderline, they can't really understand how what they say impacts anyone else or that there is another side to the story. I would love to hear her husband's take on the divorce and living arrangement. I bet it's not anything like what Susanna says.

For anyone interested in more of Susanna, I would highly recommend listening to her on For Crying Out Loud:

http://adamcarolla.com/COL/2013/08/bein ... ltime-job/

[rxtravaganza]

As someone living with BPD, this episode was extremely relatable and helpful to me. I can't say I agreed with everything Susanna said either, but I do think her talking about her experiences with her ex with just that: HER talking about HER experiences.

Part of living with BPD does blind us to the experiences of those we live with, but many of us living with BPD have genuinely had our own experiences diminished by everyone around us, too. When we try to simply talk about our lives or express our pain, we're told we're merely talking crap. This is one of the biggest catch-22s about BPD: we have so few tools to properly express that we are hurting and we need help, that we can only flail desperately for it with wild unruly behaviour, and then be told that we are dramatic, selfish, childish, mean, etc.

My old therapist used to talk about BPD like being a carpenter with an empty toolbox: you're not a shitty craftsperson, you just don't have the tools you need to make something (life). Or you just have a collection of random Ikea parts that are no use whatsoever. So we're just trying to find the right tools and hang onto them so we can use them when something breaks, or needs to be built.

On that note, I think it's important to remember that when Susanna is talking about her ex, she's still just talking about an aspect of her life which she has a right to share. Of course there are many sides to each story, but we were there to hear hers, that's the only one she can rightfully tell, and it's the only one she told. She is working with the tools she has, and she is still filling up that toolbox. Sometimes a tool gets lost and we have to find it again (don't you hate when your asshole neighbour borrows your mental wrench?)

[bigeekgirl]

rxtravaganza, thank you for sharing. I find it truly helpful to get your perspective as it was with Susanna.

It is hard to accept with someone like Susanna or my mother that what they are sharing in the moment is true for them even if it contradicts previous "truths" they shared. With Mom, she will quite literally share two apposing viewpoints in the same two hour phone conversation. My childhood was full of contraindications I am only just now understanding cannot be justified because it was Boarderline all along. Long before I knew about that, I learned it's best not to point out such inconstancy. The way you describe it, it sounds like Boarderline causes your brain to gaslight you with help from other people who deny your experience. I can only imagine how awful it must be. Everyone deserves empathy and compassion especially from their inner circle.

The main difference for me between you & Susanna and dealing with my mom is treatment. She's never had any and doesn't think she needs any help. She had some therapy for depression over thirty years ago and that's it after a truly traumatic childhood. Now, she has limited social contact, hasn't worked in decades and sits with her memories and these ideas she builds up in her head about how the world works. The whole thing makes me sad when I think about it. Even as I work through these issues dealing with my childhood shit with all this new perspective, I still have a lot of love and those old feelings of protectiveness towards my mom. Sure, some of it is co-dependance, but some of it is real admiration for someone who did try to do better for her kids even if she fucked me up pretty bad in some ways.

The question becomes how do I have a relationship with her while minimizing the triggers for my own anxiety, guilt and self-doubt?

[rxtravaganza]

The way you describe it, it sounds like Boarderline causes your brain to gaslight you with help from other people who deny your experience.

This REALLY sums it up, bigeekgirl! Wow, thank you for saying that. That actually perfectly describes something I've always felt happening in my mind, but could never quite express. Example, I think someone is gaslighting me, they are just expressing themselves, my brain turns it into a personal attack, I gaslight the other person to retaliate.

I'm really sorry to hear your mother won't seek help and denies her need for it. Being on the receiving end of untreated BPD must be exhausting, confusing and painful. I have a lot of empathy for your situation, knowing in retrospect how awful it was for my own mother to deal with my volatile and unchecked temper. Your own empathy to your mother is beautiful and shows how strong, caring and sensitive you are.

Unfortunately, I think with a BPD sufferer who refuses to acknowledge their need for help, you just can't get anywhere with them. Probably the only way to have a relationship with one is to keep the focus on your own needs and boundaries, especially if you are processing trauma and pain from that upbringing. Someone with untreated BPD does not even realize how manipulative and aggressive they can be (seriously, it sounds crazy, but they have no fucking clue), so drawing really strict boundaries and adhering to them no matter how much of a fuss they put up is very useful. If you give an inch, they'll take a thousand miles.

[Hail Ceasar]

I loved this episode and I think I might love Susanna now too haha. Her grandmother sounded like a hoot!

[bigeekgirl]

I love you, rxtravaganza. No joke.

I'm so much in the thick of things now, I don't know which end is up. Your words are like a... can't make symbolically appropriate statement at the moment. That's how you know it's been a "bad brain day." It's priceless to read what you said.

Everyone on this board knows how hard it is to work through our emotional shit and that in itself is a great comfort. I don't have much left at the end of the day. I also work in a call center taking escalated calls about warranties, so yeah. It's called a "trigger" but at least I'm figuring out how the gun got loaded.