YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

This episode described my mother to a T. I suspect she has BPD with narcissistic tendencies. Being the youngest and having older siblings 13 and 16 years older, I always felt my mother liked my brother best. I refer to my mother as the Joan Crawford-esque Mommy Dearest.

Natasha's story really hit home when she described her mother keeping pictures of N's ex-husband and she still in a frame. My eldest sister divorced because he was cheating multiple times. The sad thing is, she rejected her and has always kept her ex-husband as an integral part of the family. He will become my other disabled sister's trustee when my mother dies. For over twenty years she has shut out my oldest sister until I finally decided I had to stop having her see my children. They would come home and tell me how she yelled all the time and my eldest refused to go back. Right then and there, my husband and I decided to keep my parents from seeing our children. It was the scariest boundary I had to put into place.

When my parents were prevented from seeing our girls, my mother suddenly started talking to my eldest sister as if 20 years of silence never happened! My sister would spend every Friday night and some weekends with my girls. I think my mother thought she could get around my decision by seeing them at my sister's house. Fat chance. When that failed, she pleaded with my husband to see our children stating I must be crazy, etc. He said, "I'm the one who suggested it, and [my wife] backs me up in that decision."

That was the end of our relationship. My father died a year ago. He was heart-broken I prevented the girls from seeing him. He didn't want me to visit him in the hospital even though I knew he wasn't going to live. Two weeks went by and I knew I needed closure. I went in the middle of the night when my mother wasn't there and he was losing coherence. The last thing I said was, "I'm sorry. I couldn't let mom hurt the girls. It's not your fault. It's hers. I love you." After he died, my sister told me she started saying disparaging things about Dad. The vitriol that she spewed about a husband, whom I believe could never satisfy her, I was so upset. I eventually had to tell my sister not to tell me anymore when our mother says those things about him.

I wish I had diaries of my mother's, so I could see how unhappy she was. I know she doesn't have any. Whether or not I was ever loved. This woman has own awards for her volunteer services with the handicapped and troubled youth as well as being a foster mom before I could remember. I know I'll never know why my siblings and I were physically and emotionally abused by her. I honestly don't feel I will ever know, nor does it even matter. Like Natasha, I too am parenting with love and kindness without any good motherly role models. I struggle with dissociation when my girls do something I was brutally punished for, but am using EMDR as a way to slog through that mess.

I'm glad someone else was able to walk away from the abuse. I said my goodbyes to my mother in my head years ago. I don't regret it one damn bit.

^I'm glad you found this episode relate-able. Natasha's mother sounds like a mash-up of both of my parents so there were times when I knew what she was talking about, but obviously no as much as you did.

Natasha said something that I'd like to look into/know more about. She said she rarely wants to do things outside of her home because she feels safe there. I wonder if there's any correlation between people who've had less than ideal childhoods and the tendency to be a homebody. I recently had a friend tell me she was molested by her grandfather and I have to drag her out of her house sometimes if we want to hang out. I know Natasha's abuse was emotional and not sexual but the similarity made me think.

For me, I think it's partially depression and partially low self-esteem as to why I'm a homebody. I'm half introverted and half extroverted, so at times I don't want to go out and sometimes I need to leave the house.

My entire life I never felt safe. Even in the house I live in now doesn't feel safe to me. I think it's because I live with an emotionally abusive & somewhat controlling husband who has had an affair. Being disabled, without an income, I feel I don't have a right to make him leave our house. He says he pays the mortgage and bills so I don't have a say. I will lose my health insurance if we divorce, and it downright sucks the life out of the happiness and hilarious moments I have with my girls (12 & 13 yrs old.) I know someday this will change, but for now it's difficult to feel safe anywhere.

So sometimes I don't want to make the effort to get dressed or take a shower. I put my heart and soul into being a functioning mom, so I have a tendency to put the girls' needs ahead of my own. At the end of the day, I just want to sit on the couch, watch a little TV, and collapse into my own bed (I moved him out of my bedroom.) With anything, the energy to leave is much more difficult than staying in the "crapulence" of either depression or just being in a space/house that feels comfortable.

I just have to say that I have BPD and I have had it since I was 19 way back in 1986. I have two kids and I have never, never wished them any harm let alone wanted them dead. When I hear that Natasha thinks her mother has BPD it scares me that people will think thoughts of infanticide come to those that suffer with this illness. I admit I have had terrible problems but wanting my children harmed in any way is well beyond the pale. BPD is certainly a serious illness and I can't comment on anyone else with the disorder but please know that wanting your children dead or harmed has nothing to do with BPD - at least not in my 30 years of suffering.