I know you don’t want to read this right now, my dearest daughter.
I asked you to take a look because, well, it’s my first post and I’m worried I might have said something that unintentionally upsets you. But maybe that isn’t fair. You said you fear reading it might trigger you and that you couldn’t cope with that right now. I get that.
After all, you have no idea what I’ve written, and perhaps you’re expecting the worst. Maybe we both need to keep the right not to read what the other has written. And yet, I’ve written things here I really want to talk about with you — because they’re about our future lives, and how we might make them better.
Fair warning: I want to use this journal to dissect things down to the bone — to pull apart what we’re going through, what BPD is doing to both of us, and to our relationship. So, no doubt it’ll get sticky at times. Sticky, but not a whinge-fest — there’s enough of that in the world already.
It feels far too “us and them” out there — people with BPD and their loved ones in two separate camps. My dream is to build a more collaborative way for us to work together. A way that might make all our lives better.
I’m already panicking that it’s too lofty an ambition, but surely it’s worth a try.
The Invisible Woman
I’m also being selfish. I don’t just want this project to help others; I want it to stand as evidence that I exist. Somewhere along the way I became invisible. It happened long before you came along — from a time when I had to prioritise someone else to survive.
And then adopting you gave me an excuse to stay invisible. Your trauma was so great, your needs so all-encompassing, that it was easy to let them become everything — to forget about me and focus on fixing you. But I can see now that this has harmed us both and must change.
N Is For Needs
It’s a plain fact of life that we all have them. Just like bodies, needs come in all shapes and sizes — and just like bodies, they’re nothing to be ashamed of. I say this for the record because I don’t think either of us has a particularly healthy relationship with our needs.
The trouble is having needs can make a person feel vulnerable. Especially if the adults around you were bad at meeting them when you were little. Some people react to that vulnerability in extreme ways: by becoming hyper-independent and refusing to rely on anyone (that’s me), or by swinging the other way — becoming hyper-reliant on others to fix things (does that ring any bells with you?).
The Scale Of Your Feelings
I know you feel things on a scale most people can’t imagine — the highs as well as the lows. It’s like your feelings rise like mountain ranges to other people’s foothills.
You’ve been like this ever since I adopted you. I hoped that having me as a loving, constant mum — combined with all the therapy to process why you were taken into care — would take away the rages, the hypervigilance, the terror. But it didn’t. If anything, it’s got worse over the years.
And for that, I am truly, deeply sorry.
There’s a theory that people who develop BPD are born supersensitive — that they notice and react to everything more strongly. Having unmet needs in childhood then hits them harder than most, and that in turn shapes the BPD.
This theory makes so much sense to me now. I look back and wonder what I could have done differently, what might have truly helped you. I don’t have the answers — only regret, and a desire to seek out understanding to help other children in the future.
Standing In The Foothills
Given how huge your feelings are, it’s very easy for me to slip into feeling insignificant. And my biggest challenge, after all these years of invisibility, is to learn how to speak up for myself and what I need — while standing on my own little emotional foothill in the shadow of your mountainous needs.
I must look small from up there. But if you do look down, you’ll see me — still here, waving up at you.
B Is For Boundaries
I’ve read a few books aimed at the loved ones of people with BPD. They talk a lot about setting boundaries — how we, the long-suffering ones, must impose firm rules to protect our needs, and the person with BPD will learn, somehow, to adapt and get better through us doing this.
I get that boundaries are important in relationships, but that kind of thinking feels wrong to me. It’s punitive. Cruel, even.
But what’s the alternative?
I don’t have the answer yet. But I think it has to start with kindness flowing both ways — and a shared effort to problem-solve and negotiate boundaries together.
Is that possible? I don’t know. If we set sail on this course, we’ll be heading into unknown territory — but maybe this is our compass, the way we learn to navigate BPD together.
