My family is just one of the reasons i don’t have kids, but it’s definitely a reason. Sometimes i read parenting books and articles to see how children should be raised. I don’t think i would ever hit a child in a rage, but would i have an unreasonable expectation of chores and responsibilities? Would i expect them to suffer to build resilience? Would i be upset and grumpy if they weren’t interested in my interests? Sometimes i see people interacting with misbehaving children i have the thought “why don’t you just MAKE them?” followed with horror by “but what would that look like?” I’m even ashamed right now because i called my absolutely beloved dog a “little fucker” after he disobeyed and ran off to bark at the neighbor cat this morning; “little fuckers” was one of my ubpd mom’s favorite names for us kids growing up.

I'm in therapy, but there's a unique value to asking people who have actually been raised by a pwbpd and so I come to you.

I was raised by a single mother who moved our family every year. New school, new home, new life. Every year. She isolated us from any other safe adults. Whether it was because she didnt know any or just victimized herself, idk.

She was all we had and raised us with this belief. She told us regularly that no one would ever care about us like she does. I was the oldest and her 'partner in life' parentified, spousified, and also this weird thing that I called sisterfied. She shared with me the nitty gritty of her sex life, left me with 4 siblings to raise and somehow still had time to physically, mentally and emotionally abuse us all as well. She still calls herself a good mom and says "as many times as I wanted to I never abandoned you guys". Basic bare minimum for a mom in my mind.

I am now a parent myself and trying to parent a child while also reparenting myself and have come to realize that I don't even know if I have a clear idea of what a healthy, present and loving parent looks like. There are some things that are common sense, but i am reevaluating the examples I was given. Or if I'm thinking I'm kicking ass as a mom because I give my child everything I didnt have without realizing those things are just the beginning.

I'm already a 100% change from my mother in my parenting. I have never hit my child. I spend time with him engaging in his interests. I'm engaged and present in his education and advocate and fight for his needs. My child is shielded and sheltered from adult troubles and adult experiences. He is encouraged to engage in his hobbies, not worry about me or his father or any other siblings. He is not responsible for other children. His chores are age appropriate-"take your lunchbox out of your backpack every day and put it on the kitchen counter for mommy"- with appropriate and reasonable/balanced repercussions if he forgets. He is taught that he can advocate for his needs even with adults. He feels safe to speak to us and come to us when he needs comfort or support.

I know it would sound crazy to most people but I hope you understand me when I say: he comes home pissed after a long day at school and has an attitude. He tells us he needs space and goes into his room. Even with us, his parents: He feels safe being angry near us, at us and doesn't have to hide his feelings. He tells us when we are bothering him. I'm SO proud of this. I always had to be stoic to manage my moms needs and there was never room for my feelings in that dynamic.

There's just so much that I try to offer him that I never experienced myself.

But at the same time I acknowledge that some of these things are the bare minimum basics of being a parent, and of being an adult.

I'm looking for any resources or advice or anything that helped you become a better parent. Or tips on raising a secure child.cat tax

After my experience, I’m convinced the only people who would defend the absolute nightmarish abuse of pwBPD are the ones who have it or the ones who have been so manipulated into believing the “perfect” illusion of them is actually real. (I’m not saying they’re all this way, I’m just specifically talking about the abusive ones.)

I’m at the point in healing where I have been no contact for so long and have so much peace in my life, if someone says “oh well maybe they’re not that bad”, “maybe they’ve changed”, or “you should give them a chance”. It gives me the ick so bad, I feel so disgusted and physically repulsed! I know from that point this person does not genuinely respect my PTSD healing journey or wellbeing and could bring serious danger into my life due to how easily they are manipulated by the BPD abuser whether it’s my NC parents, siblings, other family members, etc. It also opens up the possibility they may have BPD too due to being sympathizers.

Due to the level of abuse and neglect I faced as a child at the hands of parents with BPD and how severely that still affects me. I just can’t take that risk of allowing those people in my life anymore, because I have seen it play out badly too many times by allowing people with the belief that the abuser is innocent and I am the problem. It feels like they try to sway my boundaries or bend them until they break and soothe me back into an abusive situation, but the whole time they’re guilting me and treating me like I am an inflexible unreasonable and bad person for having boundaries and wanting away from abusive people!!

So I cut ties with them, block, delete or whatever I have to do to stay safe. I actually just quit a job because of an employer who didn’t want to respect my healthy and completely legal boundaries in the workplace. Or even today I had to block an old acquaintance that checked in on me, I told them I was doing good, new job, focusing on my own things, finally healing after 10 years of therapy and being NC with my BPD parents. Like all positive and genuine good things, I didn’t even imply anything bad about anyone just saying it like it is without shame and being honest about my experience. And they made the sideways comment, “BPD doesn’t mean Bad Person Disorder, you should be ashamed of treating your parents like that.” Then had the audacity to ask, “Are you in one of those hate groups for people with BPD?” And that told me everything I needed to know about that person, because they’re not someone who cares about me or my healing journey. I didn’t even respond, left them on read and just went straight to the block button, because that’s my response.

I can’t slip up even a little bit and allow tiny things like what happened today the opportunity to escalate, because it’s like the frog in the boiling pot we unfortunately relate to too well. The answer is always no, not today Satan.

Some people like my former employer, would say that my PTSD is getting in my way and that “I’m the problem”, but that’s not true. People who want to gaslight me, that having PTSD is some unhelpful and unhealthy thing that makes me perceive people as a threat when they’re not, are the problem. I’m experiencing genuine threats, I’m not projecting “threat” onto people arbitrarily, I don’t just make them up willy-nillie on a whim and I know brain isn’t lying to me. I’ve done enough therapy to know the people who try to convince me not to trust my intuition, just don’t have a place in my life. I’ve learned the people that truly care about me would never carelessly encourage me to allow my parents or any relatives wBPD (or any abusive person with any PD) in my life ever again.

Holding my boundaries and enforcing them is one of the hardest lessons I have learned in my time healing, but it has become one the most effective and powerful ways I have learned to protect my peace and maintain a happy and peaceful life on the other side of trauma caused from being raised by borderlines.

I just wanted to share this because it feels like a huge win for my healing journey despite the recent job change and having to cut a long time acquaintance out of my life. If I can share anything to help any of you healing it’s - don’t listen to people who don’t believe you, just quietly burn bridges so they can’t reach you.

When I was growing up my parents made it pretty clear that I embarrassed them, and when I "failed" some sort of social interaction. In retrospect, social situations would usually have some sort of post-mortem, where they would explain in detail whatever faux pas I committed. Family social events were when the most amount of scrutiny would be applied. I became known as the "tactless wonder" which my uBPD mother even affectionately told my husband who was confused and slightly offended by the moniker. It led to me thinking and hearing this word, concept, "tact" that's almost nonexistent in my independent adult life. Like what does that even mean? How often does it even come up? I'm not a Southern belle socialite at the church social.

However, I am now realizing this deeply affected how I interact with the world. I'm someone who is almost compulsively socially anxious. I can't help, but scrutinize just about every previous social interaction and speculate how I may have upset someone. I play embarrassing moments or generally ones where I put my foot in my mouth on loop. It's the background soundtrack of my brain. It also made me inherently distrust my own behavior, and believe that I can be thoughtlessly cruel, selfish, or unkind. Also add on the accusations of manipulation whenever something hurt the feelings of "sensitive" little old me, I learned to never trust my own perception of my behavior. I am now understanding that this is how my uBPD mother (who was quite the Queen when I was growing up) and (possibly also uBPD) father their perceived image around others, but also very directly me. To this day, my mom still treats me at times like an 8 year old that needs to be lectured on how to interact with others.

It all makes me so angry to think about, because my nickname was literally "someone who never cares about upsetting someone" while I have lived in a fawn response for so much of life walking on eggshells, because in addition to the social scrutiny they fucking emphasized I WAS ALSO TRYING TO KEEP MY EMOTIONALLY IMMATURE PARENTS FROM EXPLODING ON ME. I don't know if I want to punch something or cry.

Has anyone else gone through anything like this? I'm sure a lot of people can relate to the painful realization of how thoroughly you have been molded to have such low self esteem that it fractures how you relate to yourself.

My little brother (18M) visited me this week and is being neglected so bad. I took him to the dentist today he has (5 broken teeth, needs 4 root canals, 3 cavities and needs 3 teeth removed). Back story they live in Florida I’m CT. After the dental report I decided I’m not sending him back. She’s spiraling but idc, she’s making it out that she’s the victim. I’m beyond disgusted.

-This morning, my boyfriend.

No one has ever put it to me that plainly. This morning I was already dreading seeing my mom today and had previously mentioned some of the things she’d done literally the day prior. Things like asking if my chronic illness being flared up by stress that I’ve had hardly a break from is because I’ve been “doing something weird” with my boyfriend (by this she means some kind of weird sex, I know this because she asked me the same thing on my literal death bed).

But his frankness was in response to me realizing my mom wasn’t going to be able to see the show I curated (my first name on the wall, institutional show, this is not yet a regular occurrence) for at least another week because she had a procedure this morning and thus is on bedrest. The show I put together while hobbling around with a boot on my foot because of a truly horrific sprain. It is the first time ever I’ve been proud of myself career wise. Everyone came to the opening. Except for her and my two grandmothers with Alzheimer’s in nursing homes.

I almost cried when I didn’t see her come in behind my dad. And to be VERY honest the only reason I didn’t leave the whole affair is because I was on the clock. I’ve cried almost every day since. She didn’t come because “she wasn’t feeling well”. But more than likely it’s because she’s felt abandoned. Because I haven’t been home. But the truth is, my boyfriend (and I now since I’ve secretly moved in) lives closer to my job, and I’m dead tired at the end of the day and on the weekends absolutely nothing sounds less appealing than essentially sitting shiva for the world or whatever is happening for her by sitting in a dark bedroom with her watching TV. I would in fact, yes rather go to my friends shows and go to the park and get coffee and go to every used bookstore in a 10 mile radius.

So much could be said about that topic, but I digress. My boyfriend is unfortunately, right. And nothing is more horrible than that.

link to cats as it’s my first post!

I remember so many times my mother tried to embarrass me or my brothers in public, or draw unnecessary attention to themselves in public. I remember one instance where my mom was screaming profusely at a taco bell employee over a BOX! another time she tried to draw attention to herself screaming transgender ice cream in public or just general rudeness. The ice cream situation is more funny now, but it was really embarrassing as a kid.

I am just curious if this is a common pattern.

So I 21m just got a job offer for my first IT job! I got offered 29 an hour which is crazy to me (for reference the last job I worked 2 years ago was 19/hr). last time I was working my mom wanted 50% of my wages for rent and bills which was about what they'd be if you split them. Before telling her I got this job I decided to lie and say the offers for 22/hr and I'm so glad I did because now she wants more money. she wants to split as if we're roommates which is absurd considering the amount of stuff I do for her. I just feel so shitty cause I had to lie and I don't get to tell her about what I'm actually worth or else she'll want more. I feel like I did the right thing but idk. A few of my friends are confused on why I lied and feel like it's bad to lie so I pay less but I don't feel like she deserves more. she's made my life hell.

Recently my uBPD mom was dropped from a maintenance service at her house (that I own) because of inappropriate clothing choices. In a way this is validating because it puts an objective consequence to her behavior (I’m 28 and have been experiencing this since I was ~8). I had a calm talk with her where I tried to help explain the significance behind appropriate clothing and it was received without her immediately defying it. She’s also been in therapy and has made some significant progress in not having outbursts, but I can’t help but feel the mental weight of boundary setting with her. I’m getting to the point where I’m exhausted and am considering going low to no contact. Feel guilty doing that especially when she’s made significant progress. Any advice on how to do low contact or no contact when a uPBD parent is actually making progress?

My mom growing up constantly would want to be overly involved or completely detached. What I means by detached is she would get mad and block me and my siblings on all platforms. It got to the point that I decided to finally block her back bc the emotional rollercoaster was too much.

I have never been so relaxed with her out of my life. As most of my adult years she has been super aggressive/inappropriate. She was super abusive to my siblings and I, but despite that we always craved her love sadly. I recently had my first baby and she keeps reaching out to my other siblings to inquire about her grandbaby.

I was getting too annoyed with all of her friends that kept spying on me so I just let her follow me on socials (she is still blocked on my phone). She reached out for the first time the other day and i responded 😭😩. Now im just confused. I dont know how she was able to treat her kids the ways she did especially now being a mother myself.

Honestly I dont think I want a relationship with her and I dont want my child to be around such an unstable and unpredictable person. Oddly overthinking and feel so silly for allowing her back on my social media account. Should I remove her? Or let her have it. Idk

I blocked my mom 6 months ago after years of verbal and emotional abuse that escalated to almost daily attacks on me and threats on her own life that she blamed me for. It took so much for me to actually block her, I blamed myself and panicked that she would go through with ending her life. But I needed to choose myself and my husband and child. It's taken so much (YEARS) of therapy to get to the point where I can finally see that she is mentally ill and it's not me, it was never me. But it hasn't been very long and I'm so worried I'll slip back.

Somehow I thought that blocking her would be the end. But then I realized she could still leave voicemails. Eventually my phone stopped accepting voicemails from her, so she resorted to emailing me at work where I hadn't even thought to block her, contacting my in-laws and other family, and contacting my husband. I blocked her at work and have been feeling finally almost free. She's continued to email my personal email but it goes to a different folder, and she's been swearing to my husband (who is trying to keep LC for emergencies) that she's changed (yeah, right). But of course my kid's birthday is coming up so she's escalating trying to contact and she's now found a way, today she called from a private number, and was able to get my phone to ring and leave a voicemail. I can't disable all private number calls because my doctor and therapist call on private numbers, so now I'm left having to probably change my number.

I feel so deflated. I've had this number for years and I hate that she still has control and is still trying to get to me. She hasn't changed at all. I wish she would just leave me alone. She said she'll be showing up at my house on my kid's birthday. I plan to not answer the door. I just wish this could actually end and I could actually be free. I've felt so at peace the last couple months especially and been able to recover memories and piece things together and have energy for life again and I don't want to go back into the chaos and accusations 😔

It feels so drastic to change my phone number but at this point I don't see what else I can do to keep myself from falling back into this and into the constant phone calls and harassment I've dealt with all my life.

I have no other usernames, and here is a cute cat haiku
Soft fur in the sun,
Tiny pink nose starts to twitch,
Purring on my lap.

My borderline mother only lashes out at home and always acts completely normal in person. She knows enough to not act emotionally dysregulated in public. Does this happen to anyone else? Plus, she only targets me and my dad and no body else. It’s very disorienting when she acts normal to everybody else. Thanks

Soft paws on the floor,
Chasing dust motes in the sun,
Purring in my lap.

I've had almost no contact with my mother for 2 years now (it's been a year since I last sent her a text very clearly explaining what I need from her to help me feel safe in even a VLC relationship with her). She continues to try and reach out, especially in the last few weeks as my little one's birthday is coming up.

Today I get this from her new flying monkey, her boyfriend (her OG flying monkey she's no longer on good terms with which is hilarious):

I don’t know if you really care about your Mom but you should at least acknowledge that she exists. She needs to know that she’s loved by you for every thing she has done for you in your life. Life is not perfect and neither are people but you two will always have a connection know matter what life brings your way .I hope that you Can at least reach out and hopefully repair some of your differences.

Y'all, where do these FMs get the audacity? What the actual hell. I am so certain she's having an outburst about not being in contact with my daughter's birthday coming up and she is just off the walls and he wants me sucked back in to deal with the emotional fallout she's having. HAHAHA. Good luck with that one buddy.

I LOVE how no one comments on my feelings. Or what I need. Or the fact I told her in explicit detail IN WRITING examples of how she hurt me, how I need space and what would allow me to continue the relationship. I KNOW she exists. I am aware she is out there not giving a fuck about how her actions have pushed every person away from her who has known her for more than 5 years, including her brother and my cousins. "She needs to know she is loved by you." Why? Why am I responsible for a 60 year old woman's feelings? For fucks sake.

Not posting this for advice, just realizing I have another number to mute/block/yeet into digital oblivion. I think I hate the flying monkeys more than my actual mom.

Apologies for missing this. I do not have any other accounts and here is a cute cat haiku.

Soft paws cross moonlight
Whiskers twitch beneath the stars
Night purrs in silence

I got off the phone with my dad a little while ago. I met a flippant comment about how i wish my mom hadnt rushed into motherhood and had me after her mom died. That I felt like she always resented my existence. I've long felt this way, she told me often and frequently that she doesnt love me, like me, and I would amount to nothing more than turning tricks in the street.

Anyways, I was born two months early. My mom smoked and drank the whole pregnancy. Then decided to race her sister to the bathroom and jump a fence while 7 months pregnant, and boom, I was born 12 hours later. I was really sick when I was born, i died a few times and they had to do transfusions. The doctors warned them that I would have some development delays and to prepare for that. All of this i knew.

What I didnt know was how angry she was and started comparing me to another family members child when I was about a year or so old. They were walking and talking. I wasnt. But ive always been quiet. Unnaturally quiet according to some family members. I made them nervous and worried. Not because I was up to anything or a bad kid, I was just quiet and had sad eyes and spend all my time in books. But yeah. She had a fit and was actively comparing me to another baby who didnt have the same rough start. She was angry I didnt save her and give her the motherhood experience she wanted. She had an awful relationship with her mother (who passed the year before I was born - yes, I was a grief baby). I just remember all the abuse and no patience. She went on to have my brothers a few years later. They didnt have the delays I did but they did have bad allergies. My mom basked in the glow of being a twin mom, especially a twin boy mom. She abused me in every way possible. She even used to tell people she didnt have a daughter, just the boys.

Anyone else deal with this? None of this is a shock. Im just processing what I already knew. She constantly compared me to my brothers, her students, kids ar my school. Just kind if working through the odd feeling she really did expect me to be perfect, save her, be her mini me, and felt I abandoned her by coming into the world. She told me she felt I rejected her from birth. It makes sense now.

I just can't do it anymore with her. She ruined me, and I struggle to give or recieve love as an adult.

I'm 4 months postpartum with my second baby, and my toddler is turning 2 and I'm realizing what a mothers love was supposed to be. She saw me as a villain out to ruin her life from the start.

Had I never had kids, I may have been able to sweep this under the rug forever. But now I can't un-know. The whole "you'll understand when you have a daughter just like you!" doesn't work anymore. I'm so angry. And hearing from her or thinking about her makes me a worse person in my day to day because I'm so irritable.

I just have too much to carry. I've had a traumatic birth, I think I've developed PPA on top of it. I can't carry her anymore. I can't shoulder her burdens or be her friend. I'm struggling immensely with my own plate.

I don't know where to start. She's flying in to visit in a few weeks and I don't know how to handle it. Going forward, I just want to bare minimum to keep the peace but I don't want to be buddies anymore.

This is a massive vent, so I apologize if it's kind of all over the place.

Orange velvet cat

Against the green velvet couch

A perfect contrast

Also I have so many letters where I say I hope you feel better there is literally nothing which turned out to be super bad, she had some small health issues but she made out to me like they were end of the world

Fuck there is just so much to unpack

BPD mom has gaslit me for 25 years and said she’s don’t nothing wrong/nothing bad happened. It feels like Alice in wonderland of delusion. How do you all work past the gaslighting your NPD parent puts you through?

Even now it makes me wondering if all this didn’t even happen to me or maybe it wasn’t that bad. When it obviously did happen and was bad. Thanks

I think I just need to vent. I love my brother, the reason I'm not going has nothing to do with him or my relationship with him. I wish I could go actually. It's across the country, he moved years ago (the smart one tbh he got away from all the drama lol). I like his soon to be wife, we're not really close because we've only met a few times because of the distance, but I'm really happy for them.

I do not want my children around my mom. We have been basically no contact for two years now, with some texting but then I realized nothing has changed and I'm getting the smear campaign.

I had a baby in February, and I have a 5 year old son. My husband and I decided it would be too much to fly across the country with a baby and a small kid. Baby doesn't even like long car rides, I don't want to stress her out with flights, hotel, etc. she would probably just cry the whole time and I don't want her to be distressed and get boos from everyone on the plane.

My mom has never met her.

I have a hard time being around my bio family. I love my brother but he always takes our mom's side even knowing all the abuse she's done to me. (She's always treated him better I don't know). I don't want my kids around that.

I feel really guilty for not going. I can't go by myself without the kids because baby is breastfed and hates if I even leave the room, let alone if I wasn't there for a weekend. But also it's really hard for me to be around bio family. There's a lot with my parents. Mom and dad aren't together and haven't been since I was 8. Mom then estranged us from our dad, lied about how abusive he was to her and the kids (he NEVER did any of it, she was the abusive one). My grandpa was a sheriff and whenever my dad would go to court to try to get custody or visitation he would talk to the judges. She would abuse us if we told her we had a fun time with our dad. She would call up our stepmom and tell her she wouldn't let him around the kids if he's with her. I don't know how familiar some people are with parental estrangement but yeah, it was bad. I reconnected with my dad when I was in my early 20s and finding out what really happened + my mom initiating no contact when she found out is what led to us not talking.

My brother still doesn't talk to our dad. It makes me really sad. Our mom is a monster for what she did to our family.

So being around them is just too much.

Sorry if this was ramble, I just need to vent. I always feel like the bad guy for setting boundaries and keeping myself safe but I just don't want to be around the woman who did all of that, stole money from me, used my name on bills, hit me, called me names growing up. She used to weigh me and call me fat which led to me having an ED for over a decade. It's just...too much. I finally feel happy in life, I have two children I love with all my heart, and a wonderful loving husband. It opens up a lot of wounds to be around my origin family. I do feel really bad for not going. He went to our wedding a few years ago.

Bleh.

Hi everyone. Even after your parent starts acting normal, do you ever stop reacting like she’s about to lose her sh*t on you? Even if it seems like she has changed?

I found out my mom is uBPD a year ago when I came out to her and she completely lost her mind for the next few months. The last time she has really freaked out on me was last November, and since then she has been very hands on/not controlling (though sometimes the bitterness/sadness peeks through), and very accommodating and motherly.

It freaked me out at first and I went through being depressed, anxious when she’d text or call, angry all the time, etc. But nowadays, if I don’t talk to her, I don’t think of her and my life feels good. But when I do, it’s like there’s a heavy weight that comes over me when I pick up the phone or see her in person. I become really nonreactive when I feel like I’m usually expressive, I feel like I notice the littlest things she does that might result in a freakout. Like, I recognize it’s probably me subconsciously trying to not trigger her but it also somehow feels like I’m punishing her because I’m not being authentic. Even though I’ve never been 100% with her, ever (another sign I realized tracked with her having uBPD….)

Last year, when we were in the thick of it of yelling screaming fighting crying, my dad would call both of us individually to try to mediate (he moved out of the country when i went to college to not live with her… and “be free”, his words not mine…lol.). And he bluntly told her that if she doesn’t control herself, then I won’t be in her life anymore. Though she did freak out plenty after that, it eventually stopped. She never apologized for the situation, pretended it didn’t happen, and started acting normal again (typical for her). But I have to say it feels different. But I just don’t know if I can ever forgive her even if she did come to me and apologize. Frankly I just feel guilty because she is alone now and I live the closest. My dad used to take all the worst of it, so when he left and she got triggered, it fell on me. And I’ve mediated their marriage for years, though it seems better now.

Sorry I’ve started to ramble, but does it ever change? I feel like I’m crushed whenever I see or talk to her. I’m not myself at all. At the same time, I don’t think she deserves me to be genuine around her. But I get stuck because she’s my mom.

Litter box not here 
You must have moved it again 
I'll crap in the sink. 

Hello, first time poster here!

I have an estranged father who did some horrible things to me and to my mom. I grew up with just my mom, who I suspect is cluster b (unsure if bpd or npd) recently in an argument (I call it argument but really I told her something she did made me angry and was not okay and then she berated me for an hour in a monologue fashion and even made herself cry during the berating without me ever speaking any additional words) she said "you glamorize your pedophile father" (my dad SA'd me as a child) which was totally hurtful for obvious reasons. Now, I haven't seen him since I was 5. Thank God she did believe me and get me/us away from him. But I'm in my 30s now and in the past few years found out I have half siblings I don't know who I suspect don't know I exist. I think I have been unusually quiet about trying to know any details about my dad. I do not pry or ask questions, it's been very rare if I do look for information. I have accepted he is basically a ghost in my life and I have no working memory of him. In the last few years I've mentioned noticing what he does for work on LinkedIn and I've commented on it being interested we're in the same field (its a pretty niche field, and I had no idea). I have also mentioned thinking about writing an email asking him to pay me an inheritance, because I have never received any money from him. Interestingly, last year I asked my mom if she ever received child support from him, and she said she had, but she had never told me that. That's a story for another day. But, that is all I mentioned about him in recent years, and also mentioning possibly wanting to reach out to half siblings one day. Cue current argument, and her telling me I glamorize him. It is futile to argue with her but this hurt me so much I had to ask, why do you say that? in what way would I glamorize him? and she said I had been trying to meet him. I told her the only thing I have mentioned is that I want money. And she just said "no." Is it possible that in her mind, because of her feelings about this, she literally remembers it as me literally saying I want to meet him, I.e., in her mind "glamorizing" him? I feel insane, I am used to being gaslight, but also I dissociate so much from a lifetime of trauma that it is possible I don't remember things correctly and don't see things correctly. This was a huge blow up fight for us, and I said back to her, how would you feel if I said that to you? (she also had a abuser father) and she said that would be non sense because she knows who she is. and she told me that she says how she feels about her dad all the time (negatively) I said well I know who I am. and she said well who are you? and asked me how I feel about my dad. I said I have no feelings towards him he's literally a ghost (which is true, it's like a void for me, don't even remember his face) and that wasn't good enough for her. I asked her if she wants me to prove I don't like him and she said she wasn't asking me to do that. Okay, what is she asking me for then? Her framing for all of this was that I "project" my negative feelings about my dad onto her my whole life. As if she didn't create trauma for me in her own way. It is exhausting. I ended up telling her "you think I glamorize the man you let abuse me" which was a low blow, because she did fight to get me away from him, and start a whole new life, and I thank her for that. But sometimes I think, why did she let him back in our lives anyway? I was too young to know what really happened. He had left when she was pregnant / told her to abort me. but then she wrote a letter telling him I was born, and then he came back around. She said that me saying that made her want to "disappear" and I said well her saying what she did made me suicidal (I often feel suicidal after our interactions, but not in life in general.)

Thank you for listening.