Dear Joanna:

I hope that you are still feeling better today! I slept poorly, so I am tired still.

“‘Persons with PPD are hypervigilant to…  attacks, and do not trust others, and therefore tend to have few if any close or intimate associates…‘– My mother does not have any close friend. She used to have some… but they all have one thing in common: at some point she felt anger at them, showed them her contempt and stopped speaking to them. I read a lot about borderline personality disorder during recent days. ‘… rapid swings from idealization to devaluation, anger, and hate‘, this is exactly my mother’s behavior“-

– and this is exactly my mother’s behavior. There was always someone on her very good (idealized, “loved”) list and someone on her very bad (devalued, hated) list, and it was only a matter of time before someone on the good list found himself or herself on the bad list. No intimate associates in my mother’s life either, including me. She didn’t trust me after all, how could she feel close to me (she believed that I intended to hurt her every so often; you don’t trust someone you believe is trying to hurt you!) I grew up very lonely: no closeness with my mother, no closeness with anyone.

“It feels weird knowing she is indeed sick. Feels like I do not and did not have .. real parents. Seeing families that some people have versus what I got.. I feel sorry for myself a lot these days, last couple of years“- I saw, in person, the other day, a daughter (23), talking with her mother (50 or so). They were talking like two people, no detectable resentment, no anger… I never experienced anything like that! At all times, either my mother was angry at me and/ or I was angry at her…  Some time ago, I had my teeth cleaned and the dental technician, a large, pleasant woman, was humming nicely to music as she worked, and once in a while she’d say “please” and “thank you” as she asked me to move my face this way or that way.  Feeling her gentle hands on my face and listening to her humming, I thought to myself: this must be how it feels, to be with a mother.

“‘Persons with Paranoid Personality Disorder may develop brief psychotic reactions under stress…’ It almost seemed to me like she did not have a choice, like it was stronger than her, she had to stop speaking because of whatever she was experiencing at the moment – the anger, the psychotic episode. Even her “coming back” (starting speaking again) seemed like she finally was trying to speak again, not being fully able to but trying, as if she was fighting it. Very weird as I remember it. I am not justifying this, just saying it indeed seemed like some kind of psychotic episode“- I don’t remember my mother “trying to speak again”, but your description here otherwise makes me understand my mother’s psychotic episodes better: it really did seem like it (what was happening in her brain, her emotions, her mental state) was stronger than her… she didn’t understand it, wasn’t in control of it.

Here is an online description of how a psychotic episode feels like (psych central. com): “(Psychotic episodes) can last like a few minutes to days”, “If I’m in a fully psychotic episode… I’m still here, I’m just far away“, “I know something is very wrong, and there’s nothing I can do about it. And in those moments I’ve even had the ability to think, ‘Oh no, what if I don’t come out of this?’”

“I too get sudden feelings of anger at people for no reason. It passes but comes back.  Sometimes it has led me to being angry and getting into a stupid argument with people or being not nice to them… I have been obsessed about thinking I may be BPD too“-

– I have no doubt that my mother fit the bpd diagnosis, and it so happens that I was diagnosed with bpd myself: I suspected it when I was in my 20s. But I always knew that I did not fit at all the hpd (Histrionic Personality Disorder) diagnosis that my mother fit. Although I was and still tend to be suspicious of people, I didn’t go as far as fitting a ppd diagnosis. But back to bpd, yes, I did fit it and it is not surprising to me that both of us have or had serious anger issues: how can we not have trouble with anger, growing up with the mothers we grew up with?

“It really kills me how not well I am when I struggle so much already, trying every day and thinking I was doing Ok maybe“- you are well-enough today, Joanna, just as I am well-enough today. Tomorrow we will get better and the day after, even better. It’s all about getting Better, not Perfect.

(Perfection is not an option for you or for me. But surprise: it is not an option for anyone).

anita