Dear Ben:

First, a note about personality disorders: I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) 13 years ago, a diagnosis that fit me since my beginning adulthood. Following therapy and a lot of work, I no longer fit the diagnosis (what a relief for me and the people in my life!). So, personality disorders are not permanent if you work on healing persistently and for some time.

The quotes I submitted to you 3 days ago (which appear in your reply italicized), are quotes from the ravive. com on Paranoid Personality Disorder (PPD). It so happens that you and I have more in common than I previously thought: our mothers are similar. I know that my mother fit the PPD (as well as the BPD diagnosis), and her PPD led to me fitting some of the PPD diagnosis myself.

I am not a medical doctor, nor am I a health care professional of any kind, so I am not diagnosing you or your mother. Even if I was a professional, it would have been unprofessional of me to diagnose anyone online in the context here. But this does not mean that the information on personality disorders, information available to everyone, offered to everyone without preconditions (such as prefacing the information with this information is meant only for professionals). Therefore, it is okay for you and for me to responsibly use the information offered to all.

Living with my PPD-mother robbed me from the ability to trust people. She kept expressing to me her suspicions of other people (and of me, at different times), again and again, on and on. Growing up, I couldn’t maintain any friendship/ good feelings toward people because I was often angry at them for allegedly mistreating my mother. Her ongoing expressed suspiciousness/ PPD isolated me from her, from myself and from everyone else.

A PPD mother presents the world to her child as a very hostile world, betrayal of trust is just around the corner, a matter of time. No exception. How can one possibly have a trusting relationship in a world where trust does not exist..?

“… Frequently complaining – unfortunately a large number of people have told me I do this, including my boyfriend (where I think it extinguishes his very optimistic attitude and leaves him feeling almost depressed after ‘talking to me’– where sometimes it’s just me on a tirade against petty little things)“- the beginning of my healing was to Notice that I was just about to act (say or do something) based on my BPD tendencies, and then Pause, and most often, I would resist doing the damaging BPD behavior. I would feel the tendency, the need, the compulsion to (accuse a person of this or that, etc.) but I didn’t act on it. Over a long time of practicing this discipline, the compulsions weakened.

This can apply to you in this way: you feel like you are about to complain to your boyfriend, you Notice the feeling/ compulsion, and you put the compulsion on Pause. You don’t complain to him.

“For me this is 100%, I am guarded with him… almost mocking his commitment to me… it’s nearly everyday a ‘joke’ reminding him of his past errors“- reminding him of his past errors, real or imagined, is also a compulsion that you can put on Pause.

“Knowing this, I wish I could let some of it go, but how?…When it was just me it was fine but I can’t treat someone I’m in a relationship with this way – especially how I am now, acting as if it’s his problem!“-

– it’s not your fault that you grew up with a PPD-ed mother any more than it is my fault that I was brought into the world through a PPD-ed mother. Yet, it is our personal responsibility to heal, best we can, for our ow sake  and for the sake of the people who deserve better from us.

As I close this post, I am very curious about what you think and feel about all this, hoping that although it’s difficult to process (?) it gives you hope..?

anita