Raised By Borderline

I have been no-contact with my parents for almost ten years. My mum (supposedly also on behalf of my dad, who never once contacted me himself) would sporadically send a letter or a postcard. Then that stopped, for various reasons.

Anyway, yesterday I got two emails from my mum:

* An email sharing a photo album with me, titled “Us”.

An email sharing a photo album with me, titled “Cemetery”, with a comment: “We miss you very much but well... life goes on.”

For post/written version click here.

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Part of EFTinUse.substack.com

This episode is based on the second video I’ve made on how I use EFT to regulate myself. It’s about my first dog, her death and growing up with a borderline parent and an enabler parent. I tapped on my parents’ silence and lack of action, and on the guilt I had carried for years.

For written version click here.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit raisedbyborderline.substack.com

This episode is based on the very first video I’ve made on how I use EFT to regulate myself. It’s about my first dog and her death. The general idea is to show you what it looks like when you start tapping: which points you tap and what words or phrases you might use. What you find on the internet is, I would say, quite generic most of the time. I mean, the words there kind of fit everyone, right? But... the death of my dog is very personal to me. So the words I use differ from what someone else would use tapping about their grief.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit raisedbyborderline.substack.com

When you get interested in EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), an EFT practitioner will ask you to make a list. A list of all the sins you’ve done in your life. No, I’m kidding 😂. They will ask you to make something called the #PersonalPeaceProcedure, a tool created by Gary Craig, the founder of EFT.

I always wonder why it’s called “Procedure”. It sounds so surgeon clean. Unemotional, unhuman. How do you feel about Personal Peace List or Personal Peace With Myself and my Past? Maybe Gary Craig went for triple “P” 😉.

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Today I want to talk about a subject I think comes up constantly in therapy, and honestly not just in therapy — anywhere people are talking about healing your past. There are three sentences I keep coming back to. The first one is: it’s not about you. The second one is: they’re just being themselves. The third one is: they’re not aware of what they’re doing.

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That sounds a lot like when my mum had her “dips” when I was a child. She would take pills and sleep all day. Everyone was tiptoeing around so that she could sleep as long as possible, as only then it was peaceful and quiet… No arguments. We could do what we wanted, but silently. That basically meant I was alone in my room not breathing, watching TV or doing homework in silence, or sneaking out of home.

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For written version please check here

“(…)My dad: “That’s the way it is.”My ex: “This is normal.”My dad: “I still love her” (even though she causes you pain and distress)My ex: “You want me to end the friendship with her?! We’ve known each other for 15 years!” (even though it’s putting stress on the current relationship).

My dad controlled my feelings and reactions. I was easier to control than my mum. I was a child. I trusted he was my safe net, my security source. I trusted all he said and wanted me to do was for my good. Whenever he told me, “It’s normal, I love her anyway,” he asked me to stop listening to my feelings. He uncounsciously asked me to stop trusting what I saw, what I felt, what my body told me. And I did. I trusted him that it was good for me. It wasn’t… I shut down the connection between me and my feelings. I stopped trusting my instinct. I started seeing painful and dangerous situations as “normal”, accepting them and learning to live them… He subtly gaslighted me, whenever I said she was horrible to me. Whenever I was angry and crying. It was easier than to control her. The older I grew, the more anger I…”

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- Why do they get angry with me when I set the boundaries, why do they say I am stubborn and will always be alone/never meet a man if I don’t change and be more “do what I say” type?

- Why do they try to break me - sometimes I feel that they’re with me and see me as a challenge: “let’s see if we can get her self-confidence down, break her, see her crying on her knees so that she depends on us and can’t leave us”?

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"I was 36 when I heard from a psychologist, “It sounds like your mum has Borderline Personality Disorder. Read this book: “Stop walking on eggshells.”” And that was it. It was our 10th and last session."

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Therapy is not just tears or fear of “What's there I don't know about myself”? “

It's also laughter and joking about your trauma 😁.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit raisedbyborderline.substack.com