Mind over Mattering: coming out of the shadow of an egocentric parent

I am about six years old.  I stand on the walkway of my childhood home, the heat of the flames stinging my eyes and warming my face.  As I move toward the fire, I see my mother, looking at me with fury and I suddenly realize what is burning in the pile on the walk.  It's my favorite toy, a stuffed Snoopy that I sleep with every night.  I fall to my knees crying, and I beg her to stop.  She does not stop.  She adds things to the flames and my screams grow louder.  She walks toward me and whispers, "it will be okay, next time do what I tell you to do".  And I am engulfed in her will , her needs, her wants, her anger, her interpretation of events ....

And I wake.

But it's not just a dream, it's a distant memory.  An event I was told about long ago that I could not remember, blocked out and buried, only to revisit during a shift at work, as I walked by a stuffed Snoopy, almost exactly like the one I had as a child.  It is the memory that influenced the title of this blog.  And there, in that passage of time, is the epitome of my relationship with my mother, my mother's relationship with all people really: her feelings and needs always usurping those of others.

I cannot recall what I did to anger my mother, and to attempt to remember is pointless, since very often with those who have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) there is no reason for the punishment. Or more likely, there is a perceived offense that never occurred and all attempts to plead your case to the contrary do not matter and neither do you.  Such is the nature of someone with this mental illness-- the world revolves around them.

To matter to a person with BPD is impossible.  Well, not possible in the way that it should be, and for me, not possible in the way that a child should matter to its mother.  Humans are "causes" to their "effect" and all sense of caring comes down to their wants and their happiness, and to whether they feel safe, protected, and free of the fear of abandonment.  And, in such, you are left to their whim, and are the recipient of the aftermath.

When she had a bad day, she would not pick me up at school.  When I miscarried, she wished me dead because I did not comfort her for her loss.  When I was in labor, I had to talk to her on the phone to squelch her fear that I would die and leave her alone.

I get it, I understand how she works.  I don't need sympathy or pity or anything of that nature.  I know it is not my mother's fault.  I know she knows no other way.  I do not place blame.  I am used to it.  You adjust.  You let it in and you let it go.  I do not cling to the anger or the hate.  But doing so does not negate the fact that you do not matter to the person whom you should matter most.

When I was young, I could not let it go, the lack of mattering worked its way in and took its toll.  I drowned her out with food.  It always made me feel good and it didn't require constant attention and comforting.  It insulated me, and I knew I could always eat to make myself feel better-- eating to the point of obesity to dull the pain.  As I entered my teenage years, the pain literally started to eat away at me, and I developed anorexia nervosa, plummeting from two-hundred pounds to eighty pounds within four months.  It was what I was taught; it was the foundation that had been laid out for me.  If you are not listened to, if your emotional needs are not met, if you are not understood, if you do not matter, you learn to treat yourself in unkind ways, until you know better.  For me, that "knowing better" came when I was fourteen years old.

They say that there are defining moments in your life-- moments that you will never forget and that change you permanently, and this defining moment arrived on a cold January day.  I was in Bradley Children's Hospital for the treatment of anorexia nervosa and bulima.  My parents came to see me and I remained silent during their visit, furious with them for putting me there.  In the silence, I could see my mother's agitation and, as it grew, she rose to leave and screamed, "How dare you not speak to us?  Don't you know how much this place is costing us for your treatment?!"

And there it was again.

Not mattering.

I was the cause to her effect.  I was near death and there was no affection, no concern, no words of comfort, there was just her and how I was hurting her in some way.  I was costing her too much money.

I was an expense.

She made me angry.  I was filled with rage for this woman who had, in some way, pushed me to this point and the fact that she could STILL see nothing but herself.  And, for the first time, I felt my own worth.  I could feel it come up from the depths of who I was, like an animal rising up to attack its prey, and it felt different; it felt better.  That point, as vivid today as it was when it occurred, changed me.  It changed the very core of who I am, and I tear up thinking about it.  I felt the power of knowing that I mattered to me, even if I never mattered to anyone else.

And, in that space in time I could more clearly fathom my affect on others and my interactions with them.  I understood at that moment, how much it hurts to have no importance, to feel misunderstood, to have no value.  And, today, while I am still "broken" in so many ways in my ability to form friendships, those who I do care for know it.  There is no room for any doubt.  You feel it.  I check in.  I listen to you.  I try to understand things from your perspective.  I care, and you will know it.  You will feel valued.

You will know that you matter.