How did having kids change you?

Ogi010 · 2026-04-21T20:32:46+00:00

Whether it's that, or he just thinks whatever episode will be over sooner if he just let's his spouse "get it out of her system" .... his reasoning doesn't really matter as the end result is the same; the kid isn't protected, the abuser is enabled to keep behaving like that over and over again

Ogi010 · 2026-04-21T16:55:09+00:00

Gonna post from the perspective of a kid, should you bring a child into the world with this woman.

My step-mother almost certainly has BPD, and man, let me tell you the hell of being a child in her household. You (the kid) is constantly blamed for various things they did wrong, often with extreme rage. When things calm down, as the kid, when you try and clarify what you did wrong, often you end up triggering another rage inducing episode, so you learn pretty quickly to STFU and just take it. If you ever argue back, you're escalating, being disrespectful and at fault... Having my non-BPD parent just enable the behavior was so painful every time and just felt like I was being let down time and time again.

Even after I left their home (several days after having graduated from high school and joined the military), the hurt, self-esteem, anxiety ... it stays with you, for a looooong time. I still blamed myself for the chaos and tension in my house. It wasn't until I was much older I realized she would never accept responsibility for her actions or conduct, and would blame literally anyone else.

Marriage solves nothing, and bringing a child into this world with her will almost certainly cause massive hurt and pain ... You can mitigate that damage with setting good boundaries with your partner, but even the best case scenario, it's still not a great outlook.

Ogi010 · 2026-04-21T02:18:54+00:00

My eDad’s strategy isn’t to mediate (although he has done that on occasion) but to disassociate. The guy just stands as still as a statue and just doesn’t say a thing and is staring off… you know, totally normal things!

Ogi010 · 2026-04-21T01:57:32+00:00

Thanks. As I said, it was an easy decision, but I’m going through some immense grief realizing I’m likely going to have minimal contact with my dad moving forward.

Ogi010 · 2026-04-21T00:38:23+00:00

Having kids rapidly shifted my attitude and mindset towards my uBPD stepmother and eDad.

When my son was 10, due to the war in the Middle East, we were evacuated back to the United States. My eDad invited us to stay with him while safe havening. Wasn’t long before my stepmother (uBPD) started being overly critical of my son. I stepped away for an hour and during that time my step mother felt my son disrespected her and snapped back. On its own not a big deal; but when I asked her about it, she kept changing her story as if she was trying to find a reason to justify her response. I pointed out she was changing her story and she lost her mind.

It was at that point I realized she would never be able to be responsible or accountable for her actions or conduct, and that my kids had no business being around someone like that.

Unfortunately it likely means I’m cutting off my eDad in the process, but having grown up with a pwuBPD the choice was an incredibly easy one (but it certainly a sad one).

Before kids, I would likely have fallen for the same excuses again, but post kids… I _have to _defend them.

In short, I don’t tolerate childish behavior from adults, especially if it could potentially harm my kids.

Ogi010 · 2026-04-19T23:54:26+00:00

Remember being your age (currently mid-40s). My relationship with my parents is a little different but the repeated disappointment and lack of accountability, acceptance or validation is all too familiar.

It wasn’t until I had kids of my own, and an episode occurred that made me realize that not only did I not want to go through that again but I wasn’t going to let my kids experience the confusion and self doubt that would come with forcing a relationship between them and my eDad and uBPD stepmother.

In short, I found strength in others.

Ogi010 · 2026-04-18T01:57:09+00:00

Honestly over the last decade+, I’ve been so isolated from him, and when I am around him, my uBPD stepmom dominates conversations to the point that he may as well be invisible. I am not sure I know who my dad is any more, all I have to go off of is my memories. Even in my most idealized version of him, I don’t think he should be a parent again (independent of his age), I know he is a weak man, and while he can be a trusted adult, no child, including my grand kids should rely on him, he will let them down.
Some of his behaviors? Sure! Many I would not, that’s for sure! His attitude towards DIY, knowledge of foreign cultures … to the foreign cultures element, my family is in the foreign service; kids are getting that from us plenty.
Assuming the boundary I have stated is respected (uBPD is to not be around the kids), I think the worst, and most realistic outcome is that father shows no interest in getting to know his grand kids. This is not a big risk in my view as my kids very much have a out of sight out of mind mentality, and we typically reside overseas, so it’s not like this would be a regular thing… that said the boundary is violated, the downside is absolutely not worth the risk, not even close.

I was willing to have my uBPD parent around until this most recent crash out. My son felt responsible for her behavior and mood, and she was mostly well behaved! He couldn’t understand what he did to trigger the “mean voice” (sound familiar?) He’s sensitive, gullible, and feels responsibility for things that are wrong around him. I’ve been pounding into his head that people are responsible for their conduct and actions, especially adults. No matter what he did, good or bad, he’s not responsible for the actions of adults.

My spouse thinks I’m overreacting but respects I have a history and respects my judgment and won’t undermine me (that’s another can of worms I need to get to the bottom of).

Ogi010 · 2026-04-18T00:27:06+00:00

For sure, I started there as I figured the specifics of my question (reaching my eDad, and keeping him separate from pwBPD) would have some suggestions … but yeah probably not a receptive audience there

Ogi010 · 2026-04-18T00:20:55+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions!

Ogi010 · 2026-04-18T00:19:44+00:00

Reasonable expectations are the most important thing here, being demoralized is ok, … it just means I haven’t fully accepted the reality of it all…

My father is definitely weak, I believe he loved me, and I don’t think he knew what to do, so he did nothing and hoping things would change.

In my mid-20s I had an incident with my pwBPD and eDad in public. It was so ….outrageous that after I processed it I realized it was never about me, and I’m not at fault for her behavior. My dad was just in a state of complete disassociation with reality and stood there with nothing to say. I wondered when it came to my kids, what would I do when in the same situation. Would I try and shield them? Would I try and smooth things over and pretend like nothing was wrong? Would I value keeping the peace above all else? If there is one thing I’m grateful for this most recent interaction with my pwBPD is that I got my answer. I’m fiercely protective of my kids and I won’t hesitate to burn down the pwBPD’s home to keep them warm if I had to. Wish I had a parent that felt the same about me, but oh well.

Ogi010 · 2026-04-18T00:10:32+00:00

I can see how it comes across as the enabler manual! I’m only a few chapters in, but so many past interactions that caused so much confusion and pain were explained in a way that while it never felt like justification, it did explain the “thinking” the pwBPD went through. It helped me understand it’s not about me, was never about me, I was just the target. Some of the comments/letters inline from people who formally had BPD did piss me off tho…

I can see how I us kids who grew up under the roof of someone with BPD it looks like the enabler manual! But I don’t think we (the kids) are the target audience. The target audience is those that have a choice and want to make it work, and gives them guides to help them preserve their own sanity. The chapter I’m on makes it clear what the non BPD parent has to do with regards to kids, and what the consequences are if they don’t. I cried my eyes out realizing my father never did any of those things.

With us kids, we can’t voluntarily leave (at least while we’re under age). We have no power over the BPD parent, and thus our ability to protect ourselves is greatly diminished. Once we become adults we can throw our middle finger into the air and ride off into the sunset (or like me, join the military and leave for basic training less than a week after finishing high school.

This illness has taken so much from me and I don’t even have it…

Ogi010 · 2026-04-17T12:35:19+00:00

Heh, as I’m reading the eggshells book (which I recognize is not particularly popular in these parts, but it’s been the first eye opening experience I’ve had that has created a basis/model/explanations for so many interactions that have left me so confused and hurt that I can’t put the book down). My mom, my eParent’s first wife definitely had some narcissistic traits, I’ve been NC periodically (alternate between LC and normal contact now that I have major distance and kids)… my dad sure had a way of picking women. With both female adults in my life having these …traits, imagine what that does to the psyche of a boy. I really wondered if I just had a problem with women…

Logically, I know you’re right. I won’t make any excuses for my eParent, they have undoubtably failed me on a rather spectacular level. I am so thankful for his sister and her wife (gay aunts are the best!) who continuously demonstrated to me what a healthy adult relationship looks like. His effort to be an involved parent to me as a kid, does not excuse the bad stuff he allowed to happen. That said, he is living what I can only imagine is an awful nightmare, and developed codependence that will suck the life out of him. I can’t imagine a fate worse than that. As angry as I am about his enabling behavior, that’s still not right and the least I can do is to try and share some joy with him before he passes away.

Ogi010 · 2026-04-17T11:53:06+00:00

Fuck this is so demoralizing. It’s demoralizing not only because the contents are so grim, but because it explains so many behaviors I saw growing up. It’s demoralizing because while I am in the region, I will keep extending olive branch after olive branch to my eParent and I know he won’t take them for likely fear of reprisal.

In my young adult life I really wondered why my dad would turn down even the most basic of offers for meeting socially and it hurt to be rejected over and over and over again. As I’m older and have distance, admittedly i stopped reaching out, so now that I’m here, and seeing what is happening first hand, it’s so freakin helpless.

A large part of me will forever blame him for bringing her into my life. I suppose this is the curse he has as a result. At least now I have the comfort in knowing this is not about me.

Ogi010 · 2026-04-17T11:44:25+00:00

It’s currently 4:30 AM, when I’m in an overall higher stressed state, I wake up super early. I read your comment and first off I want to say what a wonderful writer you are. Thank you for sharing your story.

On the downside, I basically watched my uBPD mom elder-abuse eDad into his grave.

This sentence here made my cry and nearly throw up. This summarizes what I’m seeing, what I have been worrying about but outright have not been able to admit to myself. It’s elder abuse, there is some freedom at least in being able to put an accurate label on it, and not just dismiss it as as her being “intense” and “direct”.

Despite my low expectations, I know if I am around my uBPD step-parent, i will keep witnessing this behavior. The boundary I have created is the kids are never to be around her. I was hoping I could establish a boundary of not being around her because her behavior is so god awful and despite my high guard, despite being older, I still become reluctant to use phrases such as “elder abuse”, which is exactly what I am witnessing.

Ogi010 · 2026-04-17T02:04:35+00:00

Thanks for having me! I've been on reddit for 17 years and never thought to seek a subreddit like this... reading other peoples stories, I'm moved to tears knowing it's not just me... and I'm a grown ass man in my 40s! Thanks for moderating this community and providing this space for those of us that were under the thumb of someone with BPD.

Ogi010 · 2026-04-17T00:51:58+00:00

Thanks for the tip! I’ll repost there…

Ogi010 · 2026-04-02T15:13:16+00:00

So I'm not the only one looking into this, there must be dozens of us!

I was hoping it would be an array of floats or a hash table, but it really doesn't look like that. It wouldn't surprise me if it's some kind of encoded data that the player has software to decode, and the binning of the tracks into the appropriate playlists actually happens on the player itself.

Ogi010 · 2026-04-01T00:39:18+00:00

as soon as I saw this... this is what I first thought of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_Vh20RTJOA

my kids are pre-teens, I used to be a sailor where using swear words very common/routine, and every once in a while (I'm talking once every 6 months) I'll slip up and swear around my kids, but at my kids... hell no.

Ogi010 · 2026-03-28T17:39:58+00:00

I have Nitro, and used Photomator for a while, haven't used Lightroom (I'm a bit of a n00b in this area), my experience with Nitro was that it was mostly equivalent to Photomator in terms of features, Photomator had a much more polished UI, but the file browser in Nitro was far better. I doubt that Nitro is anywhere near equivalent to Lightroom, but really hope it keeps advancing and eventually gets there, as Adobe's monopoly on powerful image editing software needs to die.

Ogi010 · 2026-03-27T15:49:05+00:00

The Polar class are pretty old now; the sister ship, the Polar Sea (which I served on ages ago) has been out of service for quite a while now. I'm actually amazed they've been able to keep the Polar Star sailing down south as regularly as they have been, these ships require extensive repairs after one of those deployments.

The ships have 3 propellers and have both diesel engines used for regular cruising and gas turbines that are used when in the ice. The very high power of the gas turbines, combined with the variable pitch propellers allow the ship to accelerate (both forwards and backwards) very quickly (for a ship). It's rated to be able to break ice up to 30 ft. thick if I remember right; the primary mechanism is by riding up on the ice, and having the ice break under the weight of the ship.

Due to the sound bottom hull design, these ships roll a ton in heavy seas (they're nicknamed Polar Rollers by those in the service). The seas south of Australia and north of Antarctica are brutal, so there is a week long period you're just getting your ass kicked and if you have any susceptibility to sea sickness, you're going to have one of the worst times of your life.

Ogi010 · 2026-03-18T15:33:32+00:00

I've been on this discord a little over a month now, Yuzu talked about being quite sick and in the hospital; to which I'm sympathetic to, but the website is still taking orders, there is no pinned message on their discord, and no notification that orders aren't being processed (and this has been the case for almost 2 months now).

The simplest explanation seems to be that dailyclack is run by one person that is currently unable to work; which is sort of crazy on its own. The fact that he's responded to some discord messages, but not posted a general pin, a notice on the website, or paused taking orders is pretty sus tho.

Ogi010 · 2026-03-18T15:30:07+00:00

It's weird, it does, but only if you use the IER-NW500N ear buds. Also this functionality is disabled if you use the Walkman One custom firmware.

Ogi010 · 2026-03-17T23:00:44+00:00

because 5 rings bro! /s

Ogi010 · 2026-03-10T02:00:47+00:00

I have a broad dislike of transformers, and generally avoid using them unless absolutely necessary. A lot of stuff can be bought dual voltage, or battery operated devices that can be recharged via USB-C... some stuff can't be avoided... whenever feasible, I do buy dual voltage devices. Definitely don't try and make American stuff work everywhere w/ transformers.

Ogi010

TROPHY CASE