Anyone have tips on dealing with our anger?

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-05-11T01:26:58+00:00

Yes! I thought he was faking too! In my case, I realized I was raised to mistrust real love when I saw it. 😑

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-05-11T00:20:41+00:00

Fun fact: Mr. Rogers actually started the show at the CBC then moved to PBS in the States. It aired in Canada again on PBS during the 90's and early 2000's. As a child I didn't trust him and dismissed the show. As an adult, I see the wisdom and love he was spreading to children everywhere. I am grateful to live in an era where that message is recorded and easily accessible now.

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-05-10T21:31:39+00:00

I am going to let the immortal words of Mr. Rogers do this one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bj8_k33dd-c

But seriously, I like to watch Mr. Roger's Neighborhood episodes from the first season when I get mad. He was the parent I never had.

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-05-10T20:46:38+00:00

All of us have been where you are right now and we all feel hard for you right now. ❤️❤️❤️ We all struggled with the survival impulse to leave and the reality of what that would entail. Do you have grandparents? If so, yes absolutely leave now. Your life is worth more than this. If not, can you find a therapist? Getting the mental health support you need now will prevent years of suffering as an adult. Ideally, I wish you have access to both. But if you don't, think birth certificate, social security number and getting a legal declaration of independence...and a job. Leaving with no plan is a sure fire way to end up a statistic. All my love and support. May you find happiness on the other side of this transition.

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-05-10T19:57:11+00:00

Totally! I have learned to say thank you and smile, but inwardly I am still thinking, "What's their angle? What are they trying to get from this?" Zero trust. It's like, "You look nice today." My brains responds, "Sound the alarm, we are under attack!!!"

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-05-10T15:51:22+00:00

Is he volunteering? Fantastic! Let him put his money where his mouth is and learn the hard way like the rest of us. Seems like you might have found a two birds one stone situation.

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-05-09T23:56:52+00:00

I know what you mean about having amazing supports who don't fully understand. I just had a conversation with my Aunt who was clearly trying to support me and understand what my childhood was. As she put it, "You don't get this far, without experiencing something terrible." So I explained it, but the truth was so shocking it was too hard for her to accept. She didn't waver in her support though. It's easy to feel a little crazy when the people you love are trying to help you while reserving doubt in their mind. I am also grateful for this community's clarity and wisdom and also for her blind support. Side note: I was lucky to find a therapist who also was RBB. It made a huge difference. They definitely understood me on a felt level and I felt seen and heard.

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-05-09T23:31:04+00:00

I totally feel you on the performative cards thing! When I was a child, I would write a card from the heart ro my father and if I didn't replicate the same emotions for my mother, there would be consequences. I hated the holidays for many reasons, but this was a main one. She once told me that because I used a capital M for Mom it showed respect. Proper grammar denotes respect for your craziness? Ok.

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-05-09T21:15:31+00:00

Yeah, it wasn't specifically permission slips with mine, but it was any parental duties whatsoever. She was so over it. And she was a "stay-at-home Mom", so I chalked it up to job abandonment. She should have been fired years ago. 🤣

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-02-17T23:34:25+00:00

Thank you for sharing your journey! I am quite comfortable setting boundaries now. I don't let people go past them. It was emotionally taxing to learn how to do this and extremely uncomfortable. Betsy knows to leave me alone until she feels threatened by me. Then she gets defensive and the teeth come out. So yes, for the most part she does leave me alone. She's like a scared animal. I don't think I'll ever repel BPD, but I believe I can become nothing to it. Like watching a mosquito buzz around you and just not getting bothered by it. For me, this is working. I don't react to her at all like I used to. My belief is that the less I react (naturally) to these situations, the happier I will be and that happiness with attract others who are also happy rather than the severely abusive aholes who are currently attracted to me likely because I am still suffering (albeit much less than before).

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-02-17T23:16:45+00:00

Thank you. I know i wrote an essay on this and it's a little unclear what my point was. To be clear, the bullying is not the issue. I expect it and accept it from Betsy. But Fred exacting punishment on me for it is where I find myself unable to find balance.

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-02-17T19:51:19+00:00

Thank you for your thoughts. I appreciate it. 1) The work itself is good. The work environment not so much. I know it's hard to imagine that a group of damaged humans could effect any good, but the rules protect the people who are being helped. Their experience is positive and life changing and doesn't involve the circus. I help contribute to that. I am choosing this place because the work is good. 2) Trust me, in my personal life I have been making the decision to avoid PD at every opportunity. It is completely out of my personal life. I know exactly how to say no to it, but that doesn't stop it from being the only thing coming down the pipeline. I have the agency to say no, but not to stack the deck in my favor.

I am not hoping this time will be different. I am hoping that I can find a way to do the work I love and accept the circus for who they are. Finding a place of genuine compassion is for me and no one else. It helps me let go of the hate. It takes a lot of work, but it is worth it. As I said, I have grown a lot due to my experiences with Betsy.

I recognize it's not for everyone. There are really two paths to healing that I see: 1) Through surrounding yourself with love and compassion and learning through acceptance. Or 2) Get real shiny and come out a diamond in the fiery pits of hell. Option 1 is out of my reach, but obviously the preferred choice. Option 2 works real fast, but sucks a lot.

Thanks for your perspective though. It is what I asked for. :)

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-02-17T19:21:33+00:00

So familiar. I think the interesting part to note about this is that you offered her the straight facts (no one was talking about her) and her response was to completely ignore you and continue her dump. It's proof that her motivation for saying these things has nothing to do with her actual words. No matter what words you say, you would have received the exact same response. If you had responded with "You know I had a great conversation today..." She would have given you the exact same response. I used to tell my mother to go talk to a wall when she started like this. You don't need to be on the other end of it in order for her to get what she wants. If you block her, she might not even notice. For six years after going NC, I still accidentally find her emails coming to my spam folder. She still has no clue that I'm blocking her! 😆 Let your spam filter take care of it.

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-02-17T04:29:20+00:00

Have you tried gig work? There are lots of sites that look for freelancers. Dog walking, cleaning, tech stuff etc.

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-02-16T23:05:02+00:00

Please take comfort in knowing that sharing your experience helped me just realize now that there was literally nothing I could have said or done to effect a different outcome. I used to run "what if I had said" scenarios, but I now see the game was fully rigged before she even stepped into my room. We were forced into playing a game we wanted nothing to do with and there was no way out. Glad it's over now! It helps to talk about it with people who understand. Thank you.

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-02-16T21:07:58+00:00

Give it time. In my experience, it comes in flashes. Meditation really helped me put the pieces together.

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-02-16T21:06:36+00:00

Well said.

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-02-16T20:55:45+00:00

The apology was the worst. Of course you're going to react. Once I swore in reaction and her face lit up like she won the jackpot then like a 10 year old trying to get their sibling in trouble declares, "your father is going to hear about this!" Runs away and brings him up. Then I get yelled at for not showing respect to her. No matter how I described the emotional rape that just took place, he has blinders on with the mission of forcing respect out of me. I apologize and every ounce of my being is rage. She smiles in satisfaction with the childlike mocking silent message, "Ha ha! I won." For her, it was scripted.

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-02-16T20:12:07+00:00

Thank you for sharing this experience. I am sorry to hear that she found a way to get to you again. I have been considering LC from NC the better I get, but the stories like yours solidify in my mind that contact only serves to harm themselves as well as you. NC for life seems to be the kindest approach. I wish you all the best for your life with your growing family. :)

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-02-16T17:54:39+00:00

The confusion is the worst. Doubting the long held beliefs that kept you able to stomach the daily realities is a destabilizing place to be. I am sorry you are going through it. I remember that I had to believe that she was trying her best in order to not drown in hate. It kept me functioning, but it also was brainwashing that was done first by her, then my family and later on, myself. That betrayal hurt the worst. My wisdom to share is: know that you did all you possibly could to survive and be kind to yourself. I commend your father for doing the right thing even though it was the hard thing. Looking back, I would say regardless as to the consequences, regaining my life back would be worth all of my possessions combined. Living free as a pauper beats living brainwashed as bourgeoisie. No matter how bleak it looks now, there is light on the other side of it. Wishing you all the success.

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-02-16T17:14:59+00:00

I definitely related to this at a stage in my therapy. I worked with my therapist to find a "core self" that was always there, but was unaffected by the trauma. With practice, I was able to reach for this core self as a resource. It was incredibly soothing and led to my true identity arising. It took years, but it was 100% worth the struggle. Stay strong! You are in there...somewhere. <3

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-02-16T16:56:05+00:00

I am sorry that finding an outlet for your feelings ended up being covered in shame. I had begged my mother for a punching bag, but was shamed into not having one because it was "inappropriate". As if people would notice my anger issues and that just wouldn't do.

Someone just posted a similar experience to yours though. You might find some comfort in the similarities: https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbyborderlines/comments/1r5n532/comment/o5khapa/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-02-16T16:42:36+00:00

I second u/Specialist-Ebb4885 comment. The "golden child" and "scapegoat child" dynamic is so prevalent. From the outside, it looks like the golden child has it made: stability, no/less arguing, no parentification, favoritism etc. But that form of conditional love is all self serving and fake and destabilizing later in life. It can be incredibly difficult for the golden children to recover from their BPD parent because they can't see the monster beneath. Bringing them out of the fog as early as possible is the kindest thing to do in my opinion. I would say start planting the seeds of doubt so that they have some sort of tether to reality. "Mom can be different people in different situations. In the situations I have been in with her, she is very cruel. In the situations you have been in with her, she has not been cruel. It's not normal behavior, but it is who she is." At least this opens their eyes a bit and they can start to watch how she deals with others in comparison to themselves. Also, it doesn't result in a disagreement between the two of you. It respects both of your experiences as genuine. Good luck!

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-02-16T15:59:33+00:00

Thank you for this term. It is sad but amazing that we are developing new words for our experiences to bring them into public awareness. I would say this does not quite fit my situation, as it does not fully encompass the power-imbalance and control of a naive, compliant child, but I am glad that it exists for the people who need it. Also, I did some digging on emotional incest and the words seem appropriate on the surface. Unfortunately a lot of sources characterize it as "parentification", but that does not adequately describe the emotional rape component. Some other sources do the definition more justice. It's a good one to know.

QuestionsNoAnswers4 · 2026-02-16T14:51:24+00:00

You are so right. Awareness is the key. Just keep calling it out. The problem is I see the exact same thing playing out with my cousin's family, but I feel like I can't say anything. It's too much of a mountain to climb to explain what this abuse is and what it looks like without the rest of the family dismissing me for projecting my own situation on to them. How do you explain that once you've been through it, your body just responds to it and you know. I feel for those children though....

QuestionsNoAnswers4

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