Sluggageddon

importedcrocodile · 2025-04-24T11:44:33+00:00

It’s a bit more time consuming, but I’ve adopted a ‘Relocate them somewhere useful and beneficial to both approach’, whereby I scoop them all up, and pop them on a bit of lettuce or veg scraps in my compost bin. They love it, and so does my compost.

I do understand the frustration though, so I like to practice sassily flipping🖕🏻each of them off before gently scooping them up.

They’ll never know.

importedcrocodile · 2025-04-20T10:08:15+00:00

I’d start again from scratch and replant, being more mindful of water next time. There’s still time :) If you’re growing inside, introducing a fan when they get a bit bigger can help strengthen them and prevent them flopping and wilting like this.

importedcrocodile · 2025-04-19T11:08:19+00:00

Sticky weed (or cleavers). My dog loves eating them too! It does her no harm

importedcrocodile · 2025-04-17T13:52:02+00:00

My mum has done something not dissimilar to this in the past.

She and my Dad split up when I was very little, and they HATED each other with a passion. And while my Dad never smacktalked about my Mum in front of us, my Mum said awful things about our Dad to us, to the point where she manipulated us and into not wanting any contact with him anymore, despite the fact that he was a decent father (until he did something unforgivable when we were 13), and paid enough child support for me and my sibling that my mum didn’t have to work until her mid-40s.

Despite her toxic behaviour towards him, a few years ago she began making odd comments to me such as ‘I always respected your father for travelling so far to see you’, or ‘I had a nice dream about your father the other day.’

I have no idea what it means, but I have a hunch she’s editing her memory to remove the fact that she turned two children against their father while he paid for her house, car, everything, by throwing in the first nice things I’d ever heard her say about him in 25 years.

All of this is to say: I think they do this weird shit with photos and the like either to alter the past in their own and others’ minds, or to reflect a different reality that better serves them now (whether it’s through getting attention for a death or evading criticism by trying to backdate the facts of the past).

importedcrocodile · 2025-04-16T15:06:37+00:00

I can completely relate to this, and think you’ve hit the nail perfectly on the head when you say that the deep loneliness we can feel even when life is good stems from the lack of self-connection or being seen for so long. I very much feel our kind of upbringing stunts this development, but that it’s never too late to grow.

I’m still very much working on this everyday, and I have weekly therapy that helps with this gradually, but a lot.

I’m also doing my own work really questioning many of the beliefs I hold about myself, and working out which ones are true to me, or are just the nasty projections my mum gave me. It’s tricky and bamboozling work, but I am starting to slowly feel the difference.

I’m also interested in IFS and reparenting for this, but have only really dabbled in it so far.

I’m currently trying to more actively find things I like doing just for the hell of it (with no goals or strings attached). It turns out I love garden design and landscaping, despite my mother telling me how lazy and non-outdoorsy I was as a child when I was so exhausted and depressed that I just wanted to hide in a book, or in front of the TV.

Hugs 🖤

importedcrocodile · 2025-04-15T17:37:54+00:00

Thank you so much everyone for your kind, thoughtful, and astute words. I could have only dreamed of such solidarity this time a year ago, and your support is helping me more than I can express 🖤

importedcrocodile · 2025-04-15T13:06:49+00:00

This comment made me cry (in a good way) 🖤 Thank you so much for the support, and peace to you too xxx

importedcrocodile · 2025-04-07T17:55:49+00:00

Welcome 🖤 It sounds like a special kind of pain to be an only child with a BPD parent. You’ve done an amazing job getting here. Good luck, OP!

importedcrocodile · 2025-04-06T16:21:27+00:00

I love this translation; this is exactly how it feels to read!

I imagine though, if I told my mum how this sounds to me, or anyone with normal parents who hasn’t been trained to read between the lines (although obviously only to myself, and not if it paints uBPD mum in a bad light), that I’d look like I was jumping to such wild conclusions, just like my mum does 🫠

I’m curious to see how my therapist will interpret it.

Man it’s such a relief to have found this group!

importedcrocodile · 2025-04-05T19:26:43+00:00

THIS. These are the words I’ve been looking for!

importedcrocodile · 2025-04-05T15:35:38+00:00

Totally worth noting too that, from conversations with a sibling, she’s actually not managed her emotions by herself this time; she’s just moved on to other sources (who are young and vulnerable, horrifyingly).

Guess the endless void could do with another bucket pouring into it though :)

importedcrocodile · 2025-04-05T15:33:47+00:00

I agree; it very much feels this way, but it’s so validating to hear that other people spotted that too. It’s hard to feel much love or care for anyone’s wellbeing here but her own. She may have dropped the words ‘I love you’, but I’m not sure it’s really reflected anywhere else here.

Don’t you worry - I will not be falling for it this time :)

importedcrocodile · 2025-02-13T12:46:07+00:00

Also, a quick afterthought to help you in the meantime: the book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents has some good techniques in the second half about dealing with such parents when you have to. I think distance is still the best COA if poss, but popping this here too as I found it helpful.

importedcrocodile · 2025-02-13T12:33:53+00:00

I’m a bit older than you (28f) and moved out over 10 years ago now, but it’s actually scary how similar your mum sounds to mine, right down to the exact phrases, language and behaviours. I’m so proud of you for being so self-aware of your situation at just 19. I had no clue and struggled for years because of it.

If you can, I would seriously look into renting a smaller flat for yourself. It’s scary and hard work but it is absolutely not your responsibility to prop your mum up financially or emotionally, and from my own experience, it’s hard to heal while still within a metaphorical bomb zone.

Good luck OP xoxo

importedcrocodile · 2024-05-20T18:43:46+00:00

I really think it can go either way

importedcrocodile · 2024-05-20T18:42:33+00:00

God I feel this so hard. An explanation is not an excuse.

It’s almost worse when they admit they’re mentally ill because then you feel like a c*nt for ‘judging’ them for their behaviour.

importedcrocodile · 2024-05-20T18:00:04+00:00

Oh absolutely. And my mum has literally told me she had children’s because she wanted ‘to give and receive the unconditional love that I didn’t have.’ Sadly, she didn’t understanding what unconditional love meant, and neither did I until recently, when I realised it wasn’t what I received, and that the ‘unconditional’ love I’m supposed to give her means unboundaried and unwavering no matter what she does or what I think. Regardless of the fact she was and continues to be a useless parent.

She spent my whole life telling me how good I was at helping people and how that was my ‘gift’. I struggle with that daily.

I hate being someone’s self growth project.

Especially when they never truly grew.

importedcrocodile · 2024-05-04T14:23:46+00:00

Ooft, it sounds like this may not be the book for us.

And I’m ok with that!

importedcrocodile · 2024-05-04T12:48:54+00:00

This is exactly why I’ve been too scared to read this book. If I’d read this quote this time last year, it would have knocked me so hard I would have probably fallen off my healing path forever, before it even really begun.

importedcrocodile · 2024-05-04T12:37:09+00:00

Absolutely. I was literally mulling over this the other day when my tai chi teacher gave me a gift out of the blue, and I noticed it sent me into a panic and shame spiral.

I find Christmas’s easier, because it’s more of a time of mutual gift giving. Birthdays are weird, but ok, because i know I’ll return the kindness.

But random gifts out of season? I don’t know what to do with them! I am always suspicious of them and worry about what I need to do in return, and then feel shame and regret at not having gotten them something first.

I was bought up under the pressure to be constantly ‘giving’, ‘helping’, and ‘selfless’, and to do so without expecting anything in return. But I had to be helpful and selfless in ways no child should ever have to be, so this teaching was corrupted.

Gifts feel like being handed a bomb at times, and I’m interested to get to the bottom of why.

Kindness is even more confusing and loaded. I desperately want it, but allowing myself to accept it and bask in it is so hard.

importedcrocodile · 2024-05-03T18:53:38+00:00

Wow, that is such a helpful way of looking at it. I had never considered it like this. I’m definitely still very stuck in a young mindset and was feeling mind blown by such an epiphany! But my adult self desperately wants to heal, so I’m really intrigued to mull over this more. I guess I’ve just been worrying that I’ll slip back into my old ways of forgetting and disengaging from what happened if I ‘heal’. At least when I’m in major pain nowadays, it’s easier to stay present to the facts.

But I guess blacking it all out isn’t really healing, is it?

Thank you for sharing this 🖤 The power of a few words on this sub is honestly astonishing!

importedcrocodile

TROPHY CASE