Re: [ConstellationTalk] Personality disorderThis is Tomás Kohn writing from
Chile, and I would also like to join the various comments regarding both
Alison's and Christine's generous sharing of their personal experiences, with
all their strength, "pathos", sadness and personal growth and journey to peace.
I thank you most affectionately for showing yourselves through this media and
wish you the very best on your "life excursion".
Also to Chris for setting-up this space for constellation talk, congratulations
and thanks: I only started listening recently, but have been very impressed by
the human quality of all exchanges: the reports and visions from Portland were
fascinating!
Hasta pronto! (see you soon) and best wishes to all,
Tomás
----- Original Message -----
From: Alison Rose Levy
To: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 10:01 AM
Subject: Re: [ConstellationTalk] Personality disorder
Dear Chris and everyone:
I really have to thank you for this feedback. It means a lot to me.
One part of this journey for me was that my inability to help my Mom left me
feeling inadequate as a healer, and inhibited to put myself out there as a
facilitator of this work, even though on the rare occasions when I have done
so, I've received good feedback.
So for me, coming from the experience of what has been most painful, and
being able to offer that in a way that others share is meaningful to them,
encourages me- and it's happening just as my husband and I have put up our
website, and are for the first time offering workshops and ourselves in this
way.
So I really want to thank you all- it feels like a blessing. I love this
work, it has helped me and my family so much, and I hope I can pay that
blessing forward...
Alison
On 11/1/05 4:29 PM, Chris Walsh at chrisjwalsh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Dear Alison,
thanks for your generosity in sharing something so
personal. You obviously have done heaps of work to reach you current state of
peace and acceptance which also allows you to effectively protect yourself. It
is such a difficult quandary when one of our parents is still actively harmful
and we still need to be able to receive life fully from them. It seems you have
found a resolution. That is a wonderful achievement. Thanks again as your story
really validates and clarifies some of the ritual moves we do in
constellations.
Hasta la vista
Chris Walsh
Melbourne, Australia
Website www.constellationflow.com
-----Original Message-----
From: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alison Rose Levy
Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 11:22 PM
To: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ConstellationTalk] Personality disorder
Hi!
Although I know we don't love using these diagnostic categories, I
personally regard them as useful mirrors, which can provide some context for
what one experiences with a person suffering in this way. Here's a link to a
basic description though perhaps you are already familiar with it:
http://www.palace.net/~llama/psych/bpd.html
On a personal note, our Mom suffers with this and while several family
constellations have served to lighten the weight a bit each time, the basic
gestalt still remains. I'm not saying that a family constellation could not
perhaps totally relieve it and would love to ask other group members what your
experiences have been with this-- but that has not been our experience to
date.
When my husband, brother, and I went to Zist in 2001, our Mom went to
the hospital emergency room (with an ailment that proved to be non-existent)--
a common pattern. Although I would have doubtless been too shy otherwise, this
brought up the whole issue and I ended up bringing it to Bert Hellinger who
worked with it: his concluding image: in which my Mom carried her heavy fate
while my brother and I side by side looked on into the future has remained
with me ever since.
Still, since we have the responsibility to make her comfortable in her
elder years, strategies for day-to-day management and work with one's own
responses is key. The following have been various phases of my own path in
self-care:
a.. giving up the idea that you can save or heal the person
b.. validating your own experience that interactions are sad,
uncomfortable, not easy, or whatever you happen to feel; sharing your
responses with someone else who is sympathetic
c.. learning how to offer your presence to the person without robbing
yourself of what you need for life
d.. setting boundaries, whether that means limiting conversations,
visits, or multi-tasking during phone conversations, or stating that you don't
want to discuss certain topics etc.
e.. undertaking a spiritual practice, such as practicing seeing the
person while "turning down the static" of their uncomfortable attitudes or
behavior
f.. bowing to the person's fate in carrying this
Ultimately, trying to encourage my Mom to act according to my conception
of the orders of love is not my responsibility; in nearly every interaction
she reverses them by playing helpless and asking her children to rescue her.
Since she is our mother and bigger than us, we cannot stop her from doing this
and make her act in the way we would like. But that does not mean that we have
to take the bait and jump into action at every drama. Despite the complaints,
my mother feels very innocent playing the role of victim and enjoys it. I
would be "too big" if I intervened. I therefore "agree" with her helplessness
and with my own to change things for her.
Finally, since for me, it's my Mom through whom I receive connection to
life and to my female ancestry, I take every opportunity to connect with that
ancestry, and to the earth, to women friends, to people and animals I can love
and nurture, to our home, and to things of beauty-- in the confidence that I
am honoring her by so doing. I treasure gifts from her, and I know that she
loves me.
About six months ago, I was speaking with a healer-friend who had a very
difficult childhood and who knows me well. She told me that she would not
trade with me the many traumas she'd experienced in exchange for the ongoing
lifelong experience of interacting with my mother and her condition. I agreed
with her and felt validated, because this has not been easy.
However, recently this same friend experienced a life tragedy, and she
said to me, "At least you have your family, even your mother; although she's
crazy, she exists. There's someone."
And I had to agree with her again in this seemingly opposite assessment.
Despite all the "noise" of what she is carrying, my Mom is and has been
an indelible presence. The same is true of my Dad, who according to these
diagnostic categories had a narcissistic personality disorder in spades; that
they deviated far from the ideal of healthy parenting is an understatement. I
mean my brother and I gravitated to this work as people in need of healing
ourselves.
Yet our parents were always very much there- and I can feel the force of
their presence even with all the distortion of their suffering. That's the
paradox.
I don't know if your borderline family member is a parent, or another
family member. But I offer this to you out of the hope that my serving as a
lifelong student of this situation can at least help one another person.
Ultimately, I have to bow to my own fate in experiencing this.
Alison
Alison Rose Levy
www.family-healing.com
On 11/1/05 4:43 AM, CMC at ccrossley@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
how do you deal with family memebers that Have a severe borderline
personality disorder???
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