Hello Alison
I was greatful for your sharing, as I had a sister with a similar condition.
I really appreciate your honesty and learned a lot from it.
Incidentally a friend of mine lost a friend a few weeks ago to suicide
linked with this mental health challenge and we were talking about it on
Sunday - how it is for us as carers, friends. I believe this is a huge
learning curve for us, and we need to really take care of ourselves in a big
way.
warmly
Uta, Perth Western Australia
From: Alison Rose Levy <LevyAR@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: <ConstellationTalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [ConstellationTalk] Personality disorder
Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 07:22:08 -0500
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:
giving up the idea that you can save or heal the person
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
learning how to offer your presence to the person without robbing yourself
of what you need for life
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.
undertaking a spiritual practice, such as practicing seeing the person while
"turning down the static" of their uncomfortable attitudes or behavior
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???
