Always Walking On Eggshells

To protect the individuals in this article I have changed the names of the individuals.  Everything else is factual and accurate according to those who have been interviewed.  

She sat on the floor sobbing with her cell phone in hand and her mother on the other end of the phone.  With crippling anxiety and ringing in her ears, Sarah pleaded with her mother.

“Please go to the hospital mom, please.  I can’t do this anymore. I just want you to get better.  I just want you to get better.” Sarah begged her mother with all the strength left in her body feeling her heavy eyes swell shut from the hours of crying and hearing the hoarseness in her voice from the constant pleading. Sarah hung up the phone and sat in the closet while her family, hours away, intervened.

An hour after the phone call Sarah was informed by her sister that her mother had threatened to attempt suicide and was taken away in an ambulance for a psych evaluation.  Four hours after she was taken to the hospital her mother was released and asked to be picked up. She acted as if nothing had ever happened and questioned her family as to why they were put her through so much grief and abuse.  

Sarah’s mother is sick not physically but mentally and has hard to diagnose disorder called Borderline Personality Disorder.  For years Sarah has watched her mother never really knowing who her mother really was.  

“My mother had an allusive mental illness that she could switch on and off.  I watched as she changed from one person to the next never really knowing how she would react.  As a child, I was always walking on eggshells.”  

For many children who grow up with a parent who suffers from BPD they feel as if there is not enough support.  In Sarah’s case, she spent years thinking her childhood was like that of her peers and wasn’t able to recognize the trauma until years later.  BPD is often a result of years of trauma during childhood by putting up walls creating a false reality resulting in antisocial behaviors. 

BPD is recognized as a personality disorder by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  The DSM V defines BPD as an “emotionally unstable personality disorder” and “is a mental illness characterized by a long-term pattern of unstable relationships, a distorted sense of self, and strong emotional reactions. There is often self-harm and other dangerous behavior.”  BPD is extremely hard to treat because sufferers believe there is nothing mentally wrong with them and that when social situations don’t work out then it is always everyone else’s fault. Often times the individuals who suffer from the disorder are highly intelligent and are able to easily manipulate others.  People with BPD experience symptoms like the fear of abandonment, instability of personal relationships, an unclear and shifting self-image, impulsive and destructive behaviors, self-harm and suicidal behaviors, extreme emotional swings and emotional feelings, a chronic feeling of emptiness, explosive anger, and feeling suspicious or out of touch with reality. Sarah expressed hoe her mother’s symptoms directly affect her life on a daily basis stating that her mother did not know how to relate to her own daughter issues or any situation where a parent would typical be there emotionally for their daughter.  Instead of Sarah’s mother being empathetic towards her she instead focuses on negativity as a reflection. One example that Sarah gave was her mother’s new-found obsession with the Australian wildfires. This is a typical feeling expressed by many children whose parents suffer from BPD. BPD sufferers do not have empathy for those who are close to them, instead, they put their energy and empathy into world problems.  

Sarah expressed fear in her future struggle with her own mental illness.  Recognizing trauma is no easy thing. According to the article, Children of Mothers with Borderline Personality Disorder: Identifying Parenting Behaviors as Potential Targets for Intervention, written by a team of psychologists for HSH Public Access, children of mothers with BPD should be considered a high-risk group was given the wide array of poor psycho-social outcomes that have been found in these children.

Sarah, along with many others, are at high risk for developing mental illnesses associated with childhood trauma.  Will recognizing the cycle of trauma and destigmatizing mental illness be enough to help people like Sarah heal and live a future without fear of passing the trauma onto her own children?  Sarah suffers from depression and high-risk behaviors. For now, all she can do is attend therapy twice a week and take daily antidepressants.