Like Mother, (Un)like Son

To preface and paraphrase, "If you look for a specific number in everything, you cease to become a mathematician, and instead become a numerologist."

My mother is currently 58 years old. I am 25. Since I can accurately remember, she's been a very compassionate, open, charming, talkative, and spirited person. Even when she's in her deeper depressions, she's always had this empassioned way of expression and communicating that dominates and lifts you up simultaneously.

That being said, her not having a following is agonizing to her, and she's overjoyed when sympathetic pains are felt from those around her. Absolutely in desperate need of both validation and "compassion," she's volatile one minute and in tears the next if you aren't delivering. Her mood swings are symptomatic of one who has Bipolar Disorder II, but she's never been diagnosed with this.

She tells stories of her wandering the United States, following the Grateful Dead, having admirers, living the 60's American Dream as a young model with a heroin and psychadelic addiction and a long string of short,abusive relationships, but despite it all, possessing a strength in spirit that never let her quit.

More recently, she's boasted that she has PTSD (self diagnosed) due to an alleged trauma she was dealt from my father 22 years ago. His rage. His alcoholism. Stories of him conspiring to kill her. How he turned her into a shell of a woman and took it all away. The Big Fish reel of stories she told me at bedtime when I was young of this monster were her safety net. When times got rough, it was because we were the victims of an abusive father absconditus. When times were good, it was because he was no longer in our lives. But, in a way, he was. She'd say he was a janitor at my school coming after me. Or in collaboration with a third party to attack our family. Or ready to scoop me up into a private hell. She never let me forget, and still hasn't, that he hurt her. Every week. For 20 years of my life, I've heard of this monster and what he did to her. He became the center of my childhood rage, even though the pain didn't belong to me.

I've asked her politely and impolitely not to mention my father. To seek professional help. To confront him now, as he and she have seen each other four times since their separation. To confront herself. She cannot oblige. She calls me an attacker and abusive when I get firm with my requests.

This christmas, due to my brother not attending a (small) family gathering from Virginia, she has stated that she will not be celebrating, instead locking herself into her apartment, consuming a bottle of whisky, and contemplating taking her life. This story is as perpetuated as the ones I've heard about my father ad nauseum.

I've actually nicknamed her episodes ad momseum when discussing the strategy this year with my brothers to fill her gas tank up with enough attention so she doesn't put on the Broadway Musical: Miss Piss Slits Wrists for Christmas.

But, it's sickening. It makes me ill. To know that there'd be relief for my brothers and I if she carried out her promises to end it all this year. To know that I/we turn the carnage into comedy, and lose that "compassion," as we believe it the tool for her own self indulgence. She will not use the kind words, gifts, donations, and loving acts of others to improve her own self worth and see life through a pair of brighter eyes. She eats it, and spits back out the negative (stubbornly for hours) energy. She will defeat any and all plan of action to bring her onto her feet, and demands that she is waited upon, taken care of, listened to, etc.

I'm currently working a 50 hour a week job, am moving into a new apartment on what is now a shoestring budget due to thousands of dollars of investment into the move and monthly expenses, and have a laundry list of sludge to wade through in order to accomplish the bright future I am committed to.

I love my mother, but her refusal to help herself and constant vampirism of my mental and emotional energy are destroying who I am. Considering the sizable portion already on my plate, she will call me when I'm at my worst, and demand I drop the whirlwind world for her worrisome woes and wicked whining. It's awfully taxing on the chest area.

That being said, I notice elements of her persona (yes, persona) in the way I handle situations, but fragmented and applied in alternative sorts of ways.

I consider myself to be very handsome, very intelligent, the go-to guy, unique, and bright. I have a self love which often surpasses any sort of diminutive doubt that'd head my way. I've always valued this as an asset, because I don't lord over others or condescend. I don't view others as "beneath me," or believe that I deserve their admiration. In all honesty, I detest a blind admiration for my self professed beauty and wit, denouncing it as patronization. As well, I can't stand talking on the phone for long periods about myself, and enjoy a personal time to myself to self reflect and have fun alone.

However, I'm very risky. I love the "new." I stay second star to the right until morning (I have a sort of longing to stay young and maintain that inner child optimism), and crave adventure with an unbridled passion. I've had a terrible time with commitment, living out my life for the past few years (until recently) as a toxic bachelor, who'd have worlds of fun with a woman, but accept that I couldn't attach.

I've noticed these aspects of my personality, and have embraced them for what they CAN do for me.

I am charming. Undeniably. I don't really understand why, simply that I am.
I am a go getter with an extremely positive attitude. I can work through a crisis and reep the benefits of the hardwork put into it.
That toxicity present in my own sexual pursuits I've channeled into a panacea for any lack of romance that would otherwise occur in my newfounded monogamous relationship of 8 months. My contribution to seduction, passion, romance, is a fast burning and endless fuel for my girlfriend and I. I, being male, find it a bit role reversed that I am the seductor, but have also accepted that it's in my blood.


Now that I've written a Stephen King novel for you to slave through, my question is this:

Those with HPD or self aware of symptoms,

Did you have parents who suffered HPD?
Do you find that the positives of your (suspected) disorder can often offset the negatives when focused upon?

Humbly,

Mr. Long Story

Before therapy, I viewed my lovely, animated, gregarious mother as an angel. Now, through therapy, I have come to realize that she herself had HPD. Her mood swings were rapid, shallow, theatrical, at times making her appear a little unbalanced. She was a Catholic woman, with a selflessness that bordered on martyrdom. This was one of her affectations, and it was a source of a kind of pride. She was also elitist and snobbish, always concerned with appearances and yet she would often scream and rant and not care about embarrassing me in front of my friends or the neighbours. She was a paradox - prudish in many ways and yet the source of many of the arguments with my father was the affair that she had years before. Hysterical was a word that he used in many arguments to describe her, and I am afraid to say that he was right. My father was narcissistic, yet also generous and loyal to my mother. I believe that they fed off each other in many ways.

At times she would be the proverbial victim and very appeasing and yet I have a memory of her having her hands around my throat when I was a child. The fact is that I did not really connect emotionally with this memory and quickly discarded it - even not fully being emotionally aware of its impact upon me today. I have learnt to surpress my pain and not really connect with it, only allowing it to surface briefly and in a shallow way.

I do not know if I inherited the disorder from her genitcally or if it was my upbringing - the fact is that I do have the disorder. One of the things that I remember is the feeling that my mother was never really available to me emotionally, even though she made all the right gestures of affection and in talking to me. There was a blankness about her, an inaccessibility that I have also noticed to be present in alcoholics and drug addicts. She was addicted to prescribed drugs. In those days it was common place to be prescribed valium and barbiturates. They did not seem to affect her functioning during the day time, but she would rapidly become woozy and incoherent an hour after taking her sleeping pills.

My mother used to attend an exclusive school during her childhood and won a rare scholarship for this school and she would not fail to tell anyone she met that she had been there. She would also brag about her children's achievements, but this was done more for her sense of esteem than in a real maternal pride. In Britain there is a sitcom charecter called Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced "Bouquet") and if you google this charecter on You Tube you will get a fair idea of my mother.

I do love her, bless her soul, but do not necessarily like her, and no longer feel any guilt for this, for part of my therapy has been to learn to view my mother in a realistic manner. In many ways she was the product of her own upbringing. Her parents had their own issues, and I daresay their parents before them.

Being able to look at my mother in a more objective manner has helped me to see my own situation realistically and to know where my own patterns of behaviour may have come from.

Mr. Long Story,

I must say, your writing is certainly charming and very poetic, not like Stephen King, perhaps more like David Henry Thoreau only but new age! lol. Anyways, my mother has HPD (undiagnosed) but she has many traits. However, she was not happy most of my childhood and drank everyday and argued with my father every evening. I remember times when she would sing to me, she was always full of energy and she always stuck up for me to others even though she didn't always treat me the best herself.
Anyways, If you find that you have traits that are positive of the disorder and your not suffering in life from your actions in relationships with friends, family or lovers then you seem to be doing well. Take a look at this and see what you think?
http://www.maretsoftware.com/archive/pe ... rionic.pdf
jean