I know BPD can stem from a combination of genetics and trauma, and that many different forms of trauma can contribute to the development of BPD. I’m curious how many people think they have BPD because of abandonment or neglect from their parents? 

My parents neglected/abandoned me in several ways as a child. In addition, I was extremely overweight as a kid and was bullied endlessly. I do place some blame of this on my parents as I was morbidly obese by age 2, long before I had the knowledge and autonomy to make decisions about my eating. I think both of these things resulted in my BPD, acknowledging also that there may be a genetic component. 

Part of my problem as an adult is that I still cannot get any sympathy, attention, care or concern from my parents. In fact the older I get, the more they seem to be justified in backing off. My mom and her side of the family no longer speaks to me. We were barely talking earlier this year and then I tried to tell her I wanted to talk about our relationship and she immediately stopped responding to my texts and won’t respond at all to me anymore - I heard from her last over 3 months ago. My dad will answer my calls and texts but when we talk, it’s all about him him him and what’s going on his life. I just talked to him a couple days ago and I tried to tell him that work was really stressing me out and he said “yep, that’s how work is” and then went on to say a bunch of racist stuff about BLM out of nowhere. 

It’s like neither of them want anything to do with me or my life at all. It feels like abandonment again and again and again, reopening old wounds. Every time I think our relationships can’t get anymore weird or strained, something else happens. I think this is a big part of what continuously fuels my BPD. I hear about and see other people’s relationships with their family, and I’m so jealous. My boyfriends family is close - he sees his parents weekly, one of his closest friends is his cousin, they have big family parties where everyone gets together and hangs out. Some of his other close friends are his best friend, and both of that guys cousins. He’s like a member of the family. It actually physically hurts me to be at some of these gatherings because my family has never been very close and I’ve always been the black sheep. 

Has anyone else experienced this and how do you get through the constant reminders of abandonment, or even worse, the new instances of abandonment? It seems like my recovery is contingent upon them waking up and deciding to treat me like someone they love and care about.