u/DoodleBug179

I wish more than anything that I could have only the good parts of my mother in my life. I always felt -- and still feel -- that I have two mothers. There's the one who is/was warm, loving, funny, generous, and incredibly wise. She was the one told me she believed in me and that I was a good person. She was the one who made me snacks after school and talked with me for hours about books we'd both read. She was the one I adored.

Then there was the other mother. The monster who would appear out of nowhere, who raged and screamed and shamed me for hours while her eyes went dark. She was the one who shared too much and too often about her pain and misery, and details of so many things I never should have known. Things that kept me awake at night. The one who used me as a pawn and destroyed my relationship with my father because there was rarely a day when she didn't tell me what a piece of shit he was. But she always kept me coming back for more because I knew the good mother would eventually return and I loved that person more than anything in this world.

It continues to break my heart that I have had to walk away from the mother I love in order to protect myself from the one who hurts me.

There are times when an interaction with my BPD mom will be so triggering that I feel like I'm a little kid again. I am a 44 year old woman with a full life, adult responsibilities, and children of my own, yet it takes not much at all for me to feel 10 years old again -- abandoned, cast out, misunderstood, rejected, ashamed and unheard. Much of the therapy I've done over the last 7 years has involved working on feeling like an adult for the first time in my actual adult life. But I still have these feelings and I hate it.

Does anyone else experience this?

I've been writing more to try and make sense of my insane childhood and understand how it impacts me today. It helps me process, so I thought I'd share this poem I wrote. I'm sure many if not most of you can relate.

The Fallen Kingdom

Shards of porcelain across the kitchen floor The child listens from above White knuckled and buried beneath the bedsheets What else could she have done? There is no escaping The walls close in as the mother wails This otherworldly creature, hysterical and unrelenting This ruler of a fallen kingdom The father? I cannot quite recall I know he was there Dodging dinner plates? Shoving her against the wall? Eventually and always, he was gone Leaving his children to be devoured by the wolf Indifferent to their fear Dishes are swept and midnight yields to the morning sun The good mother reappears

Does anyone have recommendations for a simple-ish skincare routine or products for those of us in our 40s who've been given the gift of collagen loss combined with acne prone skin? I have ADHD, kids, a stressful job and general existential exhaustion, so I'd love something that's like 3-4 steps or less. Thanks!