Hello
Hi. My name is Marta, and I am an adult child of a borderline parent. I became 40 when I was 5 years old. I became an adult when I was 5. I became a parent to my parents. I was made responsible for my BPD parent's emotional state and was dealing with my non-BPD parent's unwillingness to protect me from it.
I have healed a great deal - and I am still healing - from 35 years of growing up and living with my mum, who had Borderline Personality Disorder, and from my dad's silent acceptance and visible disregard of what was happening at home.
Story at-a-glance
If you wish to jump to one of the above subjects, click on the bullet point.
Me as a person.
I had a beautiful collie girl, Joy, who was 12.5 years old. Joy had a stroke and passed away within an hour, in October 2024. She didn't feel pain, and I was with her the whole time... ❤️
She passed away when I had created most of the About me page, so I had to change all the "have" and "is" to "had" and "was".
People say she was very "mammig", which more or less means she was tied to my apron strings 🤣 — of her own choice! 😉 If she was "mammig," then I was "collieg" — very tied to her apron strings 😍
I am over 40 years old now. I look younger than I am. It has always been like that, even when I was 16, 25, or in my 40s. Well, since my childhood was crap, at least the universe gave me young looks 😆
I don't wear make-up, I dress casually, and some people have told me my photos should look more "therapist-like." But a polished photo doesn't guarantee professionalism, empathy, or skill — it's just an image. I'd rather you get a real sense of me here than a performance.
I believe we're born loving everyone and everything around us, and that it's the environment we grow up in that shapes what happens after. Joy taught me a lot about that — she had the right to say no, and I respected it. It's still wild to me how many people struggle to respect someone else's "no" and build relationships on control instead.
My childhood, briefly.
I grew up in a home full of violence, aggression, anger, sarcasm, and humiliation. You name it, I've experienced it. I saw my mum behaving in ways that even the scariest Stephen King novel or film seems like a comedy. I did not experience love from my parents, or a sense of safety or security. I experienced imbalance in emotions and behaviour. My every day felt like walking on a minefield — hidden, ticking bombs… I'd never know when my mum would suddenly explode, yell and hit me, humiliate and call me names.
I learned to FEEL the atmosphere, read others' facial expressions, assess the situation for any possible danger. I am so good at those things that I don't understand why I am not hired by the CIA or Kingsman 😉
I don't have any pictures from my childhood, as I am not in contact with my parents. You know, those sweet moments you see in movies, where family gathers and shows pictures of the little you to your partner? That will never happen to me...
"There were serious consequences in my life stemming from that toxic environment my family created. Sexual assaults, toxic relationships, self-sabotage, feeling of not belonging and feeling different, a sense of unworthiness, financial difficulties and suicidal thoughts."
BABY
I was born 3 months too soon. My mum would joke that I was in a hurry to come out. What I know now about myself, and what my emotional memory tells me, is that I didn't feel wanted by her — even while I was still in her womb. And that was the reason for my premature birth.
As a baby, I felt neglected. I had this inner feeling that my mum was not interested in me, even when I cried and tried to get her attention. I didn't exist for her. So, at some point, I shut myself off from my body and stopped feeling its needs. I don't have any emotional memories of my dad from that period of time.
CHILD
As a child, I saw my mum's emotional pain. I saw her emotions as if she was consumed by them. As if she was a picture of her own emotions. I tried to make her happy and heal her with my love. I was forgiving her for name-calling me, hitting me, humiliating me, disrespecting me. I gave her my love. It didn't help. I felt like a failure… That made me believe that I was not able to connect with others, and gave me a reason to feel different, not belonging.
I was a witness to her sudden explosions of rage, followed by collapses that looked like epilepsy attacks. I saw my mum chasing my sister with a hammer in her hand…
I saw my dad as a safety island. I cherished him and put him on a pedestal. I didn't question his silent agreement to the abuse at home. I spent my childhood trying to understand her behaviour, the dynamics of the family, and how to help her.
TEENAGER
As a teenager, I shut myself off from my body even more. I stopped trying to heal my mum. I was fighting with her instead. We'd yell at each other every day, non-stop.
I'd fight for my boundaries, and I'd be gaslighted by my family, telling me, "You have to understand.", "You have to know better.", and "That's just the way she is. Nothing to do about it."
My mum's behaviour felt even more like a personal vendetta when I started getting attention from boys. Calling me a whore or telling me, "You're going there to fuck," would be mixed in with lines like, "I've baked some cake. Come, have some with us."
That was also the period of time when I felt suicidal. I wanted to die as I couldn't deal with the emotional pain, loneliness, and coldness at home anymore. I didn't do it, obviously 😉, as I always had that love towards myself inside myself. I have always felt, and hoped, that I would find happiness and love in my life. (That hope again 😉)
That was also the period of time when I met my first (boyfriend) and second (dog) love.
That boy was the only love I ever experienced from another human being at that point in my life. That dog, a tricolour collie girl, was the only love I experienced at home. Both were the source of my happiness, my sense of feeling alive, laughing until my stomach ached, and my ability to forget I had a home full of borderline atmosphere for a couple of hours. It was as if I had two different lives.
Both were also a source of extreme emotional pain. How, you might wonder? Well, they became my Achilles' heel. The two living beings I cared about. And my mum saw it and used it against me.
She constantly used them as a way to manipulate me and punish me.
My boyfriend: she would refuse to let us see each other. She'd change the hours when I was free to see him. She'd decide that I had to go shopping with her at exactly the time I'd normally leave to see him, week after week, or that I had to stay home while some of her acquaintances were visiting. She was constantly unhappy with him, pointing out to me and others how incompetent he was. Right in front of him…
My dog: well... except for constant neglect and disregard, my mum and my dad would sit in the kitchen eating French fries, while my dog was bleeding to death in her bed, just around the corner, waiting for me to come back from the university... (that story you can read on my Substack profile)
She'd basically show me that she was my boss and ruled my whole life, just as she pleased.
MY FIRST PSYCHOLOGIST
I suffered horrendously, especially emotionally. When I was around 15-16, I went to my first psychologist. It was one from a child care institution, where psychologist services were free for young people. The woman listened to me for 15 minutes and decided I was spoiled. She told me to get a job and move out. I left devastated…
I was alone with my pain for another 25 years, strongly believing that I was the problem. That was what the psychologist made me feel. That's what she said. After 25 years of feeling empty in my chest — I don't know how many toxic relationships later, one of them sexually abusive and extremely excruciating, two rapes, one bullying — I decided to seek help again.
SUMMARY
My childhood was extremely difficult, but for me, it was normal. What was not normal for me was seeing a daughter and her mother going shopping together, having fun, sharing an interesting conversation and some deep thoughts and experiences. I didn't share those moments with my mum. Instead, she just took my diary and read all about it herself, while sitting in the toilet and taking a crap 💩. Then, she'd come to me upset, saying I hurt her feelings when I wrote I hated her for hitting me.
I grew up in a home that was full of sarcasm, aggression, physical violence, and emotional manipulation. I saw my dad ignoring me for the sake of his peace of mind. I saw my mum humiliating my dad, and my dad still showing her love, commitment, and submissiveness. That is what I saw… I saw I was ignored, never hugged, never told "I love you," but all those things were given to my mum by my dad. I didn't know there was something else. I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT I DIDN'T KNOW. How was I supposed to know that I didn't know? 😳 That it was possible to do things the other way? I didn't know how a human being who loved me looked at me, how their eyes and faces looked when they looked at me with love.
My adult life.
What I struggled with, briefly.
TOXIC RELATIONSHIPS
I call my adult life the life I started living once I left Poland. I was 25. That's when I became very much alone in anything and everything. You know the lack of support from your emotionally immature parent? Then you know what I am talking about. Moving from one place to another - alone, any financial decision - all on my own, any stress at work - keep it to myself, since sharing it with my mum and dad would only result in even more criticism from them. Any break-up - that would be yet another reason to call me a whore.
I had no emotional or physical support from them in anything.
The real fun began when I left Poland and my contact with my mum got limited.
The first boyfriend I had abroad was emotionally immature. The relationship was toxic, but I got deeper and deeper into it. And so it was with every relationship I got myself into… I was disrespected, ignored, neglected, unseen — all while trying to please them, heal them, make them love me, convince them that I was worth loving… Just to burn out emotionally to the ground and split up after 2 years.
I'd date men who were untrustworthy, dishonest, manipulative, and lacking in compassion or empathy. All was about them, their needs, their days, them them them…
And one day I dated the worst of them all… A combination of all the negative qualities of my mum and dad… It was 2 in 1, plus… He added something from himself, the sexual abuse.
Once I healed the memories of my childhood and the two rapes, the memories of my toxic relationships faded away. I am able to meet that last ex without feeling anything. No emotional or physical reactions. No attraction, no anger, no frustration, no fear…
Do you know what else has changed? I see, appreciate, and am attracted to the qualities that I didn't see before: empathy, compassion, gentleness in men. 😊
DISCRIMINATION
I was told I wouldn't get my summer holidays I asked for, as… I didn't have children… My manager (it was actually two different female managers), a woman, said to me, another woman, that I was not getting my holidays due to the lack of offspring. Mums were prioritised, non-mums… well, were not.
Then the usual discrimination which, I guess, all immigrants experience: origin, culture, accent, stereotypes, etc. For approximately 6 months, I was listening to how others at work, while getting coffee from a kitchenette, joked about people from my culture, their language skills, etc., forgetting that my desk was located close by.
RAPE
I was raped twice.
Once, by a man who was a new acquaintance — I'd known him for a month, maybe. He didn't accept a "no". I was around 22 then.
The second time, by a man who was much older than me. He was a friend of my boyfriend back then, and we worked together. I was still under 30 then. I knew him for over a year. We all would meet for drinks, dinner, some celebrations etc.
He didn't ask. I was served a date rape drug.
I've healed that. Writing that this has happened to me does not give me any emotional or physical reaction anymore.
BULLYING
I was bullied by a colleague. It wasn't only me. She bullied others as well, for years. It was accepted by the environment.
I felt I was reliving my childhood. The bully = my mum. The behaviours, way of talking, acting, treating me and others - all the same. The environment = my family: my dad, my mum's family - accepting of the bully's behaviour, basically gaslighting with words like, "There's nothing to do about it.", "That's the way it is.", "You have to work on yourself."
I've healed that. I can face my bully without any emotional or physical reactions. I am so confident in myself that she does not have the guts to face me without her face getting red, eyes wandering around, some nervous ticks in the face and body.
DEPRESSION
That was an exciting period of my life 😉. My first depression lasted a year. I think it was a year — I don't really remember much from back then.
I was notoriously picked on due to my choice of diet, how I lived my life. That I was single, that I reduced my sugar intake, that I didn't drink, how difficult it was to be a single dog owner, how time-consuming it was to have a dog, to take care of it… I felt I was going under.
When I think about it, it feels as if I was on autopilot. I was stuck in my head, focused on complaining, seeing everything in dark colours, feeling financially insecure, isolated. I didn't play with Joy. We just took walks, and she'd walk 10 meters behind me, while I'd talk on the phone complaining, being frustrated, disappointed…
I was unfocused at work, or focused on many things at the same time. I made many small mistakes. I didn't laugh or cry. I didn't talk with anyone. I felt as if nothing could disappoint me or make me cry again, ever!
When I think back, I can't believe that I neglected Joy this way. She got her food, walks, but she didn't have my attention. If I was her back then, I'd leave myself… And despite my behaviour, she still chose to be with me and be kind to me.
At some point I decided that it was it! I didn't want it anymore! I didn't want my life, my emotions, and feelings to be like a straight line. I wanted to feel again. I wanted to laugh and cry again. I wanted to feel love towards myself, Joy and the world. On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is happy and 10 is "I am dead inside," it was 10. Dead and buried. Entombed. Embalmed and entombed. Dead as a dodo. Dead, dead, dead.
I defeated my first adult depression all on my own. No doctors, no pills. First, I went to a homeopath and then I started doing EFT.
The second depression started emerging when I was bullied. I was diagnosed with heavy depression. But in my own judgment, the second depression was still "young". On a scale of 0 to 10, compared to the first depression, it was 5. So if that stage was "heavy", I wonder what the first one was… Mortal? 😂
Getting out of this one was much more difficult. There were doctors and social insurance involved. I was made to take anti-depressants and I refused to. I was bullied and gaslighted. There was nothing neurologically wrong with me.
I got out of this one in the end with the help of an EFT therapist, but it took a year of fighting with the environment, social insurance, nurses… It was horrible!
INABILITY TO SAY NO - FEELING GUILTY, WANTING TO APOLOGISE
Inability to say “no” was like my second skin. I was either worried that I would hurt someone, or scared that I would make them angry by simply not agreeing, not pleasing, not doing what I thought I was expected to do.
When I finally said “no”, I'd feel the need to run back to that person to apologise for being rude, hurting them, being selfish…
SUMMARY
Many of those things that happened to me in my childhood made me who I am today.
I am full of compassion and understanding. I have an open mind and I am tolerant. I don't judge others (mostly, sometimes I judge dog owners silently in my mind 🙄😂: "I see what you're doing with your dog, and I judge you silently in my mind" 😆).
I am kind and gentle towards others — you never know what kind of demons others have to fight in their lives. I can see the subtle changes in others' behaviour, hear the delicate change in their tone. That little movement of the eyelid, or a short stop in breathing. I can see in others' eyes how their emotions start changing before they are even visible in their faces… Having lived through trauma doesn't make me entitled to take my anger out on others — so I don't go yelling at people at work, on the streets, or at home, and I don't humiliate others just because my parents didn't love me.
I can relate to others' pain and negative experiences. Most of them, not all. Maybe it's a good thing? How much negativity and pain can one person relate to, have experience in, huh? 😉
I could have become many negative things: a prostitute, a drug addict, an alcoholic, a politician 😉, a borderline parent. But I CHOOSE not to be that. Why? I have strong self-reflection and I don't give up on myself. I don't resign. I was hurting for 25 years living with my parents. For 38 years I believed that I was the problem. I would not wish that kind of emotional pain on my worst enemy.
When I decided to wake up
I have written a nice post on Substack about it; click the picture below:
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What I've tried and how I got to EFT.
I did some yoga for a while, some meditation. It was supposed to be good for me. It didn't make things worse, but it didn't heal me. I got more flexible and my mind got softer on me, but I kept repeating the negative patterns that had haunted me since my childhood. I love yoga, and I am reading about what chakras are and their role in our lives. However, it did not help me deal with my emotional and physical reactions to my life with my parents.
All those things only touched the surface of my skin. I wanted to touch my mind and my body, my heart and all the wounded places.
I do believe, however, that things like massage, acupuncture, breathing, yoga, energy medicine (tracing meridians, chakras, etc.), homeopathy, and a healthy diet help your body. The body is the house for your emotions, core and self. Once the house starts shaking, the renovation is needed not only on the outside, but also on the inside 😉.
“The map is not the territory”
I had a map my parents and family installed in me, but I didn't know that there was a whole territory beyond the map. I didn't know there was a different way to live.
It did not help me to see what I didn't see. You see (🤣), as a child you learn things by observing them. Up to 7 years old, a child just absorbs everything like a sponge, all the patterns of how things are done: how parents talk to each other, how their romantic relationship looks, what the social rules are at home, in the family, all that happens around them. And that is it - children learn only what they have contact with. We pass on to them our beliefs, our fears, our way of talking, seeing the world, solving conflicts, our traumas… you name it.
Homeopathy was my first go-to thing. It helped my tired kidneys and adrenal glands. It allowed me to get a bit more sleep.
I stumbled upon EFT when my Joy was sick. I thought it was a snake bite, as the blood was rushing through two small holes in her thigh. It was an infection. I cried so much, as I was scared I would lose her. I stayed at home with her for a week. When she was sleeping, exhausted, after an operation, I saw an energy medicine course from Hay House. A mix of different subjects: Eden Energy, Reiki, Breathing, Chakras, EFT. I tried Eden Energy on Joy and myself.
Then I discovered EFT. I started with some guided meditation using EFT. Some general YouTube videos. And although it didn't heal me, as EFT does its magic when applied to very specific situations, memories, emotions, physical reactions, it did make me calmer. It made it easier to access myself and my heart again.
My first self-tapping was on love for Joy. Every day, I'd tap, thinking about how I loved her and what she meant to me. After two weeks, Joy started sleeping in my bed. And she does it to this day… She comes in the morning, or in the evening, and snuggles into me, putting her head and her whole weight on my chest, face and… nose. I simply can't breathe 😂.
(The last three sentences were valid for three years, then Joy passed away... 😢)
I looked up an EFT Practitioner, Andy Bryce, EFT Master. We started working together. I tapped. I tapped every day. Started with 10-15 minutes, then it grew to about an hour. I sometimes tapped when I was out on a walk with Joy. Sometimes when I was at home. In the morning before work. In the afternoon. In the evening. I made time to tap. I prioritised it. It was important for me to feel good and be happy. I wanted to feel good and be happy. I wanted to have the connection with my dog that I'd lost. I wanted to get over my past, change the negative influence it had on me, and have a happy and fulfilling relationship.
EFT and NLP not only touched my deepest depths, but also helped me to see what I didn't know I could see.
I have lived through my horrible childhood and countless toxic relationships. I have experienced and healed from rape, bullying and discrimination. And I am telling you that IT IS POSSIBLE TO HEAL, but YOU have to want it. No one else will do it for you.
It's not easy to face your past. It's scary… mostly because we judge ourselves and are ashamed of what we did and should have done but didn't… We are our own harshest judges. The journey starts with "(...) not so much what happened to us and who did it to us, but how we feel about ourselves from back then." (Andy Bryce)