Filed under: Uncategorized
Here’s a link to a Yahoo story about a man whose wife took off 15 years ago leaving him with 3 small children to raise. Two of the children are graduating from college. The Mother wants to show up for their graduation after all these years. This is a very common story and there are hundreds of responses in the comments section. Most responders say to let the kids decide whether Mom attends. I didn’t read through all the responses but was impressed by the fact that no child from a divorced family who has actually experienced what it feels like to be on the receiving end of this situation has chimed in. If they did they would probably be axed to death by the social media commenters. No one said anything like there is no easy answer here. How stressful for the kids to live with this. And children of divorce just want to enjoy life without this stuff constantly blowing up in their faces. This is 15 years down the line. Can’t the Mother just ask to go out with the kids and have coffee? Why does she have to show up for a major event?
Here’s an article from Psychology Today about parent-child reunification. The returning parent is called the Alienated Parent. It seems to center around parents who are just getting out of jail and trying to bond with their children. That’s a much different scenario.
Wonder if there is a forum online for adult children to get together and discuss how it feels and what happened. I remember a movie called The Hours where Meryl Streep plays a woman who left her family. It was a life or death decision. Again, the emphasis is on the parent’s feelings. For the kids it seems to be just a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” type of situation.
Filed under: Abandonment, Abuse, Complex PTSD, Exemplary Children of Divorce, Long Term Fallout, Mentally Ill Children of Divorce, Mentally Ill parents, PTSD, Shrinks, Suicide, therapy, Trauma
Borderline Personality Disorder is an unwanted diagnosis. Therapists dread it because they say it’s not treatable. If you want to know more about it you can google the google. It sounds like being trapped in a kid’s mind as an adult because there is a problem with emotional regulation. The person’s moods swing back and forth between hot and cold feelings very quickly. There is a fear of abandonment, self injury and suicidality. While looking up well-known people who struggle with this disorder I found that a huge percentage come from divorced families.
Here’s is a list of famous people I’ve found who may be Borderline along with whether they are from Divorce:
Amy Winehouse – parents divorced
Pete Doherty –
Britney Spears – parents divorced
Courtney Love – parents divorced
Lindsey Lohan – parents divorced
Princess Diana – parents divorced
Angelina Jolie – parents divorced
Marilyn Monroe – parents divorced, maybe never married
Darrel Hammond –
Scott Levy –
Brand Marshall – parents married Age 3, divorced age 6
Anais Nin – parents divorced Age 2
Ernest Hemingway –
Elon Musk? – parents divorced
This is an interesting list. I’m not sure if these are real diagnoses since they are from off the internet. Borderline Personality Disorder is said to be a predominantly female illness but it looks from this list that it could be a predominantly male illness since the male examples may not come from divorce. That’s interesting because psychological studies have generally commented on how boys suffer the most from Divorce. (Scott Levy only lists his Father in his biography so he may be from divorce.) The Diagnosis isn’t made until after the child turns 18.
PTSD diagnosis can’t be made from Death or Divorce but there is now a trauma from childhood diagnosis which might take over these diagnosis. The ACE study includes loss of a parent through death or divorce.
Therapists seem to agree that childhood trauma is a major influence.
Here’s is an article which says that Children of Divorce are more vulnerable to Borderline Personality Disorder. Here is a quote from the article on research from back in 1996:
JoelParis(1994,1996)suggested that biologicalvulnerabilityis necessarybutnot sufficient to cause BPD. Varying psychological factors can precipitate BPD inthe presence of biological vulnerability. Paris maintained that the impact of socialdisintegration and rapid social change, such as breakdown of the traditional familyand changing social norms, are nonspecific risk factors in the etiology of BPD.Cross-cultural studies reveal the possibility that structured traditional societies diminish the emergence of this disorder.
(PDF) Children At-Risk for Borderline…. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257827646_Children_At-Risk_for_Borderline_Personality_Disorder [accessed Jul 22 2018].
A child going through a divorce can be observing Borderline type of behavior from the parents and so the behavior may be from the stress of coping with that.
Don’t have the link anymore but I think there is a Psychology Today article about the divorce rate and Borderline Personality Disorders. I may not be remembering this correctly so don’t quote me. Borderlines are less likely to marry in the first place, have the same divorce rates, when they do divorce they are less likely to remarry.
Spoiled Children of Divorce 