Christine Ann Lawson Books & Quotes

Source: Understanding the Borderline Mother

“Emotionally stable parents share their children’s joy and quiet their fear. But caretaking roles are reversed for children of borderlines whose mothers are chronically upset. Children repress their fear in order to calm their mother. Situations that should frighten children may not because they have learned not to feel.”

Mother Parents Child Abuse Emotional Abuse Borderline Abusive Parents Bpd Abusive Mother Abusive Women

Book:Understanding the Borderline Mother

Source: Understanding the Borderline Mother

“The Queen is controlling, the Witch is sadistic, the Hermit is fearful, and the Waif is helpless. And each requires a different approach. Don't let the Queen get the upper hand; be wary even of accepting gifts because it engenders expectations. Don't internalize the Hermit's fears or become limited by them. Don't allow yourself to be alone with the Witch; maintain distance for your own emotional and physical safety. And with the Waif, don't get pulled into her crises and sense of victimization. Pay attention to your own tendencies to want to rescue her, which just feeds the dynamic.”

Mother Psychology Advice Borderline Personality Disorder

Book:Understanding the Borderline Mother

Source: Understanding the Borderline Mother

“To stave off the panic associated with the absence of a primary object, borderline patients frequently will impulsively engage in behaviors that numb the panic and establish contact with and control over some new object.”

Borderline Personality Disorder

Book:Understanding the Borderline Mother

Source: Understanding the Borderline Mother

“Unbearable pain that is expressed and acknowledged becomes bearable. But borderlines received no such responses in their childhood. Therefore, they are stuck in the past, trying to elicit what they needed as a child—validation of their unbearable pain.”

Child Abuse Emotional Abuse Borderline Personality Disorder Bpd Borderline Mother

Book:Understanding the Borderline Mother

Source: Understanding the Borderline Mother

“Therapists sometimes warn family members not to depend on the person with BPD to validate their self-worth, yet young children have no choice. They can and will do anything to hold onto the good mother (the loving, caring person) who unpredictably turns into the Witch mother (the terrifying, raging beast).”

Child Abuse Emotional Abuse Borderline Personality Disorder Bpd Abusive Mother Borderline Mother

Book:Understanding the Borderline Mother

Source: Understanding the Borderline Mother

“Ernest Wolf (1988) explains that “merger-hungry” personalities need to control others completely. The borderline Witch’s merger-hungry personality leaves her children feeling devoured, suffocated, oppressed, and imprisoned. Even as adults, her children may dream about prison camps, holocausts, invasions, wars, and natural disasters. They fear for their survival.”

Trauma Manipulation Child Abuse Borderline Personality Disorder Bpd Abusive Mother Borderline Mother Controlling Mother

Book:Understanding the Borderline Mother

Source: Understanding the Borderline Mother

“The borderline Queen experiences what therapists call "oral greediness". The desperate hunger of the borderline Queen is akin to the behavior of an infant who had gone too long between feelings. Starved, frustrated, and beyond the ability to calm of soothe herself, she grabs, flails, and wails until at last the nipple is planted securely and perhaps too deeply in her mouth. She coughs, gags, chokes, and spits, eyeing the elusive breast like a wolf guarding her food. Similarity, the Queen holds on to what is hers, taking more than she could use, in case it might be taken away prematurely.”

Psychology Borderline Personality Disorder

Book:Understanding the Borderline Mother

Source: Understanding the Borderline Mother

“Laura explained that her mother “went on tirades.” Something could set her off and she would whirl around the house like a cyclone. The warning signal was “the look.” The look was a piercing, threatening glare that meant “I could kill you.” When Laura was a child, her mother actually said it, with no awareness of the power of her words.”

Anger Rage Child Abuse Psychological Abuse Abusive Mother Anger Issues Explosive Bad Mothering

Book:Understanding the Borderline Mother

Source: Understanding the Borderline Mother

“Borderline mothers who threaten or attempt suicide keep their children emotionally trapped, and their children may suffer from extreme anxiety even as adults.”

Suicide Manipulation Child Abuse Psychological Abuse Abusive Mother Borderline Mother Bad Mothering Manipulative Mother Emotional Abusive

Book:Understanding the Borderline Mother

Source: Understanding the Borderline Mother

“When enraged, some divorced borderlines may deprive their children of contact with their father either to punish him or the children.”

Manipulation Child Abuse Domestic Abuse Psychological Abuse Bpd Abusive Mother Borderline Mother Manipulative Mother

Book:Understanding the Borderline Mother

Source: Understanding the Borderline Mother

“It is rare for even adult children to abandon their mother, regardless of how many times their mother has abandoned them.”

Trauma Child Abuse Emotional Abuse Abandonment Bpd Abusive Mother Trauma Bonding Borderline Mother

Book:Understanding the Borderline Mother

Source: Understanding the Borderline Mother

“Children with borderline mothers adjust to the chaos of their lives by learning to expect the unexpected. They associate love with fear and kindness with danger.”

Danger Trauma Child Abuse Abusive Mother Trauma Bonding Borderline Mother Love And Danger Fear Based Learning

Book:Understanding the Borderline Mother

Source: Understanding the Borderline Mother

Christine Ann Lawson Books

Understanding the Borderline Mother

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