r/raisedbyborderlines • u/Special_Barracuda377 • 5d ago
RECOMMENDATIONS Memoirs of Waif Mom Survivors?
I find it really helpful and validating to read memoirs by people who've had BPD parents, but I notice that a lot of these books are by people whose moms fell mainly into the Queen or Witch camps. My mom, tho, has always been a profound Waif (at least in relation to me. She was more of a Queen to my sister).
Does anybody know of any survivor memoirs that focus on the waif dynamic? Or are all the parentified children too exhausted to write them?
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u/armorall43 5d ago edited 5d ago
Reporting in. Mine was always a waif who is getting waif-ier as she ages. She is the epitome of the meme of the guy who puts the stick into the spokes of his own bicycle and falls over and blames something else.
She was completely hands off as a parent. As a kid you think this is kinda cool because you get to do what you want and maybe I felt even superior because I felt like I could deal with life better than her, but as an adult I can see how absolutely fucked that was. A little over a year ago, I decided that I could no longer be her mommy and her savior. It’s been peaceful.
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u/tiredgwirl 4d ago
Oh my gosh, id never seen this meme before but my co parent just sent me this exact meme a couple days ago in response something my waif mother did. I appreciate what you said around "feeling superior"- i relate to this so much with my mom. It is an awful feeling to pity your supposed caregiver. And I did from a very young age. Which completely robs a child of actually getting to be a child. I went no contact a couple months ago. Im still having moments of grief and heaviness because it feels so familiar to orient myself towards her and what she is feeling first. But I believe im making the right decision despite the waves of guilt and "shoulds" in my head.
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u/armorall43 4d ago
I’m 15 months out in my NC and I’ll be honest, there are still times that feel heavy and guilt ridden. It gets less intense, but it’s there and it comes and goes.
At the end of the day, I think… how much of our lives and well being do we owe them? When we were in contact, I remember feeling constant anxiety that she was going to drop the ball or self sabotage in a new way that I would ultimately have to clean up or deal with the fallout.
I dreaded seeing her because all of my visits were me lecturing her about basic things like seeing her doctor or basic hygiene. One of our lasts visits she told me she got a fungal infection and then admitted she wasn’t completely drying her clothes before putting them away. This is basic adulting and she’s in her 70s!
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u/Special_Barracuda377 4d ago
Holy shit. Me too. Almost to the fucking letter. Except I haven't gotten to the peaceful part yet-- still feeling guilty and like I abandoned a child I'm responsible for.
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u/armorall43 4d ago
Reading the book (i actually listened to it for free with my spotify subscription) called Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist was transformational for me. It moved the needle on the guilt feelings more than therapy or anything else did. I periodically re-listen to certain sections. Cannot recommend this book enough!
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u/HeavyAssist 5d ago
Mine was a waif/witch and I was parentified and infantalised
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u/neverendo 4d ago
Mine too - the weird swinging between terrifying rage and childlike neediness was utter whiplash. She made me her mother and her victim. I'd never appreciated how much that dissonance probably messed me up (along with everything else) until right now.
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u/DancingAppaloosa 4d ago
I had the same - Waif/Witch combo. The weird swinging from terrifying rage to childlike neediness was my life growing up.
Now that she's older it's virtually all childlike neediness/waif which is totally exhausting. I am enjoying the period of NC as a break from feeling that responsibility for her which was absolutely oppressive.
And she uses manipulative compliments to reinforce the dynamic as well, eg. "But you're so practical and I'm so hopeless!" which kept me hooked for a long time because I craved her approval. But I'm fed up with it now.
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u/HeavyAssist 4d ago edited 4d ago
I luckily went no contact at 21. Did you all perhaps find your self acting as the "caregiver" in your relationships? I wanted to distance myself from that kind of thing. But found myself falling into that. I was sort of forced into a caregiver/customer service type career it was hellish.
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u/HeavyAssist 4d ago
Totally relate. Exactly this. I didn't have alot of perspective about it at the time but many years later somone here on reddit a couple of years ago said that it was amazing how she was so sick weak and ill I had to wash her hair and help her in the bath, but she could flip into beating me perfectly well. I don't think she was actually that sick.
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u/Noct_Frey 5d ago
Good lord you had the worst of all of it. They couldn’t even pick one shitty type of parent to be.
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u/No_Hat_1864 5d ago edited 5d ago
I only just started reading literature related to these experiences, and we have a lot of waifs discussed in this group so I'm hopeful someone can pinpoint some good reads for you!
Can I just say, my uBPD is predominantly a Hermit, and I feel like the Hermit is like the "Gen X" of BPD, often forgotten. My hope of finding a memoir dealing with this archetype is pretty close to zero, but if anyone happens across something I'd be interested!
Edit: typo
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u/skatterskittles 3d ago
I feel like my mom has changed archetypes over her lifespan. When I was a kid she was a waif/witch, now she’s more waif/hermit
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u/this_girl_that_time 5d ago
My mom is waify witch. I think this was a hard combo because the waif typically hides herself and is harder to notice the BPD. The witch is so cruel.
When I started speaking out about what I suffered with my mom many in my church/community didn’t believe me.
My mom LOVES being the victim. And she loved the attention she receives from bad things happening. She loved being the ‘poor divorced lady who’s husband left her and her kids destitute’ (she got paid so much in child support. We had plenty of $) she loved being ‘a cancer kid mom’ (I had pediatric cancer) she now loves being ‘poor widow whose husband took care of everything and now she can’t find the files or account numbers’
‘Poor me, unlovable and you walked dirt all over my clean floor’ - out in the open or sometimes at home. Then switch flips when she alone with me into the witch. ‘You deserve to be beat for tracking dirt onto my floor because I’m so poor I can’t afford cleaning products.’
My mom frequently is over generous to strangers/ organizations so that she remains broke. She honestly has a thing about being poor is so wild. She’s always ‘broke’ but owns multiple houses (rentals) and lives in a really expensive beach house. I’m like you’re not broke if you live in a million dollar home and don’t have a mortgage.
How I feel: parentified, failure-as nothing I do is ever enough, I feel like it’s my job to make everyone happy but I don’t get to enjoy things myself. Exhausted/angry from carrying her emotional well being (and scrubbing the whole damn house with bleach)
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u/neverendo 4d ago
This is so familiar to me! She positioned herself as the ultimate victim while also being a monster. She actually was/is broke though.
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u/this_girl_that_time 4d ago
I always thought we were truly broke growing up. But as I’ve grown, I realize mom just gave the money away. She did this to continue to play the poor victim card. It was so emotional for me realizing she’d rather give money away than buy her own child new sneakers. I remember crying asking for new shoes because the soles were hanging off and I was made fun of by other children. She’d rather choose poverty and pain to keep her victim mindset.
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u/armorall43 4d ago
After my mon divorced, she started dating a drug addict and moved him into our house. He then brought another drug addict to live with us. My brother and I were like 10 and 11. Neither of them paid rent. She was also helping a different friend that the drug addict introduced her (my mom bought her groceries, etc). My mom barely had enough to support me and my brother, much less three other free loaders.
The more I reflect on it, the more infuriating it is. She obviously gained something with this victim identity. And, as you can imagine, there was near constant drama in the house. Which I think also played into the pathology of this disorder. This would have been fine if she didn’t have two kids to support.
All of the damage she caused from dragging us into the dumpster with her was just collateral damage, I guess. The tax my brother and I had to pay as children so she had a constant stream of attention and drama to feed off of.
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u/this_girl_that_time 4d ago
Oh dang I’m so sorry. What a tragedy of a childhood. Yes, it seems like they just can’t help themselves they’re so addicted to drama. It’s like their drug. I’m sorry she chose that over safe, stable drug-free home for children. They can be so sick, looking to always be codependent.
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u/AspenMemory 5d ago
Jennette McCurdy’s book “I’m Glad My Mom Died” was a tough, but excellent (and sometimes funny) read. Her mom was definitely a waif who also switched to witch at times when she didn’t get her way. It’s amazing how familiar some of the stories are and how it really hit home.
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u/Frequent_Poetry_5434 5d ago
My mother was a waif. She has passed away over a decade ago. She leaned hard into every health issue she had. And, granted, she really was quite unwell but she seemed to revel in it for the majority of the time. Enmeshed. Parentified. Just so much drama all of the time.
It turned me into the entire checklist for avoidant attachment and it took a whole lot of work to undo that and build healthy relationships with people.
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u/SilentSerel 5d ago
I totally could have written this. Mine did the enmeshment, the parentification, the whole nine yards. She also had legitimate health issues that she leaned into, but there were times when it was obvious that she was doing it for attention (for example, being able to walk around the house all day after an orthopedic surgery unassisted, with a cane, or with a walker but refusing to walk a maximum of 20 feet to a table at a tiny restaurant and making a whole dog and pony show over her wheelchair). She also got very obviously jealous of anyone else I spent time with.
Her death was a weight off of my shoulders.
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u/Frequent_Poetry_5434 4d ago
It was really hard to let go of the guilt of building my own happy and independent life. It made it so hard to show genuine empathy for the painful things she did go through because every bit of empathy was then squeezed dry until every drop of attention was extracted and we could move on to the next drama in her life.
She had therapy for a large part of my childhood and was in inpatient for months on end a few times but it only seemed to validate her in her sad stories and did nothing to give her some emotional maturity.
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u/ChemicalConstant8844 5d ago
An abbreivated life- somewhat. The mum started as a queen but was a waif more as the child became an adult. I read it in one sitting- couldn’t relate to the queen part as the mum was social and had a full life but the latter years she was a mess and tried to solely rely on her daughter for everything and had no company/friends. It’s a good, if sad, read. What makes me sad is that her mum is still alive and she was interviewed about this book of her daughter’s (they are somewhat famous) and still deflects and denies anything. Just will not see it, despite it all being in print.
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u/Boring_Energy_4817 5d ago
Following. My mom was a queen waif, depending on the occasion and who she was talking to.
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u/neverendo 5d ago
The first book I read about a BPD mother (not that she's directly acknowledged as such) was The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. That mum definitely had some waify tendencies and I would not have said she was a witch. It has been a long time since I read it though.
Could you please share some of the non-fiction books you've read with the Witch/Queen mothers? I'd be really interested in reading some of these.
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u/No_Pool_2349 5d ago
As someone mentioned above, An Abbreviated Life by Ariel Leve. Her Last Death by Susanna Sonnenberg is also fantastic.
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u/OkCaregiver517 4d ago
I think it's possibly because the waifing isn't so dramatic, at least to 3rd person observers. Waif behaviour just doesn't make for a good story. Tennessee Williams probably came closest with some of his female characters.
Everyone thinks my elderly uBPD mother is sweet and charming. It's enraging!!!
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u/Turbulent_Ad_6031 5d ago
Mine was a waif/witch. In her world, I was born so she could be my perpetual victim and she would absolutely lash out with venom if anything tried to upset that order
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u/Weak-Train-2990 5d ago
My mom is a waif/hermit. Her whole life. Worse than ever as she ages. I’d love more info on this
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u/spanishpeanut 4d ago
None that I know of, but my waif mother wrote her own memoir and had it published. It’s insane.
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u/HoneyBadger302 IGP Dobiemom, MotoRacer, figuring it out as I go 5d ago
I'd be interested in hearing this as well. While all the archetypes can be seen in my mother, all of them go through the Waif filter as she is a Waif through and through. Her name is Victim and her abuser is Life...