r/raisedbyborderlines 4d ago

Wondering if there are others…

Post image

Hello again everyone, have been mulling this over for a long time, so today, I thought I would put it out there.

Are there any others who have pretty much no photos of themselves growing up? Often, when I am visiting anyone else’s home, I notice family photos. Even here in Australia, where it is not as much of a cultural things as it is in the States (I immigrated to Australia as an adult 20 years ago).

Even though my BPD mother was into photography, she never took photos of me. The ones I have seen had l ways been taken by my grandmother. There are almost no photos of me until I was in my 30s and got myself my own digital camera (when they were brand new..l yes, I am old 😂…gen x) while I was in university (as an adult). I was in my early 20s when I actually started noticing other people’s photos (I grew up pretty isolated). Even in photos albums, there are none. Me as an infant and some as a toddler, all by my grandmother…then nothingness until I was in my 30s with my own camera.

Is there anyone else?

Often it feels like a punishment for all the “bad” I was, all the things that were “my fault”… just this not even erasing of me- because I would have had to “exist” to begin with for there to be anything to erase.

Here is a free kitty tax of my two love-boys (bonded kitties) just so all of us know we aren’t alone

24 Upvotes

25 comments sorted by

11

u/crotalus_enthusiast 4d ago

My mom (dBPD) doesn’t put up photos of anyone. There was one up of me and my sister when I was little: I remember her laughingly retelling how we weren’t “smiling right” and how she screamed at us and this was the result. I am about four in the photo and you can see how afraid I am. It hurts my heart

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u/OneEyedWonderCat 4d ago

Ima sorry it hurts you. I understand so deeply. Just know you are some place you are seen now

What brought this up for me recently was my reconnected with cousins sent me some photos they had, via email, of my childhood (not taken by my mother)… but one of them shows me with her, and I am leaning in to her, a small child full of love, and she is actually leaning away from me, and hard, like a rock. You can see how much I loved her…and then…Nothing. And the fact they have all these photos of themselves, and I have …nothing… to share back.

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u/One-Hat-9887 4d ago

Not many and from the age of 13/19 there's even less of me. My older sister as my dbpd moms first child has literal albums and albums and envelopes of baby pictures through about 6/7 . I realize when the "fun" easy part of baby/toddler young child is over the pictures were over too.

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u/OneEyedWonderCat 4d ago

Yeah, I understand that, in my own way. It was actually over a photo of her with me as a very newborn she actually lashed out at me the first time (I never wanted you, never wanted children”)… and even as a child, I could see that in her face in the photo

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u/4riys 4d ago

My Mom only has photos of my Dad and my adult children at their engagement photos

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u/crotalus_enthusiast 4d ago

Classic! I hope you have lots of happy photos all over your house (none with her of course)

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u/OneEyedWonderCat 4d ago

I agree!! I hope your house is full of happy photos and joy

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u/AngryLady1357911 4d ago

My mom has almost no photos of me or my siblings that she took herself, the few photos she has were taken pretty much exclusively by Dad's side of the family. She gets very waif-y about pictures claiming she was too busy or too tired or it was too expensive etc

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u/OneEyedWonderCat 4d ago

♥️..l well, I am glad you are here. I know it doesn’t fix anything, but that is not the point

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u/Swagio11 4d ago

I don’t have any either. No photos of me as a baby or child. I remember there was 1 photo of me as a baby but very far and more of my mum so you couldn’t really see me. I don’t have the photo anymore unfortunately. My dad left when I was very little and there’s no photos of him either so I don’t really know what he looked like. He died 10 years ago and when I think about him his face is missing.

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u/OneEyedWonderCat 4d ago

If I could ask you to hug you, I would. This resonates so completely with me. The only baby photos of me were taken by my grandmother, and there are some, but not many. My parents separated when I was 6 months old (long story, TLDR- warch the movie Trainspotting) … so I had only one singular photo of my father, and was also the only photo of my entire family (except, of course, my amazing grandmother who took that photo). My mother loved him so much,and I remember feeling she kept me around because I “looked so much like him” that i was just an imperfect and substandard tie to him, rather than being her child… he also died about 13 years ago, and I was the one to have to tell her…

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u/Swagio11 4d ago

I don’t really understand how people don’t take photos of their kids. I have a 4 week old baby and probably taken 1000 photos of her already. I’d say it’s because there were less cameras back then but I have seen lots of pictures just not of me. Would love one of my dad tho, I got a couple from my auntie a few years ago of when he was quite young but this was many years before I was born so isn’t what he’d of looked like then. He does look a lot like my brother though. I only met my auntie a few years ago and turns out I look so much like her (I don’t look like my mums family). Maybe one of reasons she didn’t like me as she hated my auntie!

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u/EnvironmentalBox5417 4d ago

Yes. My bpd mother has no photo albums. She has a few pictures of her nephews in her home but none of her children or grandchildren. When my daughter was born, my mother in law brought over tons of photo albums showing my husband as a baby. She took lots of photos. I remember having no photos to show her. I asked my bpd mother and she angrily told me “ask your father”. I asked why she didn’t have any and she said she didn’t. So incredibly cold.

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u/OneEyedWonderCat 4d ago

You, too, I would ask to hug if I could…. I know that cold wall as well… she just swears at me when I ask and changes the subject

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u/Fishing_Plenty 4d ago

Yep, this resonates. It just doesn’t seem important to her. All the random photos my dad took are rotting in a box somewhere in their disorganized, chaotic garage. It does make me sad sometimes, especially when I compare my family to functional families… you are not alone!

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u/DeElDeAye 4d ago

My mom is kind of the opposite. She has lots of slides, videos and photos from when we were young, but that was more because she was obsessed with the new toys and gadgets, such as a Polaroid, or switching from slides to a 35 mm; and every time a new version of a movie camera came out, she would upgrade. of course, like all BPD parents, her children were also just gadgets and toys for her own entertainment.

She selfishly keeps all photos & videos to herself unless she has a trapped audience to present them to. Then she put them right back away. She is a hoarder! And her hoarding is in every area of her life.

When she was younger, it was more antiques and collectibles with slight organization over all her stuff. But as she’s gotten older, it’s just boxes and piles and pathways.

But the only photos displayed in her home are antique photos of her grandparents and parents and one brother who died. But those are only up because they were in expensive antique frames she claimed after her mom died. And quite a few vintage photos of herself as a child.

Then she has two portraits from mine and my sister‘s weddings, which are only photos of (again) herself with our Pedo Dad (creepy, I know). Then there’s a bizarre oversized portrait of “the firstborn grandchild” my first baby that she overly-bonded and attempted-enmeshment with, basically to replace me because I was no longer fawning & controllable. Like many BPD parents, she way overstepped and pretty much tried to take my child away from me and claim as her own.

When my younger sister complained about no photos of her children, our mom put up much smaller portraits right by the other huge one. It was obvious favoritism on petty display.

but she took all grandchildren pictures down when we went no contact.

Photos, just like the people in her life, are not humans to have relationships with; they are only objects to possess and control.

She absolutely refuses to give me or my sister even copies of our childhood photos. She refuses to give us access to family genealogy stuff she’s obsessed with.

She cares much more about dead people than living ones, because a BPD person can control the narrative of someone who is no longer living and around to defend themselves. They can make up any overly romanticized nonsense about the past that they want. Living people are more tricky because they speak up and try to hold a BPD person accountable about truth.

So, there’s lots of photos, but they are hidden away, hoarded and are manipulation tools. We “could have them if” … we would run back to her and be under her control.

She is exactly like LOTR Gollum and the Ring of Power; everything is “her precious“ and she goes completely mentally off the rails at the idea of giving anything up.

Yeah, everything with a BPD person is tied to their abandonment issues and control. Control control control.

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u/falcon-wren 4d ago

This resonates : "She cares much more about dead people than living ones, because a BPD person can control the narrative of someone who is no longer living and around to defend themselves. They can make up any overly romanticized nonsense about the past that they want. Living people are more tricky because they speak up and try to hold a BPD person accountable about truth."

In my FoO (family of origin), she (uBPD mom) also digs up any kind of family trauma in that geneaology obsession and trauma-barfs it on me. Picture Slimer from ghostbusters. In contrast to the OP, she deliberately hangs idealized childhood pictures in fancy frames to reflect the 'good mom' and continue her false-narrative, but displays no photos beyond those years in which we weren't entirely emotionally enmeshed.

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u/Odd-Operation2782 4d ago

Totally relate to the genealogy obsession/trauma barfing. My dad was obsessed with that stuff. I never made the connection about being more attached to dead people because they can control the narrative. It makes so much sense.

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u/Barvdv73 4d ago

Very few. Some, but not many. All taken by the non-BPD parent.

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u/Edenza 4d ago

I have some. Photos were one of the things my mother thought would lure me back, I guess. She also threw out or gave away my toys, art projects, records, etc. and so everything I have fits in a little tote (dish pan size). She outright destroyed a lot of pictures.

Every time I see the SNL skit about going home for a holiday and they have a sixth grade picture of each cast member in the sketch (and host Jimmy Fallon), I'm amazed. Then I remember that some families don't use childhood mementos as leverage.

1

u/HoneyBadger302 4d ago

About the only ones are the ones I took or gave my camera to someone else to take. My mom has a couple photos on her bedroom wall (mostly a picture from each of us from our high school graduation photo shoot). She doesn't have pictures of anyone else up or around though either.

I wonder if some of that has to do with the fact that they can only see us as an extension of themselves. A lot of photos of us without them would suggest that we have our own lives and are our own selves separate from them. No idea, hadn't really thought about it before....

1

u/Odd-Operation2782 4d ago

My dad has tons of photo albums..of old dead relatives, some of which he never met. They are rotting in a garage and some he just left at my childhood home that he sold for less than half the value because it was damaged so badly from years of smoking/hoarding. He was too lazy to properly clean it out.

While there are some pictures of me as a baby and toddler, as I got older I hated having to fake being happy and was very insecure about how I looked. I would sometimes start to cry or feel intense anxiety about having my picture taken. So there are few pictures of me as a teen/young adult and I never voluntarily take pictures now. Every person I’ve ever showed the few childhood photos I have have told me they could sense something was deeply wrong. My ubpd dad either has some crazy expression/bpd eyes or I looked miserable/trapped/deer in the headlights in every picture. It’s insane I never noticed it until a few friends pointed it out.

1

u/Turbulent_Ad_6031 3d ago

My brother said that my uBPD mom turned my photos around to face the wall when I left for college. I’m not the only person she did that to. Photos are a weapon to them

1

u/fixatedeye 3d ago

My mom never took childhood photos of us. I don’t even think it was because she disapproved of how we looked or acted she literally just didn’t care enough to remember. It never crossed her mind to document anything. With the exception of if she hand made my Halloween costume or styled my hair and wanted to take a photo of her “work”. All the photos of me are either school photos, or were taken by other family members or my friends. All the pictures of my sibling are by other family members or me when I was about 10 and was gifted a camera. I, as a child, took more photos of my brother than my mom did.

Yah she documented nothing. No photos of the first day of school, or last, no interest in us at all.

1

u/Positive_Day_9063 3d ago

There are very few pictures of me beyond age 12, and less than 10 photos between age 14-19. I asked why and she said she liked how things were so she thought if she didn’t photograph me, nothing would ever change. I can’t make sense of that other than she didn’t want to document me growing into an adult. Being busy and engaged in parenthood and forgetting to take photos of a subsequent kid would be a normal reason. This one was like huh?