Hello all,
My mother had the rare disorder called MPD or Dissociative Disorder. Because it's so rare I've never found another adult child of an MPD parent to talk to. My mother had around nine different personalities. It's not like in the movies. For someone who doesn't know what they're looking at, it seems just a sudden and inexplicable mood swing. She would suddenly start crying and nothing you'd say could make her stop, or she'd curse at you and start yelling then swing to crying and tell you how horrible you were for yelling at her (whether you did or not). Two minutes later it was as if the entire thing never happened and she was smiling and joking. Her voice would change sometimes as well as the look in her eyes and you knew this was someone else and that reasoning with it was futile.

Knowing she was ill didn't make it any easier growing up. When I lived at home she used to come into my room sobbing and appologize for being such a bad mother. I'd tell her she wasn't a bad mother, and she would believe me, even though I actually hated the horrible, insane thing she was. Maybe that sounds harsh given she was so horribly abused, but it's hard to feel anything but bitter after two decades of being emotionally bludgeoned and then expected to just peel yourself off the pavement and understand.

I don't usually share this given the culture of misunderstanding around MPD, but an anonymous post to strangers is oddly cathartic.

You don't have to be afraid to express yourself here. It definitely feels good to vent. It's hard to be emotionally abused as children and adults by the person who is supposed to love you the most and then to feel guilty about being mad at them when they have a "mental illness". It feels good for someone to recognize our pain for once.

No matter what kind of mental illness a parent has, I think they fail their children in fulfilling the child's needs growing up. I still can't say I 100% forgive my mother. Some days I forgive her and can look at her as I would a stranger with the same problems--with empathy and understanding. And other days I hate her and just want her to understand what she put me through. The problem is she will never understand so I can only work on me and not her.

I can more than sympathize. My mom had MPD too, she had about 2,000 personalities and life was hard living with her, to say the least. I am 28 and I am still trying to deal with the effects that she left in her wake. I have three siblings that had to deal with it too, but she liked to pick on me the most. She would do things to me like pick up something, something that I had mentioned I was looking for that I had just found, like a scarf, that I was going to wear when I left for school, and throw it away in the dumpster. When I confronted her about those things she would say that I deserved it because I left it out, or worse, she would claim that it never happened and punish me for saying it did. OR this sound familiar? she moves something, clear as day, and moments later YOU are the culprit who took it... I have been through all of that and I really know about the anger you feel.. I feel it too. I still have nightmares about the things she would do.. in fact I just had one last night. She would expect the whole family to revolve around her, everyone else's problems didn't matter as she was so quick to compare them to her own abuse suffered as a child. I always felt guilty for even HAVING problems because hers were always the ones that deserved comfort and help, not mine or anyone else's. You can't reason with someone like that, it's not possible.. the tables are always turned on you.
Anyhow I just wanted you to know your not the only one out there who has had to deal with a parent who has MPD. I wish you the best and I hope we can talk sometime.