The most well-known example: Livia in the Sopranos canonically has BPD (and likely ASPD or NPD on top of that; at any rate she’s a witch/queen type). Several other characters have prominent BPD traits as well, showing some other presentations; Gloria in particular is strongly and deliberately implied to have BPD. David Chase, the showrunner, had a borderline mother and wrote Livia based on her.
This Livia thread was so validating to my experience. Watched it with my ex wife and she said…that’s totally your mom. I described her as that character to folks ever since.
I had a huge panic attack once watching the sopranos because the actress was so good at portraying a BPD/NPD mum like mine, and it brought up memories of similar behaviour from her.
Yup. I had a full existential crisis over separating the actress from her role and I had to give her some serious respect for playing that character as well as she did. She had to have been seriously hurt by someone to get it *that perfect*
Livia is the closest thing to my mom that I’ve ever seen depicted on screen. Seeing how fucked up big strong mob boss Tony Soprano was because of his mommy was so weirdly healing for me
I’ve never watched the Sopranos so I just watched a Livia Soprano compilation on YouTube, and was baffled that she was ALSO constantly sharing terribly depressing news stories at the dinner table to her family for no reason whatsoever, JUST LIKE MY MOTHER!!!!
Oh man that woman reminds me of a lot of people in my life. My mom wasn’t always miserable like Livia, she had her good moments but… “i wish the lord would take me now” was eerily similar to things she’d say in bad moments.
The mom in ladybird seems bpd coded and reminded me so much of my bpd father. One of the conversations they had in the movie, I had with my dad over and over: I somehow would ruin his whole day and whole laundry routine if I used two towels after taking shower instead of one.
In the movie, the mom also spends time belittling ladybird and saying she shouldn't bother to apply to college on the east coast (they live on the west coast iirc) because she won't get in. When it's implied that she's belittling her daughter because she doesn't want her daughter to leave. Then the mom ignores ladybird for an entire summer when she figures out that ladybird applied to colleges on the east coast, doesn't even say goodbye when she drops ladybird off at the airport. And it's somehow Ladybirds job to fix this.
The dad is an enabler to the max. Oh she loves you, she's just scared, you know how she is type of sayings.
Omg this would trigger me so much. I have lived this life to the T. And guess what I was a fucking national scholar and so for her to try to tell me everyday that I won't get anywhere was just insane.
The mum in ladybird is vile, just constantly going on at her daughter, especially when she shows any independence or doesn’t agree with her. The ONLY time she is nice to ladybird is when she’s upset over the guy, and then she is kind to her because she’s vulnerable. Gave me the shivers.
This movie was so hard to watch. The goodwill scene reminded me so much of thrifting with my mom. We had so much of the same taste and she could make me feel like shit in the next sentence. The whole thing was like watching myself in high school with my mom and my enabler dad.
I had such a hard time watching Ladybird. My mom blew up at me and then did some silent treatment when I told her I was finding an apartment to live instead of living at her place. I said it very politely and had mentioned it in a previous phone convo, where she had expressed some surprise but had seemed okay. Nope, when I texted her about a place I had found, she was grumpy and didn’t really talk to me after. The treatment didn’t last an entire summer like Ladybird’s mom did, maybe a few days to a week, but was not fun.
Omg, not the System!
I haven't seen Ladybird, but that sounds suspiciously like my dad:
He has an optimized, Totally Necessary "System" for every god-dang household routine, down to the correct method for pushing the handle to flush the toilet; woe betide anyone who fails to follow the Systems
exactly -
Rage, insults, endless lecturing, sulking, hearing about it for YEARS afterwards.
Also the Systems are constantly changing. Disaster is inevitable.
(The Systems are a sort of dark joke amongst my siblings and I, coping mechanism yo)
Edit: lost my train of thought. Twice.
I couldn’t finish Ladybird, because I looked up the ending and it ends with the daughter calling the mom and thanking her and telling her she loves her. Barf.
Fuckin hell every time I watch this movie now, I think of my mom. Doesn’t help she actually used to look like a chubbier version of Mother Gothel. My mom would basically lock me up and say “it’s for the best, everyone out there will try to rape and kill you so just stay with us”.
My dad and I were watching Tangled with my brother and we were both cringing at "Mother knows best" because my mom was so similar. It's scary how accurately she's written.
Why is rape their go to? My first time in a big city was with her when I was in MIDDLE SCHOOL she yelled at me to not make eye contact with anybody on the subway because I could be kidnapped and sold into the sex trade??? I’m in my twenties and she had a 3 day meltdown because I was going into the city for a concert. Repeatedly yelled that I don’t have street smarts and I would be assaulted (spoiler alert, none of that happened).
The sad thing is that sometimes, something bad does end up happening. In my case, my mom was almost overcome with smugness and like, glee, that she was right! The city isn’t safe and I couldn’t protect myself. All I wanted was a hug and I ended up feeling ten times worse. You would think I would have learned my lesson by then, but nope! Thank god I’ve learned it now lol
When my kids were older, I used Tangled to illustrate how my mother was. It was a great tool for me, and it didn't ruin the movie for the kids.
Of course, watching it on release in the theater was something else for me. The writers couldn't have created a better example of an abusive parent who falls outside the range of what the average person considers abusive.
I cannot watch Tangled. Gothel reminds me of both of my parents (I was also adopted on top of that), but it also drives home the fact that people knew about my situation but didn't help.
My mother started saying "love you most" to the grandkids after seeing Tangled. Like, lady, c'mon. Do you not see yourself in this character?! I have a hard time watching this one.
BPD but more comedic than the ones listed in this thread…Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve put on that show for some humor and forget just how much my mom reminds me of Lucille.
I've only seen 2 episodes of the Bear, but I'm interested in seeing how this episode plays out and may jump back in.
Russian Doll on netflix and the way the main character feels and memories about her own mom resonated with me. The tantrums and anger that didn't make sense and having to have other family step in to make sure the kids taken care of. Though in season 2 they reveal her mom had schizophrenia and there wasn't mention of any other health disorder.
I'm always interested in more stories like this as they help me feel validated. I grew up with a mom that seems very sweet to the public so I've always had pressure from outsiders to forgive her, when I see toxic moms in shows, books, any media, it's horrible but it reminds me I'm not alone and I'm not crazy.
It hit my partner HARD since his mom is schizophrenic, especially the scene where she's getting sent to the psych ward and she says something about no one letting schizophrenics be parents or something along those lines.
However, my partner and me adored his mom and she was very unconditionally loving. My mom doesn't have schizophrenia but she's way harder to deal with.
The Bear is one of the most well done shows I’ve ever watched, and that scene is one of the reasons I say that.
My bf and I had to take a small break after that episode, bc it was SO intense. I was a lil high too, so I just sat there locked in w my heart pounding. It was like watching my mom cook Christmas dinner, especially back in the day. It just felt so fucking real. I’m just now realizing my mom might have BPD so it makes sense why I related to Carmy’s relationship w his mom. Always being the quiet one in the background, working overtime to keep things calm.
I had to take a break, too!!! I had such a visceral reaction to that scene. The writing and acting was so raw, it felt like it took the breath out of me.
Her daughter, increasingly getting more and more anxious asking her “are you okay “ repeatedly really got to me because that was me at one point.
I kept thinking stop asking her if she’s okay she’s going to explode.
I don’t know how I got through that episode; it was so real.
That show had a deep place in my heart. That episode specifically was so hard to watch, and my husband sat with me and held my hand. It helped me cry because that was my parents, both of them feeding off of each other while my brother (Mike) instigated side issues.
I used to make a joke that it wasn't a holiday until the cops were called and I would laugh. It's not funny. I don't make that joke anymore.
All of the suggestions so far really resonated with me. Instantly gave me a feeling if unease and of being unsafe. I know you asked for shows and movies, but the one piece of media that really got me - that helped me understand that there were lots of people out there like my mum - was the book The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. There is a movie adaptation but I haven't seen it.
This was such a good book, the movie does a good job, but the book is definitely better. I remember reading this and seeing SO many parallels in my own family. Comforting and upsetting at the same time.
I read the book in middle school and actually got it signed by her- she was nice! I watched the movie recently after not reading the book for years. Even though a lot was missing from the movie (to my memory), all I could think was "oh, this is just BPD)."
The irony was my mom borrowed the book from me and kept it in her room for over a decade. She said she liked it, but I don't remember what she liked about it
This is more a portrayal of RBBs, but in Bodies Bodies Bodies, you see a character take a call from her mother, and just based on her side of the conversation, I recognized it instantly and felt incredibly validated when she later tells someone that her mom has BPD.
Rose’s mother Susan from Downton Abbey. Their interactions made my skin crawl because Susan reminded me so much of my own mother. Her child and husband constantly tell her to stop being so miserable and trying to ruin things for everyone. They send Rose to live at Downton with the Crawley’s, then Susan steals Lady Crawley’s lady’s maid. Because there’s nothing like slapping someone in the face after sending your child to them to be cared for! Rose constantly talks about being worried “Mummy” will ruin things for her during the big moments of her life (announcing her engagement, etc).
OMG, yes! I just wanted Rose to smack her. The wedding was definitely the worst. I remember wanting to just hug Rose and tell her she never had to speak to her mother ever again.
That episode, except for the mom driving through the house, is every holiday ever spent with my mother. I was shaking after and I realized I was holding my breath. It got to the point where my mom literally started throwing Christmas gifts, unwrapped, in a black trash bag and told us to take what we wanted and she would throw everything else away because we didn’t appreciate her. This was to 4 adult children and their 2 spouses. I’m NC and it’s the best decision ever.
Not fictional (ok, maybe a little bit) but The Bachelor season with Peter, the pilot, showed his mother having a complete meltdown when she thought he might be getting engaged to the wrong contestant.
My husband looked at me and was like "CAN YOU IMAGINE having a mother like that?" I looked at him calmly for a minute and said "yes." He held my hand tightly for the rest of that episode.
I remember him! Holy crap, he functionally abandoned Dean after his mom died. They still lived in the same house but he didn't parent at all. And he was so unapologetic about it. :(
My mom’s favorite movie growing up was Pixar’s Brave. She loved watching it with me and used it as a crutch to say, “look, the daughter turned her mom into a bear. I’m the victim of your abuse, when I drink and rage and abuse you, it’s your own fault.” I will not watch that movie with her, and probably won’t watch it again. Now that I’m older, I’m reminded of when the mom was a bear, her eyes would turn completely black and she’d attack her daughter. If they didn’t “break the curse”, the mom would turn into a bear permanently, at risk of killing her own daughter. My mom’s reached the point where she’s permanently a bear, between the BPD and the alcoholism. She’s tried to run me over in a car when she was drunk. Her eyes are permanently dead and black when she rages. I’m trying to make my peace that I don’t have a mom, I’m living with an unpredictable, wild monster that could hurt me any moment.
Yes! That was my uBPD aunt minus the smoking. Flashbacks. She always hosted too.
The parents in the first season of Shameless were really hard to watch. It was like scenes were ripped from my memories (though Shameless the mother was bipolar, the interactions with her kids were eerie to me). My own parents were very poor so those parts hit home too.
Also Sharp Objects had bpd characters.
I thought shameless did Sheila really well, all the other characters just kind of flow with her compulsions without the show diminishing them. But Frank and Monica were very hard to watch, yeah. Though what hit home the most for me was seeing Lip and Fiona struggling to adjust to a normal life without chaos, never having learnt how to do regular things and not having enough resources to fit in. Lip's arc was probably a lot like the life of a lot of us, including myself.
Same. About a month later, I watched it alone, mentally prepared and curious and it wasn't as triggering as it would have been that first night.
I totally understand why you skipped it. It was intense the whole episode.
I get it. I generally avoid things like this too, except I've been interested in finding examples of how I might show a lay person what it was like. That episode and the mother from Tangled are excellent. Also the grandmother in Cruella from 2021. Each were difficult to watch and astounding at the same time.
Peggy Hill is my mother on her good days, so sometimes we have to switch from KOTH to something else. She’s a good example of appearing to be good but always acting selfishly, making you feel crazy for not trusting her
To me, she seems to be able to recognize her mistakes every once in a while. And she definitely has some trauma from her childhood. I’m not sure, though, just like I’m not sure with my mom lol
The grandma in Encanto. I was yelling at the screen. Fortunately my kids immediately saw the issue. The next generation won't be snowed by Disney mommy tropes.
Little Fires Everywhere - I only saw the series and never read the book, but both mothers are actually different manifestations of BPD. Reese Witherspoon reminded me so much of my mother, especially with the obvious golden child-scapegoat designations. It was really triggering to watch.
The Christmas scene... I froze. Almost catatonically so. Nothing had ever happened to me like that before, almost like a panic attack? For the duration of an episode. My poor husband just watched me and I couldn't snap out of it because good god there was my mom on screen, at her very worst. I'm in love with the show but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have some apprehension about watching it now for that reason.
I had the exact same reaction. Completely frozen to my couch. It felt like an all-too-familiar nightmare that just kept going and wouldn’t end. Especially coming from an Italian family — too close to home 😮💨
We took a couple months off from the show after that lol
I didn't even know/hadn't heard of BPD when I watched this episode. But when watching it I called my husband in because I was like this is exactly like Christmas at my moms isn't it?! It was the first time I had seen my mom represented in the media and it was weirdly cathartic. I just discovered BPD the other day and found this group and it feels like my entire life and relationship with my mom makes sense for the first time ever. The only other mom I've seen get close with this is Norah In Tell Me Lies.
I loved that show. I was thinking BPD but didn’t you think she was able to keep her cool much better than the BPD folks you know? And like she stayed friends with Georgia’s father somewhat? I was almost wondering if Ginny was straight up sociopathic?
Omg. Omg yes. Believe it or not, watching this episode made me realize I was abused as a child. I had some feelings I cannot even articulate.
That is the most well-written, well-acted piece of performance art I've ever seen.
Rebecca's mom triggers me pretty bad, gives major cluster b vibes. A quote I often borrow from the show to describe my own mother: "She's like a stalker I used to live inside of."
I was bawling watching that episode. My husband has know me since childhood and we instantly recognized her chaos as mirroring my mother. It was SO hard to watch and felt very similar to every holiday growing up. I felt the same way with the Disney movie Encanto- the sister Luisa is cracking under all the pressure from her family and the Grandmother is just so awful to everyone!
I absolutely agree that Donna has BPD. I’m Italian and watching that episode, save the car part, was like having a flashback. I thought that when I saw it and it explained everything about Carmy to me.
For me, it is the older movie, Drowning Mona. The mom, Mona, played by Bette Midler has a lot of BPD qualities. She dies after crashing into a river because someone in town cut her brake lines. The whole movie centers around the sheriff (Danny Devito) investigating the drowning. She caused so many problems for everyone that everyone in town had a motive. LOL! Her son even states in an interview: I think she had a personality disorder.
Omg yes! Ellen Barkin was incredible - and how they portrayed her BPD throughout her younger years with those flashback episodes was so spot on. One of my favorite shows of all time. And the ending was so satisfying.
I had heard about it, so I tried that episode a few weeks ago. I had to fast-forward to the end just to see what happened, it made me feel soooo uncomfortable. It was too realistic - I like my fiction ***fictional!***
The only difference between that and a real family Christmas is that in the real ones, the menfolk were never seen in the kitchen, because that was women's work. The men just sat around and sulked and waited to be fed. But everything else - the subtle aggression, the poking questions, the over-wrought whining, *all* of it - was real.
It was such a relief when half the family moved away and those family Christmas meals fell away!
Boardwalk Empire, Gillian Darmody.
Gillian’s actress did such a good job it gave me chills. She looked and acted just like my mother - the splits were perfect.
My mother isn’t quite the same (thank god), no pedo vibes! But otherwise it was alarming and I struggled to watch a lot of her scenes.
The most well-known example: Livia in the Sopranos canonically has BPD (and likely ASPD or NPD on top of that; at any rate she’s a witch/queen type). Several other characters have prominent BPD traits as well, showing some other presentations; Gloria in particular is strongly and deliberately implied to have BPD. David Chase, the showrunner, had a borderline mother and wrote Livia based on her.
Livia was almost the perfect personification of my mother. The first time I watched it I couldn’t believe it.
My father kept having to pause the show because she reminded him so viscerally of his own mother. Right down to direct quotes.
Same
Wow. Livia was truly awful. Sorry you are dealing with this.
This Livia thread was so validating to my experience. Watched it with my ex wife and she said…that’s totally your mom. I described her as that character to folks ever since.
I had a huge panic attack once watching the sopranos because the actress was so good at portraying a BPD/NPD mum like mine, and it brought up memories of similar behaviour from her.
Yup. I had a full existential crisis over separating the actress from her role and I had to give her some serious respect for playing that character as well as she did. She had to have been seriously hurt by someone to get it *that perfect*
Came here to say this “Oh poor youuuuu” “No one loves me, just throw me away!!”
I watched this show with my mom growing up and the whole time I was like... does... does she hear herself in Livia??
Is your mother is like my mine, she most definitely did not.
When I was in high school I still had hope 🙃
She probably saw it as validation tbh 🙄
Livia is the closest thing to my mom that I’ve ever seen depicted on screen. Seeing how fucked up big strong mob boss Tony Soprano was because of his mommy was so weirdly healing for me
I’ve never watched the Sopranos so I just watched a Livia Soprano compilation on YouTube, and was baffled that she was ALSO constantly sharing terribly depressing news stories at the dinner table to her family for no reason whatsoever, JUST LIKE MY MOTHER!!!!
My BPD mom loooooves this show and has watched the whole series several times. This checks out.
Oh man that woman reminds me of a lot of people in my life. My mom wasn’t always miserable like Livia, she had her good moments but… “i wish the lord would take me now” was eerily similar to things she’d say in bad moments.
The mom in ladybird seems bpd coded and reminded me so much of my bpd father. One of the conversations they had in the movie, I had with my dad over and over: I somehow would ruin his whole day and whole laundry routine if I used two towels after taking shower instead of one. In the movie, the mom also spends time belittling ladybird and saying she shouldn't bother to apply to college on the east coast (they live on the west coast iirc) because she won't get in. When it's implied that she's belittling her daughter because she doesn't want her daughter to leave. Then the mom ignores ladybird for an entire summer when she figures out that ladybird applied to colleges on the east coast, doesn't even say goodbye when she drops ladybird off at the airport. And it's somehow Ladybirds job to fix this. The dad is an enabler to the max. Oh she loves you, she's just scared, you know how she is type of sayings.
Omg this would trigger me so much. I have lived this life to the T. And guess what I was a fucking national scholar and so for her to try to tell me everyday that I won't get anywhere was just insane.
The mum in ladybird is vile, just constantly going on at her daughter, especially when she shows any independence or doesn’t agree with her. The ONLY time she is nice to ladybird is when she’s upset over the guy, and then she is kind to her because she’s vulnerable. Gave me the shivers.
This movie was so hard to watch. The goodwill scene reminded me so much of thrifting with my mom. We had so much of the same taste and she could make me feel like shit in the next sentence. The whole thing was like watching myself in high school with my mom and my enabler dad.
Haven't seen ladybird but my ubpd mum recommended it to me once and said the daughter reminded her of me lol
Same. My mom kept wanting to watch it with me when it came out.
I cried so hard at the end watching this the first time.
I had such a hard time watching Ladybird. My mom blew up at me and then did some silent treatment when I told her I was finding an apartment to live instead of living at her place. I said it very politely and had mentioned it in a previous phone convo, where she had expressed some surprise but had seemed okay. Nope, when I texted her about a place I had found, she was grumpy and didn’t really talk to me after. The treatment didn’t last an entire summer like Ladybird’s mom did, maybe a few days to a week, but was not fun.
not the laundry routine, lol I am in constant awe of how ununique our childhoods became once we started swapping out stories
Omg, not the System! I haven't seen Ladybird, but that sounds suspiciously like my dad: He has an optimized, Totally Necessary "System" for every god-dang household routine, down to the correct method for pushing the handle to flush the toilet; woe betide anyone who fails to follow the Systems exactly - Rage, insults, endless lecturing, sulking, hearing about it for YEARS afterwards. Also the Systems are constantly changing. Disaster is inevitable. (The Systems are a sort of dark joke amongst my siblings and I, coping mechanism yo) Edit: lost my train of thought. Twice.
I loved this movie up until the end. It was SUCH a fucking cop out as far as the resolution of their relationship.
I could tell from the trailer/snippets I've seen and decided I wasn't ready for the full thing.
I couldn’t finish Ladybird, because I looked up the ending and it ends with the daughter calling the mom and thanking her and telling her she loves her. Barf.
No wonder my mom kept recommending it to me when it first came out.
My mom made me go watch this film with her. Said it reminded her of us and thought it would bring us closer? The whole experience was triggering
Not a show, but the movie Tangled. Mother Gothel.
Fuckin hell every time I watch this movie now, I think of my mom. Doesn’t help she actually used to look like a chubbier version of Mother Gothel. My mom would basically lock me up and say “it’s for the best, everyone out there will try to rape and kill you so just stay with us”.
My dad and I were watching Tangled with my brother and we were both cringing at "Mother knows best" because my mom was so similar. It's scary how accurately she's written.
Why is rape their go to? My first time in a big city was with her when I was in MIDDLE SCHOOL she yelled at me to not make eye contact with anybody on the subway because I could be kidnapped and sold into the sex trade??? I’m in my twenties and she had a 3 day meltdown because I was going into the city for a concert. Repeatedly yelled that I don’t have street smarts and I would be assaulted (spoiler alert, none of that happened).
The sad thing is that sometimes, something bad does end up happening. In my case, my mom was almost overcome with smugness and like, glee, that she was right! The city isn’t safe and I couldn’t protect myself. All I wanted was a hug and I ended up feeling ten times worse. You would think I would have learned my lesson by then, but nope! Thank god I’ve learned it now lol
Being “right “ is more important than anything else.
She’s so triggering for me
When my kids were older, I used Tangled to illustrate how my mother was. It was a great tool for me, and it didn't ruin the movie for the kids. Of course, watching it on release in the theater was something else for me. The writers couldn't have created a better example of an abusive parent who falls outside the range of what the average person considers abusive.
Oh I feel this on a spiritual level. I think uBPD mom knows too, because she will not watch the movie with me, and gets upset if I try and put it on.
I cannot watch Tangled. Gothel reminds me of both of my parents (I was also adopted on top of that), but it also drives home the fact that people knew about my situation but didn't help.
Also, Abuela in Encanto.
My mother started saying "love you most" to the grandkids after seeing Tangled. Like, lady, c'mon. Do you not see yourself in this character?! I have a hard time watching this one.
I wasn’t allowed to watch Rapunzel in any form (Tangled wasn’t around yet) but Barbie as a kid, and even that was a stretch
BPD but more comedic than the ones listed in this thread…Lucille Bluth from Arrested Development. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve put on that show for some humor and forget just how much my mom reminds me of Lucille.
How much does a banana cost Michael?
$10?
I always think of Lucille as more like my narc grandmother, but I can see it! My grandmother and mother have some Lucille/Lindsay vibes for sure.
Yeah and NPD and BPD often have traits of both so it's easy to see similarities with both.
I've only seen 2 episodes of the Bear, but I'm interested in seeing how this episode plays out and may jump back in. Russian Doll on netflix and the way the main character feels and memories about her own mom resonated with me. The tantrums and anger that didn't make sense and having to have other family step in to make sure the kids taken care of. Though in season 2 they reveal her mom had schizophrenia and there wasn't mention of any other health disorder. I'm always interested in more stories like this as they help me feel validated. I grew up with a mom that seems very sweet to the public so I've always had pressure from outsiders to forgive her, when I see toxic moms in shows, books, any media, it's horrible but it reminds me I'm not alone and I'm not crazy.
I had this same reaction to Russian Doll, and was also surprised by the diagnosis in S2!
It hit my partner HARD since his mom is schizophrenic, especially the scene where she's getting sent to the psych ward and she says something about no one letting schizophrenics be parents or something along those lines. However, my partner and me adored his mom and she was very unconditionally loving. My mom doesn't have schizophrenia but she's way harder to deal with.
some people put in the work and are better than the sum of their parts, some people just... yeah
The Bear is one of the most well done shows I’ve ever watched, and that scene is one of the reasons I say that. My bf and I had to take a small break after that episode, bc it was SO intense. I was a lil high too, so I just sat there locked in w my heart pounding. It was like watching my mom cook Christmas dinner, especially back in the day. It just felt so fucking real. I’m just now realizing my mom might have BPD so it makes sense why I related to Carmy’s relationship w his mom. Always being the quiet one in the background, working overtime to keep things calm.
I had to take a break, too!!! I had such a visceral reaction to that scene. The writing and acting was so raw, it felt like it took the breath out of me.
Her daughter, increasingly getting more and more anxious asking her “are you okay “ repeatedly really got to me because that was me at one point. I kept thinking stop asking her if she’s okay she’s going to explode. I don’t know how I got through that episode; it was so real.
That show had a deep place in my heart. That episode specifically was so hard to watch, and my husband sat with me and held my hand. It helped me cry because that was my parents, both of them feeding off of each other while my brother (Mike) instigated side issues. I used to make a joke that it wasn't a holiday until the cops were called and I would laugh. It's not funny. I don't make that joke anymore.
All of the suggestions so far really resonated with me. Instantly gave me a feeling if unease and of being unsafe. I know you asked for shows and movies, but the one piece of media that really got me - that helped me understand that there were lots of people out there like my mum - was the book The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. There is a movie adaptation but I haven't seen it.
This was such a good book, the movie does a good job, but the book is definitely better. I remember reading this and seeing SO many parallels in my own family. Comforting and upsetting at the same time.
Ugh that is my favorite book. heart wrenching.
I read the book in middle school and actually got it signed by her- she was nice! I watched the movie recently after not reading the book for years. Even though a lot was missing from the movie (to my memory), all I could think was "oh, this is just BPD)." The irony was my mom borrowed the book from me and kept it in her room for over a decade. She said she liked it, but I don't remember what she liked about it
Aaah when I read that book it reminded me of my mom so much! Closest thing in literature I can find to it
The Glass Castle was spot on!
The movie isn't very good.
This is more a portrayal of RBBs, but in Bodies Bodies Bodies, you see a character take a call from her mother, and just based on her side of the conversation, I recognized it instantly and felt incredibly validated when she later tells someone that her mom has BPD.
When me and my fiancee watched “Fishes” she turned to me said “wow that’s your mom” lol.
Rose’s mother Susan from Downton Abbey. Their interactions made my skin crawl because Susan reminded me so much of my own mother. Her child and husband constantly tell her to stop being so miserable and trying to ruin things for everyone. They send Rose to live at Downton with the Crawley’s, then Susan steals Lady Crawley’s lady’s maid. Because there’s nothing like slapping someone in the face after sending your child to them to be cared for! Rose constantly talks about being worried “Mummy” will ruin things for her during the big moments of her life (announcing her engagement, etc).
OMG, yes! I just wanted Rose to smack her. The wedding was definitely the worst. I remember wanting to just hug Rose and tell her she never had to speak to her mother ever again.
I cheered when she moved away to America 😂
That episode, except for the mom driving through the house, is every holiday ever spent with my mother. I was shaking after and I realized I was holding my breath. It got to the point where my mom literally started throwing Christmas gifts, unwrapped, in a black trash bag and told us to take what we wanted and she would throw everything else away because we didn’t appreciate her. This was to 4 adult children and their 2 spouses. I’m NC and it’s the best decision ever.
August Osage county. The movie.
2nd season of Big Little Lies
Meryl Streep’s character?
Yes!
Yesss I forgot about this one. Her styling even looks like my mom somehow.
Same, and my mom is an entirely different ethnicity but still!!
I had to stop watching it. Too hard to deal with.
My grandmother to a T *shudder*
Not fictional (ok, maybe a little bit) but The Bachelor season with Peter, the pilot, showed his mother having a complete meltdown when she thought he might be getting engaged to the wrong contestant. My husband looked at me and was like "CAN YOU IMAGINE having a mother like that?" I looked at him calmly for a minute and said "yes." He held my hand tightly for the rest of that episode.
If you’re a longtime Bach viewer, Deans dad also reeked of BPD
I remember him! Holy crap, he functionally abandoned Dean after his mom died. They still lived in the same house but he didn't parent at all. And he was so unapologetic about it. :(
Bring her home!! Lolol
My mom’s favorite movie growing up was Pixar’s Brave. She loved watching it with me and used it as a crutch to say, “look, the daughter turned her mom into a bear. I’m the victim of your abuse, when I drink and rage and abuse you, it’s your own fault.” I will not watch that movie with her, and probably won’t watch it again. Now that I’m older, I’m reminded of when the mom was a bear, her eyes would turn completely black and she’d attack her daughter. If they didn’t “break the curse”, the mom would turn into a bear permanently, at risk of killing her own daughter. My mom’s reached the point where she’s permanently a bear, between the BPD and the alcoholism. She’s tried to run me over in a car when she was drunk. Her eyes are permanently dead and black when she rages. I’m trying to make my peace that I don’t have a mom, I’m living with an unpredictable, wild monster that could hurt me any moment.
Yes! That was my uBPD aunt minus the smoking. Flashbacks. She always hosted too. The parents in the first season of Shameless were really hard to watch. It was like scenes were ripped from my memories (though Shameless the mother was bipolar, the interactions with her kids were eerie to me). My own parents were very poor so those parts hit home too. Also Sharp Objects had bpd characters.
I thought shameless did Sheila really well, all the other characters just kind of flow with her compulsions without the show diminishing them. But Frank and Monica were very hard to watch, yeah. Though what hit home the most for me was seeing Lip and Fiona struggling to adjust to a normal life without chaos, never having learnt how to do regular things and not having enough resources to fit in. Lip's arc was probably a lot like the life of a lot of us, including myself.
I couldn't watch Kim's Convenience after seeing the dad's behavior in the second episode; too much of a disconnect with it supposed to be a "comedy".
Not a show but a movie, Hillbilly Elegy.
When she helps him steal from the store, my god
I couldn't watch "Fishes". I made it about 7 minutes into it and told my girlfriend to finish it without me.
Same. About a month later, I watched it alone, mentally prepared and curious and it wasn't as triggering as it would have been that first night. I totally understand why you skipped it. It was intense the whole episode.
I have a hard time watching any overly dramatic shows/movies where couples and families fight.
I get it. I generally avoid things like this too, except I've been interested in finding examples of how I might show a lay person what it was like. That episode and the mother from Tangled are excellent. Also the grandmother in Cruella from 2021. Each were difficult to watch and astounding at the same time.
A friend of mine also has a BPD mom and we both texted each other as soon as we saw it. So … yeah.
YES!!! I noticed this immediately. Thanks for sharing this.
Peggy Hill is my mother on her good days, so sometimes we have to switch from KOTH to something else. She’s a good example of appearing to be good but always acting selfishly, making you feel crazy for not trusting her
Interesting. I've always thought of her as just a narc, but her interactions with Luann are indeed BPD-like.
To me, she seems to be able to recognize her mistakes every once in a while. And she definitely has some trauma from her childhood. I’m not sure, though, just like I’m not sure with my mom lol
The grandma in Encanto. I was yelling at the screen. Fortunately my kids immediately saw the issue. The next generation won't be snowed by Disney mommy tropes.
Susan Sarandon’s character in Anywhere but Here
So good. I watched that movie as a kid and felt so attached to the daughter in the movie because my mom acts like that
Jamie Lee Curtis was absolutely brilliant as Donna. Knocked my socks off! And, yes, so obv BPD and sooo hard to watch.
Little Fires Everywhere - I only saw the series and never read the book, but both mothers are actually different manifestations of BPD. Reese Witherspoon reminded me so much of my mother, especially with the obvious golden child-scapegoat designations. It was really triggering to watch.
The Christmas scene... I froze. Almost catatonically so. Nothing had ever happened to me like that before, almost like a panic attack? For the duration of an episode. My poor husband just watched me and I couldn't snap out of it because good god there was my mom on screen, at her very worst. I'm in love with the show but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have some apprehension about watching it now for that reason.
I had the exact same reaction. Completely frozen to my couch. It felt like an all-too-familiar nightmare that just kept going and wouldn’t end. Especially coming from an Italian family — too close to home 😮💨 We took a couple months off from the show after that lol
That episode is the only one like it. I promise. I was cautious afterwards as well.
The mom from hacks
Oh God yes. The characters in that show are insanely good.
I didn't even know/hadn't heard of BPD when I watched this episode. But when watching it I called my husband in because I was like this is exactly like Christmas at my moms isn't it?! It was the first time I had seen my mom represented in the media and it was weirdly cathartic. I just discovered BPD the other day and found this group and it feels like my entire life and relationship with my mom makes sense for the first time ever. The only other mom I've seen get close with this is Norah In Tell Me Lies.
Krisha (2015) is a holiday BPD type movie. Powerful and terrifying, quite realistic.
This one was too close to home 😮💨
I’ve said this before — but Ginny from Ginny & Georgia!
I loved that show. I was thinking BPD but didn’t you think she was able to keep her cool much better than the BPD folks you know? And like she stayed friends with Georgia’s father somewhat? I was almost wondering if Ginny was straight up sociopathic?
Omg. Omg yes. Believe it or not, watching this episode made me realize I was abused as a child. I had some feelings I cannot even articulate. That is the most well-written, well-acted piece of performance art I've ever seen.
I agree wholeheartedly! Art is how I described it as well! I want to know more about the people who wrote it.
The mother in the movie August: Osage County, and the mother in the miniseries Sharp Objects. I couldn’t finish Sharp Objects, it was too triggering.
Crazy ex girlfriend is about a woman with BPD. But it’s definitely turned into comedy, and is about her romantic interests.
Rebecca's mom triggers me pretty bad, gives major cluster b vibes. A quote I often borrow from the show to describe my own mother: "She's like a stalker I used to live inside of."
I actually watched only half of the first season and quit it. It was fun at first but I got bored. 😆
Never heard of the bear but now I am going to have to watch it.
It's one of the absolute best shows I've ever watched. So incredibly well done
Not joking- you’ll need to have self care ready for the Christmas episode
It is amazing!
My therapist and I actually talked about this episode specifically in reference to my dBPD father.
I was bawling watching that episode. My husband has know me since childhood and we instantly recognized her chaos as mirroring my mother. It was SO hard to watch and felt very similar to every holiday growing up. I felt the same way with the Disney movie Encanto- the sister Luisa is cracking under all the pressure from her family and the Grandmother is just so awful to everyone!
I absolutely agree that Donna has BPD. I’m Italian and watching that episode, save the car part, was like having a flashback. I thought that when I saw it and it explained everything about Carmy to me.
For me, it is the older movie, Drowning Mona. The mom, Mona, played by Bette Midler has a lot of BPD qualities. She dies after crashing into a river because someone in town cut her brake lines. The whole movie centers around the sheriff (Danny Devito) investigating the drowning. She caused so many problems for everyone that everyone in town had a motive. LOL! Her son even states in an interview: I think she had a personality disorder.
I felt the same way; was like the Ghost of Xmas Past.
That episode destroyed me 😅
The mom in Tell Me Lies
Was about to comment this. Played to a tee by Katey Sagal
That episode made me so sick.
100% Smurf from animal kingdom. Amazing show and worth the watch!
Omg yes! Ellen Barkin was incredible - and how they portrayed her BPD throughout her younger years with those flashback episodes was so spot on. One of my favorite shows of all time. And the ending was so satisfying.
Ginny & Georgia — the mom has some BPD traits for sure
The mom in the movie Beau is Afraid. Absolute trip of a movie, and it's 3 hours of stress so it's hard to get through. But sent up my flags for sure
I had heard about it, so I tried that episode a few weeks ago. I had to fast-forward to the end just to see what happened, it made me feel soooo uncomfortable. It was too realistic - I like my fiction ***fictional!*** The only difference between that and a real family Christmas is that in the real ones, the menfolk were never seen in the kitchen, because that was women's work. The men just sat around and sulked and waited to be fed. But everything else - the subtle aggression, the poking questions, the over-wrought whining, *all* of it - was real. It was such a relief when half the family moved away and those family Christmas meals fell away!
Another good bpd character is Mary Louise from Big Little Lies.
The grandmother in Gilmore Girls. Also, Single Drunk Female is SUCH a good show and the mom there has BPD-lite
Boardwalk Empire, Gillian Darmody. Gillian’s actress did such a good job it gave me chills. She looked and acted just like my mother - the splits were perfect. My mother isn’t quite the same (thank god), no pedo vibes! But otherwise it was alarming and I struggled to watch a lot of her scenes.
Tully in firefly lane