I see a severely borderline mother. A combination of the witch/queen personalities. Cindy is a complete control freak. She will lie to whomever, whenever it suits her. We have heard from friends of Casey that Cindy would berate Casey in front of them. Cindy has horrible boundaries (a major issue in BPD). This can be seen in her telling the cops what is relevant, who they can talk to, and her threats to not cooperate if they don't do as she dictates. Being outside with the protesters to me is another example of her boundary issues. I would bet my life savings that there are all levels of inappropriate behavior on Cindy's part (medication? drinking? shoplifting? all are common with BPD).
Children raised with dysfunctional borderlines don't develop a proper sense of self. Everything gets processed through the Cindy filter. Mother's with multiple children can split the kids into an all good kid and an all bad kid. I think we see some of that with Lee being the Mr. Fix of the family, and Casey living up to her label as well.
I see Casey growing up with a woman who tried to control everything, who had no boundaries with her friends and teachers, and who was a liar and a manipulator. There are different theories on what age we develop a moral code to live by, but Casey was most likely raised in a house were she was told to do one thing and watched behavior being modeled that contradicted everything she was told.
She learned to be a liar and a thief somewhere. BPDs often raise BPDs, whether that is environmental or genetic, or a one two punch, who knows. Casey seems to have gone past that though and be a sociopath.]
Heavily snipped to make room but read the whole post. It's very insightful!
I think this is a great assessment. She does remind me strongly of a couple of people I know well with BPD.
I also think GA fits with the type of husband many BPD people have: Not very effective, passive in his relationship with his wife, takes a back seat to ther moods, attitudes, etc. You described CA as fitting the profile of a witch and queen. Those are two of the most dangerous types of BPDs. Witch is the worst. Think of Mommy Dearest. Crawford fits the profile of a witch. Witches have been known to kill their kids or horribly abuse them. What I have learned is that people with the disorder can often have elements of all four types, to one degree or another. Waif and hermit are two other types, waifs acting the victim alot and using guilt to get what they want. I see CA as more of a waif and a queen, than a witch. I also think that BPD does not usually fit neat descriptions. For example, while I agree with your assessment, I also think, in line with many BPD mothers, that while CA may have put unrealistic expectations on casey, and also belittled her, never let her know what to expect by acting in an unpredictable manner, she also, at the very same time, treated casey as a princess, by buying her the best of everything, (both Abraham Lincoln's wife and Joan Crawford appeared to do this with their kids, grandkids in Mary Todd Lincoln's case), never admitting to others that her child could do any wrong, hiding her child's faults from others and telling her daughter that she was better than everyone else. So, I sense a childhood of conflicting messages for casey: On the one hand, a controlling, possibly punitive and highly critical mother, who kept casey on edge with a volatile temper and attitude, sometimes very loving and sometimes very angry, casey never knowing what mother she would have that day, and at the same time, a mom who taught her to lie, by lying herself to get casey out of trouble, and who taught casey that others are to blame for what casey does wrong and that casey is better than others. Although these behaviors may seem contradictory, to me they make perfect sense as I have witnessed these behaviors in the BPD's I know. Bottom line, only CA could criticize the child and tell her she's wrong but others were nuts or ultimately to blame if they did so: "Janie is a bad influence. You can't play with her anymore!" I think what CA likely did amounted to emotional abuse more than anything ( and this is all a guess based on CA's behavior throughout this case as well as my own research and personal experience). In the end, however, if casey's personality resulted from her upbringing, which I feel it did, she alone is responsible, IMHO, because as nutty as CA may be, she did not kill the baby. She's just trying to make sure that the picture she wants others to see of a perfect family, is not destroyed.
What I'd like to see now would be more descriptions from extended family and friends as to what the dynamic was in this household when LA and casey were growing up. Hopefully we'll get it.
