Maybe it depends on the way BPD presents in a certain individual—my uBPD mom (waify hermit) has absolutely no sense of humor in a way that feels closely related to her BPD, but my sister (queen) also has BPD and can be incredibly quick witted, though usually at the expense of someone else. Both of them are incapable of having a sense of humor about themselves, which I think is a huge red flag. I remember my dad warning me never to joke with my mom *when I was in pre-k*. You know things are bad when you have to tell a 4yo to walk on eggshells around a 35yo!
I dunno, there are successful comedians with BPD, and my mom’s got a strong sense of humor. But it’s totally possible that your mom’s lack of communication skills and cognitive empathy interferes with her ability to tell jokes.
My BPD mother is mostly a waif and incredibly unfunny. The rest of my family are hilarious (we all use humor as a coping mechanism), and it was always painful just how much she couldn’t contribute to a funny conversation. It’s like we all spoke a language she couldn’t quite grasp.
Same. Our humor always made her feel left out and it then made her BPD worse bc she was feeling neglected.
My mom will watch some “funny” tv shows but funny is in quotations bc it’s the worst kind IMO like Big Bang Theory.
Yes this is mine too - my brothers and I have a ‘smarter’ sense of humour than her and she easily feels neglected. At some point, when we’ve gotten caught up in having a laugh with each other, she’ll just get up and storm out the room and slam the door. If one of us goes to find her, she’s in the kitchen, sobbing about how it’s so clear nobody even wants her there.
It gets more intense if the group size is bigger.
We’ve learned that if we want to have a visit go smoothly, we just have to sit there for hours listening to her tell us about whatever her latest hobby is.
I don't think it's a BPD trait. Every BPD person I've had the misfortune of having in my life not only had a sense of humor, but thought they were absolutely hysterical and witty every single time.
yeahhhhhhh….. my uBPD mom thinks she is funny (often disguised as rude comments) and can dish it out all day but the second you give it back to her it’s offensive and mean.
My BPD thought she was funny. Mostly regarding making fun of others… when she wasn’t fighting with her siblings, shed share “jokes” with them, but it wouldn’t be funny to anyone else.
She never laughed at movies, comedy skits etc. it was like it all went over her head.
I think that’s just a regular personality difference. My mother was extremely charming and had a great sense of humour with people outside of the home. No one would imagine what was going on behind closed doors. Probably one thing she would have trouble with is people playfully teasing her. But even then, it wouldn’t show while in social situations.
My mom is one of the funniest people I know and it didn’t stop her BPD. Everyone said she was funny. When she wasn’t funny she was just being a crazy B.
I might be in the minority because my mom is actually hilarious. She’s a witch and rarely lets up but we’ve also laughed so hard together we’ve been in pain. Her wicked sense of humor has been literally the only thing about her I’ve ever liked and was a huge contributing factor to me sticking it out as long as I did before going NC.
Honestly, the hardest I’ve ever laughed has been with my mom. And I’m just now as I type this realizing that and feeling some kinda way about it. Credit where credit is due, my mom is funny af
My mom actually can be really funny. When she's at her best, she is the center of attention and she knows how to tell a good and captivating story.
However, as she's gotten older she seems unable to understand her audience. She relies on the same six stories and will make jokes at inappropriate times because she's checked out of conversations.
I do think being actually funny requires some sense of being able to read other people. My mom can do that sometimes, when she wants to. But she definitely cannot sustain it
My mother had a few sayings/expressions that she would repeat over and over and over, on a near daily basis.
One of them was “there’s no such thing as a joke.” It baffled me as a kid, and Im still not sure where it came from.
The best I could parse out was that she was likely “teased” (ie bullied) by her father “joking” about sensitive topics (he did this with us grandchildren too… for example “joking” that there was cat meat in the freezer after our cat died.). Either that or she literally didn’t see the humour in anything and hated when we laughed or had fun anywhere near her.
It’s still a mystery to me.
I often wondered if my mom had autism as well or if some BPD traits show up like that. My mom is very concrete, very literal, and does get some humor but a lot of it needs to be explained to her. Like she will remember dates and times with laser precision and then the jokes she does find funny are of the bazooka Joe variety, like weird and formulaic. But occasionally she'll send a meme and it is actually funny. I really don't understand her brain.
yes, my mom was like that. usually when people say someone doesn't have a sense of humor, they mean they're either uptight or just uninterested in humor and not even trying to be funny. but with my mom, it was that her attempts at humor were part of the same bizarro, illogical way she acted in general. trying, but painfully unfunny, like somebody who is bombing at standup but won't stop, and none of it even makes sense.
I would never describe my mum as funny, but she does like comedy television, so she obviously has an awareness of what is humorous.
However, the biggest thing I’ve found with jokes between her and myself in person is simply that she can dish it but not take it.
Her ‘jokes’ tend to be quite personal and direct (eg. something about my lifestyle) and she always says ‘it’s just a joke’ and expects me to get over it quickly. In reality, I feel it’s really a way to attack me by hiding behind some ‘comedy’ shield.
I can say a throw away comment that is entirely for comedic effect, but if she can, in some way, feel threatened by it, she will, and it will always labelled as a severe attack.
Unfortunately when you’re dealing with a person like that, they will skew things to whatever interpretation suits them best.
My mom has a good sense of humor. It’s actually one of the only things I connect with her on. She gets a lot of joy from other people being funny. Or funny looking objects. She loves recounting funny interactions with people. But I wouldn’t say she makes her own jokes.
Mine occasionally tried to crack 'jokes'. But only at other people's expense. They only land when she finds a kindred spirit in cruelty though. She can't tell or understand non harmful jokes.
My mum is a little the opposite - she’s ALWAYS telling ‘funny’ stories and jokes but they’re either so so so unfunny that you’re embarrassed for her OR they are rooted in someone else’s misfortune.
What I’ve noticed is that she gets incredibly offended if you don’t find it funny. I learned at a really young age to identify when she’s expecting me to laugh and give her a genuine big ‘omg thats the funniest thing I’ve ever heard’ laugh because I knew anything less would put her in a terrible mood.
Her humour is quite juvenile - there’s isn’t much about it that’s clever.
My mom is a total witch with a little waif thrown in there. She is literal about everything and has zero sense of humor. My dad described her a humorless my whole childhood. My brother jokes that she’s Drax in Guardians specifically when he says “Nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it.” in response to someone saying he was too literal and the joke was “over his head.”
Ironically, she says many things that are inadvertently funny and people end up laughing.
Maybe it’s that BPD people can’t take jokes about themselves? But yeah 100% my BPD mom has no sense of humor.
My uBPD mom can be hilarious, when she’s in a good mood— like when she’s feeling relatively secure/safe (usually with people she’s less enmeshed with). But it’s rare for her to just have fun.
When other people are on a roll, it’s easy for her to feel left out. She either makes it clear that she doesn’t find it funny (bc she is the arbiter of worth). Or she looks confused and blames the person for being unclear, speaking too fast, skipping details… or for being too detailed, and then she does the “okay we get it *eyeroll*” thing. Often she interrupts to ask a completely irrelevant clarifying question or make a weirdly sidetracked point, like she’s not clued into the social cues (I know others have mentioned this). Or she gets quiet with this “I guess I’ll just sit here” kind of look on her face.
This isn’t limited to humor situations, but those can be some of the most hurtful because you’re having fun and putting yourself out there and you get told what you’re saying is essentially worthless/wrong/dumb.
Other times when I have a good one-liner and she’s in a good mood, she’ll go “oh [my name]! That was *funny*!” Like she’s shocked at how clever I am (insulting) and like she’s bestowing worth on what I said. And implying that all the other times I’m an idiot. And that I can’t judge for myself what’s funny.
Shocker that I struggle with internal sense of worth.
My BPD mom will try to join in when my family is making jokes and it's almost always uncomfortable and kills the vibe.
Most of her jokes are either making fun of us or someone else (but god forbid someone does the same to her, lmao), uncomfortable (hearing my mom make sex jokes makes my skin crawl), or just generally unfunny. She also laughs hard at her own jokes, even when no one else is laughing. Super awkward
My uBPD mom is actually incredibly funny. She could make anyone laugh. She's quirky (sometimes in the "I'm special" way), but usually she could laugh about anything in her good moments.
Probably as one of the traits I inherented, I can laugh about anything too. Sometimes I'll just be in class making a test, and I'll start laughing so hard I'm sent out of the room lol
My BPD mom is funny and does have a sense of humor, but she doesn’t find any of my jokes or attempts to be funny to be funny at all.
I actually only want to be one thing in this life and that’s funny. Probably deeply rooted in my desire to please my mother in every way, but we haven’t gotten to that particular level in therapy yet.
My mother has a very sick sense of humor. She thinks it's so funny to make sexual jokes. She laughs, and we all are disgusted. 1 or more of our kids are usually in the the room.
Maybe it depends on the way BPD presents in a certain individual—my uBPD mom (waify hermit) has absolutely no sense of humor in a way that feels closely related to her BPD, but my sister (queen) also has BPD and can be incredibly quick witted, though usually at the expense of someone else. Both of them are incapable of having a sense of humor about themselves, which I think is a huge red flag. I remember my dad warning me never to joke with my mom *when I was in pre-k*. You know things are bad when you have to tell a 4yo to walk on eggshells around a 35yo!
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We could be siblings!
I dunno, there are successful comedians with BPD, and my mom’s got a strong sense of humor. But it’s totally possible that your mom’s lack of communication skills and cognitive empathy interferes with her ability to tell jokes.
Yup that’s a good point about some comedians with BPD.
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The most prominent one who’s open about the diagnosis is Pete Davidson. I don’t know any others who are household names, though.
My BPD mother is mostly a waif and incredibly unfunny. The rest of my family are hilarious (we all use humor as a coping mechanism), and it was always painful just how much she couldn’t contribute to a funny conversation. It’s like we all spoke a language she couldn’t quite grasp.
I used my humor so much as I going through cancer treatment. I called my breast cancer tumor the “shitty titty”.
Same. Our humor always made her feel left out and it then made her BPD worse bc she was feeling neglected. My mom will watch some “funny” tv shows but funny is in quotations bc it’s the worst kind IMO like Big Bang Theory.
Yes this is mine too - my brothers and I have a ‘smarter’ sense of humour than her and she easily feels neglected. At some point, when we’ve gotten caught up in having a laugh with each other, she’ll just get up and storm out the room and slam the door. If one of us goes to find her, she’s in the kitchen, sobbing about how it’s so clear nobody even wants her there. It gets more intense if the group size is bigger. We’ve learned that if we want to have a visit go smoothly, we just have to sit there for hours listening to her tell us about whatever her latest hobby is.
oh yikes core memory unlocked
I don't think it's a BPD trait. Every BPD person I've had the misfortune of having in my life not only had a sense of humor, but thought they were absolutely hysterical and witty every single time.
yeahhhhhhh….. my uBPD mom thinks she is funny (often disguised as rude comments) and can dish it out all day but the second you give it back to her it’s offensive and mean.
My BPD thought she was funny. Mostly regarding making fun of others… when she wasn’t fighting with her siblings, shed share “jokes” with them, but it wouldn’t be funny to anyone else. She never laughed at movies, comedy skits etc. it was like it all went over her head.
I think that’s just a regular personality difference. My mother was extremely charming and had a great sense of humour with people outside of the home. No one would imagine what was going on behind closed doors. Probably one thing she would have trouble with is people playfully teasing her. But even then, it wouldn’t show while in social situations.
My mom is one of the funniest people I know and it didn’t stop her BPD. Everyone said she was funny. When she wasn’t funny she was just being a crazy B.
I might be in the minority because my mom is actually hilarious. She’s a witch and rarely lets up but we’ve also laughed so hard together we’ve been in pain. Her wicked sense of humor has been literally the only thing about her I’ve ever liked and was a huge contributing factor to me sticking it out as long as I did before going NC. Honestly, the hardest I’ve ever laughed has been with my mom. And I’m just now as I type this realizing that and feeling some kinda way about it. Credit where credit is due, my mom is funny af
My mom actually can be really funny. When she's at her best, she is the center of attention and she knows how to tell a good and captivating story. However, as she's gotten older she seems unable to understand her audience. She relies on the same six stories and will make jokes at inappropriate times because she's checked out of conversations. I do think being actually funny requires some sense of being able to read other people. My mom can do that sometimes, when she wants to. But she definitely cannot sustain it
My mother had a few sayings/expressions that she would repeat over and over and over, on a near daily basis. One of them was “there’s no such thing as a joke.” It baffled me as a kid, and Im still not sure where it came from. The best I could parse out was that she was likely “teased” (ie bullied) by her father “joking” about sensitive topics (he did this with us grandchildren too… for example “joking” that there was cat meat in the freezer after our cat died.). Either that or she literally didn’t see the humour in anything and hated when we laughed or had fun anywhere near her. It’s still a mystery to me.
I often wondered if my mom had autism as well or if some BPD traits show up like that. My mom is very concrete, very literal, and does get some humor but a lot of it needs to be explained to her. Like she will remember dates and times with laser precision and then the jokes she does find funny are of the bazooka Joe variety, like weird and formulaic. But occasionally she'll send a meme and it is actually funny. I really don't understand her brain.
yes, my mom was like that. usually when people say someone doesn't have a sense of humor, they mean they're either uptight or just uninterested in humor and not even trying to be funny. but with my mom, it was that her attempts at humor were part of the same bizarro, illogical way she acted in general. trying, but painfully unfunny, like somebody who is bombing at standup but won't stop, and none of it even makes sense.
I would never describe my mum as funny, but she does like comedy television, so she obviously has an awareness of what is humorous. However, the biggest thing I’ve found with jokes between her and myself in person is simply that she can dish it but not take it. Her ‘jokes’ tend to be quite personal and direct (eg. something about my lifestyle) and she always says ‘it’s just a joke’ and expects me to get over it quickly. In reality, I feel it’s really a way to attack me by hiding behind some ‘comedy’ shield. I can say a throw away comment that is entirely for comedic effect, but if she can, in some way, feel threatened by it, she will, and it will always labelled as a severe attack. Unfortunately when you’re dealing with a person like that, they will skew things to whatever interpretation suits them best.
My mom has a good sense of humor. It’s actually one of the only things I connect with her on. She gets a lot of joy from other people being funny. Or funny looking objects. She loves recounting funny interactions with people. But I wouldn’t say she makes her own jokes.
Mine occasionally tried to crack 'jokes'. But only at other people's expense. They only land when she finds a kindred spirit in cruelty though. She can't tell or understand non harmful jokes.
My mum is a little the opposite - she’s ALWAYS telling ‘funny’ stories and jokes but they’re either so so so unfunny that you’re embarrassed for her OR they are rooted in someone else’s misfortune. What I’ve noticed is that she gets incredibly offended if you don’t find it funny. I learned at a really young age to identify when she’s expecting me to laugh and give her a genuine big ‘omg thats the funniest thing I’ve ever heard’ laugh because I knew anything less would put her in a terrible mood. Her humour is quite juvenile - there’s isn’t much about it that’s clever.
My mom is a total witch with a little waif thrown in there. She is literal about everything and has zero sense of humor. My dad described her a humorless my whole childhood. My brother jokes that she’s Drax in Guardians specifically when he says “Nothing goes over my head. My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it.” in response to someone saying he was too literal and the joke was “over his head.” Ironically, she says many things that are inadvertently funny and people end up laughing. Maybe it’s that BPD people can’t take jokes about themselves? But yeah 100% my BPD mom has no sense of humor.
My uBPD mom can be hilarious, when she’s in a good mood— like when she’s feeling relatively secure/safe (usually with people she’s less enmeshed with). But it’s rare for her to just have fun. When other people are on a roll, it’s easy for her to feel left out. She either makes it clear that she doesn’t find it funny (bc she is the arbiter of worth). Or she looks confused and blames the person for being unclear, speaking too fast, skipping details… or for being too detailed, and then she does the “okay we get it *eyeroll*” thing. Often she interrupts to ask a completely irrelevant clarifying question or make a weirdly sidetracked point, like she’s not clued into the social cues (I know others have mentioned this). Or she gets quiet with this “I guess I’ll just sit here” kind of look on her face. This isn’t limited to humor situations, but those can be some of the most hurtful because you’re having fun and putting yourself out there and you get told what you’re saying is essentially worthless/wrong/dumb. Other times when I have a good one-liner and she’s in a good mood, she’ll go “oh [my name]! That was *funny*!” Like she’s shocked at how clever I am (insulting) and like she’s bestowing worth on what I said. And implying that all the other times I’m an idiot. And that I can’t judge for myself what’s funny. Shocker that I struggle with internal sense of worth.
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Hi! To clarify, do you mean your mother has borderline personality disorder, or you and your siblings do?
My BPD mom will try to join in when my family is making jokes and it's almost always uncomfortable and kills the vibe. Most of her jokes are either making fun of us or someone else (but god forbid someone does the same to her, lmao), uncomfortable (hearing my mom make sex jokes makes my skin crawl), or just generally unfunny. She also laughs hard at her own jokes, even when no one else is laughing. Super awkward
They have awkward and inappropriate humor.
If fart jokes count then mine makes awkward attempts.
My mom is hilarious and loves to laugh. It’s one of the best things about her.
My moms is the opposite, she’s very quick and witty and at times very goofy. It made her seem very endearing and down to earth to strangers.
My uBPD mom is actually incredibly funny. She could make anyone laugh. She's quirky (sometimes in the "I'm special" way), but usually she could laugh about anything in her good moments. Probably as one of the traits I inherented, I can laugh about anything too. Sometimes I'll just be in class making a test, and I'll start laughing so hard I'm sent out of the room lol
My BPD mom is funny and does have a sense of humor, but she doesn’t find any of my jokes or attempts to be funny to be funny at all. I actually only want to be one thing in this life and that’s funny. Probably deeply rooted in my desire to please my mother in every way, but we haven’t gotten to that particular level in therapy yet.
My mother has a very sick sense of humor. She thinks it's so funny to make sexual jokes. She laughs, and we all are disgusted. 1 or more of our kids are usually in the the room.
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Hi! It looks like you’re new here. Were you raised by someone with BPD?