Severly uBPD Mom

[czarsmom]

Hello guys,

I am an infrequent poster to this board. 

My mom is a very severe borderline witch/queen.  I experienced physical abuse, total neglect, and extremely severe verbal and emotional abuse from her, which was especially bad I was a teenager.  For years, she did nothing to me but pour the most vile, vitriolic, intense, hatred and scorn upon me.  I was also made to stay in the basement at all times and not allowed to come upstairs except for suppertime, when she did fix supper.  I was one of four girls, and the scapegoat.  Other than care for my basic physical needs, but neglecting my medical issues, she has not given me one iota of emotional support, and did not spend even one minute teaching me anything about life or life skills, or people skills.  I have Asperger Syndrome and had terrible social skills growing up which caused me a great deal of abuse and teasing from kids and teachers in school, and much bullying at work.  Instead of trying to help me, she just mocked at me and made fun of me for my awkwardness and just added to the pain and misery.

When I was a teen, she forced me to stay home every Saturday, and made me spend the entire day doing chores around the house and yard - to the extreme that I had to scrub this large breezeway with many glass louvres windows with literally hundreds of gears on them each individually with a toothbrush. All the while she'd be yelling at me that I wasn't doing it right, etc.  You know how it goes.

I'm now 53, and my mom has never admitted that she has ever been in the wrong or apologized.  In spite of me bending over backwards to try to please her, make her happy, and be the perfect daughter during my teen years, she always saw me as this horrible person.   After I moved out from living with her, she turned everything totally around and told the entire family that I was the vicious abusive person that had hurt her, and brainwashed them and turned the rest of the family against me.  None of my family came to my wedding because i didn't allow my mom to have complete control of my own wedding, even though my husband and I were paying for it.  None of them, except one sister, would speak to me for over a year after our wedding.

Now, my 3 sisters are all enablers, and in total denial, and insist on pretending that she never hurt me.  They all have a very codependent relationship with her.   

The other day, she leaves this pathetic message on my cell phone voicemail, on my birthday.  She first wishes me a happy birthday, then proceeds to go into a lengthy explanation about how my sister and her husband and oldest son spent the whole entire day at her house doing all these chores for her around her place.  And then, to complain that aside than that, she is in her house, all be herself, all alone, all the time. 

Instead of feeling guilty, I actually felt somewhat vindicated, although I was annoyed at the very manipulative nature of the message.  I thought to myself, mother, YOU are the reason that you are all alone.  You have alienated everyone with your hateful, controlling, manipulative, abusive ways.  I am pretty sure she wants to make me feel guilty, and like I should run over there and rescue her.  You know what?  That phone message only makes me want to limit my contact with her even more.  My mom is so, so pathetic.  When we were teens, more than once we all (my 3 sisters and I) kindly sat her down and asked her to seek psychological help, and she refused to do so.  So now, this is the natural CONSEQUENCE of her own behavior over all these years.  She is now 78 years old. 

When my disabled father was alive, all she did was complain about him, and what a burden he was to her.  Now that he has gone from this world, she cries and complains about how alone she is.   

I just can't be around her or her negativity.  She is so very toxic.  I see her once in a while, but whenever one of my sisters come in town for a visit, the dysfunction seems to ramp up.  It really doesn't help that these sisters are all in denial, and all trying to rescue mom, and seem to feel so sorry for her, and they act like she really is a victim and that we should all bust ourselves trying to help her.  I just shake my head in how ridiculous and actually how pathetic and tragic this all is.

I'm very blessed in that I have a wonderful loving and supportive husband who made a special mothers day for me today.  I have 2 great sons who are turning out well, because I put them first in my life, and made sure I was a loving and supportive mother to them.  I also have a very supportive helpful Al Anon sponsor that I spoke to about this at length yesterday, and she really validated and supported me.  I know that I'm not the one who is crazy, she is.

[Coral]

What a painful life you've lived.   Congratulations for making such a wonderful like for your husband, your sons and yourself. 

[czarsmom]

Coral, thank you so much for your validation and support.  It means a lot to me.

Jennifer

[mywifecrazy]

God bless yo czarsmom. You have been through hell and have managed to come out on the other side a healthy person who is now in a good relationship and has a loving family.  It sound to me that your Mom is still miserable and your sisters are in a very unhealthy relationship with her.

Have you ever thought of going complete no contact with them all? Just a thought as it sounds like a world you would never want to go back to.

Thanks for sharing your story. It's nice to hear that you have survived your ordeal!

[czarsmom]

Hello mywifecrazy,

Only through many years of hard work in therapy, Al Anon, and doing lots of grief work.  Most of all my faith in Jesus Christ.

Yes, I consider going NC now and then. (I've had several periods in the past where I was NC with my mom.)  However, now we have a pretty civil relationship that is quite limited.  My 2 boys just lost their other 3 grandparents over the past 2 years.  The backlash of going NC now would just be much worse than the little bit of stress of being LC.  On the occasion she does get critical, I confront her and she shuts up.  

I do still have a lot of pain and grief inside me that resurfaces at times.  How do I heal from this?

[mywifecrazy]

Hello mywifecrazy,

Only through many years of hard work in therapy, Al Anon, and doing lots of grief work.  Most of all my faith in Jesus Christ.

Yes, I consider going NC now and then. (I've had several periods in the past where I was NC with my mom.)  However, now we have a pretty civil relationship that is quite limited.  My 2 boys just lost their other 3 grandparents over the past 2 years.  The backlash of going NC now would just be much worse than the little bit of stress of being LC.  On the occasion she does get critical, I confront her and she shuts up.  

I do still have a lot of pain and grief inside me that resurfaces at times.  How do I heal from this?

Amen Czarsmom... . It's my faith in Jesus that is getting me through my ordeal with my uBPDxw. I don't know where I would be without my faith in him. Wait, yes I do... I would be in JAIL and my kids would not have their father. Thank God for my Church family, Divorce care family and most of all my Celebrate Recovery brothers and sisters. My faith has actually grown through my ordeal and I'm a lot closer to God for this experience.  I still have a long ways to go because I'm still filled with hatred and resentment for my X and all that she's done and CONTINUES to do to hurt me and my boys... . BUT God is bigger than any mountain that I can or can not see!

I'm not sure how one fully recovers from being hurt but most likely it is when we can FULLY forgive that we will be FREE! It doesn't mean that those who have hurt us are not responsible for their actions but I believe forgiveness is about us letting go of seeking revenge and justice and putting that in Gods hands and letting him deal with it. If we can do that (easier said than done) we will be free of the control that hatred has over us.

God bless you czarsmom. Your post made my day as I was in high anxiety mode over my uBPDxw's actions over this Mother's Day weekend. Thank You!

[czarsmom]

mywifecrazy, I've forgiven in the sense that I've given up wanting to seek revenge, or pay her back for what she did.  I don't have that huge mountain of rage inside me anymore, nor the resentment.  I actually think she is a very tragic, pathetic woman.  I think it's more that I'm still working through the grief, hurt, sadness, loss.  I do feel way better today than when I wrote the original post of this thread.  I've received some very wonderful support from my husband and a close friend.

[mywifecrazy]

mywifecrazy, I've forgiven in the sense that I've given up wanting to seek revenge, or pay her back for what she did.  I don't have that huge mountain of rage inside me anymore, nor the resentment.  I actually think she is a very tragic, pathetic woman.  I think it's more that I'm still working through the grief, hurt, sadness, loss.  I do feel way better today than when I wrote the original post of this thread.  I've received some very wonderful support from my husband and a close friend.

Well I must say that you are an inspiration to me. To hear that YOU were able to let go of the hatred after all that you have been through means there's hope for me and that someday (hopefully soon) I will get to that light at the end of the tunnel. If I can continue to focus on God and my faith in Jesus I'm sue I'll get there too.

I'm so happy to read your story and so glad that you and your family are doing well.

[czarsmom]

@mywifecrazy,

Here is what I did to let go of the anger and rage and hate I had trapped inside me.  I had to really let it out.  I had to express it somehow, but NOT to her.  I wrote many, many letters filled with anger, hate, cussing, wishing she were dead, etc.  What I did was, I wrote down EXACTLY how I felt in that instant, without judging myself for it.  Even if it was pure hate and saying you b*tch, I wish you were dead.  Even if I just wrote over and over and over again "b*tch".  My therapist then had me tear up the letter into a bunch of small pieces.  The anger actually came out in a physical way, while I was tearing up the letter into little pieces.  Or, I would actually burn the letter, and think of that burning as a symbol of the hate inside me being purged and burned away.  I also got a large piece of graphite from an art store, and a huge piece of paper, and scribbled as hard as I could, for as long as I needed to.  Another thing I did, was write "mom" on a small piece of paper and taped it to the bottom of my shoe, and then I would stomp my feet over and over, and pretend I was stomping on her.  That physical outlet is very helpful.  In a way, our hate and rage is actually physically stored in the cells of our body, and this gets it out. 

For stuff like this, I needed to do much more than just state a trite prayer of forgiveness. I really needed to face up to and express all of the intense emotions that had been trapped inside of me all those years, that I was never allowed to express.  I can't tell you what a relief it was, and is, to be free of that overwhelming rage and anger that was inside of me.

And then, only after I had expressed all of that powerful emotion inside of me, would I then pray a prayer of forgiveness, asking Jesus to really cleanse and purify me of all the hate and bitterness. It really works.  

[mywifecrazy]

@czarsmom. It's weird. I was with this woman for 20 yrs and I did love her. I didn't come to Hate her until after I found out that she manipulated me and lived a double life the whole time. The hatred is new and growing. I WILL get through this but it's just so darn hard to let go because she is STILL doing things that are hurtful.

Thank God I started to see a therapist. I will share with him your ideas of how to let my anger out.

1 Peter 5:6-7. Letting go of anxiety!

[czarsmom]

mywife, I will be praying for you.  Definitely try those things I did, it really helped. 

Last night, my mom pulled a number on me, and I was stressed at first, but today, I just feel sorry for the woman, because she is pathetic and tragic.  I'm praying for her for peace.  She is a tormented soul.