BPDFamily.com

Today my mother was talking about my deceased dad.  She said "When I think about him and miss him I always picture him as a young sailor. I never think of him as an older man."  I think it is because as a younger man he was quite handsome and she has always been quite fond of her looks and seems to believe she is still quite a looker (at 86) which she isn't.  Once something has exceeded it's usefulness to her she is done with it.  My dad became terminally ill and she just shut down all feelings about him and shipped him to a nursing home.  When he died she walked out of his room and told one of the people passing by "the kids are in there with the corpse". He hadn't been dead five minutes and that is how she referred to him.  Yes, she was in love with the young sailor but the man he grew up to be just didn't interest her.

Do you see any narcissistic traits in your mother? I ask because sometimes people with BPD have NPD traits as well, and wanting to be associated with young, attractive, and desirable people rather than... .well, elderly feeble people is not unusual in people with NPD.

Is it possible that your mother is detaching? Since BPD is really a deep-rooted fear of abandonment and a death is an abandonment of sorts, it's possible that your mother is overwhelmed.

She certainly has those traits as well as BP. My father passed away ten years ago and she detached from him emotionally long before his death. She was "done" with him when he got an Alzheimer's diagnosis.