BPDFamily.com

I know my mother is dead and I don't have to deal with her anymore, but her abusive temperament lives on in my head. When she was alive, I dealt with her on a action/reaction basis - never really having the time to evaluate my feelings, only having to deal with the last massive melodrama. I spent most of my time trying to calm down after the storm was over. When you feel like this, you don't want to go back over the mess, you just want it to go away, welcoming the return to normalcy.

I've been thinking about the week I decided to finally give her up and came to the realization that I finally had had it. At the time, I was very weak, scared and vulnerable. I needed someone to lean on that week, not an extra burden. To recap my NC moment, I was very sick. I had  (unknown to me) diverticulitis that was aggravated by stress - and I was under constant stress back then. One day, my bowel just broke, I was misdiagnosed and sent home. I went back to the hospital two more times - even visiting the doctor but no one caught it - even to the point of misdiagnosis. By the time I finally saw the surgeon - I was taken into the hospital near death. He pulled me back, operating on me for four hours to resect the bowel. He was my hero.

When I was finally out of the hospital, I called my mother in her nursing home. It was the day of the Fukushima disaster in Japan - 3/11/11. She got on the phone and seemed her usual ditzy self, but that was either her act or a result of the stroke - which was always questionable since she acted like that long before the stroke. I told her what happened to me and how I was feeling. I really needed her to sound concerned (as much as she could for her condition). I just needed my mom - you know how it is. But, low and behold, she was totally disconnected (as usual) - even a bit nasty when she responded, "Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself!" I looked at the wall for a few seconds, said to myself, "she's still in there", hung up and never called her again.

About a year later, she was taken to the hospital with pneumonia. They thought she was dying, so they called me. I made my arrangements to go up there (it was going to cost me a fortune and I would have had to pull my son out of college during mid-terms) so I talked to her doctor to get a feeling for the gravity of the situation before I made any plans. He said she was doing better and he thought that she would pull through. Finally, I asked him a serious question... ."did she ever ask for me... .did she ever refer to me or wonder where I was?" He said, "No. She never mentions you. She just keeps us laughing by telling us her stories about medical school and her accomplishments when she was a girl." I said... ."no... .she never went to medical school... .I did." He sounded stunned, then he said, "oh". I didn't go.

I never went back. Never spoke to her again. In the end, she finally became me. She didn't need me anymore, she just became me - usurped my life. It was over. I never looked back.

What was your "final straw"? What made you say, "Oh... .this is the end, no more." or have you gotten to that point yet?

I tried no contact several times and in the end I found a way to be around her with a very strong resolve and very high boundaries.  The first time I tried no contact was when she and my father kicked my brother out of their house. My father had Alzheimer's and my brother had left his life behind to move a thousand miles and try to help them. In an Alzheimer's rage my father told him to get out of the house and my BP mother joined in.  My brother came by my house with nothing and with a few essentials I gave him (a blanket, pots and pans, etc.) he left for his own home.  I was DONE and didn't see them for days.  When he was nearly home he called me from the road and asked if they had said anything about him.  I had to be honest (wish I hadn't). Mom had called many times, begging me to send him to their house. She was shaken to the core that he had gone home.  Upon hearing this he turned around and came back to them.  That was my first NC.

The second NC was after my brother's suicide.  He had given all he had to them and the day my dad died she again told him to go home.  He was destroyed because he had learned to love our dad after a lifetime of tension between them.  She sent him away again and I hated her for that.  He struggled on his own and one day he called an asked her for a loan to keep his apartment.  She declined.  He told her he would just have to take his life.  She laughed and said "Then you won't be needing my money."  She told me this.  He did take his life.

The third and final time (so far) was after she had suffered a broken neck. After surgery the hospital insisted she move in with me.  I had her in a hospital bed in my living room for six weeks.  I nursed her back to health.  One day I found someone who would sit with her a few hours a week and let me have a chance to do my errands.  When I told her this she went into the worst rage I had ever seen.  Her eyes were black like a shark.  She hissed every insult she could think of.  She hissed "Your are lazy, you were never nice to me, you didn't even want me here!"  She looked like she wanted to kill me. This was the first time my husband had ever seen one of her rages.  The next day I had her taken home.  We sold our home of 25 years and everything in it and moved an hour away.  I did not see her for three years.

I hope there is not another incident like that because being NC was extremely stressful to me. My stomach would churn every time she drove by my home or called.  I didn't pick up the phone but felt like I was hiding in my own home.  I prefer to talk with her about the weather and if she tries to go deeper I make an excuse and get off the phone. I can surely tolerate this until she is gone since she is nearly 90.  I hope.

Nevermore,

Your father reminds me of my uncle on my father's side. He pitched his son out of the house when he was 16 for not shoveling the walkway to his specifications. The poor kid was still in high school! He went to live with a friend until he could graduate, then left and moved many miles away. I think he joined the military (like all of his sisters). My uncle was downright scary. He threw his daughter, a cute little 5 year old girl, into a steel radiator for having the nerve to touch his pipe collection. She didn't hurt it, she just touched it. As an adult, she has seizures. My father and his brother were very violent drunks... .and what was so funny was that they didn't like each other!

It's as though it's their world and they will let us live in it if we do as they say.

My hat is off to you if you can still talk to your mother. After being beaten up for the last time, I just gave up. Before I made my decision, I asked my pastor and my therapist - both were in agreement. It was time to let her go before I ended up in the crazy house. There was just so much I could take before she would have sucked me dry.

There are certainly days when I regret being in contact but her inability to get to me like she once did makes it do-able.  My dad was a sad man. His mother died when he was a toddler so he raised himself. My mother pushed his every button and instead of dealing with her head on he took his anger and frustration out on me and my sibs. My brother got the worst of it by far. Along with missing the mother I never had I miss the father that could have been.  If he had been mothered?  If he had married a sweet woman?  Who knows what he might have been.   :'(   After the Alzheimer's meds kicked in he was a teddy bear and we grew to love him so much.  It is awful that it takes a fatal illness and resperidol to bring a sweetness out from inside a frozen heart.  At least we had that short time.