BPDFamily.com

Hello all,

I am glad to find this forum and am hoping you all might have some advice for a challenging situation I have with my mom.

Our family (my nuclear family, plus my mom and sister) had been planning a trip for the past 6 months, largely my mom's idea. We all agreed together on the location and I booked a condo on the beach. My mom was due to drive in on a Thursday, but Thursday evening she said she had just finished packing the car and would leave Friday. Overnight that night, she awoke in the middle of the night feeling she couldn't breathe and went to the ER. She was cleared by them. She claims that she was so sleep deprived that she literally stopped breathing. I suspect she had a panic attack (I am a physician so I do have some knowledge about the possible diagnoses), but she became angry when I suggested it may have been "emotional." (Could never say "panic attack" in front of her, it would be a huge trigger.) Having been in the ER the whole night, she was too tired to drive Friday, and we were supposed to leave Saturday, with her in our car. Since she was unable to get here, my sister and I offered to buy her a plane ticket, but she said that was totally impossible, and that she felt completely out of it, like she was walking around like a zombie, and really needed to get sleep. So she missed the whole week-long trip.

During the trip, she sent multiple extremely long text messages every day saying things like please send her pictures, be careful of the sharks, or sending various allusions to her and my dad's divorce and how much she detests his family (completely irrelevant to the situation in my perspective, although maybe family vacation= remembering dad to her). I could not bring myself to respond to her for about a week because I was so disappointed that she could not get her act together to make it to the vacation she had suggested and we had planned. Granted, my sister had already identified family vacations as a trigger for my mom, and told me several months before the trip that there was at least a 50% chance that mom would not show up... .she was right. In the ensuing 3 weeks since the trip, my mom has sent at least 2 emails most days, and sometimes up to 10 in one day. They have accused my sister and me of being selfish, unthoughtful, and uncaring about her life-threatening illness. She made a comparison between her episode (panic attack) and my grandmother's lethal battle with cancer, which caused my mom to cancel one of our family trips growing up. She truly feels that we were not there for her and should have offered to change plans to come to her instead of go to the condo we had rented (which was un-cancellable by the time she said she wasn't coming). She has said that at least she has her church friends and neighbors as a support structure. She feels that my lack of communication is akin to withholding my love -- really it is just my complete lack of ability to come up with something constructive to say that will not either be a further trigger or end up with me losing my temper and saying something terrible. Since she feels I have not been communicating, she has said the phrases "enough drama for this momma" at least 3 different times, and says how she is not going to be answering her phone or email. She turns off her voicemail and turns on autoresponse on email, only to send another email in 15mins. She also makes frequent reference to her and my dad's divorce, and her disgust for his family, comments which are unfair because they embroil me (once again) in a divorce from 7 years ago that was her idea but she can't let go. She also sends plenty of bible verses about love, and philosophical musings about the importance of love in one's life, and her emails and texts are full of smiley faces and winks -- the hypocrisy in all of it nauseates me.

The challenge with this is that mom had actually been doing quite well. She hasn't had many rages if any for at least the past year, and has been able to avoid belittling or insulting me for quite a while. Growing up, she always took out her anger on my dad. He was her verbal punching bag. My sister and I were largely spared until we were teens. I went away to college but came back to my hometown for grad school. However, my mom could not stay out of my professional life (she did things like go against my request to use my position to get special permission for my grandmother to get one of my mentors as her doctor, even though his panel was closed, and then pull this mentor into terrible family discord with regard to the care of my grandmother -- her mother-in-law). So now I live 8 hours away, which should seem far enough, except mom feels she is not getting enough support from me and I still feel that I cannot escape her manipulation, thanks to technology. I am actually not that upset anymore by mom's antics, as I acknowledge it is her issues and not mine that result in this hurtful behavior. However, I really think that it needs to stop, as I don't feel like I should have to deal with it. I have been reading about setting appropriate limits and defining boundaries, but I can't seem to find the answers I am looking for. How do I respond to my mom in a way that will put a stop to her twisted accusations?

As one option, my sister's response to the most recent emails was to say that her perspective differs from my mom's and that she is happy to discuss in family counseling if mom wants. I thought it was an excellent response that avoided he-said-she-said and blame (which never helps with mom) and made it clear that she was willing to come to the table. However, mom sent at least 5 emails in response saying she would never do that, how terrible therapists are (they just take sides), and how she is only willing to talk about this 1:1. She also said "if you don't feel safe talking with me about your feelings, perhaps you can understand why I didn't feel safe going on a trip with you in a relatively remote location without my dog." (In case you are wondering, all of the people on the trip were completely trustworthy with no history of perpetrating violence or abuse, and her dog is an 8lb yorkie.) I thought that statement was telling about her unconscious motivation to avoid the trip, and it at least mildly hurt my feelings, even though I know it was totally irrational.

In case you are wondering, my mom does not think anything is wrong with her. She is always right and cannot be convinced otherwise. I have tried many times before and gave up on that around 5 years ago when I realized I was just spinning my wheels and triggering more rages. She does not think she has BPD or anxiety. She has been unable to hold down a job and has been unemployed for the past 7 years. She does not have any close friendships that have lasted more than a few years and she is estranged from her brother's family (her only other living family, other than my sister and me).

Thanks for your suggestions!

They really are like spoiled and very angry three year olds, aren't they?  The thing is they can be awfully crafty, or think they are being crafty, when it benefits them.  You wrote that she would never admit to being wrong and I think that is critical if change is ever to be made.  Sounds like you don't believe she will change though.  Mine won't change.  So, in answer to your question about what you can say to get her to back off?  Haven't got a clue but I do like what your sister says.  I sure am glad you are eight hours away.  I do think distance helps us.

Thanks for your thoughts AloneAtLast. Perhaps there is no solution that involves peace and a continued relationship. I suppose that is my feared reality. Holding out hope for some sort of magic bullet limit/ boundary idea... .but not sure it is there to be found. I suppose that will have to be ok if it's the only way!

Hello Sunny,

I've known a few people, including my mother, who will suddenly develop a medical crisis in order to avoid something and then out of guilt of not attending, will go over-board providing all sorts of ridiculous caring advice- like your mother did. All those people turned out to be self absorbed emotional vampires.

I was wondering if your mother is a hypochondriac?  Ever notice any behaviors that may resemble  Munchausen's?

My mother ( a diagnosed narcissist with histrionics and also borderline)  is a hypochondriac and she often uses her 'disease' as a means to either avoid something ( like a vacation) or to gain attention, sympathy, empathy.  One of her doctors banned her from his practice and even threatened her with a warrant if she tried to return.  Other doctors only love her because they make a lot of money on her. I don't know how they can stand her otherwise.  Like your mother, she is never wrong and will even argue with her doctors and her vets ( re: pets) but at the same time, will completely avoid the true diagnosis.  It's like she doesn't want a solution or a cure.  She has a dog that she claims has Cushings disease and yet she won't allow them to perform any tests to confirm.

She complains of having horrible intestinal problems and she goes to the doctor, hospital, etc... but then if a doctor or anyone makes a suggestion to her, she will completely disregard it, often suggest that it wouldn't apply to HER problem and then say that she doesn't have the problem at all.  This is why that doctor banned her. 

She also claims that she doesn't do medications, that she knows how to cure herself but then gets many prescriptions filled that she never takes.  She wastes more money on meds and doctor's visits.

A few months ago I connected with a distant relative who has known my mother since childhood.  She told me that my mother has always been very oppositional and a control freak even to the point of arguing with her doctors and refusing treatment.  But, what's odd is that she'll accept treatment for things that she doesn't need treatment for.  My mother's state of health is always disproportionate to reality.  My mother's state of everything is disproportionate to reality 

The symptoms of Munchausens bi proxy that I've noticed relative to how my mother treated me involved a lot of  disproportionate reactions to my health.  She never deliberately made me physically sick but she would fabricate illnesses to gain sympathy for herself and ignore me when I really was sick.  When I pierced my ears, she became a hysterical raging mother and made my father drive me to the emergency room but when I had Scarlet Fever and was practically on my death bed, it was the intervention of neighbors who forced her to take me to a doctor.  Once the doctor provided the diagnoses and treatment then she became hysterical in an effort to lap up all the sympathy she could for herself- ' poor mother so worried about her daughter'  She told me that I could not have children and to never get pregnant because it would kill me.  I found out that she told everyone I had endometriosis and a deformed uterus and as a result of believing all that BS, I had a laparoscopy performed before my first marriage.   

Therapy/family counseling:

Your sister's response was excellent but... .

I don't recommend therapy with the disordered person unless you are willing to accept the consequences which may be that you end your relationship altogether.  I've been there, done that and it was truly horrible ( the therapy I mean).  My usually clever mother, who always told me that I needed therapy ended up in therapy with me when the therapist invited her to attend.  The T was very wise and suspected something was abnormal about my relationship with my mother despite my telling her that mom was my best friend.  Initially, my mother happily complied with helping her screwed up daughter but after realizing that she was falling into her own self-made trap, she became extremely defensive and downright ugly and abusive toward me during the session.  The day of the session, she showed up ten minutes late, plowed into the room like a movie star and said, ' HELLO!  I just think I should make it clear that I'm not about to sit here and take any responsibility for my daughter's F-ups" and she continued on with a terribly abusive accusative rant from hell that you can't even imagine.  The therapist respectfully asked her to leave and advised me to become strong, independent and stay away from her.  It was SO bad that even the therapist was shaken, stunned and she even called my mother a b*tch after mom left the room.  It really was 'that' violent and bad.

Each case is different so, you will have to weigh all the possible outcomes relative to your own family.  One of my therapists told me that unless the disordered person requests the therapy on their own, that sessions together are usually unproductive and can ultimately re-victimize the victims and cause more harm. Just something to consider. 

Religion:

My mother was never a very religious person when I was younger but in the last 5 years, she has become obsessed with a TV evangelist and all she does is quote him all the time.  When I told her that I was listening to him one night on the radio and that he was discussing abusive marriages she blew up and said,'  HE WOULD NEVER TALK ABOUT SUCH A THING".  The reason she said that is because both my brother and I ended up in horribly abusive marriages and she can't handle that truth at all and of course has not been supportive, compassionate or empathic like a parent should be.

They are victims and will always be the victims and anyone who crosses their path in any way will be quickly discarded.  My mother's best friends come and go without any reason at all ( mom will never tell why).  She reacts to the truth about anything pertaining to her or her children like a vampire confronted with a Cross.

Many wonderful folks on here will be more diplomatic than I am about relationships with disordered people.  I don't hate my mother but I don't want be around her or any other narcissist or borderline person.  I've had more than enough toxic people in my life and I'm now working on detoxing and restoring my health which has suffered horribly ( especially after menopause).  I'm not equipped to handle these type of people and even though you're a doctor, I hope you won't fall into the trap of feeling the need to fix your mother.  I can't imagine a happy ending in any of these relationships.  Please forgive my curt cynicism.  I sincerely hope you can find peace and a long happy life of love and success whether it's with or without your mother.  No matter what any of us chooses, it's going to be difficult.  For me, it came down to choosing what would benefit me most long term ( no contact).

My suggestion is for you to seek your own therapy and perhaps with your sister.  You each have a long life ahead and you should honor it with people who champion it and not threaten it.  It would be wonderful if you could support each other through therapy. Therapists helped me to learn coping and de-escalating skills until I could escape.

Hi Sunny,

To start, I LOLed with the comment about your mother's yorkie. It really illustrates how illogical BPD folks can be - it's such an outlandish and ridiculous statement to think your 8lb dog could provide any semblance of security. To literally anyone listening to the story, it's comical (unless you're the target, and for that I'm sorry).

I think you did the right thing not coming to your mom's side during her "panic attack." Reinforcing her behavior, even if you think it will quell her emotional outbursts, are only temporary fixes that exacerbate problems later. You rightfully continued to enjoy the vacation you planned. The issue is that, as you well know, she can impose her will on the family from afar via multiple texts and e-mails that pull at your feelings of obligation and guilt, and resentment. So, even though you made the choice to not reinforce her requests that you stop your own life for her emotional needs, she still was able to partially ruin the fun. It's a big conundrum as to what to do. I know because I have been there so many times with my uBPD mother.

I went to medical school 200 miles away from my home for a reason. The phone calls were a huge issue for me - mom would call me on the wards, during class, or when I was out with friends. Heaven forbid I would tell her I was on call. She would text at 2am saying I was "keeping her up" from the worry. Ridiculous. She's also a physician and was obviously on call hundreds of times. When I wasn't available to talk, she would rage and say that I didn't care about her and that I was an ungrateful daughter. I would reluctantly cede to her demands, which made me incredibly unhappy. I felt like my life wasn't my own. Here I was, future doctor of America, calling my mommy on demand. I was aware the issues she had were hers and not mine, but it affected me everywhere. She even "secretly" called my therapist, claiming I was imminently suicidal and my therapist needed to call my mother back RIGHT NOW. I'm still not sure what her endgame was there. Aside from the obvious HIPAA violations that return call would require, my therapist knew better (I'm not even remotely depressed) and didn't fall for it, but it certainly made me terrified she might do that with medical school personnel, which would seriously hurt my career.

So from that perspective, I can tell you what I did, and that it worked. I first told my mom that I loved her, however she couldn't call or text me so many times in a day and expect an immediate response. I am busy and have responsibilities and will be able to respond once a (insert timeframe, for me it was "day". She got angry and defensive, and raged for a while. But I stopped responding to the texts and the calls until I got home, and then I would call her around 8pm every day. No exceptions, no matter what she said or threatened over text. She would call me and yell and say cruel things, and I would respond, "Mom, I'm sorry you are so angry, but I don't need to be yelled at. I'm happy to have a reasonable talk with you when you would like, but I have to go now. Love you." Click. The end. Eventually she got the picture that I wasn't going to budge, or at least that if she wanted to talk to me it couldn't involve raging. Eventually she (mostly) stopped fighting. I have accepted that I have to deal with  the fact that my mom thinks I don't love her as much. It sucks - a lot - but I accept that it's not my fault she can't behave like a normal adult. I am not responsible for my mother's emotions or actions. While I still have that pang of sadness and guilt that might never go away, my life is otherwise much more stable and happy.

You probably won't ever be able to stop your mother's twisted accusations. Unfortunately it is likely a part of her illness - her gross misperceptions of reality. In an ideal world you could sit with her and explain, and you could both reach an understanding. But many times with BPD folks, especially those that think they have no problems, that's just impossible. This is exactly the case with my mother. She continues to blame me for her own unhappiness. If that's the case with you, set up boundaries and be extremely firm about keeping them. If your mother doesn't understand how to be a part of your life without being disruptive, then you will have to be the one to make sure she doesn't have the space to disrupt. It is not your responsibility or duty to cater to her needs at your own detriment. New boundaries will make her angry and likely increase the rage for a while, but at least in my experience, after some time, my mother realized that if she wanted to be in my life, she would have to learn to be pleasant, because otherwise I wouldn't take it.

Good luck. Welcome to the forum!

Leaving and GreenGlit -- thanks so much for your responses. Leaving, I don't think you are that cynical. Honestly, I feel like your approach may be the only approach that works in the long run. GreenGlit, wow I can definitely feel your story about med school. My mom doesn't usually expect me to call her back right away, thankfully. But she can't stand calling and getting voicemail (she feels seriously let down if that happens) so she doesn't call, she requires a scheduled time to call ahead of time or waits for me to call.

I am still struggling with how to set boundaries. My mom is now back to acting kind of normal on email, but I still can't bring myself to call her because I feel like I will be forced to go back to "normal" and not address the issues that the vacation brought up. What I really want to tell her is that I love her but that, for me to continue to interact with her, she needs to promise to 1) not discuss my dad or his family, 2) consider that calling me selfish or unthoughtful will result in consequences to our relationship, and 3) consider the consequences to our relationship of telling me that she finds spending time alone with me scary. But I have not done this because I fear that it will do no good, and instead I will have to go through the last month all over again in terms of terrible texts and emails. On the other hand, if I just ignore it and move on, I have not succeeded in setting any boundaries and she can (and, inevitably, will) just do the same thing to me in the future.

I agree therapy would probably be helpful. I suppose if things get worse or I can't figure it out myself, I will probably do that. Trying to avoid the time and expense of that for now... .but we will see.

Hi Sunnydays101,

I'm here because my SO (Significant Other) has an uBPDxw (undiagnosed BPD ex-wife) and they share children. My home base is the "Co-parenting" Board.

One thing that occurred to me was to treat the contact with your mom like we do on the co-parenting board with the BPD parent. 

We learn to communicate via email and to only respond to legitimate items usually something about the kids only.  Don't respond to the garbage stuff... .don't feed the drama monster  :)

Communicating via email slows down the interaction, gives you time to think about if you need to respond or not, if it's all garbage don't respond, if you do feel like the communication deserves a response then respond (using BIFF or SET - see info below)

BIFF = Brief Informative Friendly Firm

https://bpdfamily.com/content/ending-conflict

https://bpdfamily.com/bpdresources/nk_a104.htm

Boundaries are also important you need to decide what is acceptable or not and create boundaries.

Maybe if you talk to her on the phone and she starts the blame game you end the conversation.

Maybe you decide that you only want to talk with her once a week not 10 times in one day.

Communication via email could be a boundary.

Think about what you want to happen and set up the boundaries that you think will help you.

But be prepared for the push back, folks with BPD are excellent Boundary Busters and as you already noted in your post your mom received the boundaries like a 3 year old.  Below is something of mine from another post... .


I also wanted to point out the "Lessons" links in the box to the right, you might want to check them out too --->

Take Care,

Panda39