BPDFamily.com

I have uBPD Mom.  She is tolarable most of the time.  Because of the way she treats people, I can't stand her. I was the scapegoat child.  I escaped and now have a decent life for myself.

I can have a civil conversation with her most of the time.  I would not even see her if she didn't come as part of the "package" of the rest of the family. She's cruel to my Dad now.  She was cruel and abusive to me when growing up.  At adulthood, I stopped her cruelty to me by walking out without saying word when she starts.  Her fear of abandonment has set in and she is decent to me to my face.  But still difficult to be around with when she's judgmental about sister, nephews, and father and when she's mean to Dad.

I will sit in the room with her and be friendly and look at her thinking how much I despise her.

Then I get on facebook and see posters with words on them like this one that I just saw.  Most of them I can get beyond, but this one triggers me even more:

   "Love your mom no matter what you go through and no matter how much you

    argue because in the end, she'll always be there for you." 

Knowing that's not true just triggers me (if you saw my post about her wanting me to delay my mammogram until after an procedure she wants to have in case they find anything making me unavailable to her.)

I do think I mostly have my emotions over what has happened under control.  I have metods for handling her. 

Part of it is that I just saw her yesterday and had to hear her going off on my Dad.  Had lunch with my Dad and heard how she's been treating him.  Got an email from my Dad that he threw a "this message will disappear after you read it" in.  Then seeing this.  When she's being mean to my Dad is when I get upset. 

I have learned to get past her being mean to me, I've developed a don't care attitude, and I hang up or walk out and put her in time out.  I do wish I had a "normal "mother-daughter" relationship which is NOT conflict free, but is ultimately loving.  I have accepted that I won't have it, so I don't know why I let this trigger me.

The silly social media memes are the ultimate in passive aggression, in my opinion. My ex loves them, which is why I blocked her months before she moved out.

I don't see it so much as letting it trigger you, but rather: It triggers you.

I wish that my mother didn't have depression and BPD.

I wish that I had had something approximating a normal family.

I wish that it hadn't taken until I was over 40 to stop rescuing (enabling) my mother.

It's natural to desire the heathly r/s you never had. I thought I had gotten past my resentments towards my mom almost 20 years ago. Yet they've resurfaced. I get angry over the mess she's made of her life (and the literal physical, financial, and legal mess she'll leave me when she passes). I do feel some guilt over being angry about it.

We're expected to respect our parents, and be there for them as they age. I don't want to assume that you are feeling guilt over your triggers, but that is what I am sensing.

With a pwBPD, we're "trained" in a way to feel responsible for their feelngs,.though at the expense of our own. Its so hard to break away from feelings that we've been implicitly or explicitly told to feel. Being told how we should feel is invalidation. Your mother did that publicly. Shaming. That's horrible.

Its good that you have contact with your dad, though its bad that it seems secretive.

Speaking for myself, I've learned to assert good external boundaries, but my internal ones still need some work. Said in another way, its still hard for me to accept that which I am feeling is right. Feelings shouldn't be judged. They just are. We focus so much here on validating others  that sometimes I think we may get lost forgetting to validate ourselves.

T.

My dBPDd 24 posts things on FB that infuriate me. I have custody of her 5 y/o daughter while she is living in her van and on other peoples couches, doing drugs, and not seeking any sort of help for her mental illness. She will post things like "Its not easy being both mother and father" (excuse me, I am raising your child) or "Thanks to all the non-blood people that are more of a family to me" (referring to people she has known for 2 weeks) and praising her boyfriend as being an "amazing father to my daughter even though not related by blood" (he has met my granddaughter twice) . People with BPD put all their instability online for everyone to see, and the superficial relationships they have are unable to recognize how ridiculous the postings are. Only those of us who have lived with the daily abuse, rages, love/hate, etc see it for what it is. I was triggered by her statements online and would sometimes respond to them.  I felt a need to tell everyone my side of the story. I am grateful to have found this website, as you people remind me that she is sick and truly believes what she is saying. Also, that I can't fix her and can only fix myself. With your help I am trying to do that. I finally stopped following her on Facebook and it has made all the difference.