BPDFamily.com

I am the middle child of a family of 5, which includes my Mom, Dad, and 3 girls. My mother's behavior has been erratic for as long as I can remember. She seems to be getting worse with the passage of time. She calls 5-10 times in a row in the span of less then 5 min if you don't answer her call the 1st time. She leaves multiple msg. saying "why aren't you answering your phone? why are you being so mean? why are you ignoring me? I'm not going to quit calling until you answer the phone?" She leaves text msg. saying essentially saying the same thing.

I live out of town. Whenever I come to town to visit, she expects that we are going to spend literally every single minute together, even though I'm not in town to visit with just her. She gets extremely and overly angry when I tell her that I'm also here to visit with my older sister and nephews. She gets verbally aggressive and abusive saying that I'm being mean and b___y by not spending every second with her.

In the past, I've tried to establish boundaries with her. I've told her that its inappropriate to call me 10 times a day and leave that many voicemails and text msg. demanding that I call her. I work in the healthcare field. I work erratic hours and don't have the time to spend on the phone for hours every single day. I've told her that I don't feel comfortable with her being so intrusive in my life and that I need some space from her. When I've told her that I need space, she has shown up at my home and workplace unannounced tried to confront me.

This past weekend was terrible though. It was my older sister's birthday on Saturday. My mother was late coming to dinner at the restaurant because she was in bed till 4:00 pm. She acted very strangely the whole time we were there. Barely talked to anyone and kept glaring at everyone. We all decided to go back to my older sister's place for cake and ice cream. My mom and dad took over 30 min to get there when the drive takes 5 min. My mom walked into the living room and without preamble said "your dad and I are separating!" My sister and I were shocked and didn't even know what to say. I wasn't sure whether she was kidding or not, as she has a very sick sense of humor. My sister almost started to cry and I didn't say anything. My dad said "this is news to me, we never discussed this." Mom "well I just decided this. I cant be a part of this family anymore. You are all too dysfunctional and you are tearing my apart." She then went on a 10 min tirade about why can't all of us kids get along (my older and younger sister no longer speak to one another for reasons unrelated to my mother). Why can't all her kids and grandkids be in the same room? Why does everyone else have the perfect family life with kids who are actually respectful to their parents? Why cant we be more supportive of her? she was essentially screaming and cursing this at me and my older sister in front of my 2 nephews (2 & 3 yrs old) Nothing else came up about her divorcing my dad, so we eventually figured out she wasn't serious and was trying to get a rise out of me and my sister.

She then veered her anger in my direction and asked me (direct quote) "why are you such a cruel hateful b___ towards me? You never call me back when I call. You never spend any time with me. All you do is work, work, work. I'm sick of your hateful attitude. Why are you so unsupportive of me? She and I ended up exchanging some words and then I told her that she either had to leave or I would. She left and my older sister spent the next 2 hrs crying. I had to spend 2 hrs driving home by myself while stressed out and emotionally exhausted. I found out later from my dad that on the drive home, my mom asked him what movie he wanted to go see and or should they rent one. She didn't care at all that she had completely ruined my sister's birthday. She didn't care that she had verbally and emotionally taken a cheap shot at me, my sister and my dad. She said she wont apologize because we were the ones who were mean and unsupportive of her during the conversation.

I have decided to cut all contact with mother for the time being as a result of her emotional and verbal abuse. Her chaotic merry go round is not something I think I can tolerate any more when I'm simply trying to live my life and build up my healthcare career. I need some advice on how to move forward. I refuse to tolerate her abuse of me and her disrespect of my boundaries. She is in complete denial about the state of our relationship and is hateful and angry to me and my sister about that fact. How do I deal with her from this point on? She refuses to see a therapist for her issues and I'm not prepared to be her punching bag for the rest of my life!

I feel very sorry for you.  I know what it is like to be emotionally exhausted from fighting with my mom.  It is so draining.  If you mom is BPD the better you do in life the more scared she will get and the more she will act out.  BPDs have a terrible fear of abandonment that causes them to act this way.  I never really understood the whole thing until now.

Looking back I see a clear pattern of every time I try to improve my life my mom manipulates things to keep from loosing me.  She will cause chaos in the family and insert herself into the mess she created to be the needed rescuer.

The other thing is that BPDs have in common is that they life in their own fantasy world, and twist all the words you say to mean something different.  My mom has not heard a word I have had to say in 43 years.  Trying to talk to a BPD will just deplete you.

If you want to keep your mom in your life you need first rules of when, where, and how contact will be established.  ie. I will see you once a month on such and such a day for x period of time.  If she will do it and be nice great.  If she wants to be mean I say forget it.

I asked my mom if she cared if I was having chest pain from the stress and it did not seem to phase her.  It is hard, but important to remember you are an adult and your life matters just as much as hers.

Hi BBblue25

I am very sorry your mother behaves this way. Being subjected to verbal abuse is very unpleasant and I can see why this would affect you and your sister so much.

Your mother's behavior does seem quite dysfunctional. I have a undiagnosed BPD mother myself and know how extremely difficult that can be. Do you feel like your mother has ever acknowledged being at least partly responsible for the problems in her life?

Has your mother perhaps ever gotten help for her issues? Was she ever in therapy?

Firm boundaries are essential when dealing with someone with BPD. Boundaries are primarily for protecting yourself. No matter how you decide to move forward with the relationship with your mother, my advice would be to be very mindful of your own well-being and needs. Going NC is a highly personal decision, yet sometimes to protect ourselves it might be necessary to distance ourselves from our disordered family-members. This doesn't necessarily have to mean that the NC has to last forever, but the most important thing is that you take steps to protect yourself whether you are NC or not.

We have certain resources and communication techniques on this site that can help you firmly assert yourself and deal with hostile communications. I encourage you to take a look at them:

Handling inappropriate phone calls (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=137370.0)

Dealing with hostile communications - B.I.F.F.: Brief, Informative, Friendly (as in civil), Firm (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=133835.0)

Assert yourself - D.E.A.R.M.A.N.: Describe, Express, Assert, Reinforce, Stay Mindful, Appear Confident, Negotiate (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=160566.0)

Welcome to bpdfamily

Welcome! 

It sounds like NC is the best option for now. I'm so sorry. It sounds like your mother is looking for attention. For people with BPD, bad attention is just as good as good attention and better than no attention.

I work in healthcare as well and my mother also would show up, unannounced, if I had not seen or spoken to her in awhile. She would expect me to drop everything to see her even though I'm in the midst of taking care of sick patients. In some ways, privacy/HIPAA helped me set boundaries! My front desk waltzed my mother back to my workspace the last time she showed up. If she had been any other visitor, she would have had to wait, she would not have been allowed to be in areas where patients are and she would have an appt to see me, made to sit in waiting room while I was notified, and then I would have had to agree to let her back. I had to remind my front desk that even though she is my mother, she can't just hang out in the patient care area and that I shouldn't be interrupted while I am seeing a patient except for emergencies. If any visitor comes, they need to follow our office protocol and privacy rules. I then told my mother the same thing. If you can, have that conversation with your coworkers, security if there is one at your work, that a woman claiming to be your mother lol may show up and that you want to avoid her.  You don't have to go into details... .it was hard talking to my front desk but I just told them my mother didn't seem to understand how busy I was. I told her next time, call ahead of time and I can arrange a better time to meet as I would like to see her, I just can't while I'm working.

Your mother sounds like she's less polite than my mother. While she does go on tirades privately, she is also afraid to create "scenes." Keeping her in public spaces helps.

Keep posting, talk to your sibs and if you can too. Are you on the same page?