BPDFamily.com

I literally thought I was the one losing my mind what with her not remember things she has said to me or denying our history... .

But... .Greetings!

I found this place completely by accident but have spent the last hour reading all these stories with my jaw dropped to the ground!  I LITERALLY thought I was the most evil person in the world for feeling so much anger and frustration at my mother for her actions towards myself and my sister (although my sister is handling this a lot differently than me). But I’m reading all the stories here and thinking “are they talking about MY mother?”

I’m 39, one child who is a pre-teen, married once to his father, divorced him 2 months after having his son (whole other story for a whole other message board).
Just recently, my family and I (which includes myself, my sister who is 34, my son, my father, who has FTP Dementia and my mother) we moved from our home state on the west coast to mid west.  I love it here.

But my mother….she’s so difficult to deal with.  Inside the house, she is constantly negative, snaps at anyone and if she doesn’t get her way….Lord help us.  This is not new.  This is something I have remembered about her for my whole life.  Her and I have always had a rough relationship simply because she treats me awful and I would always react and then it would turn into her being the victim because she pushed me so far, I reacted.  She is the only one, really, who can send my anger from 0-60 in 2.5 seconds.  She constantly puts me down, compares my and my type of mothering to others  and now has taken to start to insult my son about his looks, grades, anything, even though she tries to keep it out of ear shot of him, but he hears.  But she still turns it around to it being my fault he won’t hug her, for example.  Never that she is absolutely to cold to be around, let alone actually hug.  Then, she will turn into a ball of crying mush and say something along the lines of “no one is here for ME….I’m just going to take your father (remember, he has Dementia….can’t make ANY decisions on his own) and leave).

Now, when it comes to dealing with her, I have the Angel on one shoulder and the Devil on the other shoulder.  The Angel says “yes, she is spouting venom in the form of insults, put downs and how ungrateful my sister and I are BUT remain calm, breathe, consider her horrible child hood (and by horrible, I will admit…it was bad) and just use your tools to let it slide.”

But it never does, I’m super sensitive but as of lately, my role in the sensitivity part and my sister’s role have switched. My sister was hard as a rock, never showed emotion…lately, from dealing with our mother, she is breaking down and a lot harder than I ever did.  It affects our relationship but that is a different story.
So then I have the Devil on my other shoulder…just listening to this and thinking “how in the WORLD does she get to act that way to the people who have stuck by her even when she treats us like crap! Just because she had a rough childhood doesn’t excuse being nasty to those who have done nothing but sacrifice for you!”

And sometimes, the Devil wins and fights ensue because I can only take so much.

So fast forward, we are in a new state, new environment, my son and I love it. After 3 weeks, I found a job and just got a move in date for an apartment. My son and I really are a lot happier here.

The last big tantrum I had to take from her was literally just earlier today. She let me have it for getting an apartment on the third floor because she can’t climb the stairs…something I didn’t know was a big issue.  Now, I am ungrateful and inconsiderate of her and when she is in a wheelchair…how will she get up to my apartment….huh? I didn’t know she was anywhere NEAR being wheelchair bound!

That was sarcasm because she takes something like the above and blows it WAY out of proportion such as saying I got a 3 floor apartment JUST so she and my father can’t visit me.  Oh…I also got a cat 6 years ago so that she can never come over as well because she is deathly allergic…and by DEATHLY allergic….I mean…actually NOT allergic.

Of course, there is more to this that I can’t cover here for lack of space but…it really is the same as all the other stories I’ve read.  It is like walking on eggshells just to be her daughter.  I find it even affects my mood and then I look like a mean old meanie mom to my kid because I’m just tired of constantly being berated and not knowing what is coming next.  It hasn’t helped that we have lived in the same house, all of us, together since January.

The thing that I do find interesting is that outside of our family…she is perfect. I have literally seen it in play. For example….the berating starts then…almost instantly, my aunt walks in the room and she changes and accepting of anything I do or say. Then goes right back to the old self when its just us, assuming I don’t notice. I’ve even taken to audio and even video recording, secretly, on my phone some incidences and re-watching them….it is beyond bizarre.  I sometimes wonder if it goes past just BPD and onto some sort of Multiple PD but I may be over analyzing it.

I am glad I found it here.  There are great tools to use when I do have to interact with her but as of now and especially after I move next month…I keep my interactions to a minimum.  She pushes us all away and soon my sister will being going down that same road and she will be the last because my father had to get Dementia to be able to stop dealing with her and believe me…he dealt with A LOT from what I remember.

Basically, it is this.  I feel, that is she senses I’m happy or try to be, she snuffs it out and turns it into why HER life sucks and everyone should circle around her and chant.  She allows no one else to be content.

Amorain     Welcome!
 It is amazing when the light bulb turns on  :thought:  Having a person with BPD (pwBPD) in our lives can be overwhelming, but, knowledge is power.  Now that we know that the person in our lives either has BPD or BPD traits, we can learn techniques and communication styles that help us handle them.

It helps to read about Fear, Obligation and Guild and work on getting rid of the FOG  (https://bpdfamily.com/content/emotional-blackmail-fear-obligation-and-guilt-fog)  This FOG DISCUSSION THREAD  (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=82926.0;all) can, also, be beneficial for you right now.
 The uBPD in my life is my sister.  She appears as an angel with her church friends, but she SPLIT (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=62033.0) me black when we had to work together and share decisions when our parent's health began do decline and we were forced to share in decisions. 

BOUNDARIES (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=61684.0) will become important to you.  Employing COMMUNICATION SKILLS (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=69272.0;all)will make your life easier. 

Congrats on making your discovery on your own.  I went to therapy to try and figure out "the crazy".  Take it a step at a time.  Clicking on the above links and touching on some of the aforementioned basics is a good start.  Think as everyone here as your cheering squad.  It helps to gain the input of others as we all navigate through this. You may want to start new threads, as you get acquainted with the website and start to work on particular skills/topics.

Do you think you will share this with your sister and perhaps learn about various skills and employ them  together?

Correct me if I'm misreading,  but I see a little humor in you,  despite the chaos.  It's been said that anger is a mask for pain.  I think humor can be too... .just that people with BPD usually don't take it well.

So what I'm reading is that you and your son are living alone now right? My concern would be for how he processes this.  If you observe that he hears grandma's critical words,  how does he take it? 

Turkish