BPDFamily.com

Hey folks.  I live in the south, and recently returned home from a trip to visit my family up north.  Most of them live in the rural town I was born in, so I get to see most of my small-ish family easily during a short visit.  However, my mother made this quite challenging last week when I visited for Thanksgiving.

My mother has always hated my father's parents.  I realize as an adult that she just finds fault with them regardless of their actions.  I spent most of the day with my brother, father, and his parents.  My mother was invited, but spent most of the day at home alone instead.  That night, she joined us for a poker night at my brother's house.  She sat across the room from everyone else and watched tv for a while, before storming out and leaving my dad there.  My mother went home, tore the christmas lights off the bushes and kicked over the decorations.  She tore the sheets off his bed (they've always slept in different rooms), and when he got home, she told him his mother was an "evil ___," and that he had better get a lawyer.  She was upset that he was "drinking and gambling" all night with his mother.  He had 3 beers, and we played for pennies.  I think he spent $1.

The next day was tense.  My mother pouted in her room for a while before agreeing to go out to dinner.  She made everyone wait while she sat in the bathroom for 20 minutes, only to emerge and ask everyone why we were standing around, and blaming us for making the group late.  She's done this my whole life.  She then argued with my father and said she didn't want to go for a while.  When we finally calmed her down, she got in the truck, and, as always, got upset with my father for not setting the temperature in the truck to her liking.  Before the vents were blowing hot air, she demanded he let her out on the side of the road.  When she calmed down, we sat in silence for the next 45 minutes.

The following day, I had plans to eat dinner with my parents and my mother's mother.  When I arrived, however, my grandmother was nowhere to be seen.  She lives with my parents, and was apparently avoiding my mother.  The day after her blowup with the Christmas decorations, my 78-year-old grandmother told her that she couldn't stand to be around all the fighting, and was going to move out in the spring.  She just sold her house and moved in with them a few months ago, because she can't live alone any more.  It's cold and icy where they live, so she wanted to wait til spring to move out.  My mother said "how about January?"  Her mother said she'd wait til spring, and my mother said, "No.  January." 

So I had to break off from the group to visit my sweet old grandmother, because she and my mother weren't speaking.  My mom has had a long-standing feud with her only sister, and the two don't speak.  Her sister has mental health issues of her own, and I don't fault my mother as much for their drama.  It's best for both if they don't communicate.  But, during the 4 days I was visiting my family, my mother got in a fight with my father, her mother, and her in-laws.  That literally only leaves myself and my 2 siblings in my family.  It was stressful and depressing to try to navigate my visit.  I wanted to see everyone, but my mother couldn't be in the same room as most of them.  And she always takes it personally when I spend time with people instead of her (instead, because she can't get along with them).  I live 1200 miles away, and see my family once or twice a year.  I usually end up butting heads with her, but I made a concerted effort to get along with her on this trip.  Though I've said that before, I actually succeeded this time.  It didn't make a difference, though, because she was still finding fault with the things I do, and fighting with the rest of my family when they engaged her.

We don't speak much.  I call her on her birthday and mother's day, and we talk for an hour.  Besides visiting, that's the only contact we have.  She would like us to speak more, but I told her a few years ago that talking to her stressed me out, so she stopped calling.  I felt bad at first, but then I realized that it was the truth, and I'd rather feel bad and not talk to my mom then feel bad and talk to my mom.

8 years ago, when I was planning my wedding, we talked several times a week about it.  She shot down everything I suggested, always pointing out who I'd be disappointing with a particular plan.  After several months of this, I gave up.  We decided to elope, solely because of her.  My wife, it turns out, has BPD.  She's now my ex.  Having dated a few more people with BPD since, learning their behavior patterns, and seeing similarities to my mother, I started to connect the dots.  My parents relationship was the first and most intricate picture of relationship I knew.  No one told me that my mother's behavior was uncommon, abusive, or a symptom of mental illness.

Guilt is her go-to method of manipulation.  Accordingly, I constantly tried to please her as a child and young adult.  I get depressed that we fight and that I don't want to talk to her.  I feel guilty.  Even when I can get along with her, it feels like I'm dealing with a temperamental child.  The feeling of loss I get from doing this just further depresses me.  My mother has been off and on anti-depressants and in and out of therapy my whole life.  She's never been diagnosed BPD, and is currently not addressing her issues at all.  Neither of my parents are even familiar with BPD.  My last sibling moved out of their house a few months ago.  If my parents actually divorce, I don't know how my mother will manage.  I also don't want my father to be miserable for the rest of his life.  No path for the future seems like a good one.  Sorry for the long-winded post, but I just don't know what to do.  Everything that has happened throughout my life has made me feel guilty and sad.  Thinking about the future does the same.  Is it possible to keep a relationship with my mother and avoid her toxicity?

One of my friends recently told me, "we all knew your mother was <insert explicative> crazy back in the day." My friends being teenagers as I was wouldn't have been helpful if they had said that.  From my view, she read fairly high functioning as opposed to how things turned out 30 years later. 

You don't know what you don't know at the time (and being a kid how could you know differently?), but now you know.  Even so,  she's your only mother. 

The mother of my children is clinically diagnosed with depression and anxiety.  In my opinion she also has BPD traits. So I get where you are coming from.  We don't know what we don't know until we do know. 


This is interesting. You feel badly either way,  yes? Do you think there might be another choice?

Turkish

This is interesting. You feel badly either way,  yes? Do you think there might be another choice?

Turkish



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Indeed, I do.  I know she's a hurting person who wants to be loved, and I try to get along with her and make her feel loved.  But she just can't seem to function without starting conflict or finding the negative in people, myself included.  Makes all my efforts feel useless.

Welcome Donny26! 

I'm sorry to hear about all the conflict over Thanksgiving. Sounds like you did better with the goals you set for yourself though, and that's good to hear.  |iiii Unfortunately, we cannot regulate our pwBPD, and the stress is awful upon everyone who is around them. I'm including a link about projection and wonder what your thoughts are as you read it? Do you think it's possible that your mom was projecting?

BORDERLINE BEHAVIORS: Projection  (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=70931.0[b)

My uBPDm always had an especially terrible time at the holidays. If we had to travel to one of her step siblings house by car, she would frequently threaten to jump out of the car and kill herself while we were moving. That's a memory that doesn't go away!   

 
Wools