BPDFamily.com

Good Afternoon,
I'm having some serious issues with my mom.  I'm not sure of her issues but she has tendencies; borderline ect...at the very least she is very emotionally immature.  She's 73 and lives 11 hours from me. She told me recently that she thought I would retire at 50 or so and take care of her. She wants an assistant, someone to always side with her. We look at the world very differently. I think that is too much to ask! She does have RA but she is in good shape.   I can't even think of living near by, I would be swallowed up. I did tell her she could mover by us and I would help her but we are not uprooting and moving to be irritated constantly.

 I moved out of her house to my dad's when I was 14 because everything/everyone around her is usually in state.  I grew up with lots of fighting among her house.  She's been married 6 time and multi boyfriends over the years.  It's never any of her fault!  And men love her, but she drives them nuts.  Our relationship has never been good except when I was very young.  She still expects me to show her that type of attention.  She does not even know me, she does not pay attention to anything.  Since the election, things have gone from bad to worse.  I don't want to make this political, but if I disagree with her she melts down.  I'm not allowed to have my own opinion.  When I was younger she would say "you don't know what you think/know." I'm very easy going about my beliefs, if someone does not agree...that's fine.  I used to just ignore those conversations but she was thinking I was agreeing with her.  On Sunday I very politely told her that we Bob and I would discuss a particular subject.  And I thanked her and told her that was between us. She hung up on me.  Well, she really does not want to talk with me for a while. 

I have stood back and watched her do this same pattern with almost everyone on her life.  I knew my day was coming and here it is...she hates I went to college and became "brainwashed" She keeps people around her that "need" her, she likes have the upper hand in everything. People in her live are great for a bit and then they are awful.  She is very hard to be around.

Once I became more finically stable she has been kind of mean to me.  She did not put me through school but she did send me a little money for about 18 months and she has helped us a couple a different times. I'm very thankful for that.  She has offered  other times and I have turned it down because it comes with strings.  Now my brother got every cents he could from her.  He would make her feel guilty about things that happened years ago and she would give in. 

This has been bad for years, but now she's older and I know she's lonely.  I feel bad for her, I lover her. If I did not. I would have cut out long ago.  She says nasty stuff to everyone.  We went for almost a year with out talking before, her choice.  When we started talking again, I told her I needed her to find someone to talk to if we were going to try to work this out.  She said yes...she went two or 3 times. She has had many things happen to her in her life, she needs to go! She thinks I'm mad about things from being a kid, I've moved past that...I'm mad about how she has treated me in the past 20 years, mainly the past 10. She has no respect for me or Bob. I could go on and on with examples but that's pointless.  If your here you know... I've been talking to someone  since 2013 and it has help but I would like to hear what other folks do in this situation.
Thanks :)

So you you continue to keep things going?  When is enough a enough?

hi mathisawesome,
Enough is enough when I find myself resenting her, I feel I'm losing myself/have lost myself again, and when my husband gets tired of hearing about it. *)

Occasional meltdowns are OK, but if I wake up feeling depressed, go to sleep feeling depressed, and think about sad things almost all day, I know it's time to get some hobbies and focus on me.

Just curious if you have tried the fadeout method?  I use it sucessfully with my BPD'd mom, but I have 5 siblings, so I feel that if I just sort of fade away, she'll just lean on one of my siblings more.  (this looks like - not answering 90% of her emails or texts, more often saying "no" to things she asks me to do rather than yes, and/or putting my foot down around the holidays - no my husband and i don't want to spend them with her)

You said you have a brother, correct?  Does he also get the ultimatum that he needs to move close to her to take care of her when she's old?  I kind of think not, it's one of the curses of being born a girl to a borderline...I suppose (or imagine).

Hang in there, I think you're doing pretty well, the first step was to get so sick of it to post it here.  :)  I feel action may follow soon.
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