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Me and my mom have had an ongoing conflict for a couple of weeks now. I made another post about that.  She got mad because I calmly and nicely told her she was speaking to me in an ugly tone. I was very aware of my tone and attitude during the conversation and stayed very peaceful.  Instead of just simply telling me sorry and going on with our conversation, that blew up! She withdrew, didn't speak to me for 2 weeks, and then I called her to find out what I had done so wrong she would ignore my messages, and now it is just a back and forth. She will not answer my question but diverts.  I told her that the cycle of withdrawing, silent treatment, and expecting me to pursue her is abuse, and it's not ok. She responded that her "tone" of voice isn't abuse. I hear what I want and don't hear my own tone or behavior. I'm arrogant for saying I didn't like her "tone". Her tone is from years of abuse by the entire family including my father (who she divorced 45 years ago and has been dead for 5 years), and we have all been slowly killing her as she's told me for a long time. She said I have been successful with that goal and she hopes I'm happy but to leave her alone because she can't endure anymore.  (My brother and sister haven't spoken to her in 14 years.) 

I'm just so sad. I'm so sad that she is all alone on the other side of the world, and we still can't have a peaceful relationship. I'm sad that no one else in the family talks to her and she has no friends. I'm sad because of all the years I haven't had a "mom"...a normal mom who I can just have a normal conversation with and feel safe with. I'm sad because she feels so unloved. I'm sad that she honestly believes I don't love her and that I'm killing her. I'm sad that her life is so tragic and miserable.

Hi Teach!  Welcome to the forums and I'm very sorry you're having this conflict with your mom.  There's no easy answers here and I completely understand why you'd be sad- BPD is sad.  It's heartbreaking that anyone has to live that way with so much anger and dysfunction in their life.

Question- have you ever though about asking your mom why she thinks you're killing her? 

Between us, we know that's not a logical statement and there's no truth to it.  However, to your mom, it is real and its likely because of all the heartbreak she carries from being disordered.  BPD's run on emotion so everything is felt intensely.  They're almost never just a little sad, because they get down and just keep spiraling.  The only way to stop that is reassurance and love, which they rarely receive because they're always pushing people away.

So ask your mom directly- why do you feel like I'm killing you?

The answer you get will be mixed with maybe 10% reality, 90% fantasy...but that's okay.  Focus on the reality of her emotions and what's causing her to feel that way.  Maybe you don't call enough, or you call too much, or you're too judgmental when you do call (for instance, "I don't like your tone"). 

Now, you're probably "in the right" in your reactions to her behavior, but to her it's taken on an entirely different level.  So we often have to decide whether it's more important to be "right" or be "supporting", and it's super hard when we're the ones getting judged.  But if you want to strengthen your relationship with your mom, you have to stop taking the bait and dig deeper behind whatever's driving her mood.

Is it easy?  Nope.  It is fair?  Nope nope nope.  But that's the reality when someone's emotions control their outlook on the world.

I wish you luck- it's not fun at all.  Hopefully this helps a little bit.

Teach21,

I think what you are feeling is grief. For people who have the kind of relationship we wish we could have with a parent, grief comes with that final loss. I think others can relate to what you are feeling in that this "loss" comes from us trying to have that kind of relationship- wanting it- and then, the loss- because of their disorder. They can not be the mother we wish they could be.

It's also in stages relating to the normal life events. When we are children, we need a mother to take care of us. As adults, we don't need that kind of parenting but we still want a relationship- a reciprocal one. And when they are elderly- we want to be able to have the kind of relationship where we can be of assistance to them.

I also feel sad for my BPD mother who is alone and elderly. Most people who see this and don't understand would assume that her family is horrible to have her in this situation--- they feel sorry for her- until she plays on their sympathy and manipulates them and verbally abuses them until they can't deal with it. She has done this with her own immediate family, caretakers, nurses. She is alone and I feel very sad for her situation but it's not due to lack of trying on the part of her family, friends, caregivers.

BPD mother is quite elderly and went to the hospital for an infection. While she was there, she said she "didn't want to go on anymore". My mother has done this before- threatened suicide as a manipulative tactic ( we would respond accordingly) but this time due to her advanced age, the hospital assumed she wanted Hospice. So I get this call at work that Hospice is coming to see my mother.

Hospice did come to see her and she promptly kicked them out of the room and said there's no way she wanted that. She actually was getting better. I think this was her equivalent of threatening suicide to get her way when she was younger- it was manipulation on her part.

 But that whole day at work, I thought my mother was going to be in hospice and so began an odd sort of grief. Grief for her, for her situation, for the discomfort she is feeling. And while I am feeling these emotions about her, she called several times - and was lying and manipulating me.

The Karpman triangle helped me to understand my mother's perspective. She sees things from victim perspective. Even acts of kindness - somehow she can make something out of them that is "hurting her". I can relate to your situation. I can plan a visit, do nice things for my mother and she will find something I did or didn't do to to support her perspective. I often drive home in tears because once again, the visit failed to achieve what I hoped it would.

It really is sad. Here are all these people who do care about my mother- her family- trying to do nice things for her and she somehow sabotages them or twists them somehow. There was a time when her immediate FOO assumed I was a terrible daughter to "do these things" to her (what she told them I guess) and then they stepped in and experienced the same thing.

For me, the way to cope has been to "do what is right" by my own standards, but with boundaries. That is difficult to do as she is my mother but she does not have empathy and will be emotionally abusive if I allow it. She responds to boundaries as "someone hurting her" so it's hard to keep this balance between treating her kindly and allowing her to be abusive. This isn't about trying "being the one who is right" in relationship to her. There's no point in that- she has distorted thinking.  It's a relationship with myself and my own values because I won't be able to achieve the kind of positive feedback from her due to her mental illness.

But just because she thinks she's being "hurt" doesn't make it true. I have to be sure that I didn't do anything to hurt her or have intentions of hurting her, even if she says she feels that way.

Your feelings though, are valid. It's a form of grief. As a child, I watched other mothers with their children and wished I had a "mommy" like they did.

And as my peers began to step in to help care for their elderly parents, I also wished I could do that too, and I tried many times but it's not possible to have that kind of relationship without mutual trust and respect on both sides. I have had that experience with my mother in law who needed someone to assist her in showering and dressing. She had to be vulnerable and trusting to allow me to do that and that was also one of these "moments" as I realized this is what "normal" is.

BPD mother would not ever allow me to do this and I would be afraid she'd yell at me for something. When mother in law handed over her checkbook to her children to manage for her. My mother refuses and now her finances are a mess. Her family has tried to step in to help her too but she fights it. She needs help but she won't allow anyone to help her.

You can feel sad for your mother and also for you-  our experiences with a BPD mother are different. It's sad that your mother feels unloved but it's not due to your lacking but her disorder.

I think it's a good general rule- to be supportive- for most adult relationships but this kind is different. I think we all bring our own perspectives and hopes into these posts- mine are from the perspective of being a daughter and from observing my parents' relationship- a sort of - what I wish could have been different.

We are adults now and yet, at one point we were children. If there's any victim on this triangle it's the child. Adults have choices, albeit difficult ones in a BPD relationship, but children do not. Children are entirely dependent on their parents, and all children want their parents' love and approval. But for me, that approval could only come from being obedient to my mother and the (impossible) job of making her happy. Inevitably, a child fails at that and so grows up unsupported- but also blamed for failing at a task that was not possible for them to achieve in the first place.

My BPD mother blamed me for the issues between us and between her and my father. As children, we were subjected to her verbal and emotional abuse and blamed for her doing it. If we told any one about it or said anything, we were punished. She also repeated that story to others. I was the one causing our "teen age" problems, not her.

When I went away to college, I believed that since I was out of the house my parents would be happy and that my mother's behavior would stop. I found out later from a sibling that it wasn't true. Yet, this is the message that I was told by my mother and it seemed that my father would not contradict her.

My mother's extended family also bought into her story and so did my father. After my father died, they stopped speaking to me for a while. I almost didn't attend my father's funeral because, at the time, I believed he would not have wanted me there.

As an adult, I know that it is my role to be responsible and not take victim position, to change my perspective and I have, but it has taken a lot of personal work and counseling to overcome the childhood experiences and to do the work of forgiveness and taking the high road in this relationship. It's also a work in progress. I can only manage short visits with my mother due to the emotional and verbal abuse on her part that continues. The childhood emotional reactions are something we still experience. When I visit her, I have a panic attack in the parking lot of her assisted living center, in the elevator and on the hall to her room.

I had the task of doing her taxes for her and to move her from her house to assisted living. As a child, we were not allowed to touch anything of hers or be punished. I feel anxiety even going through her bank statement and bills to help with taxes. I was afraid to handle her belongings when packing for her. I am doing the right thing to be in service to her and yet, I am still afraid, even though I am taller than she is and she's a tiny elderly woman. When children are small, our parents are giants to us.

Where did any validation come from? Not my father, who- because he was in love with her, always saw her through this lens. If there was conflict it was because I just didn't try hard enough. This came from her family too until,  when stepping in to assist her, got treated with verbal and emotional abuse and finally began to see through the stories she told. They contacted me and said they wished they had known this when we were children.

I am grateful for this at any age, it's a blessing, but a contrast to how I grew up.  I still will continue to try my best to do the right thing for my mother but I also know that this relationship will not be the kind of mother daughter relationship people assume. What I can say for certain when people say "try harder" "change" is that it puts the onus on us to achieve something we have tried to do, and that it's because we didn't try hard enough at an impossible task. We don't stop wanting a mother to love and to love us. But some mothers are too mentally ill to attain this with.

This is different from the romantic bond. I don't think my father could fully see my perspective and for me, I am not "in love" with my mother and so I can't truly see his either. All I can say is that the gift of my mother's family- to actually hear that I am trying hard enough, that her emotions aren't my fault, and that I am "enough" and loved is something so rarely heard by children of BPD mothers.

Thank you! That is great advice! I'm just so tired of her feelings being an excuse to allow her to mistreat me. I've been dealing with this my whole life and make excuses for her so she doesn't feel worse.  I will ask her that directly.

Thank you so much! She definitely pushes back to boundaries and sees them as hurting her.  I'll have to look into the Karpman triangle.

I'm so sorry. I can't imagine not even being able to touch my mom's things.  My mom also demands immediate obedience...even though I'm 51!  I also have physical responses from even seeing a message from her. I never know what to expect or "who" I'm going to be getting a message from.  I've taken the high road and allowed myself to be attacked and abused for my whole life. I didn't realize she had BPD until a counselor I was seeing told me that's probably what she has. I have spent my life being her punching bag and also her emotional support...always trying to be the good girl because she's so good at making me feel otherwise.  I just can't allow it anymore.