BPDFamily.com

I currently own a condo overseas that I rent out on Airbnb. My uBPD mom oversees it. I've been mostly LC with her and for the times we have had to talk, it's usually about the condo since we're forced to coordinate on this if there are guests.

I haven't talked to my mother for a couple weeks ever since she has been harassing me about sponsoring her for a green card. It's been almost a week since she's stopped harassing me, so it's been kind of nice. Although I still think about it from time to time, and sometimes, these thoughts have woken me up in the middle of the night.

We have an upcoming guest in January, so I will have to contact her again. I'm thinking of cancelling this reservation, but I'm worried about getting penalized, but it's honestly also been nice to have some extra income. But with that said, I don't know if it's worth the stress. I'm making around $100-150 for it. My mother always charges $200 for her personal fees regardless of the amount, so it usually doesn't leave me with much.

If you were me, would you go ahead and cancel the reservation? My ultimate goal is to sell this property, but because I'm overseas, it's been hard to make this happen. My mother also has been adamant on not selling it because "this gives her something to do."

My therapist once said to me: Take your definition of selfish and reframe it as self care.

Meaning, I tended to think of healthy self care as selfish.

I worked for years to identify guilt and reframe it as a signal that I was to engage in self care. As opposed to caving and giving more of my time and energy away to others.

How would you feel if you sold the condo despite what your mother wants you to do with it? Do you feel you have a good support system in place if you were to go ahead with plans to sell it?

Perfectly said Lived Learned.
Gotta be gone thru.

I actually want to do it. I have my husband that supports me, but at the same time, he can't fully grasp how/why I get triggered so easily with my mother. I think it's different as an outsider. He also grew up with a loving and nurturing mother, so things are different for him. Even if his mother is a bit difficult now as she's aging, historically, they've always had a great relationship.

It reminds me of caregivers that work at nursing homes. They somehow have learned to be desensitized to challenging patients. So maybe that's how he feels because they have no history and their relationship is very surface-level. As a side note - what upsets me though is some of them feel bad for old people who pass without family members around, but there could be a valid reason why. Maybe they mistreated their family when they were young, who knows! But old people always get a lot of sympathy due to them being frail and weak.

Going back to the condo, I'm really just trying to avoid any interaction with her. So maybe I'll go ahead cancel the reservation. I'm worried about getting penalized and I feel bad for this person too because the reservation was made earlier this year. But you're right, I should prioritize self-care. I should not cave (anymore) and keep giving my time and energy to this one person that sucks them dry.

Can you possibly expand on what you meant by this, @Goosey?

Part of self-care is also being kind to yourself as you make tiny little changes.

You might cave and that's ok. You're changing behaviors that go back a long time and they probably feel part of you.

I had to take small steps -- even small ones rattled my family.

It's ok to go slow and see how things feels as you go, adjusting to see what is manageable.

You're heading in a specific direction so it's ok if you wander a bit to one side or the other, as long as the direction is overall heading the way you want to go.  :hug:

This is a wonderful reply, @livednlearned. I needed this today ❤️