Yeah, so I agree the suicide/homicide threats are pretty unrealistic and more a cry for help; he's been suspended from school in Mom's homestate more than a dozen times including threatening to kill teachers, peers and carry out school massacres - as well as unarmed violence including twice sending peers for medical treatment afterward - so his "misery" is multifaceted

The word which is now becoming more helpful to me as a specific description is controlling.

It was controlling for uBPDx to emotionally manipulate and guilt trip when I didn't devote myself entirely to meeting his needs, and to invoke or threaten self harm as a way of eliciting a reaction from me. The fact that these actions were repeated over an extended period of time, and continued after I pushed back or said they were harming me, adds to the seriousness of the situation.

Perhaps a lesson I can take from this is that someone using their own pain as an excuse or a reason to undermine my needs and boundaries, is a form of control.

I have found it hard to recognise in the past because I saw myself as the strong, resilient and capable one, and uBPDx was obviously in a lot of pain and unstable.

Now I know that a weak person can be controlling, harmful and yes, abusive, too.

My friend told me I am too nice to people, and that is what makes me a target for being taken advantage of by the wrong kind of people. I agree. I am now dealing with a man I would rather not associate with whom I see in the park. He now wants to take me out to a new restaurant because in his words he would rather test the restaurant out on me than take his aunts there first and find out that the food is not very good. I have some work to do on setting healthier boundaries with people. At the same time, I enjoy interacting with all kinds of people. The boundaries to work on include not being such an open book and distancing myself sooner rather than later with people who are unsafe.

In 'Stop walking eggshels', the advice is given to wait for a 'good' moment to discuss a difficult issue. But sometimes, you don't get the opportunity to wait for that moment, anbd then the situation escalates even more.

So, I just want to know if I am the only one behaving like this: concealing or even lying, and hoping that a difficult moment will pass by quitly?

My friend told me I am too nice to people, and that is what makes me a target for being taken advantage of by the wrong kind of people.  I agree.

I am now dealing with a man I would rather not associate with whom I see in the park. He now wants to take me out to a new restaurant because in his words he would rather test the restaurant out on me than take his aunts there first and find out that the food is not very good.

Hi there,

I'm torn on this one.  The message does indeed seem disturbing, though it contains some therapy-speak, and I suspect some input from ChatGPT.  Granted, when I was an early teen, I felt anger about being parentified, and I wrote down some pretty gruesome death wishes (by drowning, poisoning, smothering, electric shock . . . ), as an outlet of frustration and general overwhelm, though I had zero intention of acting on any of it, I promise.  Sometimes I wrote down outrageous fantasies in a diary, just to test if people were spying on me and invading my privacy!  But actually sharing a disturbing message like that seems to me like a cry for help.  It could be a misguided way of saying, "I'm really struggling with feelings of rage and hatred, you did this to me, I can't handle this anymore."  He reveals he's feeling mocked--that tells me he could be feeling extremely insecure.

Do you have a sense of what's really bugging your son right now?  He says he doesn't want the "misery" to continue.  Do you understand what he means?  I get that at 13, many things feel like misery, because he's old enough to want things, and yet he's stuck at home with relatively few freedoms, as well as an immature body.  School can seem tedious and pointless, especially for a smart kid.  By the same token, it would feel like "forever" before he turns 18 and can do whatever he wants, at least in theory.  Meanwhile, he might be struggling with fitting in amongst peers, especially if he hasn't found an "identity" (e.g. athletic, smart, popular, artistic, handy) and the appropriate outlet (sports, chess, clubs, musical instruments, computers, Boy Scouts, fixing cars, etc.).  What does this young man have lined up for the summer?  Is there any sort of camp that might help him forge a more positive identity and outlook?  He's old enough to be a Counselor in Training.

Sometimes I think that with boys, the notion of talking a lot with a therapist can be offputting (and stigmatizing), and he might benefit more by surrounding himself with positive role models and participating in engaging activities.  The Boy Scouts comes to mind.  I'm mentioning that because the Boy Scouts has been an extremely positive influence on the 13-year-old in my life, who had struggled when living with a disordered uNPD father.